OK, then what SHOULD we do?

[Scuba]

On Sunday, I posted a link to Liberals Are Ruining America. I Know Because I Am One, a New York Times editorial positing that we on the left often take the bait and go after right-wing diversions instead of the issues at hand.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002793027

So what should we do instead of objecting to Limbaugh and the other blathering idiots that manage to get under our skin? Here's the response from one Times reader:

"Here are a few strategies that can't hurt: Get your information from written sources, without the theatrics and hysteria.

Learn some history, and use that knowledge to understand the present.

Speak quietly about what you believe would help the country and why, not about what's wrong with the other side.

Keep taking care of one another and work or donate as you can to support public policies that do the same.

Acknowledge that some will abuse the social safety net (no system is without abuse or corruption), but insist that it's more important to help those who need help than to obsess about the bad apples."

This makes good sense to me. Your thoughts welcome.

[geckosfeet]

1. Quick - look over there -

"Here are a few diversion strategies that usually work:

Get your information from written sources, without the theatrics and hysteria. - while the RW propaganda machine buys the media and cranks out lies, distortions and innuendo by the truckload

Learn some history, and use that knowledge to understand the present - while the teagangbangers ignore and falsify history and ignore current scientific understanding

Speak quietly about what you believe would help the country and why, not about what's wrong with the other side - while the teagangbangers shrilly screech and demonize liberals, socialists, the poor, unions, teachers,,, etc.

Keep taking care of one another and work or donate as you can to support public policies that do the same - while Wall Street takes care of themselves and drives Main Street deeper into poverty

Acknowledge that some will abuse the social safety net (no system is without abuse or corruption), but insist that it's more important to help those who need help than to obsess about the bad apples." - while the banksters sit on their yachts, bought will dirty money, and laugh about how they game the system.

Keep up the good work people - it seems to be having some kind of effect.

Sorry for the cynicism - but I have lost my idealism and it has been replaced with suspicion and mistrust.

[taterguy]

2. Fuck it

That's my answer to everything

[deutsey]

9. Tattoo it on your forehead

[lunatica]

3. Preaching to the choir

Our side isn't the screaming hysterical one.

[pinboy3niner]

5. +100

I think you aced the test, lunatica.

[malaise]

6. Or the one that replaces facts with

talking points

[BlueJazz]

4. First: We've tried all the suggestions from the times reader. Americans respond..

...to short lines rather then logical explanations.

Second: It's sometimes VERY hard to get the message out when the media
will not cooperate.
Third: People freak out when some poor bastard buys a cake with his food stamps but
seem to have a non-caring attitude when corporations steal billions.

[JHB]

7. "Centrist" blather...

...which, of course, accepts the article's framing of the Limbaugh boycott as a pointless distraction without recognizing either Limbaugh's role in driving ignorant, ideological politics on the right or the Fuke affair in the context of the stepped-up attacks on womens' health care.

Every one of those suggestions has been tried. The ones that are based in reality have failed due to absolutely no interest on the other side to do likewise. The ones based on the response writer's own wrong suppositions -- such as assuming those involved had not "learn(ed) some history" or relied on "theatrics and hysteria" over information -- just demonstrate why his opinion has "low value" and is rightly ignored.

Yes, it looks sensible on the surface. But once you examine it closely and see it rests entirely on false assumptions, then it's not so sensible after all, is it?

[lunatica]

8. Plus we've tried it and it failed utterly

Unlike the proudly ignorant we do learn what doesn't work and what is the definition of insanity. Offering up the other cheek to the teabaggeratti only gets you slapped again just like the first time you offered it up.

[JHB]

10. slapped...and accused of trying to silence them, take away their rights...

...seize their hard-earned money (and give it to lazy you-know-who-I-means, wanting to impose a Stalinist police state, genocide, treason, and just generally living in some weird ideological fog that ignores our real history.


In other words, projecting like a drive-in.