Deathwatch: My first day

[arendt]

***** The GOP is the Party of Death (POD) *****

On Sunday, I described a Lakoff-ian "frame" for Republicans:

The Party of Death - A Primer for Democrats
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/arendt/145

That essay didn't get many substantive responses. Since I believe that this frame is "actionable" (i.e., we should be using this), I will try to demonstrate how easy it is to use this frame.

On my lunch hour, I went through the first page of LBN, pulled out headlines, and put them into my categories of things being killed by the POD. It took me less than five minutes. Here is what I got:

KILLING THE MIDDLE CLASS (examples of job loss and economic stress)
Dell To Save $3 Billion, Shut Austin Plant, Cut Jobs
Steris cutting jobs to save $30 million a year
Tech companies get creative to hire foreign workers in the U.S.
Recession unlikely to curb H-1B demand
To Protest Fuel Costs, Truckers Plan (Nationwide) Idle Day (on April 1)
Truckers protest fuel prices in Harrisburg (PA State Capitol)
Some U.S. homes worth less than their copper pipes
Analyst Predicts Corn Rationing in 2008

KILLING GOVERNMENT REGULATION (examples of failure to regulate and more deregulation)
Congress has big questions for Big Oil
G.A.O. Report Points to Rise in Cost Overruns at Pentagon
Lobbyists, Small Banks Attack Plan For Markets
Top U.S. Housing Official Resigns
Report rips mine regulators for disaster (Crandall Canyon mine )
Cantaloupe recall continues to expand

KILLING PEOPLE IN WARS
Iraqi Casualties at Highest Level since August
McCain ‘Surprised’ by Iraq Developments

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Look at how the frame focuses your outrage and simplifies your ability to explain your position. Instead of a grab bag of outrages, you have a handful of topics - with relevant and topical examples.

Just as the POD propagandizes with their boilerplate bullshit (family values, patriotism, free market), we can propagandize with the ugly truth: the POD are killers.

----

Once again, I ask for comments.

arendt

[patrice]

1. I think it is a good idea to make it very clear what an f-ing LIE "Pro-Life" is.

Everything you've listed here is evidence of the fact that "Pro-Life" is a lie, but it must be done in a sound-bite though, because "Pro-Lifers" don't read much.

[arendt]

12. Yes. That's why I prefer party of DEATH to p.o. Destruction. Because fundies need to be hit...

with a two-by-four. Nothing subtle will get through to them.

arendt

[patrice]

37. Yep. The Pro-Death Party. Everyone should say that everytime McSame brings up

that phony Pro-life stuff.

[Speck Tater]

2. POD also = "Powers Of Darkness". NT

[Kitty Herder]

7. That works, too. They certainly are that. nt

[wiggs]

3. This is an effective frame. Fan of Lakoff here. Obama is a follower, I believe, of

Lakoff and it is reflected in his very effective response team.

I look forward to hearing honest, effective discussion about the horrendous admin and GOP record over the last 8 years. I am mystified why there aren't more brutally honest statements about the damage this administration has wrought on our country and the world. Hopefully our dem nominee will start focusing on Bush, GOP, and McCain to make this reality perfectly clear...no triangulation please.

[blondeatlast]

4. Excellent work. The GOP are killing us economically, in terms of personal freedoms,

spiritually, and ACTUALLY.

One note: "Party of Death" sounds to me (a fellow Lakoff devotee) just a bit too harsh to be embraceable. Just to throw an idea in, how about "Party of Destruction?" Or even "Destruction Party?"

K&R for what ought to be a great discussion.

[arendt]

8. I hear you, but I think "death" is an effective counter to their "pro-life" lies...

Perhaps you only need to use PoDeath when they start up with their "sanctity of life" bullshit.

Party of Destruction is especially good for inanimate things, like economies and bureaucracies and Constitutions.

arendt

[Usrename]

15. Party of Destruction is very excellent.

I would challenge anyone to come up with something, anything, that was built by Reagan or the Bushes.

They sure have destroyed a lot of good stuff. They have created nothing except death and destruction.

[arendt]

16. Their counter would be "this is 'creative destruction' (J. Schumpeter)"...

Not that this is right, but it is CONSISTENT with their whole message. They don't have to break a sweat to "embrace and extend" it (in a Borg sense).

You are absolutely correct. They are the party of destruction.

My point is that death is harder to bullshit your way around.

You point at the DEAD body. They are going to say its really alive??

arendt

[arendt]

34. How about a compromise? Party of Death AND Destruction. n/t

[blondeatlast]

35. Indeed. I plan to use that immediately! nt

[arendt]

36. And PODD is still pronounced "pod", so all the PODD-people connotations still apply...

and, the double "d" makes it clear this is an abbeviation, not just "pod" capitalized.

I like it.

arendt

[blondeatlast]

5. Just two more recs gets this lots more attention--so a gratuitous kick and plead for the

"Greatest"...

[Kitty Herder]

6. Good work. Just sent you to the greatest page. nt

[KoKo]

9. K&R...I read that Reid and Pelosi had sessions with Lakoff about framing

back in '05, I believe. It didn't seem to work out too well for them. Deaf ears, maybe? Anyway, it's amazing it's taken so long for Dems to be able to "Frame."

[democrank]

10. K & R

The Republican Party of Death even looked the other way while citizens of New Orleans were drowning in their attics.

[arendt]

11. Right. NOLA keeps falling off my POD list, but its death on many fronts...

dead civilians
dead city
taxpayer ripoffs (FEMA)
Blackwater mercs killing people

NOLA should be the second poster child for the POD. Iraq is the first, or maybe the melting glaciers, or maybe the mine cave-ins/polluted rivers/demolished mountains, or maybe...

we should just open an F-ing orphanage for all the "children".

arendt

[Ghost Dog]

28. Public services & infrastructure n/t

[arendt]

29. You are right. That's different than "government regulation"...

I had put the results of deregulation in the same category as the deregulation itself. But, as you point out, the results are a much clearer and more concrete category.

arendt

[druidity33]

13. daily DU POD updates?

This could be very effective framing. I do believe that the GOP should be more closely associated with death and killing than anyone else in the gov't, because quite frankly they ARE.

The GOP is KILLING AMERICA.

howz about dem apples?

k+r

[arendt]

14. That's why I said "my FIRST day". This is so easy, I can do it for a while...

eventually, if it catches on, we can make a forum (or a forum per victim).

I want to do a summary on Sunday's, called "This Week in Death" (stole it from TDS).

arendt

[druidity33]

26. i'll support this effort

by kicking and recommending those threads!

and i'll start framing with POD in daily conversations... i work in Retail and have a good rapport with "my customers".

:)

[arendt]

27. Thank you. I think this meme will have legs (that's a weird metaphor, I know). n/t

[nashville_brook]

17. *party of death* = The Patriarchy -- the original POD People

glancing at your thread from sunday (sorry i missed it, was outside gardening all day, then flat on my back) i was reminded of stuff i hadn't thought about since college...i.e. academic feminism...you know, The Patriarchy (with a capital P). And so, I'm reminded of Susan Griffin's Woman and Nature which muses on patriarchal authoritarianism:

(from the first chapter, "Matter")

It is decided that matter is transitory and illusory like the shadows on a wall cast by firelight; that we dwell in a cave, in the cave of our flesh, which is also matter, also illusory; it is decided that what is real is outside the cave, in a light brighter than we can imagine, that matter traps us in darkness. That the idea of matter existed before matter and is more perfect, ideal.

To be clear, Democrats can be quite the patriarchal authoritarians ourselves. But, I think that streak only represents the very worst we have to offer and it's the job of the non-patriarchal authoritarians to help the others our of their slumber. As a whole, we're far more likely to eschew environmental eschatology than Repubs.

I mention this poetic Susan Griffin stuff only because it's a good index of the first cause. It all traces back to patriarchal dualism -- that the spirit in the sky is more real than the spirit in the earth (transcendent vs manifest; male vs female; light vs dark; good vs evil).

Authoritarianism is easy and clear cut; just do what the Big Daddy sky god says and everything is a-okay. Life is illusory. Death is eternal in spirit. Reward comes in the afterlife. Death is where God is.

Love your idea... made me take out this wonderful book I haven't thought of in a while.

[arendt]

18. Dualism is always lurking in the background...

my ur-book on the subject remains Morris Berman's "Coming to Our Senses". But I also like Riane Eisler's "The Blade and the Chalice", which is on the Feminist hit parade.

Berman says that the end result of inability to resolve dualism is suicide. He fears that's where our society is headed.

Somewhere, I have a long, but incredibly accurate, dissection of Fundamentalism's stages:
splitting (me good/other bad), self-loathing, evangelism (self-loathing turned outwards). My memory is vague here. I will have to get it from home. But, fundmentalism is at the root of a lot of problems in the U.S. It is large-scale fingers-in-the-ears, "I can't hear you. lalalala".

I'll have to check out Susan Griffin.

arendt

[nashville_brook]

21. the modern POD feigns this dualism... death is great for everyone else.

they have no interest in dying for their cause. that's for the plebes to do. you can find them cooling their heels on yachts in international waters where laws don't apply.

[arendt]

22. The leaders of the POD are complete sociopaths...

fundamentalism is so SIMPLE-minded that it is trivial for a sociopath to fake it.

Its a match made it hell. Insane masochists being led by really smart sadists.

arendt

[conscious evolution]

19. I have been calling them Death Cult.

[arendt]

20. One of the Marks that used to be on in the morning on AAR called them...

the Christo-fascist, zombie death cult.

I agree, but only use the term among like-minded people. Everyone knows that only POD-people can call someone a fascist without losing credibility - because being a POD-person means obeying the rules are optional.

arendt

[Ghost Dog]

23. Environmental (especially biosphere) destruction shouldn't fly under the radar.

As the SMW thread does, sources other than LBN need to be scanned daily.

There is on DU in today's Environment/Energy forum, for example, an entry from marmar quoting this must-read piece by Joe Brewer in AlterNet which describes in a nutshell how the POD imposes its message in the essential area of the relationship between environment and economics, wherein the 'deathly destructive' agenda claims that "Protecting the environment harms the economy" while the progressive (and indeed only rational) way forward must be to be aware that "A healthy economy depends upon a healthy environment".

q.v.

[arendt]

25. Hey, dude, synchronicity! I just realized the reason for my omission and fixed it. n/t

[Ghost Dog]

30. Ok. I think you're really onto something very workable and useful here.

Let's see if it flies. :hi:

[arendt]

24. Had to go to the Environment forum to get KILLING THE PLANET

More headlines by category of death:

KILLING THE PLANET

a) Killing the climate
Expedition To Ruwenzori Mts. Finds Mapped Glacier "Simply Doesn't Exist Anymore"
Glacial Retreat In Austria Hit 5-Year High In 2007
Sierra Nevada Warming Faster Than Any Time In Past 500K Years - Sequoia's Future In Doubt

b) Killing animals
Beak Deformity Means Starvation For Birds, Puzzle For...Scientists Investigating Cases
Migratory Species, Esp. Birds, Facing Longer Odds, Higher Mortality Rates
Fish and the Future - Innovation/unlikely alliances to save Central Coast (CA) fishing?

c) General mayhem
Bush never quits and he has ten more months to go to trash the WEST!

----

See how simple this is?

arendt

[arendt]

31. More crimes --- from the General Discussion forum

I'm still getting the hang of doing this. It dawned on me there were a variety of items right here in Gen. Discuss. By the nature of the forum, a lot of different kinds of thuggery show up here.



KILLING THE GOVERNMENT (examples of corruption, prosecutorial abuse)

More Corruption at Mukasey’s Justice Department? - BY Scott Horton
Federal government to bypass over 30 laws to build border fence
Federal scientist says CDC bosses ignored warnings about contamination in trailers
Governors daughter may have been "given" her MBA from University
Larisa Alexandrovna: How GOP Interests Sought To Topple Dems In MS

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KILLING SCIENCE AND EDUCATION

High school graduation rates less than 50% in inner cities
San Diego Measles Outbreak Shows The Effect of Vaccine Exemptions

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More KILLING THE MIDDLE CLASS

Food Price Hikes Changing U.S. Eating Habits
Dumpster Diving: not just for the homeless & anarchists anymore.

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arendt

[Karenina]

32. K&R!

[earth mom]

33. I've been saying the rethuglicans & fundies are sociopaths for awhile now. K & R! nt

[GrannyK]

38. And a perfect day to launch

Americans Fooled Day

[liberalla]

39. Death, destruction, disaster, devastation... they excel at it all.

Especially man-made disasters. There'll always be a conservative corporatist behind it.

Nothing is so bad it can't get worse. This is what they strive for.