Just look at this: "An estimated nine million new voters have registered for the hotly contested November 4 election, and the Obama campaign says Democratic registrations are outpacing Republican ones by four to one. The McCain campaign contends that an untold number of those registration forms are false and warns that illegally cast ballots could alter the results of the election and undermine the public's faith in democracy."
In my last post I pointed out the peculiar tendency of Republican campaign strategists to use a kind of reverse projection technique for manipulating discourse.
One common version of this is to spend ungodly amounts of public revenues in questionable ways, but accuse your opponents of being tax and spend liberals.
Here again in the quotation above is another good example of the reverse projection technique. This one involves doing very questionable things pertaining to elections and then accusing those you cheat of doing the very same thing.
That is, create the impression that *everyone* is a nihilistic power hungry fraud just like you are, which makes you perfectly justified in doing what you do. This quietly suggests to your partisans that your crimes are a form of self-defense. And in doing this you create the impression that the cynics are right, and lying and cheating is normal, and that anyone with any power got it by nefarious means. After all it's no more than good honest folks *have had* to stoop to in order to remain good honest folks. "Just look at the corrupt mess liberal democracy has wrought! What we need is a leader!"
Here's a tip, should you start hearing explicit talk of that kind on CNN it is time to flee the country, if you hear it on NPR don't stop to pack a bag. Seriously, just get out. It's not happening yet and there is still time to turn this ship around, mind you, but should you start hearing that kind of talk get out while the getting is good.
It bears repeating. Should you hear the following formulation, run for your life: democracy is fatally flawed + we need a real leader/ this guy (and it's always a guy) is the great leader we've been waiting for = flee.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this particular application of the reverse projection tactic (election fraud hoaxes) is not designed help reach the goal of being elected to political office. It is, I think, a very well orchestrated attempt to create mistrust and disorder. The neo-conservatives, scoop Jackson democrats and Lacud party operatives (if you look at the venn diagram comprised of members of these three groups the results are fascinating) behind all this are actively trying to bring down democracy in this country. Their goals are not policy related in any way we commonly understand policy, though that fact is nearly impossible to prove, which is part of the brilliance of the movement. What I want to point out is that this election fraud brouhaha is not the sort of thing you bring up if you want to win elections, it is rather the sort of thing you do if you want to create two permanently polarized enemies who believe each other to be totally untrustworthy.
If you want to win elections you cultivate trust in the electoral process. Period. No one wants to win a disputed election.
Increasingly, people are viewing the loss of an election as the loss of their way of life, and not a mandate for one set of policy initiatives over another with the overall goal being the *freedom to pursue one's way of life*. What I'm suggesting is that many people have been actively trying to fuel this dynamic of polarization and mistrust. I suggest that this is far worse than anything *ANYTHING* at issue that can be rendered in the form of a "talking point."
Anyway, that is about as Robert Anton Wilson as I get. Just remember the bad magic is in the words. Demand that political statements have clear meanings. It is important to notice when a word is being used in more than one sense. Pursue every equivocation. Tedious, I know, but easier than having to flee the country.
BTW, on an unrelated note; what the fuck is a "talking point" anyway? Is it a topic of discussion, a policy suggestion, a formal argument??? If so why not call it those things. I think we in the media consuming audience are intended to think the use of this kind of terminology makes us a little bit more in the know, like we're sharing info with real live media professionals and political insiders. But, in reality I think this usage is intended to make the people one is bullshitting think they are smart. This is a well known con artist ploy, make the mark feel like he is in on the deal, make the mark feel like a real sharp guy. Make sure he knows the talking points... But keep your real intentions hidden.
Well, you've never been one for jargon, and that's all words like "talking point" are, right?
Posted by: Ingrid Anderson | November 08, 2008 at 09:38 PM