“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”
So just as he did with his infamous 2003 global warming warming memo [ http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001330.php ] – which taught conservatives how to sound like they care about the issue while opposing all action — Luntz has some key advice for Republicans on how to pretend to care about regular people while continuing to screw them over.
Amazingly, “Yahoo News sat in on the session,” where Luntz went through his spin at the Republican Governor’s Association on “How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?”
Here are key do’s and don’ts from Luntz:
• Don’t say ‘capitalism.’
• Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Instead, tell them that the government ‘takes from the rich.’
• Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the ‘middle class.’ Call them ‘hardworking taxpayers.’
• Don’t say ‘government spending.’ Call it ‘waste.’
• Don’t ever say you’re willing to ‘compromise.’
• The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: ‘I get it.’
• Out: ‘Entrepreneur.’ In: ‘Job creator.’
• “Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming.”
• Don’t ever ask anyone you want them to ‘sacrifice.’
• Always blame Washington.
Yes, and some in the media still try to apportion blame equally between Democrats and Republicans for the toxic state of American politics.
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Democrats do sometimes misuse the language and create euphemisms. All politicians do. But it is Luntz and his legion of conservative followers who have twisted the English language beyond recognition. They are the true Orwellians. The GOP parrot him as if they were reciting lessons in grammar school (see, for instance, Luntz’s memo, “The Language of Healthcare 2009 [ http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/frank-luntz-the-language-of-healthcare-20091.pdf ],” which became the GOP playbook for attacking reform).
Is there any nonsense phrase that has been repeated to death this year more than “job creator” — in spite of the fact that for all of the wealth GOP policies have showered on the wealthy they didn’t actually create any net jobs under President Bush?
And yes, I put “Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming” into the list above even though it is from Luntz’s 2003 climate memo. I included it because conservatives continue trying to blame “the left” for supposedly changing the name from “global warming” to “climate change” (see Debunking the dumbest denier myth: ‘Climate Change’ vs. ‘Global Warming [ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/12/22/207231/debunking-the-dumbest-denier-myth-climate-change-vs-global-warming/ ]’). For the record, while I would normally be inclined to recommend progressives say the exact opposite of whatever Luntz recommends for conservatives, there is way too much conflicting analysis to suggest that one of those terms is somehow more effective than the other. Feel free to use both.
Returning to Luntz’s Occupy Wall Street advice, his comments on capitalism are the most revealing and important for progressives.
The fact that Luntz doesn’t like the word “capitalism” isn’t new. It has long been on his “Republican Playbook” list of “words never to use [ http://journalism.uoregon.edu/~tbivins/J496/readings/LANGUAGE/wordsnevertosay.pdf ]” along with things like “drilling for oil.” Yes, GOP parrots are instructed to say “Exploring for energy” because “drilling for oil” paints a bad picture in people’s minds of “an old-fashioned oilrig that gushes up black goop.” Go figure!
And so Luntz wrote back in 2005:
Capitalism reminds people of harsh economic competition that yields losers as well as winners. Conversely, the free market economy provides opportunity to all and allows everyone to succeed.
See how easy it is. Simply change the words you use, and everybody wins. Except, of course, 99% of the people have figured out that everybody doesn’t win when the game is rigged.
But I was certainly surprised Luntz admitted the following with the media present Wednesday:
“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism”….
1. Don’t say ‘capitalism.’
“I’m trying to get that word removed and we’re replacing it with either ‘economic freedom’ or ‘free market,’ ” Luntz said. “The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”
Wow!
So the public thinks capitalism is immoral. The thing to understand about Luntz is he never makes such pronouncements without having done extensive polling and focus groups.
Capitalism is, in theory, amoral, but it has become immoral in practice because many of its most successful practitioners are immoral (like the Kochs) and because the 1% can buy influence with governments to rig the rules in their favor.
The fact that Luntz says the public thinks capitalism is immoral suggests that message is a powerful one, which is no doubt why Occupy Wall Street and the 99 percent are striking a chord with so many people.
How more blatant could Luntz be about his crass manipulation: “I’m trying to get that word removed.”Luntz is the embodiment of Orwell’s thought police.
In this case, I don’t think he can get conservatives to stop saying “capitalism,” since that is the altar many of them worship at. In any case, progressives must not let Luntz win on this one.
Luntz’s manipulation knows no bounds:
7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: ‘I get it.’
“First off, here are three words for you all: ‘I get it.’ . . . ‘I get that you’re…. I get that you’ve seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system.”
Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem.
Seriously.
What Luntz and the conservatives figured out is that since the media are not acting as referees anymore, but mostly as play-by-play commentators or simply stenographers, politicians can say whatever they want and then do whatever they want. So, sure, say you “get it” to the Occupy crowd and then keep pushing “solutions” like tax cuts for the rich job creators, that will only worsen income inequality.
Rather than decrying these tactics, it remains critical for progressives to learn that words matter. I have written a great deal about rhetoric over the years — see “Why scientists aren’t more persuasive [ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2008/09/30/203019/why-scientists-arent-more-persuasive-part-1/ ]” — and do intend to publish my book on that subject next year. So I’ll end with some old advice of Luntz’s:
There’s a simple rule [ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/luntz.html ]: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you’re absolutely sick of saying it is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time.
Webcam Spying Plaintiff’s Sister Sues Pa. District
Thursday, Dec 8, 2011 2:37 PM 17:14:44 CST
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A suburban Philadelphia school district that paid more than $600,000 to settle allegations it used laptop webcams to spy on students is being sued by the sister of the original plaintiff.
Nineteen-year-old Paige Robbins filed a federal lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District on Thursday. She says the district secretly captured embarrassing images of her at home through her school-issued laptop’s webcam.
Her brother, Blake Robbins, sued the district last year over software that allowed school employees to remotely activate the webcams to track missing computers.
Blake Robbins received $175,000 of a $600,000 settlement. Paige Robbins’ lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Bogan, says her client’s rights weren’t addressed in that case.
District spokesman Doug Young calls the new lawsuit “an attempted money-grab.” He says an investigation recovered no images of Paige Robbins.
Obama to target foreign nationals’ use of new technologies in human rights abuses
By Scott Wilson, Published: April 22, 2012
President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, from cellphone tracking to Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.
Social media and cellphone technology have been widely credited with helping democracy advocates organize against autocratic governments and better expose rights violations, most notably over the past year and a half in the Middle East and North Africa.
But authoritarian governments, particularly in Syria and Iran, have shown that their security services can also harness technology to help crack down on dissent — by conducting surveillance, blocking access to the Internet or tracking the movements of opposition figures.
Obama’s executive order, which he will announce during a Monday speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [ http://www.ushmm.org/ ], is an acknowledgment of those dangers and of the need to adapt American national security policy to a world being remade rapidly by technology, according to senior administration officials familiar with the plans. Although the order is designed to target companies and individuals assisting the governments of Iran and Syria, they said, future executive orders could name others aiding other countries through technology in crackdowns on dissent.
To demonstrate the priority he places on genocide prevention, Obama will use the roughly 20-minute address to reveal that he has asked for the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate — the consensus view of all U.S. intelligence agencies — appraising the potential for mass killings in countries around the world and their implication for U.S. interests.
The president will also announce a set of U.S. development “challenge” grants designed to encourage technology companies to develop new ways to help residents in countries vulnerable to mass killings better detect and quickly alert others to impending dangers. And he will unveil a high-level government panel to serve as a clearinghouse for real-time intelligence, policymaking and other issues related to mass killing.
“This unprecedented direction from the president, and the development of a comprehensive strategy, sends a clear message that we are committed to combating atrocities, an old threat that regularly takes grim and modern new forms,” said Samantha Power, the National Security Council’s senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights, who will serve as chairman of the Atrocities Prevention Board. The panel’s creation was announced in August.
“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” he said at the time.
But Republicans and some human rights advocates have derided Obama’s policy in Syria as weak and pressed him to do more to stop the killings there.
Last week, echoing Obama’s own remarks on Libya delivered a year earlier, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that “for the United States to sit by and watch this wanton massacre is a betrayal of everything that we stand for and believe in.”
In some cases, Syrian security forces are using technology to track down the opposition movement’s leaders. Syrian officials may also have tracked satellite phones and computer addresses to locate a group of foreign journalists in February who were covering the siege of the city of Homs.
In his new executive order, which was summarized in advance for The Washington Post, Obama states that “the same GPS, satellite communications, mobile phone, and Internet technology employed by democracy activists across the Middle East and North Africa is being used against them by the regimes in Syria and Iran.”
Under the order, the administration will announce Monday new sanctions, including a U.S. visa ban and financial restrictions, on two Syrian “entities,” one Syrian individual and four Iranian “entities.” Administration officials, who did not identify the targets of the sanctions by name, said “entities” in this case describes both government agencies and private companies in Iran and Syria.
The new steps are designed primarily to target companies explicitly aiding authoritarian governments with new technology that assists in civilian repression.
Obama’s visit to the memorial will follow by a few days the official Holocaust Remembrance Day, and senior administration officials said he will use the first part of his speech to discuss the mass killing of Jews in Europe.
He visited Buchenwald in June 2009, touring the former Nazi concentration camp on a still afternoon with Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Wiesel will also accompany him Monday at the museum.
Administration officials say Obama will use the second part of his remarks to discuss the legacy of Rwanda and his efforts in Libya, Sudan and central Africa, Ivory Coast and other places where mass killings or the threat of them have drawn U.S. attention.
The new Atrocities Prevention Board is intended to elevate the issue further in his administration, officials say. It will comprise senior representatives from across the administration with the goal of helping “the U.S. government identify and address atrocity threats and oversee institutional changes that will make us more nimble and effective.”
Power said the board will hold its first session Monday afternoon and plans to meet with as many as 200 representatives of the nongovernmental organizations, university chapters of anti-genocide groups and others involved in the issue.
“This doesn’t make atrocities go away,” said Power, who has written extensively on the U.S. response to genocide through history.
“But it does give us a new set of tools and should prevent presidents from ever saying again that they didn’t have options to confront mass killings.”
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