Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - How much bi-partisan spirit can we expect from a POTUS who renames the rival party?

host · 11-10-2006, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuadDib

Host, believe this or not, I think I might see where you are coming from here to a point. ......

........one way or the other, I'm gonna need you to fill in the blanks for me.

The point is....nothing that Mr. Bush says, can be taken at face value, or trusted. When he speaks....it is to leave an impression that is to his advantage.....not to yours. So, how can he be given...."the benefit of the doubt"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

[groan]
Host.

You are, in my opinion, spending whatever crediblity that you've earned for yourself, rather frivilously here. I'm sorry, but this is just silly.....

......I honestly believe that you're making way too much of...nothing. Look...the Democratic Party has literally cleaned house. Celebrate in that. Relax. Learn to let go. These are not the droids you're looking for.

BOR, I believe that there will be far too few exercises like this thread, in this period of self-congratulations. This is not the time to "savor the moment". Bush is still POTUS. You need only look to what he and congress will attempt to "accomplish" in the waning days of their complete control. Newt in his pamphlet descibed below, "Language: A Key Mechanism ofControl.", indicates that the intent is for us not to think...to submit to "control". Mr. Bush's speech patterns indicate that he is fully committed to Newt's "control" strategy. I react to that with revulsion....hence... my inspiration for this thread. "Democrat Party", is of course, a metaphor for the larger and insidious agenda of control....that doesn't lend itself to reaching bi-partisan consensus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

I'm Walter Cronkite. And it isn't fucking natural.

I can just hear his voice in my head.

The reference I highlighted below, to newsmax.com removing the "ic" from news articles, is the epitomy of examples of obsession that I've attempted to associate with Mr. Bush, in this thread. I guess that now....you either get the signifigance of Mr. Bush deliberately remaking even his reflexive speech to be more partisan.....or you don't.....

stevo....the point again.....is that all Americans who are within 15 years of Mr. Bush's age, were exposed to a news media that featured Cronkite as it's icon. Walter used the adjective, "democratic", when he referred to "that" party. Unless you train yourself....Mr. Bush, Walter, and I....all of us, 45 years and older....would reflexively....unthinkingly say....democratic national committee.....convention.....party.....leader, etc. Mr. Bush trained himself, and that is telling. This week he was actually sending no conciliatory message, I submit that he is incapable of such a thing. This is where he is "coming from":

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

You know, on a related note... The Dems delivered a "thumpin'" this week that was about on par with the ones they received in 2000 and 2004. I can't help but note the grace with which the GOP is accepting defeat, here. I can't help but think we'd have heard a lot of squealing from Democrats if the results had been a mirror-image of themselves.

It could simply be that the writing was on the wall for several weeks, but still, I give credit to the Republicans for their sportsmanship and for being truly gentlemanly in defeat. I doubt the Democrats would have been so mature......

......Now's time for reaching across the aisle--and for proving to the country that we have a maturity that they've been lacking during their tenure.

The disciplined, re-trained way that Mr. Bush speaks, indicates to me that he is a fully committed promoter of this. In addition to the criminality that we know Mr. Bush to have been associated with.....do you really think that this is a time to give him the benefit of your doubt? You know my answer to that question. Is the following information, even what you associate as "American", strategy, or behavior? You president practices it faithfully, it seems:

Quote:

http://www.ncte.org/library/files/Ab...LANGUAGE91.pdf

THE NEWT GINGRICH GUIDE TO POLITICALLY CORRECT LANGUAGE
GOPAC, a conservative Republican group whose general chair-man is RepresentativeNewt Gingrich of Georgia, published a booklet entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism ofControl." According to The New York Times (9 September 1990, p. 30) and The ChicagoTribune (19 September 1990), the booklet, which is designed for use by Republican candidates for office, contains a list of 133 words that GOPAC urges candidates to use to attack their opponents and to praise themselves. "The words and phrases are powerful," says the mailing to candidates. "Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used."
The booklet includes 69 "Optimistic Positive Governing Words" to "help define your campaign and your vision." Among the words listed are "environment, peace, freedom, fair, flag, rights, duty, we/us/our, moral, family, children, truth, humane, care(ing), hardworking,liberty, reformer, vision, visionary, confident, and candid." Thus, using this handy little list you can call yourself a "humane, confident, caring, hard-working reformer who has a moral vision of peace, freedom, and liberty that we can all build through a crusade for prosperity and truth."

Included also is a list of 64 "Contrasting Words" to "define our opponents" and "create a clear and easily understood contrast." The booklet recommends: "Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals, and their party." Among the words in this list are:
"traitors, betray, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, radical, hypocrisy, corruption, permissive attitude, greed, self-serving, ideological, they/them, anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, antijobs,unionized bureaucracy, impose, and coercion." Using this list, you can call your opponent a "sick, pathetic, incompetent, liberal traitor whose self-serving permissive attitude promotes a unionized bureaucracy and an anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, antijobs ideology."

With these lists, Republican candidates need not bother with thinking or knowing anything. They don't have to examine, evaluate, or respond to their opponents' proposals and ideas, just automatically label them using the words provided. By following Gingrich's advice, Republican candidates also don't need to get involved with specific proposals or any details of their ideas and beliefs. No need for logic or reason. The candidates only have to pull a few words off the list, drop them in their speeches, and repeat them if asked any questions. No thinking necessary.

Those candidates who follow Gingrich's advice and make these words their basic tools of campaigning might just reach that highest of plateaus in political speech: "duckspeak," which is "to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise," wrote George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Those who use duckspeak make noises that sound like words but have no meaning. With duckspeak it makes no difference what the subject is, "whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy." After all, "it was not the man's brain

that was speaking; it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words but it was not speech in the true sense; it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck." With the efficient use of duckspeak, the speaker can ensure orthodoxy, which "means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

With these lists of politically correct words, you too can enter Orwell's world of duckspeak and orthodoxy. And with these words you can also be politically correct, orthodox, and unconscious, with no need to think, because politically correct language is designed to eliminate any need to think and to induce political unconsciousness.

It works, during a "time of war", too! Doubt creeping in, as casualties of your troops mount.....not to worry! JUST SAY....OVER and OVER: "Stay the course!"

<h3>Does it matter if Mr. Bush believes his own bullshit, or not? He still says it.....still does it.....still just as dangerous......either way:</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091201594.html
Bush Tells Group He Sees a 'Third Awakening'

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 13, 2006; A05

President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil."

Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history. Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms.

"A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me," Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. "There was a stark change between the culture of the '50s and the '60s -- boom -- and I think there's change happening here," he added. "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening."

The First Great Awakening refers to a wave of Christian fervor in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1760, while the Second Great Awakening is generally believed to have occurred from 1800 to 1830.

Some scholars and writers have debated for years whether a Third Awakening has been taking place, although some identify other awakenings in U.S. history. Bush aides, including Karl Rove, have read Robert William Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism."

Bush has been careful discussing the battle with terrorists in religious terms since he had to apologize for using the word "crusade" in 2001. He often stresses that the war is not against Islam but against those who corrupt it. In his comments yesterday, aides said Bush was not casting the war as a religious struggle but was describing American cultural changes in a time of war.

"He's drawing a parallel in terms of a resurgence, in dangerous times, of people going back to their religion," said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was not open to other journalists. "This is not 'God is on our side' or anything like that."

The White House did not release a transcript of Bush's remarks, but National Review posted highlights on its Web site. On another topic, Bush rejected sending more troops to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas to find Osama bin Laden. "One hundred thousand troops there in Pakistan is not the answer. It's someone saying 'Guess what' and then the kinetic action begins," he said, meaning an informer disclosing bin Laden's location.

Quote:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/conten...talk_hertzberg
COMMENT
THE “IC” FACTOR
Issue of 2006-08-07

........In the conservative media, the phenomenon feeds more voraciously the closer you get to the mucky, sludgy bottom. “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like <h3>NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) </h3>The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity.

But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.

The job of politicians, however, is different, and among those of the Republican persuasion “Democrat Party” is now nearly universal. This is partly the work of Newt Gingrich, the nominal author of the notorious 1990 memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” and his Contract with America pollster, Frank Luntz, the Johnny Appleseed of such linguistic innovations as “death tax” for estate tax and “personal accounts” for Social Security privatization. Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001, has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day. He added that he recently finished writing a book—it’s entitled “Words That Work”—and has been diligently going through the galley proofs taking out the hundreds of “ic”s that his copy editor, one of those partisan Dems, had stuck in. 

In days gone by, the anti-“ic” tic tended to be reined in at the Presidential level. Ronald Reagan never used it in polite company, and George Bush père was too well brought up to use the truncated version of the out party’s name more than sparingly. Not so Bush fils—and not just in e-mails sent to the Party faithful, which he obviously never reads, let alone writes. “It’s time for the leadership in the Democrat Party to start laying out ideas,” he said a few weeks ago, using his own personal mouth. “The Democrat Party showed its true colors during the tax debate,” he said a few months before that. “Nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for actually getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program,” he said a week before that. What he meant is anybody’s guess, but his bad manners were impossible to miss. Hard as it is to believe from this distance in time, George W. Bush came to office promising to “change the tone.” That he has certainly done. But, as with so much else, it hasn’t worked out quite the way he promised.

— Hendrik Hertzberg