The Stone Street Press

It’s not like The Old Days!
Amazingly, foremost among the Republican candidates are…a Mormon (Mitt), a Catholic (Rick) and a recent Catholic convert (Newt).

Even though part of me strongly doubts the complete sincerity of Newt’s conversion –it seemed cleverly conceived to deflect and deflate the inevitable attacks on Newt’s “baggage”. It’s easy to imagine Newt’s cajoling tones: “I SAID I’m sorry!” …
…To a high degree it worked; the media was intimidated by all that talk of conversion. And I confess: I found myself less troubled by Newt’s conversion, whatever…. than by some of the vibes that were coming from Mitt ‘n’ Rick.

On many levels I find Rick Santorum’s strange, strange story about him and his wife sleeping with their dead son Gabriel, and the subsequent interaction with their six other kids, to be most disturbing. Whatever the rights & wrongs of the situation; and without in any way challenging RS’s sincerity, didn’t he know to keep the whole thing to himself!

In general he seems not only to be a man of rather extreme religious & moral views, but also not able to help himself in conveying to the rest of us a “holier than thou” attitude.
It all leaves me with a strong sense that a Santorum Presidency would be something new in Insufferable Sanctimoniousity, not to mention an utter insensitivity to delicacy and appropriateness in all related matters.

My advice: Rick –get your own Religious TV show! It would be a much better forum for moralistic fulmination than The Oval Office.
You could call it SANCTUS SANTORUM –I yield you the intellectual property rights for the name.

Mitt –as we know– is a Mormon. (Not, we hasten to add, that there is anything wrong with that!) But for a lot of Southern religious folk –and a lot of Republicans– that seems to translates to… sorry, just NOT Christian enough!

(Of course, the Catholicism of Newt ‘n’ Rick also puts them dangerously close to “Not Christian enough”. But this is not the place for an extended “Whore of Babylon” discussion, so we will let that go for now!

Nor do I intend to enter any debate about some of LDS founder Joseph Smith’s early…unusual… concepts.

But I did find myself struggling to come to terms with one LDS belief –the one that requires Mitt to keep a year’s emergency supply of food on hand. (Complete with passport.)

Emergency, Mitt? What do you mean? Sacks of lentils and dried peas in case an Iranian Nuclear bomb lands in the Rose Garden?

And where will you put it all? In Dick Cheney’s old bunker? Aren’t you going to need that too?

It has been really interesting for me to watch how different folks talk about OCCUPY WALL STREET –the language that’s used.

From the very beginning Republican-Speak has been…fascinating. Even when they were at the early stage of IGNORE IT AND IT’LL GO AWAY.

For the run of the mill right-wing propagandists it’s been….PRE-OCCUPY WALL STREET. They can’t let it alone.

Nothing better illustrates my point than an email I just got from JBFletcher. It shows what a panic the right-wing is in.

Close media watchers will recognize the name “Frank Luntz”. Frank rents himself out as a political analyst and market-survey guy. He used to work both sides of the political divide, but of late Frank has learned that he’d do better if he chose one side over the other –and he has visibly grown fatter on it.

He learned to massage the right wing, to butter it up, and to apply his demographic measuring tools to chosen groups of voters….

Read Frank Luntz about educating the republicans on “How to talk about OCCUPY WALL STREET” [I reproduce below JBFletchers email] :

HOW REPUBLICANS ARE BEING TAUGHT TO TALK ABOUT OCCUPY WALL STREET
By Chris Moody | The Ticket – Dec 1, 2011

Protesters form a wall of signs at the Occupy Portland camp in downtown Portland, Oregon. (AP)

The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?

“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.”

Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about “income inequality” and “paying your fair share.”

Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do’s and don’ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement.

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.”

2. Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Instead, tell them that the government ‘takes from the rich.’
“If you talk about raising taxes on the rich,” the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But “if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes.”

3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the ‘middle class.’ Call them ‘hardworking taxpayers.’
“They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the ‘middle class’ and the public will say, I’m not sure about that. But defending ‘hardworking taxpayers’ and Republicans have the advantage.”

4. Don’t talk about ‘jobs.’ Talk about ‘careers.’
“Everyone in this room talks about ‘jobs,’” Luntz said. “Watch this.”
He then asked everyone to raise their hand if they want a “job.” Few hands went up. Then he asked who wants a “career.” Almost every hand was raised.
“So why are we talking about jobs?”

5. Don’t say ‘government spending.’ Call it ‘waste.’
“It’s not about ‘government spending.’ It’s about ‘waste.’ That’s what makes people angry.”

6. Don’t ever say you’re willing to ‘compromise.’
“If you talk about ‘compromise,’ they’ll say you’re selling out. Your side doesn’t want you to ‘compromise.’ What you use in that to replace it with is ‘cooperation.’ It means the same thing. But cooperation means you stick to your principles but still get the job done. Compromise says that you’re selling out those principles.”

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 angry. 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.

8. Out: ‘Entrepreneur.’ In: ‘Job creator.’
Use the phrases “small business owners” and “job creators” instead of “entrepreneurs” and “innovators.”

9. Don’t ever ask anyone to ’sacrifice.’
“There isn’t an American today in November of 2011 who doesn’t think they’ve already sacrificed. If you tell them you want them to ’sacrifice,’ they’re going to be be pretty angry at you. You talk about how ‘we’re all in this together.’ We either succeed together or we fail together.”

10. Always blame Washington.
Tell them, “You shouldn’t be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it’s the policies over the past few years that have created this problem.”

BONUS: Don’t say ‘bonus!’
Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a “bonus.”
“If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you’re going to make people angry. It’s ‘pay for performance.’”

“The man who questions opinion is wise; the man who quarrels with fact is a fool.” – - Frank A. Garbutt

“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.” ~ Doug Larson, motivational speaker

[END OF JBFletchers email]

I’m interested to hear how you all respond to this.

I visited the protestors at Zuchotti Park again yesterday, and again thought what a unique sort of event or phenomenon it is –a lot of young people, but not only young, who were generally in a welcoming and positive mood.

Yes, they could be more focussed, could be articulating thoughts and goals that were sharper & better defined –in a way that made older folk like me feel they had a better chance of making their point, and –yes– of achieving it politically.

BUT –the one great virtue in evidence that was undeniable, was the fact that THEY WERE ACTUALLY THERE!!! They were out on the street, which is –sadly– a very unusual event these last few decades. Our culture is so passive, “sitting on the couch”, inactive,(often obese), uncommitted, diverted with a huge variety of meaningless –but profitable to some– pasttimes that being out on the street is already a huge committment.

These folks are angry. They feel let down — if not betrayed– by the structure that we have created, developed, keep going –that they have been born into.

At Zuchotti Park there are a lot of very bright young kids who –following their parents encouragement to study hard and get a good education and a marketable degree, with inherit the so-called American Dream, which –according to the resident myth– will ensure that they will do better, have it better, than their parents. Things would just get better and better for each succeeding generation.

Generally speaking, THIS IS A MYTH. This will not happen; has already begun to change.

The education these kids have gotten has been very expensive, and most of them have gone into debt –some to the extent of $200,000 or more. There are no jobs for these folks; they have to start paying back their loans straightaway –but with what? They have no jobs!

Things will NOT be better for them! They will be a lot worse –through no fault of their own, our fiscal crisis and recession and abiding rates of unemployment have changed our world.

Now, consider for a moment what the huge bailout of risky and deceptive banks looks like to such a young person!
The banks get bailed out; they DO NOT!

I see different versions of that simple logic on the signs down at Zuchotti Park: The Banks get bailed out for deceptive, risky and often criminal behavior, whereas I have played by the rules and get nothing (but a lot of insult & abuse on Fox+ )

The Tea Party folks were –it seems to me– from the next, older generation. Often, more comfortable. And –it seems to me– often more politically “harnessable” by the Limbaughs, Hannitys & Levins, and all the rest. It was a shrewd piece of political management.

My feeling is that the Tea Party people got their energy from Blaming Washington. I think the Occupy Wall Street protestors may be different. But they ARE angry! And we will see more of this anger –all over the nation, and all over the world. [The so called Arab Spring is just one sort of manifestation of this anger.]

Fairness and Justice and Equality are simple concepts, and easily grasped. We learn them in our family setting at a very early age. More than anything else, –except perhaps intelligence– compassion is what makes us human –and our world is in a compassionless-crisis.

Watch out!

[The idea for a new sign for Zuchotti Park has been forming in my mind for the last few days. I don’t quite have the words yet, but I have been searching for a metaphor that matches the situation.
The one I’ve got so-far is:
“America is trying to save the TOP ONE PER-cent of the TITANIC!”

Yes indeed, we ARE all in the same boat! Except Wall Street and Citibank and all the rest don’t seem to know it.

They think they’re in the lifeboat!