Minting memes for Obama
Sep. 11th, 2008 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusIt's September 11th, 2008, and things are not looking too good, pollwise, for the Obama campaign. McCain has taken the lead, at least momentarily. As a member of the four-to-one majority of people in the world who want to see Obama win -- and as someone convinced that this election may be America's last chance to avoid a slow decline into malicious, resentful, imperial failure -- I thought there might be something that I -- that we -- could do.
I'm a writer, that is, someone who can generate memes and turn sentences. Now, this doesn't mean that I can connect with the Americans in midwestern swing states who'll control the outcome of the election on November 4th -- I admit that their mindset is somewhat alien to me. But it does mean that I -- and anyone else reading this -- might be able to brainstorm some rhetoric -- generate some memes -- which might help the Obama campaign. Possibly my "help" will be about as useful as Gordon Brown's apparent endorsement of Obama. But something useful might come out of this.
Meme 1: A vote for McCain is a vote for Bin Laden Unlike either presidential candidate, I was actually in New York City on September 11th 2001. I watched the whole thing happen from my rooftop and -- more importantly -- I witnessed the way the feeling of America changed as a result: it went from a playful, secure, creative, open and liberal nation to a fearful, insecure, reactionary, closed and dangerous one. It seems quite clear to me that Bin Laden wanted to provoke the US into stupid acts of aggression -- exactly the ones it went on to commit -- in the hope of draining its resources and bringing about a Soviet Union-style meltdown. And it seems to me that McCain will continue not just the Bush agenda, but the Bin Laden agenda. McCain's foreign policy needs to be connected in the public mind not just with Bush, but with Bin Laden. His hawkishness is exactly what America's enemies want.
Soundbite: A vote for McCain is a vote for Bin Laden.
TV Spot: A Bin Laden impersonator tells the audience: "Last time, the Republicans produced a fake Bin Laden who told you to vote for Kerry. This time I'm here -- the real Bin Laden -- to say that McCain is my man. McCain is the guy who'll continue the wars which strengthen my recruiting drives and weaken The Great Satan, America. Put him in power and you're putting me in power."
Meme 2: It's the economy, stupid. This can never be rammed home hard enough. The economy does better under Democrats. And so does the stock exchange. Republican policies help only a tiny majority of the massively rich. Clinton presided over unprecedented surpluses, Bush has turned them around into catastrophic losses. It makes no sense at all, economically, to vote for McCain unless you're earning more than $150,000 a year.
Soundbite: Hello, elephant in the room! It's the American economy, biggest in the world... for now! (Shorten this slogan, over time, to "Hello, elephant!")
TV Spot: Show a huge room full of people. Voice-over: "We asked all the people whose pocket books will be better under a McCain administration to stay in the room." Everyone except a tiny group of fat cats leave the room. The camera pans round to show an enormous elephant in the room. Slogan: "Hello, elephant! It's the economy. America is richer under the Democrats, and more individual Americans are richer under the Democrats."
Meme 3: The Republicans want to supersize Washington! Whatever they may say, it's the Republicans who are the party of big government. As Tom Gallagher showed back in 2003, "even the Bush administration's own budget projections show no material decline in federal spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product -- even before the inevitable costs of the Iraqi war, occupation and reconstruction are included." The Republicans expand government spending, and expand government interference in private life (wire-tapping, surveillance, snooping).
Soundbite: Who expands the government? Who's snooping on you? The Republicans do, that's who! (Rap version: "Who snoops on you? Who tells you what to do? Who supersizes government? The GOP do! G.O.P: what does it stand for? Government Oversizing Party!")
TV Spot: Voice over: "Who really increases government spending -- and government spying -- in America? Let's look at the pie charts." Charts show Republican expansion of government. Then they turn into a huge hamburger topped with the Capitol dome. Caption: The Republicans want to supersize Washington.
Meme 4: Old America! McCain is 72. If he wins once, he'll be president at 76. If he wins twice, he'll be president at 80. A vote for McCain is a vote to make America sclerotic, geriatric. Vote McCain, and America walks through the world with a Zimmer frame, mumbling to itself. Rumsfeld's slogan about Old Europe will be turned around: it'll be time for "old America".
Soundbite: Don't let America grow old!
TV Spot: Black and white footage of a May Day missile parade in Red Square. Ancient, geriatric, sclerotic Soviet generals raise creaky hands to wave, assisted by young helpers. At the centre, with Sarah Palin moving his arm for him, sits a decrepit John McCain, covered in dust and cobwebs. He smiles wanly down at the passing missiles, then falls back to sleep.
Some other ideas, in brief:
Coalition of the unwilling: Show the polls that reveal how massively people in the rest of the world want Obama to win. Make a TV spot based on Aesop's fable of The Wind and the Sun: things go so much better when everyone's on your side. That's how you get your way.
Sicko: Pack a 60 second TV commercial with the most shameful scenes from Michael Moore's Sicko documentary.
Civil War: Show how the people against Obama all live in the states which were on the wrong side during the American Civil War. Slogan: "They lost in 1865. Don't let them win in 2008." (Okay, okay, I know you can only make gestures about healing that huge divide, never rub salt into the wound. But we can dream, can't we?)
While we're on the subject, I decided to test statistically my theory that if the US divided into two nations -- the nations of the two parties -- the Democratic nation would be much richer than the Republican one. I took two Wikipedia pages, the one listing which states voted for Bush and which for Kerry in 2004, and the one listing US states by Gross Domestic Product (also known, in this context, as Gross State Product).
Results: The 31 states which voted Republican in 2004 had a combined output of $6653339 million dollars. The 20 which voted Democratic had a combined output of $7089701 million. My hunch was right, but -- in 2004 at least -- there wasn't much in it.
I'm a writer, that is, someone who can generate memes and turn sentences. Now, this doesn't mean that I can connect with the Americans in midwestern swing states who'll control the outcome of the election on November 4th -- I admit that their mindset is somewhat alien to me. But it does mean that I -- and anyone else reading this -- might be able to brainstorm some rhetoric -- generate some memes -- which might help the Obama campaign. Possibly my "help" will be about as useful as Gordon Brown's apparent endorsement of Obama. But something useful might come out of this.
Meme 1: A vote for McCain is a vote for Bin Laden Unlike either presidential candidate, I was actually in New York City on September 11th 2001. I watched the whole thing happen from my rooftop and -- more importantly -- I witnessed the way the feeling of America changed as a result: it went from a playful, secure, creative, open and liberal nation to a fearful, insecure, reactionary, closed and dangerous one. It seems quite clear to me that Bin Laden wanted to provoke the US into stupid acts of aggression -- exactly the ones it went on to commit -- in the hope of draining its resources and bringing about a Soviet Union-style meltdown. And it seems to me that McCain will continue not just the Bush agenda, but the Bin Laden agenda. McCain's foreign policy needs to be connected in the public mind not just with Bush, but with Bin Laden. His hawkishness is exactly what America's enemies want. Soundbite: A vote for McCain is a vote for Bin Laden.
TV Spot: A Bin Laden impersonator tells the audience: "Last time, the Republicans produced a fake Bin Laden who told you to vote for Kerry. This time I'm here -- the real Bin Laden -- to say that McCain is my man. McCain is the guy who'll continue the wars which strengthen my recruiting drives and weaken The Great Satan, America. Put him in power and you're putting me in power."
Meme 2: It's the economy, stupid. This can never be rammed home hard enough. The economy does better under Democrats. And so does the stock exchange. Republican policies help only a tiny majority of the massively rich. Clinton presided over unprecedented surpluses, Bush has turned them around into catastrophic losses. It makes no sense at all, economically, to vote for McCain unless you're earning more than $150,000 a year.
Soundbite: Hello, elephant in the room! It's the American economy, biggest in the world... for now! (Shorten this slogan, over time, to "Hello, elephant!")
TV Spot: Show a huge room full of people. Voice-over: "We asked all the people whose pocket books will be better under a McCain administration to stay in the room." Everyone except a tiny group of fat cats leave the room. The camera pans round to show an enormous elephant in the room. Slogan: "Hello, elephant! It's the economy. America is richer under the Democrats, and more individual Americans are richer under the Democrats."
Meme 3: The Republicans want to supersize Washington! Whatever they may say, it's the Republicans who are the party of big government. As Tom Gallagher showed back in 2003, "even the Bush administration's own budget projections show no material decline in federal spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product -- even before the inevitable costs of the Iraqi war, occupation and reconstruction are included." The Republicans expand government spending, and expand government interference in private life (wire-tapping, surveillance, snooping). Soundbite: Who expands the government? Who's snooping on you? The Republicans do, that's who! (Rap version: "Who snoops on you? Who tells you what to do? Who supersizes government? The GOP do! G.O.P: what does it stand for? Government Oversizing Party!")
TV Spot: Voice over: "Who really increases government spending -- and government spying -- in America? Let's look at the pie charts." Charts show Republican expansion of government. Then they turn into a huge hamburger topped with the Capitol dome. Caption: The Republicans want to supersize Washington.
Meme 4: Old America! McCain is 72. If he wins once, he'll be president at 76. If he wins twice, he'll be president at 80. A vote for McCain is a vote to make America sclerotic, geriatric. Vote McCain, and America walks through the world with a Zimmer frame, mumbling to itself. Rumsfeld's slogan about Old Europe will be turned around: it'll be time for "old America".
Soundbite: Don't let America grow old!
TV Spot: Black and white footage of a May Day missile parade in Red Square. Ancient, geriatric, sclerotic Soviet generals raise creaky hands to wave, assisted by young helpers. At the centre, with Sarah Palin moving his arm for him, sits a decrepit John McCain, covered in dust and cobwebs. He smiles wanly down at the passing missiles, then falls back to sleep.
Some other ideas, in brief:
Coalition of the unwilling: Show the polls that reveal how massively people in the rest of the world want Obama to win. Make a TV spot based on Aesop's fable of The Wind and the Sun: things go so much better when everyone's on your side. That's how you get your way.
Sicko: Pack a 60 second TV commercial with the most shameful scenes from Michael Moore's Sicko documentary.
Civil War: Show how the people against Obama all live in the states which were on the wrong side during the American Civil War. Slogan: "They lost in 1865. Don't let them win in 2008." (Okay, okay, I know you can only make gestures about healing that huge divide, never rub salt into the wound. But we can dream, can't we?)
While we're on the subject, I decided to test statistically my theory that if the US divided into two nations -- the nations of the two parties -- the Democratic nation would be much richer than the Republican one. I took two Wikipedia pages, the one listing which states voted for Bush and which for Kerry in 2004, and the one listing US states by Gross Domestic Product (also known, in this context, as Gross State Product).Results: The 31 states which voted Republican in 2004 had a combined output of $6653339 million dollars. The 20 which voted Democratic had a combined output of $7089701 million. My hunch was right, but -- in 2004 at least -- there wasn't much in it.
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Slow life
Date: 2008-09-11 06:23 pm (UTC)Have to say that squirrel is good meat. It's like chicken, but the seeds and nuts do come through in the taste.
Re:( Slow life)^3
Date: 2008-09-12 02:18 am (UTC)Haiku 4 u~~~
Date: 2008-09-11 06:42 pm (UTC)he enjoys masturbating
He doesn't like Bush
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 06:47 pm (UTC)It brings up another tough issue--we can't do without the middle states, because they provide all the food. Though that might not be true for much longer if they keep using up the groundwater (much more precious than oil) at this pace...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-12 07:00 am (UTC)Production quantity, measured in tonnes. For the Us that is. Most of this will be fodder, like Barley, Maize, soybeans, and possibly something else that is used to feed super hungry production animals.
item 2007
Almonds, with shell 1043266
Apples 4237730
Apricots 80070
Artichokes 40910
Asparagus 50620
Avocados 250000 F
Bananas 8940
Barley 4611940
Beans, dry 1150808
Beans, green 100000 F
Buckwheat 68000 F
Cabbages and other brassicas 1171350
Carrots and turnips 1600000 F
Cauliflowers and broccoli 1240710
Cherries 270000 F
Chick peas 72000 F
Chillies and peppers, dry 0 F
Chillies and peppers, green 855870
Citrus fruit, nes 30000 F
Coffee, green 3400
Cow peas, dry 25000 F
Cucumbers and gherkins 920000 F
Currants 0 F
Dates 15500 F
Eggplants (aubergines) 75000 F
Figs 38500 F
Garlic 221810
Ginger 2500 F
Grapefruit (inc. pomelos)1580000
Grapes 6105080
Groundnuts, with shell 1696728
Hazelnuts, with shell 32660
Hops 27330
Kiwi fruit 22500 F
Leguminous vegetables, nes 47000 F
Lemons and limes 722000
Lentils 154584
Lettuce and chicory 5105980
Linseed 149963
Maize 332092180
Maize, green 4050000 F
Mangoes, mangosteens, guavas 2950 F
Millet 376820
Mushrooms and truffles 390000 F
Mustard seed 14436
Nuts, nes 118000 F
Oats 1329560
Okra 10000 F
Olives 22000 F
Onions, dry 3602090
Oranges 7357000
Other melons (inc.cantaloupes) 1150000 F
Papayas 15150
Peaches and nestarines 1009460
Pears
799180
Peas, dry 721347
Peas, green 875000 F
Pineapples 172500 F
Pistachios 110000 F
Plums and sloes 675000 F
Potatoes 17653920
Pumpkins, squash and gourds 864180
Rapeseed 660334
Rice, paddy 8956450
Rye 201020
Safflower seed 94798
Seed cotton 12000000 F
Sorghum 12827410
Sour cherries 127500 F
Soybeans 70707492
Spinach 360000 F
Strawberries 1115000 F
String beans 1050000 F
Sugar beet 31912000
Sugar cane 27750600
Sunflower seed 1318225
Sweet potatoes 836970
Tangerines, mandarins, clem. 328000
Taro (cocoyam) 1810
Tobacco, unmanufactured 353177
Tomatoes 11500000 F
Vegetables fresh nes 850000 F
Walnuts, with shell 290300
Watermelons 1944490
Wheat 53603040
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-12 07:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 07:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 08:58 pm (UTC)Laudable entry Momus, I agree completely with using such a tactical propagandist approach to tilt the fence-squatters.
It is unfortunate that the Democrats seem curiously toothless in dealing with the Republicans egregious turd-slinging, if anything loses Obama the election it will be the Democrats inability to deflect the mud and return effective fire..
It cannot be that hard, McCain and Hockeymom are barn doors.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 09:58 pm (UTC)63 post before the P word was even mentioned.
I'm strongly in favor of Obama over McCain but propaganda (especially the type made by people who are well aware that what they're producing is propaganda) just doesn't sit well with me. Does the end justify the means? I don't think so, because propaganda is about tapping into people's prejudices regardless of the logic or reasoning behind it. It's presenting people with proof that actually it's OK and acceptable to make major moral and political decisions based on nothing more than gut feelings, snap decisions and ignorance. That mentality is behind so much of what I hate about society.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-12 08:31 pm (UTC)I think that in the face of the ugly, slanderous, prejudice-feeding, paranoia-inciting misinformation the Republican party deals in, the Democrats need to fight with a policy comparison based counter-propaganda of their own.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 10:45 pm (UTC)I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Obama won't disappoint.
Deer Hunting With Jesus, and insights into the heartland
Date: 2008-09-11 11:20 pm (UTC)Bageant places a lot of the blame on the core values of the American heartland being the values of the Ulster Scots/Scots Borderers, in particular an irrationally fierce loyalty to one's tribe (or nation) and chauvinistic disdain for anything outside of it, a Calvinist abhorrence of "entitlements" such as welfare, and a distrust of anyone who's too clever or educated (which guarantees that they'll keep voting for the Republicans who deregulate them into bankruptcy and poverty, whilst blaming the nation's decline on gays, feminists and liberal egghead college professors). Bageant has written a brief summary of his argument for the BBC, here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7600000/7600592.stm).
One of the things I thought of when I read "Deer Hunting With Jesus" is your song "Simple Men", which seems to nail that particular mindset, albeit from a different angle. I suspect that the red-staters aren't going to be swayed by intellectual arguments about the economy, and claims that the rest of the world would prefer Obama would be as counter-productive as the Guardian imploring Americans to vote for Kerry in 2004. Any ideas?
Re: Deer Hunting With Jesus, and insights into the heartland
Date: 2008-09-12 12:35 am (UTC)B-but it isn't an intellectual argument to say "McCain's policies will only benefit you if you make more than $150,000 a year!"
By the way, Simple Men goes "they're always at war with the valley folk because they are foreign". But abhor works too, I guess.
Re: Deer Hunting With Jesus, and insights into the heartland
Date: 2008-09-12 01:06 am (UTC)Though you (the hypothetical red-stater) want that in the case that you, through your hard work, should end up making that money. (Apparently a majority of Americans consider themselves to be of above-average wealth or likely to be so in the future, hence the working poor's dislike of entitlements that cut into their hypothetical future wealth.) Besides which, the Democrats are in favour of homosexuality and socialism and gun control. And, while things have been going to shit for some time (you're working longer hours to make ends meet, your mortgage is killing you, and your health problems aren't getting any better with the cost of healthcare), your preacher and the man on the radio tell you that this decline is due to America abandoning its traditional values in the 1960s, allowing a bunch of feminists, Marxists and egghead university professors to screw things up. You get your news and views through the church, Fox News and talk radio. What are you going to do?
By the way, Simple Men goes "they're always at war with the valley folk because they are foreign". But abhor works too, I guess.
Thanks. Come to think of it, "abhor" does sound somewhat weird dealing with the subject.
Re: Deer Hunting With Jesus, and insights into the heartland
Date: 2008-09-12 03:44 am (UTC)I am a descendant of those Ulster/Lowland Scots who settled in the frontier areas and fought (and married) Indians. I must often struggle with my impulses that were probably essential for my forebears, but are a liability in this modern world.
Of course, there may come a time when such qualities might be necessary again. Those "give em hell" traits, if given the proper application, might be very useful when we start really getting serious about colonizing space. Got us to the moon, after all.
I think the Scots Irish are also very strongly represented in the military, and have influenced its culture.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-11 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-12 12:29 am (UTC)Gross Domestic Product a 60 second TV commercial
Date: 2008-09-12 01:59 am (UTC)All True, All Irrelevant
Date: 2008-09-12 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-12 03:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-18 09:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-18 12:21 pm (UTC)Don't give up the day job, viking!