Friday, December 10, 2004

A Soundcheck for the Noise Machine

PR Watch summarizes a WaPo article on the upcoming GOP media blitz, which will attempt to convince Americans to give up a certain amount of their financial security, along with their unfettered right to legal redress of injuries, and whatever else the Lord High Executioner demands as his rightful tribute:

Bush's second term will focus on domestic policy, specifically "creating private Social Security accounts," "revising the tax code," "limiting the size and number of lawsuits, and changing immigration laws." The PR plan to sell these policies is underway. "In the next few weeks, White House officials, including [Karl] Rove, are planning to meet with Republican activists" to coordinate the campaign. "Several groups are raising money for an ad campaign that will likely be carried out by some of the same '527' groups active in the presidential campaign." Bush is asking the Heritage Foundation and other "well-funded conservative groups" to help, with "ads and commentary on television and in targeted publications."
I think it's safe to say that this'll be the shrillest, nastiest, most dishonest propaganda campaign yet. The radical Right has been slavering over these policies for decades; now that they're almost within grasp, don't expect to see tolerance of dissent, let alone reasoned debate. The ancient grievances, the irrational anxieties, the sociopathic greed, the bullyboy sneers, the stifled rage of polite racism, the psychosexual pathology of chickenhawk militarism, the spiritually crippled vision of poverty as sin...all of it will be channeled into an unparalleled orgy of shrieking accusation, cynical scaremongering, dead-eyed lying, and - above all - fully conscious malice. We're in for the battle of our lives...but at least we can assume that the soul-jarring, incandescent ugliness of these people will scare a few fence-sitters onto our side.

1 comment:

echidne said...

Interesting to see what their framing will be in some detail. How are we going to get from the fact that privatizing social security will by definition increase the number of the elderly who will beg on our streets to some sort of a dreamy picture of all Americans driving their BMWs to Wall Street? How are we going to get from the fact that malpractice lawsuits do give some grieviously wronged patients money that can then be used to pay for something over and above the expensive care they need to the idea that poor doctors are breaking under the burden of the massive insurance payments? How are we going to explain away the fact that the countries which today have no social security systems are countries such as Sudan, and that's where we are going rapidly if the wingnuts are allowed to decide.
- My attempt at framing.