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How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street
God, I’m actually posting from Yahoo News. Gag me. However, this article actually includes all eleven talking points, which few articles do.
Basically, Frank Luntz, the guy who taught Republicans to tell all the same lies, and to phrase everything in Republican ways, (he invented “job creator”, “climate change”, and “spin” to replace “the rich”, “global warming”, and “lies”, among many many other contributions) has released to the Republicans their new handbook on words to say that will soothe Americans into opposing the Occupant uprising and let themselves be lulled back into blissful consumerist daze. Quoted from article below.
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.’”
This is why the cops never gave the Tea Party any trouble. Just sayin’.
Occupy could learn something from their opposite numbers.
This is my pledge.
Tony Baloney gettin’ punished.
Breaking News: NY Times: officer who pepper-sprayed 4 women in early days of
#OWS faces internal discipline that could cost him 10 days pay
From Keith Olbermann’s Twitter
It’s not nearly enough. Take his badge. Two weeks pay? That’s an insult to the people he assaulted in a flagrant abuse of his power and authority. He needs to stop being a cop, and never be in a position of authority ever again.
Take his badge. Fire Tony Baloney.
It’s not that frickin’ hard.
Prediction
Now that #occupywallstreet has got its legs underneath it, and every major news distributor is trying to figure out what to make of it, I’d like to put in my own predictions. The spin factories of the right are going to present a new batch of cooked statistics and anecdotes to try to refute #OWS’s core assertions. Faux News is going to start running rock-the-clock bullshit from serious-looking men that Wall Street, and the top 1%, really are suffering as much or more than the rest of us. They’ll try different tactics, but it’ll mostly revolve around cup-and-ball tricks with numbers to try to change the argument, and personal stories from honest-looking men and attractive-looking women to try to convince viewers that the corpocrats and uber-rich are not profiting. The bestest trick that the right-wing has is playing the victim, and I expect them to make that their go-to strategy, but to do that they have to plead for pity for the wealthy. They’ll dummy up some proof that the super-rich are hurting SO BAD, and they’ll whine that the big bad protesters are slandering them and blaming them for stuff, and that if they could just get a few more tax breaks, a little less regulation, then everyone will be okay again and everything will be happy.
Let’s see if I’m right in the coming weeks.
Also, I predict a lot more hostility and violence towards protesters. This stage in the game has only just begun. The real opposition is yet to come.