Target Them By Both Fear and Hope! (0.00 / 0)

    "In the case of the power of possible cures for different diseases via stem cell remedies is very high," says a group of well-respected scientist and physicians. (This a hypothetical example.)

      Nonetheless, there are examples of the power stem-cell treaments off via scientific literature. That said, if we not use positive propaganda to fuel the hopes of every-day citizens with the advantagious--on the brink--breakthroughs of cell-stem research and treatment, we will not get the needed political mobilization. Obviously, the fear is that they will not receive with this new-founded treatment, unless x, y, and z

       We can cannot wait to sit by the sidelines again, as was the case with global warming.  Our progressive think-tanks and different scientific advocacy groups have to come together and put out at all offensive in the public relations battle!

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by: Jason Cataldi @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 19:25:34 PM UTC

Good point, David. (4.00 / 3)

Persuasion is an art.  Building trust on little issues may help you convince on big things.

You must know and respect your audience.  Many upper midddle class "liberals" or "creative class" folks have disdain for working class people, and it shows through.

Empathy, not sympathy.  Respect.

While you sometimes run into issues on blogs with folks, I suspect you do better with working class folks.  

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by: Tom Wells @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 19:44:50 PM UTC

Yeah those folks really steam me. (4.00 / 2)

And when there's five or six of us stuck behind one of them, I just want to ram them. For a while I used to flash my lights at them; but to no avail. Now sometimes when I can finally pass them on the right I'll do a short honk as I go by. Does no real good but lets out some of the smoke in my brain.

Thanks for airing this big issue.

Jeff Wegerson

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by: wegerje @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 19:50:39 PM UTC

They're not in opposition (4.00 / 3)

I think maybe you're putting the cart a little ways in front of the horse. Rather than deciding what issues are important and trying to convince people to care about them, why not look at the things people DO care about and offering big picture solutions that recognize rather than invalidate those concerns? Hot-button local issues are not a distraction, but rather present a tremendous OPPORTUNITY to engage in meaningful conversation about priorities that really reaches people.

Ultimately, politics is just the process of answering the question how do we live together? Embracing and addressing the seemingly mundane concerns of ordinary folks while framing those concerns as part of a broader struggle -- this is the key to making politics meaningful to people again (and is the basis of the community organizing model, I might add.)

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by: hubbird @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 20:01:15 PM UTC

Efficacy (4.00 / 6)

Part of this is simply that folks feel powerless to do anything about the distant stuff.

They may feel powerless about the stuff closer to home, too, but they have a much sharper sense that they shouldn't be powerless when it comes to that stuff.

What the right does is not just address that stuff, but feed the sense of powerless, and the resentment that goes with it.  Resentment has been the foundation of their politics since the 1960s, and--surprise! surprise!--it turns out that resentment is not really such a good foundation for running a modern industrial democracy after all.  Hence Spending Freeze! Spending Freeze!  

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 20:05:02 PM UTC

Industrial democracy? (4.00 / 1)

When was the the last time the U.S. was an industrial democracy? 1980? 1998? This politics of resentment stuff is perfect for a banana republic. If GWB was Evita Peron, maybe we oughta consider turning Obama into Evo Morales.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.... Sort of....

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by: William Timberman @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 20:42:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've been doing a local talk radio show for (4.00 / 3)

4 years now in the very conservative and libertarian Gallatin County in Montana.  Of the 35 or more hours of local right wing or Ayn Rand talk shows, we have only our 3 hours.  I rarely talk about local issues or state issues because that's just not who I am.  But what I constantly do is "connect the dots".  
We have spent the last three weeks interviewing people on Africa.  We spend one of our three hours doing this.
We found out that the vulture funds have been doing a number in African countries like Zambia.  My co-host likened what was going on to "loan sharking".  Our guest from the TransAfrica Forum cried, "Yes, you got it." Then we related the "loan modification" going on here.  

Last week we talked about the Congo.  We found out that they have a mineral called coltan that is essential for our cell phones, laptops, guidance systems, airbags. We found out that Peace Corps volunteers went over to Mali to teach Malians how to grow food.  But the Malians have been growing food for thousands of years compared to our little 200 some years.  How would we like it if the French came to Montana and told us how to raise our Hereford cattle?  

We use the learn and teach idea.  Sometimes you teach and sometimes you learn.  The older I get the more I want to listen and the less I want to talk.  I'm bored with my own ideas.  And if you are always lecturing people like liberals like to do, it's a big turn off to most people. We respect our callers and try and learn from them.  Unless they are rude or boring, then I cut them off.

Our goal is to get them to stop repeating phrases from right wing radio and to question what they have heard and to bring us news stories that got away from the Fat Cat News.      

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by: FeralCat @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 20:43:17 PM UTC

Bipartisan girl talk...it's fun and its bonding (0.00 / 0)

I know you are talking about finding ways to push people's buttons.  The right pushes the fear button.  The left wants people to respond when the care button is pushed.

I think one of the reasons that people call in about things like ticketing slow drivers...is that they know it affects lots of people..it's easy to see how it affects them....and it's a low conflict kvetch that brings people together.   And people like to feel that they are part of something larger...not in a big, solemn picture sense, but in that we all have this in common.

Just remember the little feeling of deight you get when you meet a new person, and you discover you both have some small thing in common.  "Oh so you know so and so"  "Oh you loved that candy that is no longer made (tutti frutti gum from subway vending machines)" or you were in the same odd dept in college.( I recently met another women who was in this very unusual major, Mediterranean Studies.  I felt like I found found my lost twin for a while)  It feels real good, like whipped cream on top of a dessert.  

Despite what conservatives market, the majority of people, surely the majority of women, but I think even the majority of men; do not seek out conflict and anger.  They seek out agreement, because most of time, it's validating, it's bonding. It makes people who are disconnected feel connected.  Most people prefer that feeling to anger.

Some may think that anger is a glue, it is. But cozy, comfortable agreement....over good things like a band everyone likes or over small things like a so-so movie everyone agrees is so-so....that is a more potent glue. We were born that way....to seek love and support; anger drives that away

My title refers to the facts that women know that more than men; they do it more consciously than men.  Men do it but they don't want to talk about it.  Further, I want to say that I frequently engage in bipartisan girl talk  (hair, clothes, kids, food, travel, family) with any women I know isn't a raging liberal.  I enjoy it because it gives me a way to understand them, but also it just makes you feel good. We're all just people in the end.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

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by: debcoop @ Tue Mar 10, 2009 at 04:23:49 AM UTC

Stem cells are not like slow-pokes on many levels (0.00 / 0)

Not just the local/national divide.

No one needs to be an "expert" to talk about the slow drivers that annoy them, but expressing an opinion about stem cells has a slightly higher bar of understanding.

Complaining about slow drivers is reflexive, while exploring the details of embryonic versus adult stem cells is an intellectual discussion.  

As much as I support President Obama's reversal of the embryonic stem cell restrictions placed by Bush/Cheney, I'm quite disappointed by tenor of the "debate". It is almost as if there is no value in basic medical research that does NOT involve stem cells. This is, of course, not true.  Nor are stem cells (embryonic or otherwise) the only approach to curing and treating these diseases. But, that part of the issue gets left out, as the issue begins to revolve around a shrunken version of "The Culture of Life".  I remember when the Human Genome Project was pitched as the way to find cures for all the health problems in the world, too.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Tue Mar 10, 2009 at 16:53:38 PM UTC