Snidely Whiplash!
Good morning, Glenn.

now to read…

Morning Glenn..

Thought I’d mention an example of a persuasive communication that enhances its effectiveness by stepping lightly over the melodrama trap: that’s the documentary film, The Cove.

If ever there was a villain, slaughterers of dolphins would seem to fit the bill, and they are adequately described in the film. What saves it from black-and-white melodrama, however, are the filmmakers exploration of their own shortcomings and failures. This humility makes the film so much more powerful and persuasive. It’s easy to see how a bit of humility — and the rejection of self-congratulatory heroism — can make our persuasive work more effective.

‘Morning, Ellie.

And, good morning to you, too, nahant.

Ironic that you should be looking for “stories,” when Bill’s got a doozy of one in the next diary. See also ones by those who comment.

There are plenty of stories out there; it’s getting the bored media to cover them that’s the problem.

There’s a great piece of pure writing by Roman Skaskiw in the NYT this morning, Home Fires: Narrative and Memory at War, about the human need to make heroic stories out of war. One of the early paragraphs:

People seem impatient when I choose to talk about playing volleyball with interpreters, drinking tea with warlords, training police, or dredging irrigation canals. It’s as if you lack authenticity if you talk about anything other than killing or being killed.

Skaskiw points out that it has always been so: The Iliad was a whitewashing of war for the Greeks.

Unglamorous labors are merely alluded to, while excessive descriptions of bloody, glorious combat go on for pages.

But, do go read the whole thing. Very much worth the time.

. . . and a “good morning” to all . . .

“That’s why attention to popular culture is vital.”

What’s vital at this moment in time is paying attention to Wall Street. Allowing ourselves to be distracted by the right or even HCR, is precisely what the PTB depond on for their peace of mind while ruining this country for generations.

“Since 2001, the country has lost 42,400 factories, including 36 percent of factories that employ more than 1,000 workers (which declined from 1,479 to 947), and 38 percent of factories that employ between 500 and 999 employees (from 3,198 to 1,972). An additional 90,000 manufacturing companies are now at risk of going out of business.”

The jobs are not coming back, there will likely be 20 million chronically unemployed americans and the HCR will not be able to sustain that.

and here is a bit that should make us all realize that all of what we are being treated to right now is lofty lies:

“the Congressional Budget Office.
The nonpartisan agency said yesterday the deficit will remain above 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product for the foreseeable future while the publicly held debt will zoom to $20.3 trillion, amounting to 90 percent of GDP by 2020. By then, interest payments on the debt will have quadrupled to more than $900 billion annually, the report said.”

There will be no HC, – you can sew this into your mattress.

Don’t we have enough FEAR in our lives?? For anyone to abuse and use Fear as a political tactic is against all that is right in our country. Some how it must be eliminated from the Governing/politics of our country. I am sick and tired of the Republican abuses and I still can’t quite understand how so many people are sucked into their fears traps…
I guess it shows just how gullible much of society truly is.

If you like, I will list the reference readers can find on the internet. I first wrote about this in 1984 in a paper called “The politics of victimizaton,” in which I differentiated between being a victim, and being in the “victim-role.” Being a victim means having been wronged/injured. The victim-role is much more. The victim-role creates a dichotomy in two ways. The first is power. The victim is powerless, over against a powerful aggressor. The second dichotomy is a moral one; the victim is virtuous, the aggressor malevolent. In its most simple form, it is melodrama.

Clint Eastwood was once asked (back in the days of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Dirty Harry) if people came to see his movies because of the violence. He said “No, they come because of the vengeance.” I believe that was a profoundly astute observation. That is the narrative that makes action-adventure movies so gratifying.

But, let us not only attribute this to the Right, though they have used the victim-role expertly. A very large part of feminist writing uses the victim-role, seen most recently in Planned Parenthood and NOW’s railing about the exclusion of abortion from healthcare reform; they would rather millions go without healthcare and many die from lack of insurance than see reform without the abortion option. That is the politics of victimization, and indeed, melodrama. (Now, before you load your guns and start shooting, I am an ardent abortion rights supporter, and insofar as I am aware, am the only psychologist in Kansas who has publicly supported abortion rights, and have done so for thirty years. I gave testimony in support of abortion rights two years ago before a joint house and senate committee of the Kansas legislature.)

The point is, Glenn is correct, the Right has skillfully used melodrama/victim-role politics (how else was Newt Gingrich able to convince white males they were victims), but the Left has used it as well.

Defeating this sort of politics by the Right is essential if progressives are to move our agenda forward. I think it begins by identifying the strategy and by providing a counter-argument which anchors itself in a way which resonates as emotionally as that of the fear-mongers. It is, admittedly, a very difficult task to do without also resorting to victim-role politics. But, I think it can be done.

“selfless Republican Dudley Do-Rights”

Thank you very much FDL That is true comedy gold.

The economic elites run the right against the left, and vice versa as they please. The people on each side have been transformed into red meat to the other in order to keep us all occupied with marginal squabbles while they are indenturing both sides equally.

Wake up already, please!

There are plenty of stories out there; it’s getting the lazy, stupid, bored, and/or sold-out media to cover them that’s the problem.

Suggested edit.

A big part of the problem is that “The Left” doesn’t have a platform. We’re just now coming to the realization that the Democratic Party doesn’t represent us, and there isn’t another major player with the resources to tell the story. The corporate media rarely gives the left an interview, the left can’t afford nationwide TV commercials, and when they can the networks refuse to air them.

I think Obama did a good job of it during the campaign. A great example was his emotion-packed, thoughtful speech on racism following the Right’s attack on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Even after that speech some of the pundits said it was too nuanced for the general public, but it wasn’t.

With regard to the anti-abortion assault in the health care debate, this isn’t a bad rule to follow in a movement: When your opponent launches an initiative aimed at dividing your ranks, choose solidarity. A bit off topic here, but I thought I’d mention it.

a counter-argument which anchors itself in a way which resonates as emotionally as that of the fear-mongers.

As Glenn writes, it is the realization that our body-minds are fully engaged in our narratives that is key. It is not purely factual, rational-mind arguments that stick. Our whole being needs to be engaged. The modern conservative movement has discovered this, and have been working it to advantage.

I appreciate that Glenn, and others, have been on to this lately. Thanks for your observations, as well.

” Don’t worry, Sweet Nell, I will save you”, says Dudley.

“I who ride my horse bassackward” .

Perfect characterization, not?

Wonderful and wise.

Yes, we have to recognize that conservative voters have been persuaded by a complex rightist movement that recognized the interwoven nature of culture and politics. I said persuaded, because sometimes we on the left have a tendency to just call the folk dupes, wish they were as smart and insightful as we are, and made excuses for why we don’t win.

That is another problem with the use of melodrama, by the way. We make ourselves the heroes, and then get used to reinforcing our heroic identities rather than change the world. It’s a dangerous trap.

ReaderOfTeaLeaves, I’m glad you read mine….

Global GDP is around 50-60 trillion, there are 1.6 trillion toxic derivatives floating out there of which some 200 trillion is held by US institutions. Do your math. We are looking at infinite bailouts and 15 billion ‘job bills’ to keep us from noticing the elephant in the room. – and it’s working!

We are living through the greatest story ever told playing the role of saps, the left and the right play the part of useful idiots, that’s all.

Children of men, – watch it if you haven’t yet, and even ignore the main narrative but feel the background, because that’s the sort of story we’ll be made to live in as a result for ignoring the real story.

I first wrote about this in 1984 in a paper called “The politics of victimizaton,”

I believe you will appreciate the NYT article I linked to at #7 above. Skaskiw writes some about just that:

I do . . . want to acknowledge the seductive power of the red carpet of victimhood, and life bending to resemble a well-crafted story.

Planned Parenthood and NOW are, I believe, simply anticipating future victims of a health care bill with anti-choice language. Low income women will be victims here, not victim-role players. Their options will be whittled down to one, carrying a child to term because they cannot afford to do otherwise. The fact that they cannot afford to then raise the child properly will be used against them, thereby doubling-down on their victimization. I appreciate that you support choice, but I think you’re a bit misguided here. It is vital to take a stand on the issue of choice, to do otherwise will effectively kill it for millions of low income women.

That speech goes down in history.

Great essay, Glenn. I’m a believer in the power of humor (in particular) to defuse and/or discredit arguments in a way that more serious forms of dialogue cannot. Stewart’s show is a very good example of this approach. And while Stewart presents the material in a comedic light (and is often attacked as an invalid source because of it), the research (and editing) done by the show’s staff invariably trumps that of the so-called real television news operations. I would submit the (now classic) takedown and public humiliation of Jim Cramer as exhibit A in support of this assertion.

Getting people to pay attention to it, however, is quite another matter.

Citizen Glenn W. Smith:

Citizen Smith, the problem is not that our narratives are too nuanced or under-reported or buried by otehr stories or…the fact is that since Obama created his electoral coalition and took power in the White House that coalition no longer has a purpose since those, including Obama, who have been elected to govern are insulated from the weight of the people who voted for ‘em. When the people in a democracy vote in a large majority to change the direction of government and the elected govern against them, then in fact, the only recourse is the politics of the street. This, of course, will pit the mercenary populists like the Tea Baggers and the Blackwater storm troops against the largely unarmed and decentralized mass of the people. In the end, the defeat of the corporate fascism that has swallowed our democracy whole will have to come from outside in the form of an international force united to break up the corporate super war machine and disarm the country so that we can’t threaten anyone except ourselves ever again.

Electoral politics and consitutional governance have been destroyed and our long national nightmare will last until the rest of the world has had enough of us.

I have to agree that the failure to see through the fog contributes to the trouble.

But I disagree with the formulation that one or more of us, like the guy who escaped Plato’s cave, are the only ones with access to the truth. This is a form of living melodrama with ourselves cast as the truth-defending heroes in a world of blind dupes, and that’s dangerous, and in the end will be ineffective and paralyzing.

Great post!

Thanks. And I want to restate one solution I mention: we can do more than one thing at a time. I may be over-sensitive to this, but it seems to me that we too often mistake unanimity for unity. We recognize that we live in a pluralistic world, and we advocate freedom and equality for many different folks with many different cultural desires. We can reflect that pluralism in the form of a multiplicity of messages.

Interestingly enough, the populist authoritarians of the Right, who do inhabit a more black-and-white universe, do a better job of this than we do.

What does not change is the will to change. Charles Olson said that, and I agree. I don’t agree that outside intervention is required.

Citizen Glenn W. Smith:

“We” the people as a political force are already paralyzed and ineffective and the only way we get saved from our own corruption is to have our corporate oligarchy threaten the rest of the world to the point that they move against us.

Just can’t agree with this. Although I agree that all empires fall, and the American empire will, too.

Would you sacrifice any health care coverage for these millions of women and their children, just to insure abortion-rights? I understand that is not at all a palatable choice, but if that is the choice, what is the option you would choose?

Frankly, I sincerely hope that is not what it comes down to and that Pelosi can strong-arm if necessary the votes in the House and Reid in the Senate.

The reading I get from NOW and PP is they would rather have no health insurance for these women and children than give-up the abortion option. That is victim-role politics.

To honor (even celebrate) diversity, and not be divided by it.

Very well put, oregondave.

For the record, I was on the board of the local PP in 1985 and resigned because the other board members would not take me seriously that the Right was organizing and would mount a serious assault on Roe v. Wade. They thought that was just silly.

Just can’t agree with this. Although I agree that all empires fall, and the American empire will, too.

And the “fall” of this empire may come in the form of transformation from within (we, the American people), rather than conquest from without.

look at the economic reality – there will be no functional HC coming out of this ruse. None!

On the contrary. I do not see you as being the least bit over-sensitive on the point. And I would heartily concur that the authoritarian right is very good at staying on message and keeping the troops marching in the same direction. Progressives could learn a few things in that regard. Why they refuse to do so remains a mystery to me. The divisiveness created by (often) silly bickering puts the progressive movement at a distinct disadvantage, but precisely where the authoritarian right wants it to be. Very easy to exploit this sort of splintering. Like shooting fish in a barrel, actually.

“Come all without, come all within, you’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn.” :)

Seriously, I can have my dark and down moments, too, but dismissing the efforts of millions of Americans at transformation — as the argument for outside intervention does — is, to say the least, bad for morale, and a poor prediction to boot.

Back in 2004, when Kerry failed to respond to the swift boaters, I launched a national campaign to point out that Bush had gone AWOL, which he did. Never mind that CBS’ mistake diluted this attack. Even before that progressive outlets like Air America were telling me there was no time for that attack, we needed to stay on the issues.

That’s the mistake. There’s room for more than one message, one voice. Or there had better be.

To honor (even celebrate) diversity, and not be divided by it.

Tell that to the Masters of the Universe on Wall street and The Maison Blanche. Your nice sentiment is their trusted weapon against you.

Re calibrate your perceptions and you’ll see that we are being trashed as a country by the Presidency of Bush III.

There’s room for more than one message, one voice.

Precisely. Is the progressive movement incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time?

I say it’s possible, even relatively easy to attack the right from multiple vantage points, while still staying focused and moving forward as a whole. We ignore this reality at our peril.

While you are attacking the right, the Democrats will be eating your lunch. That’s a hell of a plan, and it’s worked so well for the past 40 years, yeay!

Very interesting analysis. The power of narrative cannot be overrated. And yet, confusion reigns. Melodrama offers easy solutions, that hones in on our Manichean desires for simplicity. And yet our power really lies, imho, in our very human ability to discern gradations of meaning and consequence. It would be ‘nice’ if the world was so simple as a book like the Bible (perhaps the most melodramatic of all pieces of literature), or a rant by Tom Delay, but we know that is not the case. Sometimes, often today, with the new technologies that are transforming how we perceive reality and how we impact the lives of unseen third worlders, life is not so simple though. There are no easy solutions. Good and evil run together and blur, paradoxically it seems. Take Afghanistan, for example: the use of Drones and DU are definitely war crimes, but the Taliban are religious fanatics who kill women for prestige. Is our slaughter justified by their misogyny? In the melodrama of wars written by propagandists yes. And where are the Dalton Trumbos, the B. Travens, the Stanley Kubricks? Where are the women of the Lysistrata? In the gradations of discernment, of the preservation of life itself, perhaps there is no answer. Unless we can agree on the basics that war is the enemy. But that does not seem to be the case…for melodrama, or our culture. Achilles (cf. today NYTimes guest editorial) the warrior disobeys orders, sees his friend killed, and goes berserk. That is not a glorification of war, neither is it a melodramatic response of vengeance, but a complete psychological break, and a larger and forceful polemic against war (Rage, Goddess, sing the Rage..)

Good Sunday morning reading in the time of hypocrisy and falling empire.

Re calibrate your perceptions and you’ll see that we are being trashed as a country by the Presidency of Bush III.

Been there. The question each of us is called to answer now is: in this situation, what response do you choose? Mine is different from yours.

Smart post, from top to bottom. I hope others come down here and read it. Achilles, Odysseus, the Bible’s Jacob, how about Antigone? If we look to the stories that have moved us for thousands of years, we find ambiguity, but transformation, too.

I say it’s possible, even relatively easy to attack the right from multiple vantage points, while still staying focused and moving forward as a whole. We ignore this reality at our peril.

Well said.

From different vantage points, and broadly — culturally and politically — too. For instance, we take “it’s the economy, stupid,” too literally. We’ve run away from cultural issues — and cultural venues. We shouldn’t.

I just finished teaching Antigone to my 8th graders! They ate it up and I can’t wait to read their papers (due tomorrow.)

But what a misreading of The Iliad by that writer in the NYTimes today. Too often, the classics are being twisted to serve the propagandists. I wonder how many Oscars the new version of Spartacus will win next year…

Given our myths, it is difficult for narratives to resonate that focus on the many as opposed to the individual. The Right recognizes this and exploits it.

Cultural issues and venues are precisely the trigger that allows the Economic Class to destroy this country.

By 2020 we’ll be paying 900 billion debt service alone. Ignoring reality, and it’s all documented, and choosing instead to hone in on cultural rather than economic divisions is precisely what will get us neither.

Thanks for that.

I used to use a book by Shaw,Jonathon?, who was a psychologist aiding PTSD Nam Vets called “Achilles in Vietnam” comparing modern war with the Greek tragedy. Very profound book. I’ll google a link if you are interested.

Assuming you are referring to the piece I mention in comment 7: How so a misreading? We seemed to have touched the same elephant, and come away with quite different impressions. I don’t see him as an apologist for war, much less anyone approaching a propagandist.

Jonathon Shay, not Shaw. My edit doesn’t work on firefox. Sorry

I’m glad you are focusing on that reality. We need all of us, working in all our own ways. It’s not either/or. Nothing would serve the purposes of the MOTUs and “Economic Class,” as I hear you say, better than to buy into a total us against them, Right vs. Wrong worldview.

Off to do a Candide, and take advantage of this glorious weather out in the garden. Will check back here in an hour or so . . . thanks, all.

Big article in NYT today re Axelrod. Seems people are angry that he isn’t getting the “President’s Message” out properly. Maybe if the Prez had a message it would be easier.

Nice post, Glenn.

good choice.

actually in response to oregondave (and yes I know Achilles in Viet Nam, excellent book for veterans)

It seems to me that there is a growing current in public discourse that is equating the experience of war with some profound human growth towards understanding. I reject this. I believe it represents the most reprehensible Americanism. I read the article in NYT as a glorification of the war impulse: the sense that unless you experience and engage in war you are not a man, or even fully human. this is especially noticeable when the writer mentions the soldiers need for action so he can tell war stories to his children.

As far as his perception of The Iliad as a story of pro-war propaganda, well, I guess beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder. Menaleus wants war and death, and is shown to be a pompous fool. Achilles is a tragic figure, at least in the Fagles translation.

But what really gets to me is the whole normalization of slaughter as justifiable war and necessary growth for men. It is very sad that some feel they have to kill to experience that which our near ancestors found in conversation and reading and reflection. War is not a normal experience, and neither is the melodramatization of violence.

Just my reading of it all…

Dude, you just blew my mind. Just might be my all-time favorite post here. I bow most humbly in your virtual direction. Thanks for the links to the sources, too, can’t wait to read Jeffrey Mason’s book.

I love how you place our existence as organic beings within narratives even before we label them as such. One of the downsides of being word-based, of course, is the susceptibility, after learning properly to label experiences, mistakenly to experience only labels, ignoring the thing itself. Thus the power, of mythic narratives and symbols, to jack us around by remote control. For example, “waving the bloody shirt” is a Civil War-era phrase still in use in politics today. The specific symbols have visceral impact on us, they move us to act thus and so.

And I love you focus on the danger of basing our political economy on bifurcatious oversimplifications.

Dividing the world into simplistic, melodramatic or Manichean models of good and evil is no way to advance an egalitarian society in a complex world of systemic and not direct or simple causation. However, it is a good way of promoting outrage.

Reducing the cosmos to a mechanism governed by a patriarchal political master endowed with limitless power, reduces us humans along with it, into Newtonian voodoo dolls whose behavior is determined by outside forces. But are we?

Are we beings, or machines? Self-directed, organic, growing from within, cosmic; or other-directed, lifeless, assembled from originally separate parts that share no essential union, just god-forsaken dirt?

If we fall into that trap, we end up cell-imprisoning our selves in cellves of our own mistaken making. A self is a nice place to visit, just don’t get attached, you may need to give it up at a moment’s notice for a higher cause. And if you don’t, if cling to your self when you need to sacrifice it, you end up being firewood, in the fireplace, trying not to burn.

In fact, thanks to metabolism (the process of burning fuel), we’re all burning alive, right now. The only thing to do is burn for all you’re worth.

Looks to me like melodrama works very well in the absolute dualism that dominates American political thought. You’re either on the side of the Biggest Man Upstairs, or the Biggest Man Downstairs; our opponents, of course, demonstrate their allegiance to the Wrong God by opposing us, so not only is it ok for us to abuse them (the perverse thinking goes), it’s our righteous duty to make life hell for them, for the sake of getting us in good with the Big Man, Whatever Be His Name, Wherever Be His Throne, amen.

Seems by your many references to the dangers of grasping and attachment that there might be more to your name than a catchy handle…

Seems to me, the greatest danger to progressives is cynicism.

Global GDP is around 50-60 trillion, there are 1.6 trillion toxic derivatives floating out there

Did you mean 1.6 Quadrillion rather than 1.6 Trillion?

Not disagreeing with you, I just thought there was a silly amount of derivitive products floating around. I’d liken our global financial system to a Tower of Babel reaching to the heavens with a smoke & mirror’s facade to hide the fact that it is contructed entirely with decks of poker cards.

And yeah, fake and/or misleading narratives abound. One that I hate the most is: CNN and other corporate media outlets spent a lot of time harping on irresponsible borrowers causing the entire crisis. Stories of a school bus drivers taking out a million dollar mortages etc… As if the lenders handing out no-doc loans were faultless, perhaps even victims.

Quadrillion!