Three Cheers for Rightwing Talk Radio

Seriously.

Yes, we know rightwing talk radio is nothing but a few twisted demagogues preaching to an inbred choir.  But there’s a bright side:  Talk radio is hurting the Republican Party.

GOP strategist Frank Luntz spoke to a group of college Republicans about the problems caused by the tsunami of radio bilge:

“And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it's really problematic.”

He was particularly concerned about Marco Rubio’s immigration reform efforts being sabotaged by rightwing spewfucks:

“He's getting destroyed by Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others. He's trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn't the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him. That's what's causing this thing underneath. And too many politicians in Washington are playing coy.”

All right!!!  Let the GOP civil war heat up and up and up.  Fan the flames!

Frank Luntz Has More Tricks Up His Sleeve

Everyone was amused last week when Frank Luntz told an audience that he was “scared to death” of Occupy Wall Street, and “we need to get our message out better,” etc.

But a slick political manipulator who’s “scared to death” is a wounded Grizzly Bear backed into a corner.  Getting complacent now would be analogous to Dick Cheney’s famous “the insurgency is on its last legs” speech, when we were just a few months into our 8-year quagmire in Iraq.

Goege Lakoff — the author of the linked article — has written extensively on the Far Right’s decades-long master plan.  He’s a linguistics professor, and he’s totally zeroed in on rightwing think tanks’ success in using language — shades of meanings, word associations, nuances — to gain a virtual stranglehold on the American psyche.  Republican masterminds — e..g. Frank Luntz — can use the most innocuous-sounding phrase or code word, and millions of dupes will snap to attention with the predictability of Pavlov’s dogs.

By now, Frank Luntz’ talking points — about Wall Street versus the Occupy movement — are out in the open, so they’ve lost their psychological impact.  Once you’ve seen how the magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat, you’re not going to be dazzled when he does the same trick again.  So now Frank Luntz has to go back to the drawing board.

In his “scared to death” speech, Luntz named several rightwing phrases that had “backfired” — “oh darn it, we can’t use these terms any more.”  Two of his examples were “capitalism” and “taxes.”  The purpose of his speech — at least in part — was to trick Democrats into thinking “all right, we’ll use these exact terms in our own speeches, since Frank Luntz is afraid of them.”

But it’s a trap.  Wall Street and its Republican prostitutes are framing this whole issue in terms of risk-taking hardworking taxpayers versus a bunch of parasites who want free stuff.  If Democrats use terms like “taxes,” “the rich” and “capitalism” in their speeches, they’ll be playing right into Luntz’ hands.

Words that Democrats and liberals SHOULD use include:  revenue (instead of taxes) and investing (instead of spending).  And Democrats need to play up — harder, louder, more often — the fact that large corporations exert a much greater control over our lives than any government agency.  And they need to keep talking relentlessly about corporate welfare, wasteful military spending and the absolute absurdity of the term “job creator.”

Anyway, this article has some excellent advice.  If you click on George Lakoff's name at the top of the article, you can access some of his other writings.  The Right has brainwashed millions of Americans using language techniques that George Orwell never remotely imagined.  Let George Lakoff show you how they've done it.  Know Your Enemy.  Forewarned is forearmed.  Etc.  This article concludes with:

“Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop.  Let's lure the right into using OUR frames in public discourse.”

The Frank Luntz Guide to the Care and Feeding of Wall Street CEOs

When Frank Luntz pulls the strings, his Republican marionettes dance.

Last week, Bitch McConnell was the laughingstock of the country when it was revealed that his Senate speech against financial reform had been lifted word for word out of Frank Luntz’ handbook.

Several months ago I did a post linking to Frank Luntz’ strategy memo, after it got leaked to the media. Now that the Wall Street vs. Main Street battle is heating up in Congress, I’m linking to it again.

It’s one of those F$%&#! .pdf files, but it’s short — 17 pages — and doesn’t take more than half a minute to download.

Here it is.

Hope you’ll bookmark it and use it as a handy reference during the upcoming congressional shouting matches.

It’ll be sort of fun to hear the Republicans spouting off one of their talking points, and then click on the Frank Luntz Instruction Manual and go “yup, there it is, right there on page 13.”

Frank Luntz: “Protect Wall Street From Those Socialist Bureaucrats!!”

Get ready for the next round of “grass roots” corporate front groups and choreographed “demonstrations” against financial reform.

Frank Luntz is BACK. (Did he ever leave?)

If you remember Newt Gingrich’s Contract On America in the mid-1990s, and last year’s multi-billion dollar Astroturf campaign against health care reform, then you’re familiar with Frank Luntz, whether his name rings a bell or not. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

In the past year we’ve all seen these phony “demonstrations” carried out by HMO lobbyists — and millions of gullible cerebrally-challenged dunces who hang on their every word — marching and waving signs saying “hands off MY health care” and “Your Health, Your Problem,” etc.

They were saying what Frank Luntz told them to say.

And now Frank Luntz is telling his faithful gullible drones how to keep enabling and empowering Wall Street — to their OWN detriment — while convincing these drooling dumbfucks that all of America’s financial problems were created by Obama’s Communist bureaucrats meddling in our Free Enterprise system.

Warning: .pdf file (I hate those fuckin’ things): Here is a link to Frank Luntz’ memo telling all of his sycophants what to say, when to say it, how to think and which orifice to wipe.

Read it and weep. Here’s how you get them slaves to start worshiping their Masters and blame all of their problems on them Yankee “outsiders” who will ruin everything they’ve ever known.

This document isn’t too slow-loading as far as .pdf documents go. Please scroll through it, and get a preview of the Far Right/Oligarch/Wall Street talking points you’ll be seeing and hearing over and over in the next few months. Bet you can’t wait.