Slogan and bromide open thread
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One of the things liberals are terrible at is messaging. We tend to start discussing issues by going Full Wonk, and that isn't very appealing to the largest part of the population. If you want to engage on an issue you need to get your rhetorical foot in the door first, and that means finding a quick, punchy way to grab the average citizen's attention.
So I thought I'd throw open a thread for brainstorming. Come up with something that could fit on a bumper sticker and (important!) is an actual policy prescription or direct action most people can take. No "visualize world peace" or anything like that. Make it short, make it punchy, make it relevant.
With that in mind, here is an example of each. First, direct action.
Slogan: Buy local. Pay cash.
Policy prescription/direct action: Encourage citizens (let's get away from calling them "consumers," OK?) to carry cash, particularly if they are in the habit of swiping everything on a credit card. Spend that money on smaller, local merchants instead of big, remote franchisees.
Effect: Deprives banksters of fees; supports small merchants who have a stake in the community's long term future. Secondary benefit: small local merchants are often have the same tenuous grip on the middle class life as their neighbors. Choosing them over MegaCorp is a small show of solidarity, builds social capital, and maybe makes the merchant a little more receptive to "all walks of life" type direct action. Cf. the (now sadly dormant) Proud Ohio Workers program mentioned here.
Next, a policy prescription.
Slogan: 15:1
Policy prescription/direct action: Make a nationwide standard for the maximum student/teacher ratio in public primary and secondary schools to be 15:1.
Effect: Smaller class sizes, especially in lower income communities that need it most. Focuses attention on classroom environment instead of standardized testing or privatization. Provides guaranteed national funding to those places (including, ahem, some entire states) that abdicate their responsibilities in that regard.
So: What are your preferred slogans this fine Saturday morning?
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slogan
Forget Red and Blue/Vote Green
Policy prescription/Direct action - encourage citizens to think outside the box, free themselves from the depredations of the 2 parties that are dragging us down, and choose an alternative that better suits their needs
Effect - shakes up the political establishment, maybe to the core, and opens up possibilities for progress and a renewal of democracy that have long been thought "impossible"
It's
not the messaging. Libruls are useless,untrustworthy,delusional,compromising,elitist... well you get my drift. That's why only 20% of the population identifies itself as Liberal. 4 decades of the Liberal/Conservative(Big Tent Democrats and the Republcans) coalition has destroyed this country.
strategic p0licy
Think Go not Chess.
:)
Like it!
Think Go not Chess
Yeah, Aquifer -- I came to it because of thinking that we humans have lost the struggle with corporations. We are now a subject species. How do we fight back? All I could come up with is: Think Go not Chess: magnetic reorientation.
Preparing the seedbed
A buddy and I were riding home last night after a couple of days of fishing upcountry. Let's just say that politics is not something we share, but without thinking much about it he turned on the truck radio. It was tuned to Fox. He apologized, and I said, "Leave it, let's see what they have to say." Right away, we were treated to a minute or so of absolute far right rant in the form of a political advertisement for Susan Collins - whose Senatorial term still has a couple of years to go. Then Howie Carr proceeded to "entertain' us. It was the verbal equivalent of professional wrestling.
My friend apologized again, turned it off, and I asked, how much of that do you believe? None of it, he replied, they all lie. No, told him, but Fox sure does. The point here is that this was obvious nonsense, with a purpose. Fox was laying the groundwork for those bumper sticker slogans we're thinking about here. This being late spring, I was thinking of it as plowing the ground and preparing the seed bed. When Susan Collins does run, she has established the hook on which people inclined to support her can hang her three word slogan and give it meaning. Her perpetual campaign was on the radio last night paying to get that done.
The Left simply has never done that in my lifetime, and I am 65. We need simple messaging, it is true. However, those bumper sticker messages resonate only within a context that has already been provided. It seems to me that this is the real challenge.
My suggestions for three word slogans follow the twelve word platform. I am particularly attracted to "Medicare for Everyone" because it seems to me that this is the easiest to comprehensively communicate.
Health Care Slogan
I was going to propose "HEALTH CARE - NOT HEALTH INSURANCE" on this theme, but I like yours better because it's 3 words and asks for the same thing -- the elimination of the insurance industry from the health care system.
I did not make this slogan up, it was a phrase in a sentence in an excellent post that I wish now I could properly credit and attribute. It struck me because it powerfully decoupled the two concepts (care versus insurance) and summarized in 5 words the heart of the matter. Well, maybe if we're doing T-shirts it could be a subtitle or the artwork for the "B" side :)
Green Party Twelve Word Platform
It's just 1/4 of the Green Party twelve word platform - no originality on my part. It's an example of good lefty messaging already out there. The challenge is to help it take root.
How about this?
It’s Socialized Health Insurance, Not Socialized Medicine!
Yes, you are right - what is the story?
People need to fit all this into a story. When Fox wants to propagandize, they find a story that resonates, and then catapult it. If they can't find just the right story, they embellish it a bit. There is a reason they do that. Well, the lefty blogosphere isn't Fox, but collectively we have even more reach. So, what is that tale(s), and how do we get people like you and me tell their story(ies) in a way that expands that understanding of the difference between insurance and medicine?
Economic Security Before Security Theatre
Policy prescription- Stop spending huge amounts on useless security theatre (from confiscating toothpaste in airports to bombing Afghan villagers) when the elephant in the room is how economically insecure we are. Instead spend it on a jobs guarantee where the jobs are decided democratically at a community level.
( I know that according to MMT, the money for a jobs guarantee doesn't have to come from cutting other spending or raising taxes. But, I like considering the 2 issues together to highlight the fact that what we have is a crisis of priorities.)
Close the Security Theatre?
Curtains down at the Security Theatre?
Shut down the Security Theatre?
“Keep your hands off my
“Keep your hands off my junk!"
It's already in use, and arose spontaneously as one guy's response to the TSA search of his private parts. It works equally well regarding women's reproductive rights. And it can even be interpreted as defying banks that are evicting homeowners, or police who seize property long before conviction.
Of course, it can be adapted for other causes. Legalizing pot: "Keep your hands of my skunk!" (Or funk.) Protesting the Catholic Church's molestation cover-up: "Keep your hands off my monk!" Or for the apolitical or merely whimsical: "Keep your hands off my hunk!"
"Give me Liberty -- forgive
"Give me Liberty -- forgive my Debt."
An antidote to 'Citizens United'
"Don't vote for anybody who airs an ad" And "the more they airs ads, the more you should stay away from them"
That's really good
We should start stigmatizing ads and other kinds of fast food, big money electioneering strategies. Celebrate local, active efforts.
Something to ponder....
Great comment though, Andre.
Death to the Legacy 2-Party System
Nothing beats "Obomney/Robama", but here's one in the same vein. Could be a slogan for Third-Party candidates.
"Vote [candidate]"
"D(N)R" (Do Not Reuscitate Zombie DNC/GOP)