[Politics] A bit of Advice to all Democrats, Green Party, Libertarian, non-Republicans...
Get a game plan to counter Karl Rove and his spin machine. He stepped down from the White House position in order to pursue managing the Republican races for the 2006 election.
Figure out a game plan.
Here are some tips:
1. He makes lies the truth, and tells them often. Respond with truth and don't be baited.
2. If he can't find anything against your candidate, he will fabricate truths. See #1.
3. Reality is relative. Up is down. He will go dirty right away and he won't play or fight fair. When in doubt take the moral high ground and don't waffle. To him waffle = weakness and weakness is exploitable.
4. Read Machevelli's 'The Prince', he is this century's Machevelli. We already have a term for his brand of politics, 'Roveian'.
Know your enemy. Know his weaknesses. Exploit them. He found the weaknesses in your parties and exploited them. If you do not counter Rove, you will not win anything in the 2006 election.
6 comments:
And who said Bush and Rove are old fashioned conservatives? Not only does Rove sound like Machiavelli, but he also sounds like Nietzsche. These guys are Post-Modern as much as they are conservative. Dare I say: That I can admire, even when I don't agree with them.
I am not sure I can admire them after much of the sufferring and hate that they have facilitated. Skilled manipulator yes, but admiration may be too deserving for him. His win at any cost mentality is destroying America and taking innocent and guilty alike with him.
As strategist and tactician, Rove is brilliant. He is ruthless and effective. In that regard, he is remarkable in his talent.
But it is the same way I can 'admire' the ruthless cunning Osama Bin Laden had in picking the 9/11 targets, given the effectiveness in making a profound dent in the US economic and political landscape. It is a backhanded compliment at best. Skilled at what they do, but totally repugnant in what they do.
Is Rove to be admired for his talent with manipulative realpolitik? Sure. Is he to be admired for his use of realpolitik? Absolutely not. This guy is scum. Outside of the political arena, his behaviour would qualify him as a sociopath. Admire of him for his brilliance, but he's still part and parcel to lies, deceit, murder, and war crimes.
The have not created suffering and hate. You are right in saying that they have facilitated it. What they have created are truth out of meaningless facts and objects. They are politicians and political consultants as artists creating truths and realities. (This is a very Nietzschean idea!) The fact that those truths and realities turn into hate and suffering is just as much the fault of the population at large (who takes them as givens and not as human constructions, which they can challenge) and the media (who didn’t jump to and criticize when it should have and is not relegated to bitching and moaning after the fact). It came into being due in large part to those three things and they all played equal parts. I firmly believe that you can’t blame the leaders a whole lot more than you can blame the people.
The Left needs to get off the moral high horse and start creating as well. They will not win by trying to expose the lies of the Right and appealing to morals and principles. They need to create truths and realities of their own using the same of different facts and objects.
Neither side should simply be trying to win, that is too simple. They should be trying to create a new world—truths and realities. The fight is over who creates the truths and realities that govern main stream American culture.
This sounds very depressing? Are we condemned to manipulation by the politicians and their consultants? No! Gianni Vattimo says that the Nietzschean Overman of today is one who interprets texts and the world for him self. We need to be Overmen and be skeptical of everything the media and politicians throw at us. We need to be artists as well and create our own truths and realities out of the meaningless facts and objects we come in contact with in our daily lives.
Politics take place in a post-modern environment these days… The US is much more post-modern than we like to think. The problem is that most people in power and media try to cover that up and in doing so the dupe the general public into thinking we are still modern.
I agree with your points that the population at large is to blame for the hatred and suffering facilitated by Rove et all. They have tapped into the underlying tensions and prejudices that permeate our civilization. Instead of redirecting those energies towards healing and reconcilliation (it can happen, look at the progress made in South Africa, it is not perfect but it is a start), they keep the pot stirring and agitated. To the benefit of few and to the detriment of most.
I agree the left needs to quit moralizing and start acting. I see that want at the local caucuses, but somewhere between the grass roots and the national level, that energy and focus is lost as the career politicians and party elite take over.
I refer back to my previous post that what I think we need is either a switch to a parliment, or set, 2 term limits for ALL politicians. We need to break the dynasties and recreate the checks and balalnces. This country when founded, was not intended to be a two party system. It became that way over time. Likewise I think we need to shatter the power blocks. America is more diverse than two parties and more representation is needed. The only way some of those tensions can be relieved and healing can begin is by having more representations and equal footing for the minorities. Not steam rolling of the majorities. Whatever happened to the axiom of 'agreeing to disagree'? Thanks to Rove (and I use Rove as the figurehead or Overman as you indicate), suddenly disagreement, which is healthy for a democracy is a crime and unpatriotic. Jingoism is often too confused as patriotism. I repeat a rather crude, but I think germaine saying...'wrapping a of turd in a flag does not make it patriotic, it is still a turd.'
The other paradigm that needs to be changed are the people who sit back and only follow national or federal politics. This is wrong, politics start and has the most impact not at the national level, but the local.
While I'm all for electoral reform, I don't think that's going to solve anything. Basically this guy is just a strategist. He's winning elections because people allow themselves to be duped into whatever dumbass talking point the GOP is pushing this week. Lying works. Attack ads work. Instead of thinking rationally and intelligently about things, they allow themselves to get duped into a fake character debate, or to engage in a pissing contest over the minituae of emotional hotbutton issues. It's like "Look over there! Gay marriage! Partial Birth Abortion! Liberals and the ACLU banning the Bible! Evolution in the classrooms!", and the stupid Americans fall for it every time. Never mind the GOP behind the curtain starting wars and picking your pocket (not to mention your grandchildren's). Never mind huge giveaways to business. Nevermind the gutting of environmental laws. Nevermind that we should be thinking about sustainable energy policy, infrastructure, geopolitics, global climate change, financial soundness, the cost of medical care, or a lot of other very real, very important issues: "you needn't worry about that: we're talking about GAY MARRIAGE!" This is important! That is why Rove does so well - because Americans are ignorant and easily manipulated, and there is no easy cure for those ills, and no cure at all when such ignorance is willful.
We should act locally, we should act nationally, we should act globally. I think passing out indictments to the current criminal administration would be a useful start.
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