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Future Shock and Awe

Last week I wrote a post about the likelihood that Newt Gingrich is heavily involved in the actual war planning for the Iraq invasion. I had no proof other than some gossipy items in newspaper columns. However, I have since been informed that Newt has had almost unequalled influence in long term strategic military planning for many, many years.

And, when he introduced the Generals to his intellectual mentors in the early 1980’s he began a revolution in military affairs that is playing itself out in the Iraqi desert at this very minute.

Last November, Newt spoke to the U.S. Joint Forces Command about the future of the military in the 21st century. He spoke of fast paced deployments, joint services, men on horseback with cell phones commanding B52’s, “The Bridges at Toko Ri” and “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” and a whole lot of other stuff. It’s quite a speech and he’s given many just like it for the last 20 years.

… in 1979 as a freshman congressman …

My dad retired as a lieutenant colonel, and here is a brigadier general [Donald Starry] in the United States Army asking me to advise on the core pattern of how you fight a battle. I promptly said to my staff, “Hold the phone calls, postpone my next appointment…He said, “We have a real problem.” I whipped out a legal pad and said, “Now to understand what we’re doing, let me share with you a framework so you can advise them.” I was thrilled. Back then, this was pretty powerful, and he pulled out a little flip chart from his attaché case, and for 45 minutes he walked me through every battle doctrine.

[…]

Now, the thing that actually sold me was when he left he had taken notes that would begin a dialogue which continued until 1987. I advised the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command from the spring of 1979 through the fall of ’87 on Army battle doctrine. Oh, and I guess in that sense the only elected member of Congress to have ever done anything quite like that.

He says in the same speech:

…my stepfather who was an infantryman who was stationed in Orleans, France, and he took me to the battle field for the Verdun, and we spent a weekend with a friend of his who had been drafted in 1941, sent to the Philippines, served in the Bataan Death March and spent 3 1/2 years in a Japanese prison camp. And at the end of the weekend of Japanese prison camp stories at night and Verdun battle fields during the daytime, I had this sense that this stuff’s all real. People die, and not just in Tel Aviv malls, but, as we discovered on September 11th, in our biggest cities.

So I come down here with a passion which is the equivalent to the passion some of you may have felt in combat…

One supposes that those who have actually been in battle might feel differently, but there you have it. In any case, Newt has been advising the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) for many years, (where he also spent a lot of time talking politics apparently.) He remains very active in military matters since he left office:

(June 18,2002)Command leaders briefed Gingrich, who was accompanied by the Commander in Chief of U.S. Joint Forces Command and Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, U.S. Army Gen. William Kernan and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, British Admiral Ian Forbes, at the JFCOM Joint Warfighting Center.

During those early years in congress he was also heavily involved with some other big thinkers, the authors of the popular bestseller, “Future Shock,” Alvin and Heidi Toffler. He introduced his good friends to the above mentioned General Starry in 1982 and they soon came to have an almost unimaginable influence on a certain group of military planners in creating a new military doctrine called alternatively “third wave” and “information warfare.”

This doctrine relies on the Tofflers’ thesis that the United States is in the midst of a transition between the 2nd wave industrial society and the 3rd wave information society. This concept is the single biggest influence on Newt Gingrich’s “vision” and the military is the one place where Gingrich seems to have been taken very seriously as a planner and long term strategist from very early in his career. (At one time he had 5 active military officers serving on his congressional staff, a fact which raised eyebrows but since he was the Speaker nobody said much about the obvious conflict of active duty personnel directly involved in the political process.)

After the Gulf War the Tofflers wrote “War and Anti-War: Summit at the Dawn of the 21st Century,” in which they claimed that the first Gulf War was the first war to occur between the 2nd wave and 3rd wave of civilization and was the greatest military victory in history. There were

dissenters but many in the military began to plan along the lines that the Tofflers suggested developing a theory called Information Warfare.

In its most benign form it is merely a doctrine for attacking and defending the ever more important information systems (i.e command and control.) But the concept became merged with another doctrine called the Revolution in Military Affairs or RMA that includes the ideas of small, fast “niche” special forces, “information driven” airpower, psy-ops and propaganda and as Don Rumsfeld called it “Exquisite Intelligence.” And these ideas are the basis for Rumsfeld’s military transformation, including his personal favorite “effects based warfare.”

To 3rd wave military enthusiasts, Information Warfare is the thrilling notion that:

“Information dominance is superior situational awareness applied to seize and maintain the initiative, influence the enemy’s actions, and induce operational paralysis while denying your adversary the ability to do the same.”

In other words, war as mind fuck. “Shock and Awe,” falls into the Information Warfare doctrine with its psy-ops goal made possible by information driven precision weapons. IW relies upon the assurance that, in the face of proper information (i.e. the massive superiority of the offensive force) that logically the enemy will not fight. Well…

The target of information warfare, then, is the human mind, especially those minds that make the key decisions of war or peace and, from the military perspective, those minds that make the key decisions on if, when, and how to employ the assets and capabilities embedded in their strategic structures.

Newt put it more prosaically in a speech at the Hoover Institute last July:

…their [old] answer has been to design campaign plans that are so massive – I mean the standard plan in Afghanistan was either Tomahawks or 5 divisions, and that’s why Rumsfeld was so important. Cause Rumsfeld sat down and said, “Well what if we do this other thing? You know, 3 guys on horseback, a B-2 overhead.” And it was a huge shock to the army. I mean, because it worked. Now I’ll tell you one guy who does agree and that’s Chuck Horner who ran the air campaign.

You can still find people out there who are warriors who came up during the Reagan years, all of whom will say flatly to the Secretary of Defense, “The right model is simultaneous, massive, immediate combined air and land forces, period.”

Now, some people see much of the Afghan campaign as a failed strategy, particularly the battle of Tora Bora, which was roundly condemned for its misjudgment of the Afghan “allies” and a failure to put adequate troops on the ground. (Sound familiar?) This was the battle from which Osama bin Laden was believed to have escaped. The guys on horseback with cell phones didn’t quite get the job done.

After Operation Anaconda was proclaimed a victory, (why, we do not know) Junior turned to Condi and said “what’s next?” Immediately, the planning began in earnest for the invasion of Iraq. News reports said that Rumsfeld and crew initially believed that the operation would only require 50-60,000 troops, in keeping with the rapid deployment of “niche” special forces theory. And although they were ultimately persuaded that a much larger force was needed, events of recent days suggest that the adjustment was badly planned and then micromanaged.

Certainly, it would seem that the planners badly miscalculated the Iraqi response to the invasion, sent in light armor when heavy armor is more appropriate and is now scrambling by putting forces into areas for which they are not specifically trained. Perhaps most importantly, their exquisite intelligence was very selective:

Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Saddam once the Americans attacked.

Perhaps this is the fatal flaw of this 3rd wave Information Warfare theory (although there are many.) Relying upon rosy scenarios is a human failing, particularly amongst those who are invested in certain beliefs and ideals. No matter how good the information, if ignored it is useless.

(All of this was, of course, predicted by the Millenium Challenge wargames played earlier this year in which they simply refused to adapt to the idea that “the crazy middle eastern dictator” was not going go along with the script.)

This article from the Intl. Herald Tribune from last fall is interesting in light of Rumsfeld calling it “Franks’s Plan” today. Newtie himself said at the time:

Gingrich, who also is a member of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory panel, said he was confident that General Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, would not be swayed by suggestions that he include more reinforcements and plan a more cautious attack.

He said that Franks, an army general, “will probably have a more integrated, more aggressive and more risk-taking plan.”

“If the chiefs wanted to be extremely cautious, extremely conservative and design a risk-avoiding strategy, that would be nothing new,” he said in an interview.

It appears that the high command of the military is not as smitten with the Toffler’s New Age vision as a military plan of action. They came through Vietnam and their desire for political support and a clear goal makes them McClellans to the civil war buffs like Cheney and the RMA types who read too much Tom Clancy. Derision toward the traditional idea of overwhelming force is emblematic of Newt and his 3rd wave super true believers.

I do not know how much Gingrich has been involved with the war planning since 9/11. There have been numerous reports that he has been advising Rumsfeld and we know that he is a member of the Defense Policy Board. But, even if he isn’t, in his own way, he has been as influential on the thinking in military affairs as any of the neocons (which he isn’t, really) and his influence is being felt today and will continue to be felt for many, many years to come. He’s the man who brought pop futurism into the American military and got a lot of people to believe that we can run the world militarily without having to commit human beings in great numbers to face the enemies that result from such adventures. Perhaps someday that may be true. kosovo worked out ok, but Milosevic wasn’t laboring under any illusions that his neighbors might join the fray or that he could leverage world opinion. The Afghanistan campaign was a very middling success considering the circumstances and Operation Exquisite Intelligence is turning out to be messy and ill-planned at the very least. The post war scenario looks quite grim.

I have no great quarrel with the Tofflers. They are pop futurists and they have had an enormous influence on the way we think about change and the information age. But, it is truly amazing to me that their thesis has become a serious basis for military planning. While these concepts are intriguing and give one plenty of food for thought about how the future will play out, they are also extremely limited. Their prescriptions for how to deal with new challenges in a non-military sense are almost entirely utopian nonsense and have no practical application. There is no reason to believe that their thinking about military strategy is any more realistic.

The vision of Information Warfare is premature at best. We would like to fight a 3rd wave war. But, it appears that Saddam, still mired in the 2nd wave, refuses to cooperate.

In “Creating a New Civilization, The Politics of the Third Wave,” the Tofflers define their ideas as this:

“The way we make war reflects the way we make wealth and the way we make anti-war must reflect the way we make war.”

I know that I will always be grateful to Newt Gingrich for introducing that kind of clear thinking into our military back in 1983. We can only be more secure as a result.

Goin’ Courtin’

Souter wonders why Texas doesn’t limit sodomy among heterosexuals. “Because it can lead to marriage and procreation,” says Rosenthal…

Wow. And I thought California had some unusual dating rituals.

Even If They Hate Him

I have often wondered how anyone could accept the Perle Wolfowitz claque’s rose colored glasses scenario with a straight face. Perhaps they’ve all been watching “Patton” on a loop with Michael Ledeen and believed that it would be just like the scene of the Americans liberating Paris. (And when Condi said that the Americans had liberated the German people from Hitler, I just assumed she was carried away with the moment.) But, now that I fully realize how completely these people depended upon the Iraqi people to welcome them with open arms I’m convinced that their biggest problem, from diplomacy to war planning, is that they are completely clueless about what motivates and animates human beings. They are psychologically crippled.

Clearly they never gave even a moments thought to the fact that average Iraqis might assume that a bunch of American guys in uniforms running around shooting at Iraqis aren’t really a whole lot different from a bunch of Iraqi guys running around shooting at Iraqis. Except for one thing. The Iraqis, at least, have not invaded their country under circumstances that many people in the world, much less the citizens of Iraq, find suspicious. And after our ignominious bail-out in 1991, it’s not hard to predict that those most likely to rebel might just be a little bit gunshy. We don’t exactly have a good reputation for follow through.

And, did it not occur to the neocon planners that our determination to overthrow and occupy Iraq without international sanction or support would be looked at askance, even by the victims of Saddam Hussein? Merely proclaiming yourself to be “good” and Saddam “evil” is unlikely to persuade anyone but silly red-staters who carry around signs that say “W Is A Hottie.” Nobody else is going to buy it. Certainly not Iraqi people who have every reason to be a teensy bit skeptical of politicians who talk and act tough. They’ve learned the hard way that strong men aren’t particularly thrustworthy.

And they underestimate the fact that just like people everywhere the Iraqis love and will protect their home, their country from a foreign invader. It’s instinctive. One would have thought that if the Bush administration were depending upon a popular uprising against Saddam (or at least a passive reaction) they would not have cavalierly dismissed the value of international support, particularly from the UN, nor would they have neglected to make their post-war plans for a free and democratic Iraq known to everyone in great detail. It might, at least, have helped to allay the obvious fear that the Iraqis are trading a horrible Iraqi dictator for a horrible American one.

Via a great post on Liberal Oasis I found this article in the Washington Post from a couple of days ago that puts it in terms most Americans surely should be able to understand — national pride:

When it came to the cause of Iraq’s predicament, family members pointed to Hussein, describing him as rash. He invaded Iran, trapping them in an eight-year war. He seized Kuwait, bringing on the Persian Gulf War and the devastation of sanctions that largely wiped out Iraq’s middle class. After that war, they were ready to overthrow him themselves.

But they bitterly denounced the war the United States has launched. Iraq, perhaps more than any other Arab country, dwells on traditions — of pride, honor and dignity. To this family, the assault is an insult. It is not Hussein under attack, but Iraq, they said. It is hard to gauge if this is a common sentiment, although it is one heard more often as the war progresses.

“We complain about things, but complaining doesn’t mean cooperating with foreign governments,” the father said. “When somebody comes to attack Iraq, we stand up for Iraq. That doesn’t mean we love Saddam Hussein, but there are priorities.”

Tom Tomorrow said it best:

We took a lot of lessons from 9/11, but it occurs to me that there’s one we might have overlooked. When you attack a nation, people tend to rally around their leader — even if they hate him.

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An Angry Dutchman

Martin Wisse tells it like a REAL leftist:

You may have noticed I have not blogged much this week; with the war now officially started I really have not felt like it. Now more then ever it feels like shouting into a vacuum. I just feel so helpless, you know? Bush finally has his war, innocent people are dying already and many more iwll die before this war is over and I get the feeling none of the socalled adults is taking this fucking serious. William Hague smirking his way through the war debate in the Commons on Tuesday, making oh so clever jokes about Claire Short. Bush and his cronies mouthing platitudes about peace and democracy, Blair and his cronies blaming France for this war because they opposed this war. The fucking reporters on the fucking BBC sounding so fucking pleased with the bombardments going on right now in Baghdad, getting their hardons from all this kewl military stuff. Finally, here’s the New and Improved Gulf War for all those boys and girls who missed the first one: now they too can do the Hero Reporter from Beleaguered Baghdad or Tel Aviv or Kuwait or where fucking ever. Then, escaping to the wonderful world of blogging, I get the same sanctimonious pricks who all along told me I Was Doing it All Wrong that mass protests or direct action is sooo passe and shouldn’t I just vote Democratic and get involved into nice, respectable ways of doing politics. You know the same sort of politics that DIDN’T WORK BEFORE EITHER?? Fuck ’em.

There’s a war going on. It’s time to get serious.

DittoheadJarhead

[…]

The marines are aggrieved: aggrieved that the Iraqis aren’t more grateful, aggrieved that the Iraqis are shooting at them, aggrieved that the US army’s spearhead 3rd Infantry Division tore through Nassiriya earlier in the invasion without making it safe.

“They didn’t clear the place, and then they left, and now the marines sure have to clear it,” he said. “Just like the goddam army.”

And the Iraqis are aggrieved at the marines. A 50-year-old businessman and farmer, Said Yahir, was driving up to the main body of the reconnaissance unit, stationed under the bridge. He wanted to know why the marines had come to his house and taken his son Nathen, his Kalashnikov rifle, and his 3m dinars (about £500).

“What did I do?” he said. “This is your freedom that you’re talking about? This is my life savings.”

In 1991, in the wake of Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf war, Mr Yahir was one of those who joined the rebellion against Saddam Hussein. His house was shelled by the dictator’s artillery. The US refused to intervene and the rebellion was crushed.

“Saddam would have fallen if they had supported us,” Mr Yahir said. “I’ve been so humiliated.”

Under the bridge, Sergeant Michael Sprague was unrepentant. The money, the marines said, was probably destined for terrorist activities – buying a suicide bomber, for instance. “The same people we determined were safe yesterday were found with weapons today,” he said.

Marine scouts shot two Iraqi men yesterday when they were seen carrying Kalashnikovs. Each man was found to be carrying three magazines, but they never fired at the marines before they were killed.

“They were pointing their weapons in an aggressive manner, and they were taken out,” said Sgt Sprague.

Nathen had been captured the previous day, along with dozens of others, and like them, had been let go, Sgt Sprague said. Then they caught him again with a Kalashnikov in mint condition and 3m dinars.

“So the question I would like to be asked is, if this person already went through EPW [enemy prisoner of war] questioning and was found to be OK, why on earth would he come back? The problem with these people is that you can’t believe anything they say.”

Could he understand the locals’ distrust of the US after what happened in 1991?

“If it weren’t for the liberal press, we might have taken Baghdad last time,” said the sergeant.

[…]

So closely entwined were some populated localities with the tentacles of the VC base area, in some cases actually integrated into the defenses, and so sympatheic were some of the people to the VC that the only way to establish control short of constant combat operations among the people was to remove the people and destroy the village….

That it was infinitely better in some cases to move people from areas long sympathetic to the Viet Cong was amply demonstrated later by events that occurred when the discipline of an American company broke down at a place called My Lai.

–General Westmoreland in his memoir A Soldier Reports,

“We must necessarily appear to them in the nature of supernatural beings — we approach them with the might as of a deity. . . by the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power and good practically unbounded.”

Heart of Darkness

Neocon Ecstasy

Josh Marshall has some really interesting stuff up today, but this quote by looney tunes Michael Ledeen is just a pip:

I think it all depends how the war goes. And I think the level of causalities is secondary. It may sound like an odd thing to say. But all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people. And that we love war. And one of my favorite comments on American character, which is Patton’s speech at the beginning of the movie, where he says “Americans love war. We love fighting. We’ve always fought. We enjoy it. We’re good at it. And so forth.” What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well, and if the American public has the conviction that we’re being well-led, and that our people are fighting well, and that we’re winning, I don’t think causalities are gonna be the issue.

I guess Patton is his idea of a great intellectual. And, for an AEI “freedom chair” scholor, you’d think this idiot would know that the speech he is referring to actually took place and it took place on a very auspicious day — June 5th, 1944. (But yeah, the movie was like, cool too.) Patton was speaking to his men on the eve of the Normandy Invasion and he knew that huge numbers of them were going to die. So, what he was doing was pumping up the troops. Here’s (more or less) what he is supposed to havesaid:

Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”

Now, I don’t know what other “scholors” Ledeen may have been referring to, although Tom Hanks made a good speech in “Saving Private Ryan” and John Wayne was positively riveting in the “Sands of Iwo Jima.”

One thing is very, very clear. It’s damned easy being a war loving American when you are a flabby middle-aged doughboy sitting behind a desk and talking the big talk. This really is one of those situations where the chickenhawk label is completely apt. Ledeen is still a little boy in a grown man’s think tank. Had he proved his manhood in Vietnam instead of onanistically watching Patton and absorbing it as “reality,” this country would be a safer place today.

What an utter embarrassment. He makes Newtie’s silly military history book reviews sound like Sun Tzu.

He Knows Something

Wampum posts this heartfelt plea for a call to your Senators to protest this outrage on the part of our own favorite Dr. Catkiller.

She believes that his relentlessness in getting this provision passed has to do with a larger ambition toward “tort reform” and capping medical malpractice awards. But, I actually think it may be more sinister than that.

That explanation makes a lot of sense as it pertains to Frist the majority leader, but it doesn’t really explain his prior undeviating focus on what is surely a rather obscure issue in the entire medical malpractice scheme. Long before he was responsible for bankrupting the trial lawyers to cripple the Democratic party, he was trying to get this bill passed. He has been rebuffed again and again, but he keeps coming back. As we all know, he even stuck it into the Homeland Security bill and forced poor, drunk Dick Armey to take the fall.

No. There must be more to this. The best spin is that he is owned by Eli Lily and this issue is of extreme importance to them. He’s a typical senate whore doing what he’s paid to do. Simple. They do not want any liability on anything. And, one can easily see how it might be that Frist and his cronies want to raid the vaccine trust fund as Wampum speculates. I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.

But, none of this explains why he specifically snuck the thimerosol issue into the Homeland Security bill in the dead of night.

In an earlier post Wampum links to a story about the new tobacco case that John Ashcroft apparently let slip through the cracks:

Five big cigarette companies and a public relations firm sat down to devise a fraudulent scheme “to preserve and enhance the tobacco industry’s profits by maximizing the number of smokers . . . and to avoid adverse liability judgments” linked to smoking-related diseases, the government charges.

That’s what these greedy bastards do. I think it’s about the thimerosol. And Frist knows it.

correction: Dick Armey, not Bill.

Thanks

…to Eric Alterman of Altercation who, at Jeralyn’s kind suggestion, added this humble site to his blogroll. I understand that if I want to stay there that I must shamelessly plug an obscure little book called…what was it? …oh yes, “What Liberal Media?”

Has anyone heard of it?

I must say, it sounds ludicrous. Is he suggesting that the media are not run by left-wing socialists whose sole purpose in life is to steal the hard earned inherited wealth of the most deserving citizens and pass it out willy-nilly to lazy, low born losers? How ridiculous.

Buy it if you want to. But, anyone who thinks that careerist social climbers who work for giant media corporations run by billionaires aren’t liberals to their bones just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

All Resistence Is Terrorism

Rumsfeld just said that Iraqi troops who dress in civilian clothes or fake a surrender are terrorists.

We have invaded a country and their troops are fighting back employing guerilla warfare against our vast technological superiority. This is now called terrorism.

Terrorism.

In a war zone.

Against armed troops.

It would seem that the only form of warfare that Rumsfeld considers legitimate combat against Americans is standing up in uniform and walking into the line of fire. Perhaps if you shot your gun in that situation Donald Rumsfeld would not consider you a terrorist. But, you never know.

One wonders if our special forces, stealthily living by night in Baghdad for the last week or so, (and presumably not wearing their navy whites on the streets) are similarly considered terrorists. Or is this another of those situations where the distinction must be made between good (us) and evil (them.)

Am I not correct in saying that terrorism is specifically defined as violence against a civilian population for the purpose of spreading terror? (Unless it’s called “Shock and Awe,” of course. Then it’s called “liberation.”) Can we not assume that the battlefield is not exactly the prime location for that activity? Our soldiers, after all, do have guns and they know how to use them. And, while I have no doubt that they are frightened, they are trained professionals whom I think we can expect will react with something short of terror.

I would have thought he was being hyperbolic, but he’s probably just laying the groundwork to justify “unlawful combatant” status for Iraqis caught out of uniform. They don’t like treaties, as we know. If they try very hard they may just manage to trash the Geneva Convention as the coup de gras.

Fear Sells

In another chapter in the ongoing debate about whether we will scare off moderates with strident liberal rhetoric I must note Kevin’s post on Calpundit about the marketing of ideas and the politics of fear. If you read the article by Chris Mooney to which he links you see that it is about framing ideas. It’s interesting in and of itself.

But then Kevin hurls a zinger at the misplaced idea that only a positive message will work.

It’s true that doom-and-gloom messages by themselves don’t sell, but something similarly negative does: fear. And it sells big.

Not fear of things like eventual environmental collapse (she’s right about that), but fear of people. Conservatives have very successfully gained ground by convincing moderate swing voters to be afraid of liberals: liberals “blame America first,” they have contempt for traditional values, they are atheists, they’re soft on child molesters, etc. etc. These are not people who should be in control of our government…

Fear sells…

I could not agree more. It works and it works well. And, there is nothing more important than taking back the realm of what is considered “normal” in political discourse in this country. “Permissive liberals” have been so successfully demonized many have actually stopped calling themselves that. They have even made us believe that our ideas are offensive.

I would once more like to point out that there is no evidence that the vast majority of Americans are as conservative as the right wing ranters like to pretend. At least by any definition of conservative I’ve ever known. For instance, this survey found that 70% of employees admit to viewing or sending adult-oriented personal e-mail at work.

According to U.S. News & World Report, March 2000, the pornography industry brought in revenues of $8,000,000,000 (8Billion) in the year 1999. That exceeds the total revenue of the Rock and Roll and Country Music Industry combined.-

The south has the highest divorce rates in the country and the highest numbers are amongst born again Christians.

ABC averaged 24.1 million viewers during the first hour of the “Bachelor” finale … opposite the controversial “Victoria’s Secret” special on CBS, which drew an audience of 10.5 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Oh , and by the way, the Dixie Chicks album went from number 6 to number 4 on the Billboard chart this last week.

Popular culture tells the tale. The idea that liberalism is something confined to a few deadheads on the coasts is a shibboleth. It is a highly successful propaganda ploy that has convinced many millions of Americans that they aren’t what they are and has created a straw man in its place to conveniently set aflame. It is quite brilliant and it will not be turned around by mealy mouthed appeals to sunshine and happiness.

As for the other side, David Niewert has some words for the left on the politics of fear:

The mainstream left has been content to make jokes about the stupidity of militiamen instead of recognizing the actual threat they represent. There has been little recognition of the way the far right is able to insinuate its ideas and agendas into the mainstream; indeed, the left’s dismissive attitude about right-wing extremists has only helped further their ability to penetrate broader society.

Americans aren’t radicals. The right wing of the political spectrum actually is hurtling headlong into radicalism and a lot of that is due to their acceptance of truly freaky and dangerous elements into their mainstream. The Lott affair provides a lesson. They have developed a need to be seen as not being racist. Yet, the party is crawling with confederates, anti-semites and anti-immigrant haters. They have also made common cause with a bunch of end-days fundamentalists and self-styled militia. There should be a concerted effort to make the urbanites who profess such solidarity with the pick-up truck crowd confront this and explain it.

Of course I agree that the democrats have to offer a positive agenda. But, survey after survey shows that Americans already agree with the Democratic domestic agenda. And even though I believe whole heartedly that national security is going to be the number one issue in 2004, it consistently polls lower than the economy and education, areas in which the Dems traditionally hold a large advantage, particularly when jobs aren’t plentiful. So, clearly it’s not liberal ideas per se that so-called moderates don’t like. In many ways they are quite liberal themselves, at least compared to the stereotype we are fed of the “average” American from the heartland. But, still the Republicans hold enough of an edge nationally to control the congress and (sort of) win the presidency while rendering the political opposition virtually impotent .

Fear trumps everything. They created a monster and called it “liberal” then scared everybody into believing that it is extremist and dangerous.

Nothing we say will get past that until we expose the other side. What Neiwert has pointed out in his series on Rush, Newspeak and Fascism is that something actually is happening and it’s dangerous as hell. We don’t have to make anything up. We don’t have to construct a straw man. It’s real. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing this out. Indeed, it is an obligation

Kevin said:

…we must convince the middle third of voters that they should be afraid of what extreme conservatives are doing. When they are more afraid of them than they are of extreme liberals, then the real work can start.

Yes. Playing by the old rules is going to kill us.