SMEARING 101

THE CLOUT OF BELITTLING REPETITION
The World’s Only Contest Where This is Effective

This discussion is long overdue. Once again, we’ve allowed the talking heads of the Republican Party - the tiniest fraction of the American populace you could measure - to corrupt otherwise pleasant, very positive, normal descriptive terms in our language. It should be noted, they have been greatly (!) aided by their newest friends since January 2001, the Media lapdogs. When you read the true definitions of the word liberal, you get a completely different mental picture of the meaning of this word than you’ll get from the 24/7 news.

I’m really hoping readers will join me in this outrage against the Republican savaging of this lovely word. We NEED to stand up for what’s right. Our motto should be: Instantly Disparage Belittling Repetition. Any coach, or General, or advisor will tell you the wisdom of this tactic: when you finally completely understand the strategy of the opposition, you have at least 90% of the battle won. When any of your friends fall victim to the torrent of noise from Fox News, or other belittling Republican voices, gently and softly correct them.

MOST people don’t realize just how far the belittling of this pleasant word has gone !

Here’s how I found out: I’ve now asked on the order of 30 adults to define liberal and I swear to you on my honor I got a different definition from almost everyone. Of those active Republicans I asked, I got the standard lock-step answer. They defined liberal as Democratic, or, in their latest corruption of it, Democrat.

Let’ see – if we ask the highest authority (the dictionary) to define it we find it comes from the 14th Century, is of Anglo-French origin, and means, quite simply:

generous
marked by generosity
openhanded
ample, or full
not bound by restrictive authoritarianism
greater individual participation
a giver
a provider for others

Those Christians out there will quickly see Jesus Christ in these definitions. (I don’t know about Mohammed – I haven’t read his stuff.) That last definition is what I think the Republican smear-artists hate the most. No Child Left Behind was not given any money to make it work! - thus it instantly became a four word euphemism ! The Clean Water Act, amended 1977, gave the EPA the authority to control pollution. A good thing, right? Well, the EPA controlled pollution all right. They controlled it by relaxing pollution standards for CORPORATIONS, to save them money!! The Clean Water Act thus became a four-word euphemism. And on and on…..

A NEW DETAIL *** But we’re making some headway. A prominent writer* on the American condition made a momentous discovery as far as I know, a couple of years ago. Doing work for one of his books he asked the American people a lot of questions about their opinions, their beliefs and so forth, and the picture that emerged was that the United States, in this new millennium, is predominantly liberal. You can ask your neighbor if s/he believes in helping the poor, or wants laws passed to protect Children or animals, or make medicine not so prohibitive in price, etc. You will find the answers will border on 100% yes to these questions. This writer never used the word liberal, as I understand it. He just asked realistic questions, and look at the picture that emerged !! Think about this reality for a moment. When asked what their position is on all of those wonderful ideas above, helping the poor, helping children with medicine, food, protecting the aged and kids and animals, etc. etc. etc. practically 100% of Americans stood up and passed the humanity test. Certainly on the order of 8 or 9 out of 10. For instant proof: notice how much Americans give to those requests to help starving kids in Africa, or Darfur or Bangladesh.

BUT WHEN ASKED A QUESTION about Liberals, or for example liberalism, by a different questioner at a different time, a lot of these very same people (I know, it isn’t consistent) these very same people will tell you why they despise liberals. Out will come the buzz words: Baby killer – that stemmed from a liberal view of a woman’s right to have an abortion or not. Tree-hugger – that one to smear those of us who revere one of God’s greatest gifts to us, trees, and value trees over another ugly strip mall! Socialized medicine – that one to smear those of us who have the weird view that people in America should be protected from serious health issues – you know, like what we do for the Congress. Or the Supreme Court. Or members of the Armed Forces. Commie – (sometimes softened to Pinko) – that one to smear those of us who believe that anyone completely down and out, or nearly so, should be helped by the rest of us with some form of welfare, to give them a hand up. Cut and run – to smear those of us who recognize the folly, the insanity, indeed the utter arrogance of an unreasonable war, founded on lies to the Congress. Space in this post wouldn’t permit naming all of them, but readers have heard them, I’m sure, if paying attention.

There are thousands of contests of every description known to man, including Political contests. Of all the contests that take place, the smearing of the participants by outside onlookers is the only one I know of where saying bad things about the competition helps decide winner and loser ! Only in politics does smearing work. I mean, you could say Derek Jeter is a Muslim: that he fathered an illegitimate child, and never helps his Mother, but the next day he’d start seven double plays, hit .375 with no strikeouts, and steal four bases.

So – doesn’t it sound reasonable to say that we – ALL of us, certainly me included – really need to combat these smear experts? It occurs to me – and someone please enlighten me if I’m wrong – it occurs to me that the biggest purveyors of the smear are those comedians on AM radio …? The talk radio crowd? Right? Wrong? I do NOT listen to them, so I can’t be certain about numbers, but I’ve been tipped by a couple friends about that source of smear, and have read reports about them.

My take on this thing is, we absolutely have to stem the tide of belittling smears of our candidates, or officeholders, oreach other. My judgment tells me we should do it with grace, like Hannah did it, and not belittle the belittler, rather we should try to enlighten the belittler, in the belief that s/he is only repeating what he has been fed by those with that agenda. You might try my tactic: ask anyone who uses that word if they would define it for you. Do NOT correct them, let them talk. They’ll dig themselves into a hole. Then in your very softest demeanor, you might ask them why Webster defines it so much differently than their take on it. I told one of my respondents I was a writer and wanted to be sure I was using the word right. Wow – you should have heard him then – he got into high gear, and quickly repeated all the lock step Republican buzz words on what a liberal is, especially those of the talk radio who call liberals evil!

Oh. And be liberal in your appreciation that they deserve to have their own position.

*Name withheld to eliminate smearing.
Faithfully, in the interest of the American people