Usually, the nationalist insanity of the nutty Republican fringe frightens me, but sometimes it’s just plain funny.
Take, for instance, the latest advertising effort of the people at USA Next, the Republican attack organization with direct ties to the Bush White House. The image you see to the left is one that they have created in their attempt to help Bush attack the integrity of Social Security.
You see, the Bush White House and USA Next are furious at AARP, once known as the American Association of Retired Persons, because the AARP is rightfully resisting President Bush’s attempt to rip the guts out of the Social Security system and leave it to bleed to death. So, what’s the natural Republican response? It’s a shrill screech that the AARP part of the secret global gay agenda, and hates American soldiers.
As if that weren’t extreme enough, the USA Next web site has run material that actually suggests that AARP is a communist organization. Boy, that’s going back in history a bit. Why not go back further, and accuse the AARP of being Nazi sympathizers, or pro-monarchy Tories, or members of the Mongol Golden Horde, poised to destroy Europe at any minute?
When I hear the Republicans are now claiming that the AARP is opposing attacks on Social Security because “the REAL AARP agenda” is to force men to kiss each other, put big red Xes on American soldiers, and advance a secret communist plot to take over the world, the first words that come to mind are “conspiracy theory”. What other interesting theories will the Bush White House and USA Next collaborate on in the coming months?
What is it with the name of USA Next, anyway? It kind of sounds like a threat, doesn’t it? What are we supposed to conclude, that the people who run this organization have made asses out of themselves in other countries, and the USA is next on their list for their wacky, Marx Brothers version of the fascist scapegoating of old people?
The folks at Democracy for America are calling on television stations not to air USA Next’s latest advertisement, but I say that doing so misses a great opportunity. First of all, in America, even crazy kooks have the right to free speech, and it ought to remain that way. Secondly, with advertisements as insane as the one that USA Next has produced about Social Security, USA Next is probably helping defend Social Security, even though they mean to attack it. The best way to counter groups like USA Next is to point out what fools they are making of themselves, and then step out of the way and let them keep on doing it.
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OK, so not all of the Bushista attack dogs are competent; that’s good to know. If you want to scapegoat a group, you need to work with people’s stereotypes, not against them. Painting retirees as pro-gay is like trying to paint the Nation of Islam as favoring a Jewish theocracy.
(Note that I don’t say anything about whether either of these ideas is true; just that a competent propagandist would realize that people’s existing prejudices would make both ideas a hard sell.)
The Marx brothers could’ve come up with better than that, I’m sure.
Ooh–maybe USA Next specified a focus group made up entirely of straight men, and they were misunderstood.
This is just so silly. They do have a… well, I don’t want to grace it with the name “reason”… for saying this, though. Apparently, the AARP was against the states’ gay marriage ammendments because they were so vaguely worded they threatened common law marriages or something. I forget exactly, but I almost felt sorry for Ohioans when I read about that- all those people trying to get the private lives of others legislated away, and really screwed over themselves.
When this ad was first exposed two days ago on [url=http://www.spectator.org/]American Spectator[/url], I took the time to contact AARP and advise them of the ad. I’m sure that I wasn’t the “lone ranger.” In any event, the ad was replaced yesterday by a bogus block ad that purports to give one “14 Reasons” on why AARP is liberal, or whatever — if one clicks on the ad, it doesn’t go to a page with 14 factoids. HAHAHA
I’ve been a member of AARP for the past 10 years and have always considered it a membership of age group–the Gray Panthers defending their right to exist. I’m sure many join it for similar reasons, although some become activists. I’ve hardly viewed it as an organization to be controversial; however, Repugs can make anything controversial if they try hard enough. USA is a joke, but gotta have some place for disgruntled ppl to go.
I’m just real tired of smear tactics — either proposed legislation can stand on its own merits or not — using garbage tactics simply muddies the issue(s) and fails to convince most.
i was surprised to see this story in the opions section of the mpls. paper
at least some of these operations see the light of day in mainstream media. unfortunately it doen’t make the healines or even merit a real news label
only an opinion. well i guess your sqawking is getting a little attentoin
No no! The real AARP agenda is to get our white laundry sparkling white! You see on the left, how the clothes are dirty brown? On the right, the shirts are bright white.
Why do they hate our stains! The stinking clean freak Communists!