Redstate

If the American people really listened to those ideas, Democrats would be in power... FOREVER.

I know, because Serpenthead tells me so.

The article also has this:

One source at the DNC with direct knowledge of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers.

Uh . . . universities fit number one; unversities and public schools fit number two; CBS, NBC, ABC, New York Times, etc. fit number there.

Silly lefties.  Always throwing good money after bad.

At the same time, it is a bit disturbing that the Democrats, who brand the Republicans as the party of the rich, are seeking comfort in the bed of a few multi-millionaires to develop an agenda they intend to sell to the middle class.

Where ya been?  This Democrat Party still employs a teams of "fundraising consultants" in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York area.  Hollywood outreach was previously the soft money kingdom.

The creation of think tanks, media organization, etc are designed to pump message and to create subsidiaries of the same old big money liberals.  Soros dumps 10 million per year into ABC organization.  ABC organization hires 100 staffers.  100 staffers make maximum contributions to political campaigns, parties and PACs.

Maybe they want to create forums where "liberal bias" won't be an issue, where a tilt towards the left won't be seen as an institutional flaw.

Very good point.  Heck of a way to follow the money.

And I have more coming on this, esp. inre: The "Phoenix Group."  For now, I invite you to take a look here.  Do some background work into who runs Retro vs. Metro.  I think you'll see what I mean.

Here | and here | and here.

That is very interesting.  No wonder they are calling themselves the Phoenix Group.  Sounds like they already have a think tank organization.  

Oh, and what a great plug of Sterling's book by Soros.

Sounds like they already have a think tank organization.

It's called the University of Phoenix.

I'm going to print up 300 million index cards, one for every person in the US.

On each card will be three sentences:

1.  There is a positive, constructive role for government to play in public affairs
   
   
2.  In a pluralistic society, government should not favor any one group over another
   
   
3.  Hegemony is not an American value

How freaking hard is that?!?!?

If I want to go way, way, way out on a limb and risk freaking people out with my incendiary radical leftism, I will add:

4.  The interests of people who work for a living deserve consideration commensurate with those of people who contribute capital.

I realize this last point is really, really pushing the envelope, but you only live once.  Finally, to make George Lakos happy, I will draw a frame around these sentences.  

I'm going to mail these cards to every person in the US, along with a suggestion that they consider voting blue.  I'm going to track my expenses, mark them up 100%, and send Soros the bill.  He'll come out ahead on the deal.

I'm sorry to say it, but dems these days can't get out of their own way.  Billions ain't gonna make it better.

Cheers -

The Brookings Institution, Urban Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Progressive Policy Institute are four of the more prominent that come to mind but who also put out a paper or study from time to time.  

Seriously I don't get why some on the Left are now saying that they need "liberal" think tanks because as someone who has been reading this stuff for years, they've had them for a long time.

For people to realize the magnitude of the deception that is being promulgated by the Left -- their contention, as we saw a few days ago in the article by the Berkeley Lingusitics professor Lakoff, is that "progressives have done virtually nothing."

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.  It is a colossal, blatant, deliberate distortion of reality.  

http://www.activistcash.com

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org

is really a middle-of-the-road group.  They do some hard-headed analysis without the spin of Brookings, Heritage, or CATO.  I would not dare call them conservative, but I don't think liberal applies either.

Someone might read your writing and take it to heart.  I beg of you to let the Kossites "frame" the debate.  They're just oozing with hope that Sanders (I-VT) runs for Senator emphasizing his socialist views.  That's not me framing it; that's what they're saying.

Your level-headed analysis could put Dems back into the majority.  I have a modicum of pity for you since your party isn't listening to your wisdom.

want to create yet another university.

the Dems don't need to frame, they need to unframe. That's actually a semi-serious comment, and why I think Amos is being a little idealistic here.

We go on for a while about the different frames that have been adopted by the MSM.  I think that is why having so many sources of news is good.  Suicide bomber vs. homicide bomber.  Pro-life vs. anti-abortion.  Pro-choice vs. pro-abortion.  Affirmative action vs. reverse discrimination.  Gay marriage vs. same-sex marriage vs. "Gay" marriage.  Constitutional vs. Nuclear vs. Byrd Option.  The parties will try to spin, but most people can understand the underlying issues.

brendan -

With much respect, I disagree.

Democrats neither need to frame, or unframe.  They need to figure out what basic ideas they represent and stand for, and articulate those clearly.  That'll get the job done.

I do not disagree that Republicans have been very successful at defining the terms of debate -- "death tax" rather than "estate tax", for example.  The solution for addressing this is simple.  Don't play along.  Refuse to use the terms that are preferential to your opponent's point of view.  Say, "I'm sorry, it's not a death tax, and I won't call it a death tax.  It's an estate tax, and this is why".  That will also get the job done.

IMO it's really, really, really not that hard.  It's the elevator speech concept.  What makes an elevator speech effective is not the clever way you present it.  It's the fact that you have thought your position through and boiled it down to a handful of core concepts that can be expressed simply, clearly, and directly in a few statements.

That's not framing.  That's plain speech.  It's not hard, it just takes work in the form of honest, disciplined thought.   Emphasis mine.  The Republicans have done their homework in this area.  It's time for folks who don't like their agenda to do theirs.

It's odd that we're having this discussion here, but I'm grateful to RS for providing the venue.

Cheers -

they need to do:

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Republican-Propaganda1sep04.htm

This pretty succinctly summarizes what one leading left sees as being behind the conservative successes in recent years.

About the workings of the right-wing propaganda mills in Washington and New York I knew enough to know that the numbing of America's political senses didn't happen by mistake, but it wasn't until I met Rob Stein, formerly a senior adviser to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that I came to fully appreciate the nature and the extent of the re-education program undertaken in the early 1970s by a cadre of ultraconservative and self-mythologizing millionaires bent on rescuing the country from the hideous grasp of Satanic liberalism. To a small group of Democratic activists meeting in New York City in late February, Stein had brought thirty-eight charts diagramming the organizational structure of the Republican "Message Machine," an octopus-like network of open and hidden microphones that he described as "perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system."

ergo, the 'vast right wing conspiracy'.

I dare someone to call and ask if MacGyver works there.

I signed up for a few of the left-wing groups' stuff. They send out literally dozens of detailed emails every day. Flush with cash, they seem to do far more than the conservative think-tanks.

What you describe as not playing along is, I think, what I meant by unframing. Agreed that a concise and clear position is useful in politics (see, e.g., Kerry). I think the problem right now is more in the articulation than in the core principles, but hey, introspection can be good. In reasonable doses.

On your index card -- which of those statements (which I quite like) are not supported by the Dems today? What basic ideas do they need to figure out, in terms of presenting a coherent platform?

I'm grateful to RS as well, but we really shouldn't be giving RS (especially Mike, I hear he knows people) a view of the inner workings of the VLWC.

 

we aren't listening... I promise.... (sinister smile)

They're Democrats, for sure (at least they think they are), but I bet they'd be surprised to hear them call themselves liberal - unless you mean "liberal" in the sense of "The New Republic" or "Joe Lieberman," considering they're part of the DLC, founded to win elections by driving the "liberal activist elite" out of the Democratic Party.

But then again, I've heard the AEI described as "moderate" in this big liberal media, so I guess maybe the left-right axis has tilted a bit in the last few years...

1.There is a positive, constructive role for government to play in public affairs

 ...until several minutes later when an overreaching "well-meaning" bureaucrat, groomed in the halls of the "community good" perverts the 'positive, constructive' role to 'dominating, disabling'

Item 2) ? : Check with the community bureaucrat in 1.)

4.The interests of people who work for a living deserve consideration commensurate with those of people who contribute capital

     -  ignores the reality that in 21st cent. America, those 2 people are often the SAME.  

It's fun & nostalgic to mention 'working-class VS. capitalist' 19th cent. realities, but it's always important to check the calendar :

We took ourselves away from all that, Angels, and now we work in a little place called the 21st Century Democratic Capitalist America  - where capitalist & working woman can & do occupy the same mortal coil.

There is no "good" government, only well-leashed government.

I like this school.  It is a for profit university.  This is an ideal scenario for higher education.  If it cannot succeed then it must fail.

Fortunately, University of Phoenix is incredibly successful.  It has made John Sperling a billionaire.

As for his book it sounds interesting, but it begs for a scholarly challenge.  Let me look around becaues the jacket is awfully brief in how wonderful Sperling's political perception is.

More or less I think Liberals need to create more think tanks.  As their political growth scenario depends on placement for such economically self reliant fields of study like Ethnic Studies of Madagascar, the think tank is the natural result of overflow at universities.  Colleges are already full of progresslaves and so there is now spillover excess that has to go somewhere.

As the fields do not 'create' anything relative to the economy they have to go somewhere or the liberals risk another new radicalism that sets them back an additional 30 years.

In short, they have too many players when they're picking teams so they now have enough for an additional game to run parallel to the big show.

"I think we're not that far apart"

I think you're right.

"What you describe as not playing along is, I think, what I meant by unframing."

Ditto.

"I'm grateful to RS as well, but we really shouldn't be giving RS (especially Mike, I hear he knows people) a view of the inner workings of the VLWC."

I hear you.  But, of course, this conversation is just a red herring tossed out to throw them off the trail!!!

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!!

Cheers -

I originally drafted a more or less flippant reply to this, but in point of fact you deserve a more thoughtful response.  I seriously doubt we will, at all, come to a meeting of minds, but you're raising reasonable points.

Positive, constructive roles for government:

Insure the wholesomeness and purity of food.

Insure the potability of public water supplies.

Insure that air is clean and breathable.

Build roads.

Insure the availability of basic, infrastucture level services -- electric, heat, phone -- at a price and quality of service that addresses the requirements of most or all folks.

Postal service.

Police and fire.

I'll stop there.  Tell me what you would cross off the list.

" ignores the reality that in 21st cent. America, those 2 people are often the SAME."

Nope.  Most people are both.  I am both.  So, both aspects of their interest in the economic enterprise deserve consideration.

And, as it turns out, most people by far live their daily lives off of their wage income.  Further, I argue that the value to the enterprise created by the contributions of wage earners -- labor -- is equal in quality to that created by capital investors.  They deserve to have their interests considered commensurate with the value they create -- i.e., commensurate with what they contribute to the enterprise.  

These are not an anti-capitalist, anti-business, or anti-entrepreneurial positions.  I'm looking for consideration commensurate with value created.

And, for the record, I'm all for well-leashed government.  And, not just in areas of economics.

Thanks for your reply.

Cheers -

There is no "good" government, only well-leashed government.

I could not disagree more.  We are all, I imagine, of the opinion that the world would be a worse place without government.  Yes?

If so, how can you say that government is inherently bad?  Isn't anything that is essential for the survival of civilization clearly good?  

Perhaps small government is good government, perhaps big government is good government.  We can certainly debate this.  But to say that there is no such thing as good government seems indefensible to me.  

You might say that government is a "necessary evil." In my view, that term is an oxymoron. If something is necessary, then it isn't evil.

They say he's out at lunch.

If y'all were really the VLWC, we'd be in trouble. Fortunately, you're not. You're significantly less dangerous, though significantly more intelligent -- indeed, you're less dangerous for precisely that reason, because the real VLWC is still in the freaking wilderness.

Chat away. You evoke melancholy, nothing more.

It is a death tax, by the way, no less than an estate tax.

"On your index card -- which of those statements (which I quite like) are not supported by the Dems today? What basic ideas do they need to figure out, in terms of presenting a coherent platform?"

I'd say they're all supported.  I doubt any fundamental ideas need that much figuring out.  IMO they are, frankly, pretty obvious.  I'm a garden variety suburban householder with no political background, whatsoever, and it took me all of 10 minutes to come up with that list.  Anyone who wasn't wrapped around the axle by virtue of being too clever by half could do the same.

As you can tell, I'm somewhat less than impressed by the present-day Dem leadership.  An aside to George Soros: if you are by any chance reading RS, I'm happy to license this list to the Democratic party for a modest fee.  Lemme know.

Anyway, that's probably more than enough for here and now.  I don't want our supersecret plan to end up on Karl Rove's talking points!!

Cheers -

It looks to me like the University of Phoenix, as a for-profit, is pretty much exclusively in the business of professional training/credentialing; faculty members are concurrently employed in industry. This wouldn't seem to leave much time for the think-tank-like output of a traditional university, which is essentially a form of research.

The Exeter Life Sciences connection, on the other hand, is quite interesting.

The more I read about Sperling's philosophy the more it is obvious that he is an easy mark for take down.

Isn't this an oxymoron?  I thought liberals relied mostly on their feelings rather than on logic.

The discussions in the political arena have degenerated to posturings by both sides. Symbolic issues like Schiavo are used as a stick to beat the opposition with.

What's needed is some creative new ideas from any side. If some new "think tanks" can do that it will add to the public dialog. If they just turn out to be more of the same old thing they will have only marginal effect.

So rather than criticize them before they get off the ground, why not wait and see what develops. In the mean time spend your time on a little creative thinking of your own.

How about addressing the anticipated shortages in raw materials, or the obesity issue, or water availabilty?

Pick your personal worry and do some research and then contribute.

I don't think Schiavo was merely symbolic any more than 9/11 was merely symbolic.  Lots of leftists published in Harper's wanted 9/11 to be symbolic, and lots of law professors were afraid of the misuse of "symbolism" leading to the "war on terror."  That dialectic is still a raging discourse of problematized praxis and agency in the upper echelons of our academic discourse.

Now, moving forward, and actually doing something about the world's problems in concrete terms is very different.  IMHO the most important problem the world faces isn't religion, or political economy, or AIDS, or bird flu.  It's energy.  The energy that we are going to need to move our cars and buses, the energy that we are going to need to recycle products, the energy that we are going to need to "prevent our dependence on foreign oil" and the energy that the world is going to need to absorb impact of the increasingly Westernized and sophisticated tastes and buying habits of the world's largest and most backward populations:  in China, India and Africa.  

This is where the future lies:  in nuclear power, nonproliferation efforts, thermonuclear fusion research, and exoatmospheric solar power.  These are uncomfortable and unfamiliar terms, but they will not be in 50 years.  The people that the Left most persistently criticse -- big oil, big agriculture, big pharma., etc., are nothing in comparison to the problems that humanity is going to face in the next half-century.  A long time ago I promised Streiff that I would work on an article about this for RedState.  It seems that the time has come for me to actually do it.

Let me count the ways.

School vouchers/charter schools/homeschooling.

Personal Retirement Accounts/6.2% solution.

Health Savings Accounts.

Faith-based Initiatives.

Massive U.N. Reform.

The Fair Tax/Flat Tax/National Sales Tax.

Those are the ones that come off the top of my head.  Check out Heritage and CATO for a slew of other possible ideas that are being promoted.  CATO started pushing for PRAs in the late 1970s and it is finally on the table.

If the liberals come up with new ideas, kudos to them.  But the main meme that I keep hearing is that they need to talk differently, frame things differently, etc, etc... They haven't shown an interest in a new way of thinking, but rather a new way of presenting old ideas.

For marketing purposes I think saying 'death tax' instead of 'estate tax' is brilliant.  Whoever thought of that should get a raise and a free trip to Atlantic City.

I disagree that it is more accurate to call this tax a death tax, however.  During each calendar year the government taxes all transfers of property valued greater than $11,000 unless the transfer is used to pay for educational or medical expenses, this is called the "gift tax".  If a person had net assets of $5 million and he gave all five million away the day before he died he would pay exactly the same amount of gift tax as he would pay in 'death taxes' if he had died owned the $5 million of assets.

The taxable event in regard to this tax is the transfer of property it is not a person's death.  

While I am a liberal I am not sure what to make of this initiative.  Do we really want to duplicate the right wing brand of propaganda? I agree it works as you hear the positions repeated often. Many of the right's myths are grown and propagated through the Conservative think tanks and while there will always be believers, how do we as liberals put out real, people centered ideas without falling into easy slogans.  George Lakoff has already analyzed this phenomenon. Eventually the voters will turn away from the republican form of corporatism and fundamental lack of American values of liberty and justice. It will take time but we don't want to be like the bad guys.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

As businessmen, they[conservatives] know how to do this[stay in the "black"] very well.

Lakoff is still behind the curve.  Had I witnessed a progressive idea that was less regulation, lower taxes, smaller government and overall less restrictive on enterprise then I would know it was rooted in individual self interest.  On the contrary, progressive policy has merely been to elevate the underdog by restricting the favorite.

The short term success of progressive policy is peanuts to the long term failure.  Lakoff's goal is decades away.  He has to first convince progressives, and liberals, that selfishness isn't a negative trait.  Folks like Soros, John Sperling and Peter Lewis have discovered their selfish trait, but they have shed the negative progressive view of it.

Soros wasn't bilking the Bank of England because he cared about the collective interest.

That the trigger in the first instance is the giving of a gift; in the second, a death. Hence, a gift tax and a death tax.

I'm a big fan of simplicity in labelling.

I am never quite sure what less of all these things means?  Less regulation so we have more Enrons? Less regulation till we have polluted this small piece of the planet left pristine?  If sensible regulation came from the right I would be for it too. Does it?

Selfishness? hmmm, imagine a world in which everyone did what they felt was good for them, it isn't hard and those who work in corporations or large companies see it daily. The selfishness that this is mine. Consider had everyone prior to 911 shared information as an example. Or in order for me to make money I want to dump my sludge in your river. There are consequences to all our actions, is it ok that I spend on myself and care little for our children? I want that new home that new car let them get their own education. Look at America before FDR and look after, you can criticize all you like, and label it welfare state but you cannot dispute its efficacy.

I just HAD to comment on your "death tax" vs. "estate tax" commentary.  It IS a "death tax" in that what was formerly called an "estate tax" levied very high taxes on property ON WHICH TAXES HAVE ALREADY BEEN PAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN--OFTEN FOR DECADES.  How much taxation do we need, that we have to tax the already-taxed property of a man or woman who merely wants his or her fortune to be passed on to his/her heirs?  When a man's estate must be liquidated merely to pay the death tax, we've degenerated into stifling successful investing.  That's NOT the way to grow the economy.

No, actually what is being taxed is the transfer of property in the form of a gift or bequest from the decedent to the inheritor.  Which is to say, what is being taxed is the transfer of the decedent's ESTATE, ergo it is called an ESTATE TAX.

Conservative republicans decided to start calling it a "death tax" so that people would dislike it and therefore encourage their representatives to vote against it.  That, curiously enough, is exactly and precisely called "framing".

It's not a death tax.  I won't call it a death tax.  If you wish to call it a death tax, knock yourself out, but in doing so you are distorting the language for the purposes of furthering your political position.  I won't play along, sorry.

Frankly, I have little interest in debating the merits of the ESTATE TAX with you, so I'll close for now.  Thanks for your reply.

Thanks -

No, actually what is being taxed is the transfer of property in the form of a gift or bequest from the decedent to the inheritor.  Which is to say, what is being taxed is the transfer of the decedent's ESTATE, ergo it is called an ESTATE TAX.

I basically agree with this.  Probably "inheritance tax" would be the most accurate term for it.  "Death tax" is indeed framing.

That said, part of the reason it's so easy to attack the estate tax as a "death tax" is that people don't really see inheritance as just another transfer of property equivalent to compensating someone for providing a good or service.  

It's seen as more private and personal--  and hence it's easier to generate resentment about the government getting involved and taking a cut.

This is a federal (and local) tax on property that belongs to someone who has paid taxes on that property for as long as he/she has owned it--in most cases, every year...not to mention the taxes paid when the property was first purchased.  If I want to leave that property to my heirs upon my death, what gives the government the right to as much as 55% of its value?  The government didn't pay one dime for my property or contribute to its acquisition in any way.

There are cases where a family has had to liquidate the family farm JUST to pay inheritance taxes on it due when Dad dropped dead.  That's a travesty and should NEVER be tolerated in a free society.  The power to tax is the power to destroy.  We don't need to give the government even MORE power to destroy us.

 

The government didn't pay one dime for my property or contribute to its acquisition in any way

This is simply not true.  The government played an instrumental role in creating the conditions that allowed you to acquire and keep your property.  

For example, the government helped you acquire and keep your property, by building roads, defending our borders, regulating banking, hiring police and so on.

Perhaps by "the government" you mean "the part of the government that does stuff I don't think is necessary."

The government didn't earn a single dime to pay for my property nor contribute a single cent to it's acquisition.  The legal definition of theft is:  "The taking, by force or threats of force, the property of another and converting it to ones own use or to the use of another, not the owner."  The government doesn't have any inherent "right" to my property.  My money, earned by the sweat of my brow, does NOT belong to the government.  Oh, I'll acknowledge that the government can "legally" steal my property by simply passing a law permitting that theft, but it can also pass a law PROHIBITING that theft and that's all the Death Tax repeal is doing.