Propaganda vs. Rights of Man

The Republicans under Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, their prime wordsmith and focus group guru, once again have taken the initiative in framing the Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld argument, using a turn of a phrase and making it mean something else.

Take "Special Privilege" for example. In the decision, "Hamdan vs. Rumfield" decision Justice Kennedy did not say "Special Privilege". He said "Special PROTECTIONS", not "Special Privileges". By taking the legal concept of protected rights, even for a charged terrorist, the Republican position is that terrorists, alleged terrorists, and anyone else the administration decides may be a terrorist, with a continuously broadening definition of terrorist, have no rights. No Rights of Man, which our Revolutionary forefathers risked their lives and treasure for.

The Republicans position is that an entire class of human beings do not have the rights of man, they do not have the right to be charged and tried for their crimes or alleged crimes, and that they can be held indefinitely without charge, without identification to the families, without access to basic humanitarian protections of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The Republican position is that the Laws of War, the humane treatment of POW's, the Geneva Conventions intended to establish ground rules for war, including not shooting non-combatants, not using chemical weapons including napalm, not to use torture as a means of extracting information, and a whole host of other humanitarian protections for ALL combatants.

The Republican position is that they have no problem with violating the Rights of Man.

Now we witness the propaganda aspect of this turn of the phrase. As
Rep. John Conyers points out this phrase "Special Privileges" is out to all of the right wing propaganda outlets, right wing radio, right wing cable TV, right wing press outlets, and right wing blogs. Thus, this two word phrase is out to the world on maybe 10,000 channels, effectively carpet bombing America with that message, painting the Democrats as weak on terrorism, when exactly the opposite is true.

Next, the phrase "pre-9/11 vs. post-9/11 mindset" while a little long for the two word attention span of many Americans, is another example of the channeling of another phrase that frames the Democrats in a way that they are not.

As Justice Kennedy alluded to, and also, the pre-9/11 mentality stood for observance of the Rights of Man, proper observance of legal due process, rules of evidence, Habeas Corpus, charges and the right to a speedy trial by jury, protection of the rights described by the Bill of Rights.

The Republican position is that in their radical view, the fear of terrorism and the promulgation of the politics of fear and smear justify any usurpation of American's freedoms from government intrusion into any aspect of our lives that they feel is somehow even obliquely related to terrorism.

Terrorism and the fear of it, which is widely dispersed by the Fear-Monger-in-Chief, the Vice-Fear-Monger-in-Chief and their political operatives and their outsourced Propaganda Ministry (Right wing Radio, TV, Print and Internet), is the official policy of the Republican Party and its President. (Sorry for the long subordinate clause.)

I have been studying propaganda for several years, and this technique was developed during World War I! There is nothing new in what the Republicans are doing. If you can stand to read 8 pages of what I have written, I have prepared a summary of the war propaganda process and have published it on the QuestionItNow blog. Here is a link: How to Sell A War

The reason I feel that the war analogy for is appropriate here is that the Republicans are looking at this election as all-out war on Democrats, our democratic political system, the Constitution, our freedoms, which were bought with the blood of one million dead soldiers, and 30 or 40 million soldiers who served.

That is the Republicans, led by their evil political director, Mr. Karl Rove have declared War on America, and they will stop at nothing until they have achieved the total subjection of our Freedom, our Constitution which is the only thing between our freedom and a tyrannical government, our right to privacy, the legitimacy of our government, to break down the wall between Church and State, to destroy Public Education in America, to allow the polluters to destroy our environment to line their pockets.

As usual, my list is too short, but in the interest of having anyone read this post, I will stop it here.

FYI, two Bloggers from ConyersBlog , Sanity Sojourner and Tahoebasha1 helped with editing "How to Sell A War." Both improved the finished product.

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