By spocko, on January 12th, 2013
“We are mobilizing for a fight,” NRA President David Keene told CNN. “We will engage our members.”
The association is planning to send mailings to its members urging them to contact members of Congress with their opposition to new gun laws. “Let them know you feel strongly,” is how Keene summarized the group’s message to member.
So my question to you my friends in the public safety movement is, “What are you going to do to beat them?”The NRA went into yesterday’s meeting with Vice-President Biden yesterday knowing they weren’t going to agree to any suggestions or make any concessions. How do I know? They had their statement written to send out before the meeting even started. Although I don’t have a time stamped copy, I’ve worked with organizations who put out statements. It takes days, sometimes weeks to get one put together. They are working hard to get the discussion back on their terms and on their turf. The NRA says, “Come on America, stop focusing on dead kids! Think of yourself!” I’m going to bet 200 Quatloos that there wasn’t a press release version that said, “It was a very productive meeting, we are looking forward to co-authoring bills that will save lives and reduced gun deaths and gun violence.”
Keen and the NRA leadership are going into this in the same way that the right wing has been going into governing meetings for years. They start as hardline as can be, even to the point of suggesting that they are the true victims. No crumbs given, no hint of compromise, because it makes their base angry. The key is to activate their base on something scary (even something that will not be done, something they will be willing to die, or even kill for.) What are they really saying to their base?
“They are going to take all of your guns! They are going to limit your rights! If you let them do that you are weak. Will you let that, that… woman, Feinstein, take your gun? She is taking your mancard! What do we do when someone tries to take what is ours? We don’t just defend, we attack.”
Note how they move from the issue at hand to:
“This is about you. You need to act. You are under attack. You don’t want to be a victim, you want to be the victor. You need to be in control. Don’t listen to them talking about how your gun wouldn’t make a difference. YOU know you could have saved the day if you were there in Sandy Hook. Don’t you want to have that chance to save lives? Think about how bad you would feel if that woman takes away your guns and you couldn’t protect yourself or family. She uses guns to protect herself! Hypocrite! If she was really brave she wouldn’t let her security guards carry.”
It has been documented that the lack of empathy is a trait of hardcore conservatives. The NRA wants to move the debate away from situations where normal people show empathy. (And by the way, hardcore conservatives do show empathy, but primarily for members of their own family, tribe.) They are going to ask their enthusiasts to show up at debates, write letters and comment on this issue from the position of focusing on their own lifestyle and needs rather than those of someone else in another place.
Now my question to you is, “What would it take for you to have this same level of activism?” Is it because you don’t care enough or you have come to accept that we just have to live with this level of death by way of guns? Is it because you have accepted the frames of the people who are having this discussion? Do you even use their terms? “Pro-gun, anti-gun? “Gun rights?”
Now I’ve been cautioned not to evoke the individual names of the dead children in getting people to act. So I won’t. But I also know that reflectance to return the focus on humans and their decisions and consequences fits perfectly into the status quo the NRA extremists want. Don’t talk about the dead and the specific reasons for their death. Move the focus elsewhere. Talk about being under seige, throw around numbers, statistics, slogans, choice to focus on only one part of the constitution. There was an example of this just this week.
How the NRA Activist Base Attempts to Skew the Reality of a Majority
Continue reading 20 Dead Kids = Inconvenience in NRA Lifestyle
By spocko, on January 4th, 2013 Sales of AR-style rifles, ammo spike up
–Walla Walla Washington Union-Bulletin
Right now the NRA is primarily a marketing and sales organization. Sure they do other things like offer gun safety training programs and threaten politicians to push some laws and crush others. But I believe a lot of their power comes from the development and training of their members in communication skills and providing them with the right words, phrases and concepts to achieve their current goal: guns everywhere.
If you have become pro-public safety, like I have, you’ll want to figure out ways to convince others of your views and then develop ways to reach your goals. Also, when you see the NRA for what it really is, how they make the public less safe, and can work on ways to increase public safety.
The NRA has a $300 million budget, a large portion of that goes to “education and communications.” And they are good. Very good. Tobacco industry good. In a recent LA Times Op-Ed there is a story from a former NRA trainer about the psychological and linguistic techniques used on NRA members.
Ever since reading, the brilliant and funny book by Christopher Buckley, “Thank you for . . . → Read More: Guns Don’t Sell Guns, People Do
By spocko, on October 17th, 2012 Idea: Friend of edgery, Photoshop by Kyle Weidleman
You know when Obama did a poor job in the first debate, we on the left trusted our eyes and ears and said, “Yep, that was weak. Romney’s style was better. His substance was filled with lies, but style-wise he won.”
Last night Obama did a great job on style and substance, but the right wing media called it a draw. Suuuurrre it was.
Mitt, “It’s just a flesh wound!”
NOTE: At no time do I support actual violence toward any political candidate. This parody/fantasy image from “The Holy Grail” is meant to metaphorically show the damage that Obama did to Mitt and his positions in the debate.
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By spocko, on October 17th, 2012 Don’t Buy It: The Trouble With Talking Nonsense About the Economy
If you are like me (and the odds are 89.5 to 1 that you are) you have heard this line seventy Brazilian times since you started paying attention to messages or talking points on issues. “The right wing does a much better job than the left when it comes to messaging.” Amiright or amiright? Then the person talking (sometimes you) will say, “You know what we need? A Frank Luntz on our side, someone who can come up with stuff like “death panels” or “Job Creators” and then get everyone to repeat them. Next someone who reads books will shout, ‘Lakoff!! Frames! Don’t Think of an Elephant!” as if Lakoff, his books and his defunct institute is any match for the fully-funded, focus-group-tested, linguistically robust messaging work conservatives do. And don’t get me started on the multi-million dollar right wing infrastructure of belief tanks and media. (Seriously, don’t get me started, I’m really pissed off about it and I can pontificate and whine about it for hours.)
But here’s the thing, we do have a Frank Luntz on the left, and she does great messaging work for us. Her name is Anat Shenker-Osorio and her . . . → Read More: The Economy is NOT a Deity! Review of “Don’t Buy It: The Trouble With Talking Nonsense About the Economy.” By Anat Shenker-Osorio
By spocko, on September 6th, 2012 Daniel Suarez’s book Kill Decision takes on the topic of drones, especially autonomous drones that can make their own, “Kill Decisions” as in, “Identify and Kill that person” with no human in the loop. (Gee, with no humans in the loop, drones with guns will screw up the NRA slogan. “Guns don’t kill people, autonomous drones with guns and kill decision programming, kill people.”)
I was excited to read Daniel Suarez’s new book, “Kill Decision” because Daemon and Freedom (TM) were the two best SF books I read last year. While this book doesn’t rise to their heights it is still a good techno-thriller that contains a few of the big issues Suarez developed in Daemon and Freedom.
The Kill Decision characters aren’t totally stock, but still follow some of the same guidelines of caste that I’ve seen in other techno-thrillers.
Military caste interfaces with civilians. Civilian scientists caste learn how great the military folks are. Military folks grudgingly learn to respect the civilians. Together they trace down the bad guys.
Tension! Action! Gadgets! Guns! Things that explode! Thrills!
It’s a real “page turner” as they used to say before eBooks. (I wonder what they say now?” Kill Decision is . . . → Read More: When Drones Attack! Daniel Suarez’s book Kill Decision
By spocko, on July 9th, 2012 “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Did you know that over 10 acres of beautiful parkland in Golden Gate Park might be bulldozed, scraped of all organic life and converted into a soccer complex? (With a parking lot!)
The planned development would feature artificial turf with toxic shredded rubber tires for in-fill, ten 60-foot tall towers beaming AT&T Park-like lights into the night–right across from Ocean Beach. These lights would blaze from dusk until 10:00 p.m. every night of the year. Oh, and you know how fog magnifies and glows around car lights in the dark? Envision 150,000 watts of those babies glowing in the night sky on a foggy San Francisco night. (Fog in San Francisco? That’s crazy talk!” )
Now you might ask, “How the hell did this proposed project get this far in San Francisco? Isn’t San Francisco the greenest city in the US. Didn’t they ban plastic bags so you no longer have to answer the dreaded “Paper or plastic” question?
Those were my questions, and so I went to find out some of the answers. And, since I like to understand how things work and what to do about them I dug . . . → Read More: Paving over Golden Gate Park for Fun and Profit!
By spocko, on June 25th, 2012
I love it when kids do science.
This is the related to the project to pave over 10 acres of natural grass in Golden Gate Park and replace it with artificial turf with shredded rubber tires as the infill.
I spoke about this, the book burning video below and other issues on In Deep with Angie Corio last week.
Here is a link to the podcast of that show.
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By spocko, on June 18th, 2012 I think about this a lot, how do you show people the consequences of defunding government? This is one solution.
h/t Cory at Boing Boing
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By spocko, on June 8th, 2012
I watched Schneiderman talk yesterday. Interesting, but I wanted more stories about what he was going to do to make people accountable. In the mean time, if people what to know what thousands of foreclosed homeowners can do, they can join Home Defenders League.
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By spocko, on June 5th, 2012 Tonight, Tuesday night at 6:00 PDT, listen to us at Virtually Speaking on Blogtalk Radio
Spocko and Mike Stark discuss activism in a three areas this month. First: Activists at shareholder meetings, with guest activist Aaron Krager. Does it work, how can it be made better, how does the MSM cover it? Second: Activists convinced 15 corporations to leave ALEC. Who made it happen? Third: Activists helping homeowners with guest Greg Basta discussing the new Home Defenders League.
Call in to speak with the host
(646) 200-3440
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking/2012/06/06/spocko-mike-stark-virtually-speaking
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Spocko's United Reserves Against Killing of Journalists and Liberals
Spocko’s Press Clippings Here's the New York Times story about my efforts to defund violent rhetoric on KSFO. January 15, 2007 by Noam Cohen
Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts
Here is one of the SF Chronicle stories on January 11, 2007. By Joe Garofoli
Trying to censor blogger / Owner of conservative radio station KSFO demands liberal critic quit using audio clips
The tale of Spocko, a self-described "fifth-tier" blogger who lives in San Francisco, exemplifies how one person with a computer and an Internet hookup can challenge the views of a major media corporation -- and what a media corporation will do to stop him.
For the past year, Spocko has been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they're supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO's Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be "stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out."
[snip]
A little over a year ago, he became so annoyed by the "violent" tone of commentary on KSFO-AM that he and some of his readers e-mailed more than three dozen of the station's advertisers.
"I want to emphasize that if you withdraw your ads you aren't limiting their free speech, just removing your paid support of it," Spocko wrote to advertisers.
Join the EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided me free legal representation in the ABC matter. Please consider supporting them!"
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