This is a half-rant, half-observation, half-call-to-action diary (that's right it's 1.5 diaries). So here is the deal, on the left time and again we get hit with memes. It's not fair, and I say it's time we start fighting fire with fire, the only difference is that we will use facts and truth and all that good Progressive stuff.
What is a meme? A meme (rhyming with "cream") is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. A good example that the right wing has been using for a while is the Birther meme. It is a concept without factual basis, transmitted from one mind to another through speech (Rush Limbaugh blabbing incessantly), gestures and rituals (going to a town meeting and screaming about taking back your country). It takes hold not because of its veracity and inherent truth value but because enough people want to believe it and are actively disseminating it.
The right is much better at this than the left is, I would argue because memes of this sort are more like glib generalities and out and out lies, and the left tends to look at things more critically (ironically, quite the generality I just made). Let's take a look at the memes that the right has successfully pushed onto the American public.
- Canadian and British Healthcare is a failed socialist nightmare
- President Obama somehow isn't one of us
- Obamacare will result in Grandma being put down
- Liberals are socialists
- Liberals are fascists
- Liberal is a dirty word
- The New Deal did not end the Great Depression
- Homosexuals are destroying traditional family values
- Sex Education turns teenagers into sex perverts
- The Free Market is ALWAYS better at allocating resources
- The Free Market is self-regulating
- Latte sipping volvo driving arugula eating liberals don't understand work-a-day blue collar conservatives
- John Kerry is an effeminate Frenchman
- and the list goes on and on...
How can you detect a meme? It has this tone of authoritative fact coupled brashly with a lack of anything one would recognize as objective evidence. Sometimes a meme fully flourishes in the face of substantial and even overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The problem with a meme is that the way Liberals in the media attempt to take it on is by denouncing it as false, not realizing that a meme is like a rash, if you scratch it it spreads.
The only effective way to combat this is to start some memes on our own side, and because we are awesome Progressives we can base them in the truth and still make them effective. The problem is that we are going to have to generalize (some would say over-generalize) to make them effective.
I think that there are two memes that we need to push, and aggressively, on every media outlet that has a liberal or progressive voice and in our writing.
For-Profit Death-By-Spreadsheet
We need to make it understood that the for-profit health insurance scheme that is currently in place is right now killing people to make money. This meme counters the Deathers meme, and by virtue of its truth should have stronger staying power.
Conservative Corporatists
Let them call us socialist / fascists (by the way what the hell would that be). Let's start calling them what they are, Corporatists. We need to yell this loud and clear, and let them try to defend it, as they fight against this image of being bought and paid for by the corporations. Its a difficult label to fight because they are bought and paid for. The more we can push this idea into the mind of the average American the better. Then when they say that we don't need healthcare reform the common man can see them for what they really are, corporate lap dogs doing whatever it takes to keep the election campaign funds flowing.
STOP SCRATCHING
This is the biggest most important point. We need to stop discussing their insanity, we only bring attention to it. We need a powerful set of memes to fire against their memes. When we are called Socialists we need to stop being on the defensive, go on the offensive and call them Corporatists. Ask them why we should believe their opinions with such an obvious conflict of interest. Ask them why we should wait as hundreds die each day and thousands lose coverage every week in the death-by-spreadsheet private bureaucracy that is in power. Demand that they explain how they can remain objective and take millions in funds from the people they are trying to regulate.
Our memes will be real ones, based on truth and evidence, against that theirs will fall. But we need to get it into the ears of the public. So that instead of people standing up and saying "I've heard something about euthanasia panels" they will parrot the meme that "I've heard you got most of your money from the health insurance companies"
It may not be exactly true, but it is a hell of a lot closer. The problem we have to fight right now is our own desire to truly understand subjects, to know the nuances and understand the shades of gray. For many they don't have the time or the desire or the capacity to fully understand the full scope of these subjects. These people need soundbites, they need factoids, they need things that are easily digestible. And right now, the only source of that is coming from the right. We can do it too, and we can do it without selling our souls.