Jonathan has sketched out - in his comment today on Cindy Cooper's post - one example of how to do this, how to play effectively against gutter politics without mirroring it [see boxed quote below].

Thanks, Joel, for this post : if the opposition to Christian theocracy is to be effective it will need to understand its foes. Everything old is new again - Sun Tsu is back on the shelf ( he never left the bookshelves of some ) along with Lakoff and modern political tacticians.

Schlafly's profile - as a "liberated" woman, quite modern and powerful in terms of how she has led her life - contrasts in a quite grotesque fashion with the subservient personal and shrivelled public role she has held up,  for American women, as desirable. In living that bizarre, hypocritical dichotomy of denial Schlafly is far from alone on the American Christian right.

[ Jonathan Hutson's example on effectively framing a message against STOPP ]

"...countering propaganda with data is not effective, and is actually counter-productive. STOPP has effectively framed its propaganda as an appeal to Latinos (and especially to Latina mothers) to safeguard their families and extended families....engaging STOPP about the accuracy of its effective emotional appeal is not just ineffective, it actually reinforces the message frame, and legitimates the controversy that STOPP is trying to raise.

What would be an effective message frame to counter STOPP's effective message frame? It would be more effective to say that, as it's name makes clear, STOPP is a group that aims to STOP women's clinics from providing health care for Latinas. They want to shut down Planned Parenthood clinics that provide a full range of health care that are needed for healthy children and families. By closing down these women's clinics, they want to STOP prenatal health care for Latinas and their babies, and they want to STOP mammograms that help keep Latina mothers safe from breast cancer...

.....An effective message frame would say: STOPP wants to STOP affordable, accessible health care for Latinas and their babies. By aiming to close Planned Parenthood clinics, they want to STOP the very health care services that Latina mothers need, including prenatal care for healthy babies and mammograms and physicals that nourish the mother's health.

As the book "Art of War" says, "know your enemy," and progressives need to heed this advice!

In other words, "know the enemy." He then proceeded to provide an interesting and informative post on Schlafly, clearly a major opponent. Precisely the kind of information we need to develop effective strategies for countering the Right.

by Psyche on Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 02:30:00 PM EST
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