LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I really like a lot of the writers on The Daily Kos- which is a collection of blogs/diaries from -yes, I'll admit it- progressive Democrats (with some progressive Republicans mixed in). Today's selection is a bit of very sage advice which we here should do our best to take to heart. It's about name-calling- specifically our labels for the Religious Right. Here's what "Troutfishing" says we're doing by using perjoratives:

It's a campaign of skillful persuasion:

A campaign to persuade some of those 100 million Americans who call themselves evangelical Christians or born-again Christians they should side with a left-progressive agenda rather than with the theocratic right.

Slinging rhetoric - in this very public forum - which informs those 100 million Americans that they are extremist, ignorant, or flat out dumb is akin to going to the OK Corral with a Colt .45 while Wyatt Earp waits in a pillbox with a machine gun and an RPG.

Folks on Daily Kos who attack the theocratic right with language that accidentally brands a large group of Americans who do NOT support theocracy are like trial lawyers with Tourette's, blurting out obscenities during their closing statements in murder trial.

"extremists", "wing nuts","dumb bastards"?

Karl Rove is chuckling and rubbing his hands with glee.

What terms should we then use in this fight, what rhetorical weapons?

Well, why not use language that peels Americans off from that bloc which has been voting for the Republican Party now taken over by self-avowed theocrats?

Pursuade Christians away the theocrats.

Call those theocrats "Religious Opportunists" or "Religious Supremacists".

Inform Americans precisely who those theocrats are and what their extreme agenda is.

Stoning for adultery? How's that going to play in Kansas? Not well, and it's up to people on Daily Kos to let Kansans know that they have been voting for politicians who advocate smashing their fellows Kansans to a bloody pulp, with rocks,in the public square.

Children of the Corn, indeed, but those children are NOT Kansans. The Children of the Corn are the theocratic right. They are Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" come hideously to life as they advance their bloodthirsty agenda that seems far from Christian.

"Religious Opportunists or Religious Supermacists"... Interesting term, wouldn't you say? And fairly accurate, as they are utilizing the power of the neoconservative Republicans to get their own licks in. The Republicans did woo them after all, and this is the post-honeymoon blast of reality. That beautiful 'blushing bride' of Dominionists has laid aside the 'dating manners' and is showing itself for the demanding harridan it truly is. "Religious bullies" might be another accurate term.

Troutfishing continues:

It's up to folks on the Daily Kos to remind Kansans - who are mostly Christians - that Christianity is most centrally based on love, foregiveness, and tolerance - not on an atavistic manicheanism which seeks public stonings.

Think about it. The rhetoric of the theocratic right should have been- and can be - a precious gift to Daily Kos and the left.

Violent, extremist rhetoric. A gift and weapon - unless the left joins, in its clumsy fashion, in that game. But the right has been honing its technology of vilification for decades. That technology has been honed in focus groups and on the ground practice. And, that is the low road way, the path of hate.

Does the left, and the Daily Kos, want to go to THAT fight, with a Colt .45 when the opponent is dug into a trench and waiting with a .50 caliber machine gun ?

Sun Tzu says - don't play that game. It's a set piece battle weighted heavily in favor ofthe theocratic right, and so if the left enters that field of battle it will be mowed down in a bloody slaughter and will flee in a rout.

No. Don't enter than field of battle.

Be smarter. Redefine the terms of combat.

Let American Christianity know - convince them - that the theocratic right has stopped being true to Christianity and has been advocating an agenda that has close to nothing to do with Jesus Christ's teachings.

Convince Christians away from the theocratic right. That should be easy... But not when people on the left are talking of "wing nuts" and "religious extremists"...

Ah, yes- the perjoratives. I'll confess that I have used those terms, and worse- to describe these people. I shall stop doing that now, and encourage you to do the same. We must drop the word "extremist" from our vocabularies. Yes, they are technically 'extremists', but the word has been so overused that it has lost its meaning. So, how shall we fix this?

Enter Chip Berlet. [from Talk to Action ]

Polls show that most people in the United States do not agree with the narrow legislative agenda of the leaders of the Christian Right. Polls also show that most people think of themselves as part of an organized religion, and that as many as 100 million of our neighbors think of themselves as Christian evangelicals or "born again." Why would an organizer start out by offending half their potential audience with language that is abrasive?

We need to challenge conservative policies as part of a progressive grassroots organizing effort based on civil and constructive dialog. The whole idea of grassroots organizing is to reach out to people who may not already think they agree with you. As a community organizer, when I heard discussions about slogans, I always asked: "What's my next line?"

Let's role-play. So here I am knocking on a door in Emporia, Kansas, and when the door opens I lead with "We have to stop the religious political extremists!" What's my next line? (That's assuming my nose wasn't broken when the door was slammed in my face). Unless the person already agrees with me, there is no constructive next line.

I think it's time to stop using phrases such as "religious political extremist" and "radical religious right." A lot of my friends and allies use this language, but what are friends for if they can't tell you when they think you are wrong?

Given that the theocratic right is advocating stoning for adultery, the disenfranchisement and violent persecution of various minorities, and an agenda overall which seem to have very little to do with the Christianity we know of from key Gospel teaching such as Jesus' Serhmon on The Mount.

The theocratic right seems to want to have nothing to do with The Sermon on The Mount although that has traditionally been identified as, as much as anything, as shaping the core of Christian precepts. {I call this the Christianity of the Beatudes -ed]

Indeed, if one can judge by the professed positions of the theocratic right, by their hateful vilification of other Americans and their calls for violent persecution, one would would guess them to be something other than Christians. For their language and positions one might guess the theocratic right to be not Christians but, rather, Machiavellians, Straussians, or perhaps "Old Testamentists"....

Some have suggested calling the theocratic right "religious opportunists" or "religious supremacists": those are very good terms especially if they are used judiciously to peel Americans away from that narrow group which is the theocratic right.

Most Americans do not support the theocratic agenda but - as evangelical Christians or born-again Christians - have been recently voting with the theocratic right as much for the fact that they have been alienated by the rhetoric of the left as anything.

And,I'm here to blame the left. No - I'm here to advocate for a better, smarter way:

If Karl Rove were on the left, he would be here - with Chip Berlet and the others from Talk to Action - preaching this smart path. He'd be reading Sun Tzu and telling you this:

Don't be dumb. You'll be moved down in the field of battle. Don't even enter that field. Redefine the terms of combat to turn your foe's strength to a weakness.

The theocratic right has learned the political craft of language par excellence while the left has forgotten that craft and so been reduced to mumbling, twitching, and cursing...

It is as if the left has developed a sort of Tourettes' Syndrome so that - in the presence of that key constituency of 100 or so million Americans who the left needs to begin to persuade,or re-persuade - for many of these were well persuaded of this until recently - about the value of a progressive agenda which values humans in a way which is...well Christian.

So, the bottom line is that we have to retool our language, and turn their assumed strength into a weakness. They say in their own words who they are, and who they say they are is repugnant to many: hateful, unforgiving, bloodthirsty, misogynic, manipulative, opportunistic, greedy, etc. They use the philosophies and writings of Leo Strauss and Machiavelli as guidelines. Anyone who has studied history should know what sort of things these two writers have endorsed- manipulation of people and events, hidden agendas, esotericism (hidden meanings in common words and phrases),misdirection, etc.

We have to reclaim the high ground, and we have to do so skillfully. But it can be done. And it will. To not do so or at least to try would be to surrender to the tide of theocracy that they are raising.