For a long time the media made a big thing of pro-life being all-Catholic.
Long before I was born, anti-Catholicism was referred to as “the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals.”
Professors have an instinctive hatred of Catholicism of the same kind as people in general have a natural dislike of Jews and Anglo-Saxons have a natural dislike of the very word “French.”
Whole books had been written on this prejudice of the unprejudiced by the Tomesters. National Review had article after article pointing out that this was just plain prejudice.
I took a step that was more effective than any of those. I wrote a one-minute speech for my boss titled, “Media Picture of Pro-Life as Catholic is an Insult to Protestants.” The speech pointed out that John Ashbrook was a Baptist, and his pro-life record was indisputable.
He was insulted by the idea that only Catholics were pro-life.
You had to be an expert — PAID like me to prove it, maybe — to see how this totally befuddled an establishment that had just put out a major book showing how many congressmen were Catholic and how they voted.
The way our enemies signal defeat is by simply not bringing something up again. My particular victories were of this sort, so they were unnoticed. Only other pros wowed it.
This is another function for which respectable conservatives are absolutely invaluable. Just as a professional respectable must know exactly when he must denounce a position he once had, he must know when a subject has been lost, and therefore can be buried, by the regular media.
In another less political case I stopped a verbal freight train. It was the period when earlier human ancestors were being discovered almost every month. But every single popular article on such a new find went something like “It has been discovered that the earliest man was not in X, as has been thought, but in Y.” or, “A discovery in Y…”
The media is bad enough in its constant attempts to screw up anthropological reality, but this one was too gross to pass up. I could contradict it and my record of published Letters to the Editor is very good, but where would I put it? My point would have no authority as a letter in a standard publication. If I sent it to Science the media would never notice it.
So I sent it to Science News, which was the publication which had millions in circulation and the one that journalists use so as not to be entirely ignorant of science which is not spoon fed to them for political purposes.
I wrote one letter to Science News pointing out that every time a popular magazine reported the latest discovery it said that was “the earliest man.” I pointed out there, where popular readers would see it, and where it would have to pass scientific criticism, that if “the earliest man” has been discovered four times in the last year, a reasonably intelligent reader would expect the reporter to add the words “to date.”
When you read it, it is hard to make this couple of paragraphs into anything huge, but it was. “The earliest man” man disappeared where before it had been ubiquitous. I chose the exact length of letter the editors liked and the exact publication where it would hit home.
This one action has more effect on our specific war than the actions of the most Decorated and Suffering soldier did on the outcome of any war.
If you want to brag about it, Suffer. If you want to win a war, use targeting and wording, and take it seriously.
#1 by BGLass on 08/25/2011 - 9:52 am
respectables are “systems animals.” The “right” calls it “Rule of Law,” the “left” “Social Justice;” either way, it’s rule of courts. To farmers it won’t matter if “crony” capitalists devalue land to buy cheap, or if it’s social justice. As many ‘right’ wingers live on tax supported wages as “the left.”) they rationalize the same system differently is all.
what is the respectables, anyway— outside “pro-life” and pro-war? party platforms are surreal.
#2 by Dave on 08/25/2011 - 10:46 am
It is all about accurately assessing the narcissism and arrogance of individuals and institutions and responding appropriately to it.
It’s like the street level tough guy act. It is a dead giveaway that you are dealing with a buffoon.
I had a friend who was into that. He earned his living being a landlord and he prided himself in being a tough guy and carried out his own evictions instead of paying the Sheriff to do that until one day he was shot and killed attempting an eviction.
His last words were: “You ain’t got the guts to pull that trigger”.
#3 by Genseric on 08/26/2011 - 8:04 am
Bob,
Your next book – yes you should write another – should be titled “The Mantra: How to Kill a Man With 250 Words or Less.”