Dear Democrats, in order to avoid an ass-raping by rabid idiot flag-wavers who can’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about, please observe the following:
Do not say troops’ lives are being wasted in Iraq. This can be construed as meaning that their lives have no value. Say they are being “squandered”. This connotes something of value being used unwisely by a bunch of dumbasses, which accurately describes the current situation.
Do not warn recent graduates about “getting stuck in Iraq”. This implies that people serving there are inconvenienced due to lack of opportunity or advantage. Instead, warn grads about “getting maimed and killed in Iraq”, implying that perhaps people may have a choice to go there or not, but either way, it’s a fucking horrible unfortunate place to be, which accurately describes the situation.
Saying you’ve wasted resources on a goal implies that the goal is unworthy, thus you’ve devalued those resources.
Saying you’ve squandered resources on a goal implies nothing as to the worth of the goal, it just reflects poorly on you for unwise use of the resources.
OK, OK, I admit I’ve split a very gossamer hair there. But then again so does the Republican spin machine, so people need to be on their toes a bit more.
Yes, exactly like the Democratic Convention, because the Democrats push anti-flag-burning amendments, claim that anyone who opposes the Iraq war is unpatriotic, and supports the escalation (oops, “surge”) in spite of the fact that the entire war is grossly misexecuted and based on lies. Yep, nice catch there.
I don’t see any reason why one cannot draw the same inference in both statements, were one so inclined. You’re not splitting a hair, you’re inventing a distinction where none exists.
No kidding! What a waste of time. The Democratic Party has not been losing because of misused adjectives. Most of the country agrees that the war was a waste, whether or not they would use that particular word.
It’s not me, I’m responding to the hoo-ha of late regarding John Kerry and Barack Obama, who respectively warned kids about getting “stuck in Iraq” and saying that troops’ lives are “wasted”. It sounded like they were trivializing the efforts of servicemen and the conservative pundits enjoyed quite a field day over it.
Be conscious of your words, don’t give the assholes more ammo, is all I’m saying.
Actually, some Democrats do support the surge, and some Republicans oppose it. And most Democrats signed onto the war when it was politically expedient to do so.
I chose to highlight your reference to “rabid idiot flag-wavers” because, for one thing, Democrats can and do wave flags, though I don’t know whether you would classify Democrats who do so as rabid idiots. But mainly, I chose to highlight it because in my opinion that is one of the worst mistakes Democrats make every election cycle. (Yes, I know you won this time, but don’t sit on your laurels.) Namely, they sometimes present themselves as people who think flag wavers are rabid idiots just because they wave flags. You discard an amazing number of votes with that incredibly stupid mistake.
Yes, but I don’t see what would keep them from making exactly the same hoo-ha if they had said “squandered” instead of “wasted.” If saying that the troops are being wasted in Iraq opens one up to accusations of not valuing the troops, then saying the troops are being squandered in Iraq opens you up to exactly the same accusation. Because what’s being attacked isn’t the way the idea is being expressed, it’s the idea itself. Any suggestion that the tremendous amount of lives and money spent in Iraq has been ill-used will result in exactly the same response, no matter how carefully you phrase it.
Good advice in general, but I think Liberal’s specific example is much stronger than yours.
You misspelled ‘when we had mounds of (falsified) evidence suggesting that Iraq had WMDs and Bushco were pushing the war for all they were worth’. Just so you know.
Well, I personally believe that people who wave flags are idiots whether they’re right-wing nutjobs or the dumbasses who attend the Democratic Convention, but then I’m not running for office, and neither is the OP. Which brings me to my point: have you got a cite for any Democratic politician “presenting themself as someone who thinks flag wavers are idiots just because they wave flags”? I don’t doubt that’s how some idiot conservatives think those politicians are presenting themselves, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a real world example.
How’s **“Pissed Away” ** work for you…? Cause it Works for damn near every person I know describing how a future generation of Americans is being composted in Iraq to support the bankrupt & failed policies of DUMBASSES too stupid to admit when they are wrong & have already lost. :mad:
"kill all ya want. we’ll just send more… " is Not a responsible foreign policy.
I didn’t say the politicians do it. That’d be stupid of them, and they’d win very few elections. It’s the rank and file like the OP that do it. The bloggers. The ivory tower academics. The central planner wannabes. Hell, the politicians are the ones who wear the lapel pins and organize conventions with lots of flags.
I’m saying that Democrats as a whole have sent the message that patriotism is for idiots. That happens to be something I agree with. I’m a person who favors eliminating the very borders, and I never wave a flag. But if I were trying to get someone elected, I would know better than to alienate people who do. The OP was soliciting ideas to help the Democratic cause, and that’s mine. Stop making it look like you do indeed hate America.
The Libertarian Party makes the same mistake, but on a much grander scale. There are no flags at an LP Convention. C-Span asks them every time why that is so, and the candidate weasels all around so he doesn’t sound unpatriotic. That was one of the reasons I left the party.
Differences between Democrats and Republicans used to center around very different matters. They were matters of policy. But now, the camps have divided a different way, and the nation has divided right along with it. They divide based on show rather than substance. The caricatures are that Republicans are unthinking religious nuts and Democrats are America-hating tree-huggers. There’s no way you can work bipartisanly anymore because you’ve divided yourselves by behaviors rather than ideologies. You can’t even get together and talk because you hate how each other looks.
For the record, I’m don’t really consider myself a democrat, it’s just an affiliation of last resort. Someone once said that politics is merely the organizing of one’s hatreds, my hatred at the moment would the Republicans, their only significant adversary is the democrats. I’d go libertarian if I didn’t think they were just a bunch of idealists pissing in the wind. I’d go republican if they’d try sticking with fiscal responsibility and stop being a bunch of fascist polluting racist warmongering assholes, I can live with Jesus freaks if they’ll just do those few things.
I see where you’re coming from, but I think this response is playing right into the spin machine’s hands. (Do machines have hands?)
The last thing the Democrats want to do is try to walk a mealy-mouthed verbal tightrope to appease the unappeasable right-wing pundits. Honestly, if the occasional suboptimal phrasing of a clear idea were an electoral deal-breaker, George W. Bush wouldn’t have been elected dog-catcher.
Speak to the people, not the pundits. When the Republicans try to make something out of nothing, throw it back in their faces, e.g.: “It’s ridiculous to imply I don’t value the troops’ lives when I’m working to get them out of harm’s way as soon as possible. If the Republicans spent half as much time crafting policies with the American people in mind as they do twisting people’s words around, those troops wouldn’t be in harm’s way to being with.”
Trying to craft every sentence to be as inoffensive and safe as possible makes you look wishy-washy and weak. Fuck that. You’ll get a lot more respect if you tell the pundits to shove it and just speak your mind.
