Something I've noticed

[pocket1_pita]

Something I’ve noticed – it’s not a new something, but it’s starting to be repetitive.

Roveian Reduction.

One selects the most extreme statement in a series of opinions held by a group and attributes it to the entire group, thus discrediting the entire group. Again and again and again we fall for it. Some other benefits of Roveian Reduction are that it acts against the building of alliances between moderates and liberals, it reinforces the conservative frame, and controls both the rhetoric and the conversation. See? Because Michael Moore is gleeful, all critiques are gleeful. It also identifies the strongest opinions and disparages them. Another version of this is to change one or two words in an opinion and attribute it to the same source. If I say to you that I think that Bush holds the ultimate responsibility for the failure of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina due to his irresponsible appointment of Brown, lack of urgent response, demotion of FEMA’s status and depletion of relevant funding, the Roveian Reduction would be - Pocket says that Bush holds full responsibility for Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina rips away the veneer of competence: The policies supported by Republicans are cruel and dangerous for the entire country. Witness the bankruptcy bill. What are those poor Katrina victims supposed to do about their bills?! We should be able to declare bankruptcy in the case of a natural disaster. Neo-conservatism and trickle-down economics have been debunked as far as I can see, and still like a bunch of lemmings we dive off the cliff never-ever willing to really address the divide between reality and spin. But the Democrats fielded a mediocre candidate and the Republicans played the gay card and here we are. Every year we get poorer and all the things we really need cost more money. All of our civic institutions fail us one by one – business, government, schools, emergency management. The Katrina Disaster is the bastard child of the misplaced priorities of the Bush Administration.

Comments

[pocket1.livejournal.com]

too funny - i'm not sure i should even respond as runner seems to have made himself pretty clear on the matter. who knew your dog was such a bush-hater?

Anyway, you did a better job of illustrating the roveian reduction than i could have. first of all, no moderates or liberals cite Ann Coulter as a spokesperson for the conservative movement, which is what would be required in a Roveian Reduction. while i'd like to think it's because we don't play like that, truthfully it probably has more to do with the extreme pain and nausea involved in tuning in to Coulter. the second part of your roveian reduction is that you pretended that what i was saying was - we should throw out the whole bankruptcy bill as I am opposed to cracking down on bankruptcy declaration. what i actually said was - we should be able to declare bankruptcy in the face of a natural disaster. the natural disaster clause was thrown out of the bill. that is cruel and dangerous.

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

Pocket, you didn't say the throw-out of the clause was cruel and dangerous. You said "The policies supported by Republicans are cruel and dangerous for the entire country." So you just Rove'd yourself!

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

Also,

"no moderates or liberals cite Ann Coulter as a spokesperson for the conservative movement, which is what would be required in a Roveian Reduction."

They don't?

[pocket1.livejournal.com]

i do think that those policies are cruel and dangerous for the entire country. in particular, what i think is cruel and dangerous is paying more attention to what the credit card industry thinks than the responsibility upon you as an elected official to promote goals that serve the people who elected you.

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

Individual policies, maybe, but that's where I scratched my head...you basically took an example of one policy and generalized the whole thing to everything Republicans support is cruel and dangerous, which sort of sounds like Roveian Reduction to me.

Also, you're being Roveian by saying that the bankruptcy issue is all about caring about credit card companies.

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

Shit. "Roveian" is now going to be a regular adjective for me. Thanks!

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

btw, although I may not agree with your opinions, it's not the opinions I'm scratching my head at. It's the Roveian thing. As we both seem to be accusing each other of Rove-ing, I'd say it is difficult to escape doing it.

[pocket1.livejournal.com]

i see it the opposite way. i generalized that many republican policies are cruel and dangerous, and then i cited one that i particularly think is cruel and dangerous and what specifically i think is cruel and dangerous about it. A roveian reduction goes in the other direction - from specific to general rather than general to specific.

it's just a pretty counterspin technique that Rove is particularly good at.

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

"i generalized that many republican policies are cruel and dangerous"

I didn't see the softening qualifier of "many" in your original sentence ;).

BTW, yes, Runner is an extreme liberal. Ki and I joke about this often.

[pocket1.livejournal.com]

oh for fucks sake, wendy. yeah, i didn't use a qualifier. let's not have a conversation about this ever again.

[wendalah.livejournal.com]

Sheesh! I was being funny.

[prudies.livejournal.com]

I know I'm late getting here, but I wanted to tell you that Dave says it seems likely that Congress will pass something that exempts those who want to file bankruptcy because of loss related to a natural disaster.