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Re: Political action



    I certainly agree!  To influence public opinion, advancing your case by
applying passion and imagery is infinitely more effective than trying to
persuade with reason and logic. I may be wrong, but from my personal
observations, it is an unfortunate fact  that people who tend to gravitate
into the the fields of science and technology are not inclined toward using
passion and imagery. Also, they are not very good at it.
    Those who go into the arts, politics, and journalism (the
technologically illiterate) are far more effective in making people see
things their way. Sad, but true!


-----Original Message-----
From: Neon John <johngd@bellsouth.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Monday, July 24, 2000 11:16 PM
Subject: Political action


>
>
>Vincent King wrote:
>>
>>      John,
>>
>>      100% on target on all counts.
>>
>>      But like Ruth says, its kind of hard to get going on anything when
>>      we've got day jobs.
>>
>>      And of course, don't forget, the main tactic of the anti's
>>      (anti-guns, anti-nuclear, anti-anything), is not to fight the
>>      battle on its merits or deal with the message, but to ridicule and
>>      discredit the messenger.
>
>True, but two can play that game.  Imagine what some skilled and
>motivated producer could do with some creative camerawork and a few
>hours in the editing suite considering what some of those people
>look like and say.
>
>In terms of having a day job, what I had in mind was to motivate one
>or more of our professional societies to set up a political arm like
>NRA's Institute for Legislative Action complete with paid
>professionals and let THEM do it.  All we have to do is shovel them
>money.  Back before I joined the ranks of the gainfully unemployed,
>I routinely shoveled $1000 or more a year to ILA.  I think that
>their statistics show that the average donation is somewhere around
>$250.
>
>Just suppose that a significant portion of us were willing to pony
>up $250 or $500 or whatever each year for a few years to make a
>political action arm a reality?  Couldn't we all do that?  Heck,
>that's less than a couple of society dues for the year.
>
>Further, suppose we copied NRA's call-down tree.  Each state NRA
>affiliate maintains a call-down tree.  Whenever something adverse to
>our interests is about to happen, the tree is activated.  ILA
>headquarters calls a few dozen members.  Each member has a list of 3
>or 4 other members to call and relay the message.  The efficiencies
>of geometric expansion takes place rapidly.  Sometimes the message
>is to write or call a legislator.  Other times it is to call out
>members for a peaceful demonstration of some sort.  As important as
>the tree was the message.  Rather than have members go off in a
>thousand directions, "the message" was given to them either to copy
>or to put in their own words.  Staying on message is the key!  Even
>though a politician may believe that he's under assault by just such
>a list, when he gets hundreds of similar messages, he can't take the
>chance that it is not representative of what the people in his
>district are thinking.
>
>Suppose >WE< had one of these trees and could turn out a couple
>hundred members, complete with placards, to write letters or picket
>"THEM", particularly the stars who attract the cameras.  I can think
>of a bunch of pro-nuke sound bite slogans.  How  about "No Nukey, No
>warmth"?  Roll that theme out just about the time fuel oil hits $2 a
>gallon!
>
>There are even schools that will teach political direct action.  In
>the early 90s, I helped found a gun rights group in Atlanta called
>Citizens for Safe Government in response to NRA's getting soft.  We
>sent some of our members off to a direct action school in DC put on
>by Operation Rescue (not an endorsement of their politics!)  Even
>though we used those tactics for a totally different cause, they
>worked brutally well.  We targeted individual politicians who we
>felt to be insufficiently pro-gun.  We got every single one we
>targeted.  By "got" I mean we got him defeated in the next
>election.  One of the things I learned from this experience is that
>"compromise is for those who find losing half the time acceptable".
>CSG never compromised and neither should we.  Sure, we'll get beaten
>every so often but at least we'll have given it the good fight and
>hopefully weakened the enemy in the process.
>
>It really doesn't affect me too much since I'm out of the biz but
>you younger folks (and those short on retirement credits) might want
>to quit thinking and acting like stuffy, logical scientists and
>engineers long enough to save your profession with a little
>political action.  One thing that's still pretty wonderful about
>this country is that a small group of determined individuals CAN
>change the course of government.  When one is worried about the
>professional image, one should recall that the doctors have one of
>the most brutal craft guilds ever invented in the AMA and that
>hasn't seemed to affect their image much.
>
>I should remind everyone of something else before the hue and cry of
>"The media is against us" gets to loud. When the enviro-nazi
>movement was getting started, the media was hostile to THEM.
>Remember that your average journalist has no education (journalism
>degree - get real!) and so is swayed by whatever seems popular.  The
>environmentalist religion is popular right now so that's what gets
>the press.  It can change.
>
>John
>
>--
>John De Armond
>johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net
>http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd/
>Neon John's Custom Neon
>Cleveland, TN
>"Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas"
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