Who's on Point?

Let's set up a hypothetical scenario.

The budget has grown beyond control, as the Democrats refuse to fix Social Security, and the Republicans have run up enormous deficits with purposefully irresponsible spending.

The political establishment has decided to make major cuts in the military budget.

No interest groups or large swaths of protestors are making themselves known to be in favor of the cuts, but it seems pretty obvious that they're necessary.

The only people who seem to be opposed to it are right-wing militants, carrying signs that say we can't deny them their ability to wipe out foreign populations, to defend their piece of Nevada desert from the aliens, and that"Might Makes Right" and "Peace by Power".

Now ask yourself, which side do you support? Have you decided?

It turns out that only tiny portions of the cuts actually pertain to the nut-jobs you see on television. Most of the cuts will be from the VA budget, and the actual arms money that gets cut will be replaced by selling new jets to China and Russia, requiring us to develop new ones. So it looks like you chose wrong if you supported the cuts.

Here's a little secret: If 500 people show up to yell at the President, or support a legislative bill, or protest that bill, the people that the media takes footage of will be the craziest people in the group. So...

...If you're promoting gay marriage, the media will ignore the 498 men and women in casual business attire, and focus on the guy in assless chaps and the lady with a crew cut in a flannel shirt, and...

...If you're supporting a woman's right to choose, the media will ignore the 498 men and women who don't consider abortion to be a form of birth control, and focus in on the two girls in front who dress like strippers with a "My Body, My Choice" tanktop two sizes too small that now means something completely different to middle America. And...

...If you're opposing the war, the media will ignore the 498 people who look like everyone at home that is on the fence and say all the things that will sway those on the fence, and focus in on the two hippies who look like anarchist pot-smokers who must oppose war because they hate America and love Che Gueverra.

Fact: Abbie Hoffman had to change his appearance and his behavior to relate to those most affected by the Viet Nam War, the youth.

Inintended Consequence: His failure to change the appearance and behavior of the movement he led to relate to those tens of millions with the power to end the war made it harder to end the war than if he'd just gone to middle America to begin with. His saturation of the antiwar marketplace with hippies who thought Gene McCarthy was too weak on ending the war split the party and gave the GOP the opponents Nixon wanted. I know Nixon gives credit to the movement for forcing him to end the war, but the movement is responsible for his being there to carry on the war.

People will not assume someone who obviously has different values from them has the same basis for arriving at the same conclusion they have. You can actually repell support by being too creative, by trying to do too much with your presentation.

If you want majority support for gay rights, don't send a guy in assless chaps.

If you want to protect your right to choose, don't send someone who looks like she's going to callously exercise that right.

If you want to promote peace, don't send someone who looks like he bases his support of peace on that being it's a shorter trip back to his parents' basement to smoke pot than a year in Iraq would be.

Your target audience must be able to relate to your messenger as much as your message. You can't expect to piss someone off into agreeing with you.

Welcome to "War by Other Means"

Are you tired of weak liberalism that surrenders values in the name of political expediency? Have you had enough of pundits and party leadership who allow the enemy to choose the battlefield by enabling the message and prerogative of the right? Are you sick of the social left whose arrogance and snooty tone offend millions of voters whose families we try to fight for? Have you grown weary of a political correctness that dismisses real inequities and minimizes values, making the intellectual left co-conspirators of the bigoted right?

If you answered yes to any of these, or if you went "Huh?", or if your scalp got hot with the anticipation of rage, then The War Mule is your site for real political engagement, collaboration, and enlightenment. This site is of, by, and for the progressive who is sick of waging political war with the right, armed only with their personal sense of indignation. The right has declared war on the poor, on the middle class, on minorities, on women, on children, on families, on workers, on every class or identity that 95% of Americans find themselves to be a part of. And they're winning.

So we'll talk, argue, engage, and advise each other on how to take this fight to them. We'll go over the day's news and find the story underneath. We'll invite frequent posters that we respect to provide regular posts of their own. We'll conduct our own research to get at important information the political and media machines don't find mass-marketable. Our main purpose will be to raise the combat IQ of the progressive activist and voter, sometimes by what we provide, sometimes by what we get back from you. This is an exchange, for which participation of the reader is absolutely necessary.

But we mean to entertain as well. After all, most of us involved in politics enjoy the game factor and the humor in the democratic circus every bit as much as the good we seek to do. In our "40 Acres" posts, we'll use the opportunity provided by Senator Obama's juggernaut candidacy to discuss race in America and American politics, without the faux sensibilité of modern political correctness that conceals our real problems. We will bring word "From the Adam's Apple", i.e., Ann Coulter's Adam's Apple, a daily critique of the right wing assault on our auditory nerves and their cancerous effects. "Combat Strategy and Tactics" will give insight and advice based on our own research or on our conclusions drawn from the research of others. And in "That Goes Boom", we'll do our best to give our readers a good laugh at the expense of those ivy-league educated victims of the political landmine.

We will try to offend, in a productive way, those sensibilities that distract us from our common goals. We'll do it because it's important for us to remember that we must maintain our values while detaching ourselves emotionally from the issues... and because if it's done right, it can be funny, too.

So welcome to The War Mule. We go live on August 1st. Don't forget your ammo.