Breaking Down the Status Quo in Six Easy Steps

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Breaking Down the Status Quo in Six Easy Steps
By Sara Robinson

May 28th, 2009 - 1:04pm ET


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One of the things I'm really liking about the new regime is the way the stark, terrified silence of the Bush years is giving way to noisy, energetic public discussion of subjects that would have been considered hardcore political pornography just a year or two ago.

Mr. Obama himself may not want to talk about single-payer health care or employee free choice or special inquiries into CIA torture practices, but the American people are definitely going there, with or without him. We seem to have recovered our moral voice, and relocated our own interests. And the powers that be, along with their paid minions in Congress, are feeling very, very nervous about it. I admit it: I'm enjoying watching them squirm.

Watching the rhetorical give-and-take between activists, change agents, and just plain fed-up Americans on one side, and those defending a very profitable status quo on the other, I've noticed that there's a repeating pattern to the way subjects that were once considered politically obscene move onto the public agenda, and how the defenders of the old regime respond to public demands for change. And it occurs to me that understanding the phases they go through -- and how their behavior shifts at each stage -- might allow us to respond more strategically and effectively to each stage, spending less political capital overall but getting far more for it in the end.

My first rough sketch of this process (I'm open to suggestions for refining it) involves six stages through which changes that our corporate masters never even wanted to discuss eventually become wholly-owned parts of their history. The steps I'm seeing go like this:

1. Backstopping the Overton Window. This disreputable idea is so far outside the bounds of acceptable discourse that sane, rational people will never, ever discuss it. The fact that you even dared to say it out loud in mixed company is incontrovertible proof that you're a certifiable loony. Anybody who could even think such a deranged thing is probably a danger to self and others. Please leave quietly, before you lose control and make a scene and we have to call the cops. And don't even imagine that you'll ever be invited to nibble cocktail shrimp in this town again.

2. Getting it out on the table. In spite of the Overton Window taboos, a small but insistent cadre of unimpeachably credible people dares to publicly discuss the idea anyway. They back up this bold transgression with an early round of solid research, along with a handful of real-world examples to prove that the concept might actually be economically and politically sound. Lining up the facts and people to kick off these discussions is usually the work of think tanks. Being one of these people once too often can put some real dents in an otherwise sterling reputation—or enshrine you forever among the visionary political avant-garde, depending.

That's because once the idea is out on the table and being discussed by reasonable people (which does not, of course, include the mainstream media), the defenders of the status quo react by making a wild, scrambling lunge to push it back off again. This always involves undermining the credibility of the proponents, their research, and their examples; and reminding everybody once again, in the most hysterical terms, that this idea is completely nuts and utterly impossible.

It's preposterous, they sputter. It will destroy the economy. It will put an end to the American way of life. Hillary Clinton will pick your doctor. You'll be forced to power your entire household off a windmill in your back yard. Al Qaeda operatives, along with the entire Mexican state of Oaxaca, will be bivouacked in your tool shed. Anybody who sides with these pathetic losers is probably a Communist, an intellectual, or siding with the terrorists. These are real and serious threats; and anybody who says otherwise is irrational and making shit up. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009052228/breaking-down-status-quo-six-easy-steps

[pscot]

1. Read THE PREDATOR STATE by James Galbraith

He makes a strong effort to get the conversation going.