It is my most fervent hope that Gingrich will run.

I'm flexible on my choice for the Democratic nominee, but there's only one I want to see at the top of the Republican ticket.

And I think he has a pretty good shot at it.

Although McCain and Giulani are grovelling at the feet of the extreme right, Newt is their natural-born leader.

Newt has the hawk walk and the God talk down pat. His "George Washington strategy" for Iraq is more than a call for victory. It is a highly coded appeal to the religious right.

I urge all to read Jeff Sharlet's "How the Christian Right Is Reimagining U.S. History" in December's Harper's to understand how Gingrich's new book, Rediscovering God in America, dovetails with the R.J. Rushdoony-inspired movement to promote our nation as historically Christian. Sharlet's article reveals how the "theocentrist" movement has successfully gone mainstream by appropriating historical figures for the cause of a Christian nation. And Newt has joined them in the hope that they will choose him to lead them to victory.

While most other Republicans are trying to straddle the moderate fence, Newt Gingrich has chosen his side. It will make him a standout in the GOP primaries, a polarizing entity in the campaign, and, ultimately, a loser in November 2008.

Gingrich is the one candidate that any of ours can beat. Go, Newt!

It appears there are variations to complement every decor, if not political ideology.

Checked a couple of decorators and found a couple of drapery samples for the offices of our new Democratic representatives. Vote for your favorite!

1. Perp Walk Plaid. A cheerful pattern sure to brighten any Democrat's day.


2. The KickAss & Chenille. This cozy curtain is ready to kick ass and take names (and turn them over to the DOJ).


3. Impeachment Brocade. Elegant pattern repeats a constant reminder of every Democrat's patriotic duty.


4. Suitable Stripes. At the office or in the cell block, stripes are always de rigeur.


5. Open Honest Lace. Lace lets in sunlight and fresh air - great for returning transparency to government.

No comment. Add yer own.

There is no term for someone who doesn't believe Elvis is still alive. That's what Sam Harris said today during an in-depth discussion on Al Franken's show. What's wrong, Harris asks, with the term "common sense"? Why does non-belief have to be defined in believers' terms?

My non-belief is not absolute. I have no idea what lies behind the mysteries of life and death but I am not compelled to fill that empty space with a personal god. If there is an omnipotent entity that is responsible for creation and destruction, being and non-being, and space and matter, I think the concept of a personal god trivializes it beyond all possible recognition.

Believers often accuse non-believers of wanting to usurp God's power. They condemn secular humanism as devoid of morality because it is not divinely inspired. But IMO nothing usurps divine power in a more irrational, embarrassing and downright arrogant way than belief in an anthropomorphic god. Our brains are so puny, infused with hormones and other biological influences that color and limit our perception of reality (whatever that is). What an insult to omnipotence to define it in terms that we can understand.

Last year a tragic event prompted a lot of high-profile reports about the Children of God, aka The Family, so you may already be familiar with their history. Here I offer what I know about this bizarre psuedo-Christian group, its degenerate founder, and its impact on my own family. It's a very long post made longer by a final piece about cult recruitment techniques. My apologies for the length; feel free to skip around to whatever interests you. Or skip the whole thing. I wrote this mostly for myself.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Children of God was founded by David Brandt Berg, aka Moses David, Mo, Dad, Grandpa and the Prophet, a charismatic evangelical minister who in 1968 began a ministry to hippies in Huntington Beach, California. Berg's rejection of American society and radical message of God's love was perfectly crafted to appeal to idealistic young people. In just a few short years COG colonies had sprung up across the country and then around the world, thanks to a growing army of zealous missionaries who considered themselves God's revolutionaries. They rejected their families, gave all they owned to Berg, and went anywhere Berg sent them, doing anything he commanded.

David Berg may or may not have loved God, but there is no question that he worshiped sex. His mother, herself an itinerant evangelist, was said to have beaten him regularly for compulsive masturbation. He was expelled as pastor of an Arizona church for allegedly sleeping with a member's wife. His wife and children were scarred by his rampant infidelity and incestuous lust.

Berg justified it all by teaching his flock that sex was God's greatest gift to man. In fact, to spurn sex was to spurn the salvation of Christ's sacrifice.

As COG's influence grew, Berg's ego skyrocketed and he proclaimed himself a prophet. In 1969 he announced a revelation that he was to put aside his wife and take a new partner (Karen Zerby, aka Mama Maria, who shared his authority and became the cult's leader after his death). It was God's will.

Free love was only the first of the practices that began in Berg's inner circle and then spread to the rank and file, who till then had been compelled to remain celibate outside of marriage. Berg started pimping Zerby to wealthy men in order to gain access to their bank accounts, a ploy so successful that eventually many female disciples were required to lure new members with sex. "Flirty fishing" was nothing less than prostitution: women who didn't earn their quota were sometimes locked out of their colonies until they had. Members who resisted wife swapping and flirty fishing were disciplined or threatened with expulsion from the cult and separation from their spouses and children.

In general, women were expected to submit willingly and even eagerly to the sexual needs of prospects and fellow cultists alike. In Berg's view, rape was one of man's flawed laws; its victims were the jailed rapists, its perpetrators the women who didn't lie back and let it happen the way God intended.

But women weren't the only ones required to spread on demand. David Berg was a pedophile; among the many recipients of his attentions were a daughter and a 12-year-old granddaughter. Throughout the 80s, in missives to his followers, Berg sang the praises of adult-child sex and encouraged his membership to share this special form of God's love. Videotapes show six-year-old girls in see-through clothing dancing for Berg's pleasure. His own infant son - rather, Mama Maria's son conceived during a weeklong orgy - was sexually stimulated and gratified by his nannies and began engaging in intercourse at age five as documented in internal publications.

Legal prosecution in several countries and the advent of AIDS forced the COG to change its sexual policies. They changed their name to The Family and tried to whitewash their past. By now Berg was a raging alcoholic, spouting prophecies calling for the destruction of America (which he fled in 1972 to avoid charges of tax evasion and kidnapping) and the start of the end times, in which he fervently believed. He despised "homos" but liked to watch females together. He rabidly hated Jews, who he blamed for Communism; though a Holocaust denier he yearned for another Hitler who would finish off the Jews once and for all. As for theology, his fanciful descriptions of the spirit world are too numerous to list and too stupid not to laugh at.

David Berg's debasement of Christian teachings drove his eldest son to suicide. It led to his elder daughter's estrangement and a revealing book about her life in the cult, which you can read in its entirety here. It triggered his granddaughter's descent into prostitution and meth addiction. It caused his anointed heir - Zerby's son, now 29 - to reject the cult and seek vengeance for his abuse by killing his mother's former secretary and then himself. (The night before the murder-suicide he explained his motives in a video you can view here. I haven't been able to watch it; use your own discretion.)

There is more, much more; but in the words of Kelly Bundy, the mind wobbles. Suffice to say that when drunken child molester and America-hating racist David Berg died in 1994, the world became a little cleaner.

NOTE: I know that many Family members were either unware of, or refused to participate in, the degeneracies promoted by the Prophet. Those close to the top lived more extreme lives, but the majority of members have never met Berg nor any of the other leaders. My brother joined COG before the advent of promiscuity and flirty fishing. His involvement declined around the time that Berg sanctioned sex with minors, and he was back with us by the time the abuses peaked.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I will skip the examination of my family's dynamics and why it should not have been a shock to us when the only "normal" child, the one who excelled in math and science, never got in serious trouble and was indifferent to religion, turned out to be highly susceptible to recruitment by the COG. But it was a shock - a big one. By the time we learned of his involvement, he had already been associating with them for several years. His mind was made up to leave us and join them. We were going to hell, he said. He was going to God.

Turned out it wasn't that easy. My parents had co-signed his savings account, so they froze it. Without that money the cult wouldn't let him "receive the Spirit" or live in the colony. He left several times, each time returning sick and gaunt from living on the street. When he finally got hold of his savings, he left for good.

COG sent him to a number of locations within the country and then overseas. He returned once after the Jonestown massacre, saying he had left the cult. (That was a lie. He and many others were following a directive from Berg, who feared that Jonestown would spur an investigation of COG.) He took off again after a few months.

This time, though, he stayed in touch more regularly. He was still in COG but his attitude was changing and his ambition was asserting itself. While many members earned money selling pamphlets and begging for contributions, he held a job that brought him into contact with wealthy Systemites (COG's pejorative for nonmembers). He met a woman who was a devout Christian but not a fellow disciple. They married and had a child.

Not long after that he finally came home to stay, bringing his family with him. He got a job, returned to school, had more kids, earned his MBA, bought a home. His wife is a wonderful woman and their children, now grown, are beautiful in form and spirit, smart and independent. He is loving towards his family and stays involved with all of us. Everything appears to be normal, except for this ten-year hole in our lives.

Cult experts would say my parents used the wrong approach with my brother: screaming, threatening, reasoning, pleading, and more screaming. But there weren't any cult experts back then. So they looked for legal ways to keep him home (the frozen bank account), sought help from our parish priest (useless), and threatened some more. We were all mortified and angry over what we considered, to put it bluntly, a really stupid move. The angrier we got, the more stubborn he became.

We helped drive him right into COG's hands.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Come spend a decade under the complete control of a megalomaniac who will provide you with only bare sustenance while he uses your earnings to fund his sick, fucked-up lifestyle."

A smart, rational person would never agree to such a proposal. That's why cult recruiters don't use it.

Instead they rely on an arsenal of weapons designed to break down resistance and prepare a clean slate where a new story can be written in a young, idealistic mind.

The first is a form of instant companionship and unconditional acceptance known as love-bombing. Love-bombing has a druglike effect on the mind, releasing endorphins that leave you feeling euphoric. You become part of a brand-new community full of people who really care about everything you say and think and do. You've never experienced anything like it.

Soon you are ready to receive an amazing revelation: God has guided you to your new friends to help them save the world. Ordinary people wouldn't understand; only someone as special as you could be chosen for this divine revolution. (Because you're a teen, you've long suspected that you were more special than anyone knew. You've dreamed of recognition, and now you're getting it from God himself.)

How do your friends know all this? They learned it from the kindly old man/blessed woman who leads them. Their teacher speaks with God and knows his will. You're given the leader's writings to study. But only a few. You're still an outsider, and there are many beautiful, life-giving secrets that only insiders can know. If you follow God's will you will learn them all.

But to follow God's will, you have to protect yourself from evil influences. That's why it's crucial you leave your friends and family and stay with the group. Outsiders don't get it. They'll poison you. That's because they're filled with demons. They hate God's love and want to tear it out of your heart. That's why Jesus said to leave your family and follow him. You'll be happier with your new friends anyway. They all love you!

So it's time to give up your old life. Old bottles can't hold new wine. Get rid of everything you own. Better yet, give it all to your new friends to help them serve the Lord.

You're really doing well and soon you'll be ready to receive the Spirit. But first you have to get right with God. It's time to confess all your sins. If you can't think of any don't worry, your friends will stay with you no matter how long it takes to remember them all. They know how to drive out devils. You may wind up feeling sick and hopeless and broken, but that's just to prepare you for God's healing.

And keep reading the texts. It's one of the rules. There are rules about studying and working and sleeping and eating. There are even rules about looking happy and not complaining. In fact the longer you stay the more rules you'll discover. If you disagree with even the smallest one it's because demons still infest your soul. God demands your obedience; to reject the rules is to reject God and lose eternal life. You don't want to do that, do you? Not after your friends have been so good to you, giving you a place to sleep and food to eat. So keep reading and praying and obeying. You don't need sleep, you need salvation.

You may start to have doubts. Some of the leader's teachings don't make sense to you; maybe they don't jibe with Scripture, or they're just too weird to take seriously. But that's because the devil is making you rebel and resist God's word. For the good of the mission you will have to accept discipline or be cast out of the group. And where will you go? You're penniless. You have nothing but the clothes on your back. You're hundreds or even thousands of miles from the unloving family you left behind - and they don't even want you anymore, or so you're told. If you leave the group you will be devoured by Satan and burn in everlasting fire. That's what happens to those who reject God's love, so you better learn to submit.

And just remember: You chose this life. It was your decision. Nobody forced you, nobody kidnapped you. "Mind control" is just what outsiders call the grace of God. They don't understand. Nobody understands you anymore, except your special friends.



Cults I Have Known, Part I

I came of age in the early 70's, when people were free, possibilities were endless and life was a constant song of joy. Of course it wasn't like that at all, but isn't that how we feel at 18? I also recall that the fashions weren't at all silly and the music was the best it ever was and ever will be, but I could be wrong.

But one thing I remember quite clearly from that era is the proliferation of youth-preying cults, some of which touched me personally in ways both peripheral and profound. Join me as I reminisce, and share your stories about cult influence in your life.

--------------------------------------------------

When I was in my late teens, a younger brother became involved with a cult that I will describe later. At the time that he was falling under its influence, a friend invited me to join a charismatic group. In those days I was still a Catholic, performing for groovy folk masses and suchlike.

The group met at some church in a basement room filled with young believers perched on folding chairs. Three stern men in their 20s led the prayers accompanied by others strumming their requisite guitars. I was starting to nod off when one leader jumped to his feet and spewed a stream of nonsense syllables. My friend nudged me excitedly. I had heard of glossolalia and could accept it as a rapturous form of expression, but I couldn't believe it when another leader stood and solemnly interpreted the "prophecy" we had just received. What a crock!

But I had friends in the group, so I continued to attend. Jesus was love and all that, so what was the harm? Over the next few months I discovered more things I couldn't accept, like the decision to separate men and women to receive different teachings. The leaders also insisted we go out and witness our faith. I decided to witness to my friends at art school, many of whom were gay and who felt rejected by their churches. Frowning, the leaders told me that I couldn't witness to "faggots" because God didn't love them. I replied that God loved faggots and junkies and the Red Chinese. The leaders conferred among themselves, then told me they were going to perform an exorcism to cleanse me of my devils. I laughed at their joke, gaped at their dead-serious faces, spat a hearty "fuck you" and fled.

-----------------------------------------------

Don van Vliet once joked in an interview about rockers who took a lot of LSD and then found Jesus. He didn't think it was a coincidence. Some of my friends were starting to go the same route. When her mother developed terminal cancer, one friend decided it was all due to her hedonistic lifestyle, and poof! this sweet, smart, bubbly woman suddenly turned into a grim, dark, bible-beating fundy. So sad.

My best friend started her quest with primal therapy. My refusal to join created a permanent rift between us, exacerbated by her new circle of dour, macrobiotic-munching friends who deemed me non-feminist because I enjoyed sex with men. But I still loved her and tried to keep up as she became a follower of Seth and then dabbled in Scientology . She wouldn't explain any of it to me; I couldn't possibly understand - I was just too much of a good-time girl (and later, corporate drone) to be a keeper of the sacred flame. But I did understand, because I read the books, and knew she couldn't explain it because it was bullshit. Years later she came to believe, based on family practices and traditions, that she was descended from crypto-Jews (Jews who became Catholics to escape persecution by the Spanish Inquisition) and converted to Judaism.

-----------------------------------------------

I too had a new circle of friends - drug-using, glam-rocking artists, transvestites and fun seekers. The center of our circle lived next door to a house owned by the Process Church of the Final Judgement, which taught the unity of God and Lucifer - and Satan, who is somehow different from Lucifer, and Christ. It was very confusing. The Process Church was started by a couple of British ex-Scientologists who found wealthy patrons to fund their mission. They had a relatively brief but lurid existence marked by accusations of satanism and connections with Charles Manson.

Chicagoans of that era might remember the Process people, whose long black capes and expensive literature made them standouts in the prosletyzing community. They would flock out of their commune like so many black-winged bats, flagging cabs to take them to their downtown posts. Quiet at home except for the children in the backyard, one night they interrupted one of our acid parties to invite us to a midnight mass. We declined.

At least the Process people were entertaining. Back then you couldn't go out for a night of fun without stepping on - literally - scores of raggedy Jesus People, Jews for Jesus and idiots-of-all-stripes-for-Jesus who cluttered the Rush Street area. You had to push them out of the way just to show the bouncer your fake ID. "Have you found Jesus?" "Why, is he missing?"

-----------------------------------------------

I moved to Chicago and got an office job around the time that est got big. Some of the executives signed up for the seminars, and for weeks the office buzzed about it. Would the attendees become self-actualized ubertypes who would have the edge on everyone else? Had the rest of us been scooped on the next big thing, and was it too late to catch up? Who would pay good money to be called an asshole and denied bathroom breaks, when they already got paid to take that kind of abuse at work?

But the next big thing comes and goes pretty quickly, and the estians I knew didn't stick with it. By the end of the 70s a lot of people had given up on Human Potential training and switched to cocaine - same feeling, same price, and available on demand.

People in my business get involved in all kinds of strange things, but if they're smart they keep it to themselves. I once had a boss who tried to convince me of his phenomenal power by showing me the pentagram amulet he had worn constantly since the age of 18. (He pulled it out from beneath his striped shirt and yuppie suspenders, and I'm afraid my giggles offended him.) But the only real cultists I knew at the office were Scientologists. They were good colleagues, and low-key about their beliefs.
-----------------------------------------------

I've had the usual brushes with Jehovah's Witnesses. I've known occultists of all kinds. I was in a serious relationship with a Pentecostal who claimed experience with levitation and astral projection, and had other wonderful friends who believed incredibly loony stuff.

But the looniest beliefs of all belong to the Children of God. Their story is packed with so much ugly, bizarre shit that I wrote a really long piece just about them. If you're interested, see Cults I Have Known, Part II.

Still is, in fact. But the cult got him at a vulnerable point in his life and it took him many years to escape their influence, years filled with conflict, pain and worry for all of us. It was a missionary cult that moved him from one dangerous location to another. When the Jonestown massacre took place we were devastated by fear as he was living in a similar region - and for all we knew, under similar circumstances.

So you can see why cults are a sensitive issue for me. However I took pains to portray YWAM as fairly benign. Compared with Amway, for example, Rick Ross has received few complaints about YWAM - and as stated in the OP, they are recognized for their good works. But he is not their only critic, and if you search "YWAM cult" you will find more criticism - as well as defense - of YWAM's methods, culture and even scriptural interpretation (Pelagian doctrine and Moral Government Theology, which left this former Catholic cross-eyed).

I recognize that cult definition has a moveable threshold depending on the definer, and that some personalities do poorly under authoritarian structure whether it exists in a religion or a corporate office. But while others thrive in a top-bottom organization that restricts their personal freedom, their ability to accept those limits doesn't change the nature of the organization.

In retrospect I regret leading this thread with the cult angle because the far more disturbing aspect is Loren Cunningham's association with Christian Reconstructionism and and others that indicates he is involved, unwittingly or no, with a movement to install a theocracy over our nation. And if it turns out that YWAM money helped finance a revisionist history of 9-11 to absolve a phoney Christian like George Bush, the implications will far outweigh any unhappiness experienced by a handful of YWAM recruits.

I am not an expert on religious cults, but my interest in them began in the 70's when my family was thrown into chaos by one member's recruitment into a bizarre and ostensibly Christian cult.

That's why my interest was piqued when I searched "Path to 9-11" director David Cunningham's name and discovered that he is the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the worldwide, evangelical missonary group Youth With a Mission (YWAM).
http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/new...

Started in 1960, YWAM is an "international, inter-denominational, non-profit Christian missionary organization whose motto is 'To know God and to make Him known.'" They claim to have more than 16,000 full-time workers in nearly 1,100 operation locations in 149 countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_With_A_...

The Wikipedia entry limits YWAM criticism to theological sticking points brought up by Calvinists and fundamentalists regarding the doctrine of original sin and the extent of free will (yawn), but I was not surprised to find a link to Rick Ross Institute at the end of the article. Rickross.com is an invaluable resource for information about hundreds, if not thousands, of cults and other controversial groups. Some are relatively benign; some are very destructive.

The Rick Ross YWAM page is pretty lightweight, with far fewer entries than for groups like the Unification Church, Scientology or the FLDS. And even critics and unhappy former members of YWAM acknowledge its good works.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/youth.html

But as Ross notes, the ends do not justify the means. And any group that initiates/brainwashes members through a prolonged and painful "confessional," takes members' money (through training fees and "love offerings") and then controls all aspects of their lives is a cult. The best that can be said is that YWAM doesn't hold members captive or discourage their leaving the group - but if you're stationed in a tiny country halfway around the world where you're being paid $7.00 a week - which is what YWAM pays - you'd better have friends or family willing to pay your way home.

But wait, there's more.

Also disturbing is Loren Cunningham's association with other controversial religious groups and movements, among them Promise Keepers, Campus Crusaders and Benny Hinn. The first two endorse YWAM on its site, and Cunningham has appeared on Hinn broadcasts.

Rick Ross claims that, according to Gary North, Cunningham has been studing Christian Reconstructionism since 1988. (North is R.J. Rushdoony's son-in-law - a writer, publisher and regular contributor to Lew Rockwell's poisonous website).

Finally, there is Rod Parsley, named by American Prospect magazine as a key figure in the 2004 Ohio election results. According to a November 2005 article,

"...Parsley has deliberately reached out to young people. His purpose was plain when he announced the planned formation of a new nonprofit organization, Reformation Ohio, in August. Reformation Ohio’s goals include, among other things, registering 400,000 new voters through its member churches and preaching to 1 million Ohioans over the next four years in an effort to convert 100,000. Many of these sought-after converts will be teenagers, through a $10 million campaign by Youth With a Mission, a nonprofit group that aggressively evangelizes through extreme sports, Christian rock concerts, dance, and performance art."

(Read the whole article about Parsley - very informative)
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?sectio...

Sooo...

What's all this got to do with David Cunningham?

Well, his familial association raises a few questions, like - why was he chosen to direct it? His only other big credit is a film entitled "To End All Wars," another "true-life" story about a WWII POW's Christian strength and forgiveness of his Japanese tormentors. You'll find it praised on a number of sites like this:

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/...

But even more, it raises these question: Who funded this movie? What is their agenda? Who is really responsible for this rightwing bilge?

1. "Systems where health care is paid for by a third-party increase the incentive for individuals to consume unnecessary medicine."

In his very weasely statement the poster doesn't cite any evidence for his claim, and he limits it to "medicine," by which I imagine he means people who see ads for prescription drugs and ask their doctor for them. That's a pitiful drop in the bucket compared to the costs of tests, procedures, surgery, meds and therapy that so many medical conditions and illnesses require.

Let's say he was using the term "medicine" as shorthand for "medical treatment." Now his statement becomes absurd, because it is not the patient who orders tests, recommends hospitalization or otherwise determines how much treatment will be consumed. It is precisely because of this lack of individual control that medical care is unlike any other consumer expenditure. You can live in cheaper housing; you can eat less or cheaper food, and wear cheap or secondhand clothing; you can take public transportation instead of owning a car. But except for preventive health care (for which insurance will not pay) there is no way to lower your medical costs except to refuse treatment.

2. To wish ill on another is a low and unworthy act. It's gratifying, though, to imagine how these posters' points of view might change if, as a result of illness or accident, their resources were depleted and their families' assets drained. It amazes me, given the random nature of life, that their lives seem untouched by tragic circumstances that devastate so many others. They post as if no loved one was born with a congenital defect, or stricken with a chronic illness, or mangled in a car wreck, or wasted away in a long, painful, expensive prelude to death. As if self sufficiency was limited to their own needs, and personal responsibility limited to their personal comfort.

But would it make any difference? For many decades I required little more than the occasional antibiotic or aspirin to keep running without problems, and my attitude towards the plight of others was no different from what it is now that I take daily medications and require regular blood tests. So why would personal misfortune cause these posters to change their minds?

You and I may be ill and in financial straits; but we were not born with the defect of the heart that makes these cold fish indifferent to the needs of others. In that regard, we are much healthier than them.

L'chaim!

I never watched Zola Levitt's broadcasts because they just weren't entertaining enough. He didn't have the flair of the typical evangelical preacher. He wasn't a overt con man like Bob Tilton. He didn't preach to big crowds like Jimmy Swaggart. He didn't "cure" people like Benny Hinn, or make death threats like Pat Robertson. He was just no fun.

I guess that's because Levitt was a seeker, a Jewish man who converted to Christianity because he was looking for answers. Unfortunately he found his answers in a literal interpretation of the Bible, which led to his career as a preacher of end-times prophecy. He was dedicated to converting other Jews to Christianity to save them, as he had been saved, before the trials of the Tribulation began.

Zola Levitt's bio says he was saved in 1971 at Indiana University, when he came under the influence of a group called the "Campus Crusaders." Having encountered evangelical cults myself around that time, and withstood their brainwashing efforts, I can well imagine how a young Jewish man in such an environment might have been susceptible to pressure from fundy Christian zealots.

Rest in peace, Mr. Levitt, and congrats on escaping the Tribulation.

His obit:
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/14383/Prea...

His site:
http://www.levitt.com/

Scientists view the world in scientific terms; clergymen view it in religious terms. I tend to view the world in marketing terms, because so much in life is marketing - persuading people to part with something of value in exchange for a promise. Science, religion, philosophy, psychology and more all play a role in marketing, but it's marketing itself that asks the key questions that get the ball rolling:

Who are we talking to? The target audience

What are we trying to tell them? The promise; the end benefit

Why should they believe us? The support; the reason to believe; the single-minded selling proposition

What action do we want them to take as a result? To try a new brand; to increase usage of a brand; to maintain brand loyalty; to switch loyalty from one brand to another

Most people think that advertisers are in the business of selling products and services, but they don't. Not any more. Over the last 25 years the rising cost of media, the proliferation of media outlets, and the global expansion of consumer markets have driven marketers to find new ways to identify and reach potential consumers. Segmenting them by traditional demographics - age, gender, income, household size - neither narrows the target audience sufficiently nor defines it sharply enough to help develop an effective, cost-efficient selling message. As a result, marketing research focuses on the beliefs that consumers hold and how those beliefs are reflected in the way they live to help advertisers identify both current and potential customers.

In short, marketers no longer sell goods and services. They sell lifestyles as defined by brands.

Your lifestyle indicates your potential to buy the brand. The brand reinforces your chosen lifestyle, whether it's really the life you lead or want others to think you lead. In every possible category there are brands designed to appeal to every possible lifestyle. Think you're immune to lifestyle marketing? Savvy brands have identified your anti-marketing lifestyle and know how to market to it. The only way out is to opt out of a category completely - e.g. cell phones, a category that (so far) my lifestyle has gotten along without.

-------------------------------------

That basic overview is preamble to examining your post in marketing terms and showing how you answer the four basic questions to create a strategy for Democratic victory in 06 and maybe 08.

Who are we talking to?

- people who, if asked today by a pollster for their opinion, would say that they do not support the war and want it ended
- who have tremendous affection for...and pride in their country
- would be enraged and offended by statements that torture of prisoners is what the U.S. always does, and simply demonstrates again the evil nature of the United States because their strong identification with the country leads them to take these statements personally
- can be reached by appealing to their native interests and patriotism
- do not like incompetence and incompetents, and do not want to associate themselves with that
- view incompetence in leaders as a tremendous and harmful failing
- are working people...(who) deeply abhor and despise...money corruption and profiteering

This is a superb definition of the target audience. You do not define them as Christians, rightists, Southerners, conservatives or Republicans. These groups are subsets of our target, but they do not make up the whole of patriotic, working class people, just as not all Democrats were anti-war at the start of the invasion, and not all Christians are fundamentalists. Your definition of the target audience helps Democrats reclaim patriotism and pride in country. It is an inclusive definition that welcomes people into our fold - including those people who have opted out of the political category by not voting. It acknowledges and rewards the audience without judgement (and it certainly does not degrade them with terms like "sheeple," one of the most elitist, divisive words I have ever heard).


What are we trying to tell them?

The promise is the weakest part of the strategy you have laid out. It is implicit in your essay but that isn't good enough. The end benefit to ending the war and voting Democratic has to be clear, concise, believable and unique.

The promise is usually stated in the tag line in either a literal way like "Built to Last" or an evocative way like "Just Do It." John Kerry's 2004 promise was "We Can Do Better," designed to encompass the handling of the Iraq War as well as economic issues back home.

What is the promise of the strategy you describe? Many here like "Support Our Troops - Bring Them Home" but that is not really the theme of this strategy. It doesn't speak to the greed and incompetence of the criminals in office or the anti-Americanism of their crimes.

My suggestion? A concept worded along these lines:

Let's Rebuild THIS Country First

This concept communicates an array of end benefits:

A change of guard; an appeal to patriotism; kicking out the thieves (without having to say that Dems won't steal, which a lot of cynics would dismiss); strengthening our economy, our infrastructure, our schools, our families, and our international reputation, restoring us to the Great America that lives in our memories, if not our actual history. It's believable because it draws on Democratic heritage - the New Deal also rebuilt our country after a catastrophic fall. It's unique because the GOP can't say it - if they tried it would beg the question why, with complete control of the government, they have done the complete opposite. It may be a little xenophobic, but I don't mind.


Why should they believe us?

These pissants lied to us and sent our soldiers out to create the Islamic Republic of Iraq just so they could line their damn pockets with our tax dollars!

What more can be said? It's believable, fiery, succinct, written in real language. If you said it in a strategy meeting, everyone would fall silent at its beauty till someone lept up and wrote it on the Big Pad so people could pick it apart. ("'Pissants'? Is that too much? What about 'creeps'?") But in the end they wouldn't be able to change a word. As a single-minded selling proposition for this target audience, it's brill.

What action do we want them to take as a result?

- get the greatest possible number of people on board with the idea of ending the matter quickly
- move them to agree, and agree passionately and with a vocabulary of demand, with the right course of action
- persuade the greatest possible number of people to be moved to despise the torturers and the leaders that promote torture, and be eager to take political action against them at the ballot box

Yep. Not just agree but act, by exchanging their votes for the promise of a better country.

----------

So concludes my marketing analysis of your strategy. (Ha ha, my post is longer than yours! That's a first.)

But all I've done is shown why it can work. It's your keen insights about people and politics that have created the right message for the people we need to reach.