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Attack of the Anaconda - Failed Conservative Values

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Jun 11, 2008 1:36 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Washington Fair Elections, Democracy for New York, DFALA, Alameda for Democracy, DFA-Marin

Sometimes it helps to use a bit of imagination and creativity to look at things in a different way to shake up the status quo and change mindsets. I've been asking people to create a metaphor for the Failed Conservative Values. For example, if conservative values were a type of machine, or land, or animal, etc., what would they be like?

Here are some of the images people came up with. (You should be able to click on the images for larger versions)

Failed Conservative Values Metaphor: Norma - Anaconda

I would guess they are like an anaconda, in that they sit there and try to choke their prey. They’re trying to choke every dollar out of us, so that they will get bigger as we get smaller.

Failed Conservative Values Metaphor: Joan - Quicksand

I would say quicksand. Sucking you in to a pool, sucking the world, sucking people in. Choking them. Smothering them, and then the person disappears.

Failed Conservative Values Metaphor: Meat Grinder

They grind you up. They grind people up. Spit you out. Grind you up. Meat grinders.

Failed Conservative Values Metaphor: Jim - Mud Stuck Elephant

An elephant stuck in the mud. In the 21st Century we have to have to figure out a way to live together, and the values that conservatives usually hold don’t take into account the changes made in the last 30 or 40 years, and it’s like an elephant stuck in the mud.

And I prefer to change and to move. I’m prepared to look at each other as humans when all is said and done, whether gay or straight. We’re all humans. We all need to figure out a way to love each other. That’s the only way to save the planet.

Use your imagination.
What is your metaphor for the failed conservative values?
For example, if conservative values were a type of machine, or land, or animal, etc., what would they be like?

Failed Conservative Values
I ask for your assistance to systematically build the arguments and tell the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project.

More Progressive Values Stories:

Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com
and DFA Study Group

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Discuss

- which is the best metaphor?

By Edwin Rutsch on Jun 12, 2008 12:38 PM EDT

your vote?

( ) Anaconda

( ) Quicksand

( ) Meat Grinder

( ) Mud Stuck Elephant

mine

( x 1) Meat Grinder - I found this one the most painful. The person I interviewed was having health and health care financial problems and was speaking from personal painful experience.

(x 2 ) Mud Stuck Elephant - has a optimistic quality in that it proposes a solution to the problem.. every needs to love each other.

- quicksand

By Edwin Rutsch on Jun 12, 2008 5:54 PM EDT

from James.

"quicksand

really hits home for me, but the anaconda is a good runner up. The mappings for me are like this: The conservatives tell poor people that they are sinking because they are aren't working hard enough and they don't have discipline. The truth is, the harder they work, the further they sink, because the conservatives are standing on the solid ground of wealth and the poor have no means to climb onto that ground. The more they struggle, the worse the situation gets. The conservatives view this as an opportunity to make use of the struggle, and they view the struggling, sinking person as a resource. So they promise the sinking person a solution if they do more work, like pulling on ropes that run a fan which cools the conservatives. When the poor get close to getting a grasp on solid ground, the conservatives just loosen the ropes and start over again, until the person eventually sinks. Then they move to another victim.

The solid ground can also be seen as infrastructure on which much of the conservative power is based. But the conservative thinks the ground is his, and the sinking person has to "earn" it. The sinking person was once on solid ground, but the conservative claimed that ground and forced the sinking people into the quicksand (by selling their labor for more than they paid for it)."
http://65.181.144.29/content/how-should-obama-frame-mccain

- quicksand

By Arin Stevens on Jun 12, 2008 11:47 PM EDT

My vote is for "quicksand"

Conservatves often present their "values" and plans so slickly, playing to people's fears, ignorance and greed, that many are willing to walk across the sands of "security", "tax cuts" or "pre-emptive war" to their doom. When the quicksand of those deceptions begins to suck them down, they cry out for help, only to find the cons and neocons, under the guise of "deregulation" or "executive privilege", busily shredding the rescue ropes.

Practicing progressive values is like restoring those "rescue ropes" such as our civil liberties, honest vote counts and the Constitution and charting a clear way out of the desert of failed conservative values.

Edwin, thank you for all your hard work!

Arin Stevens