Category Archives: The STF Rule

Mirror Propaganda

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Since forever I’ve had a category at Seeing the Forest named “The STF Rule.” “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.” Republicans do what they accuse.

I just learned the name for this is “Mirror Propaganda.”

From the UK’S Open Democracy, ‘Anti-trans activists are using ‘mirror propaganda’. Here’s how to spot it‘,

There is a name for this mechanism of power: ‘mirror propaganda’. Mirror propaganda means doing to your enemies what you are falsely accusing them of doing to you.

[…]

The invention of mirror propaganda has been attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and so far the earliest identified deployments of it are by Goebbels and Himmler in 1940s Germany, targeting Jewish people.

More recently, Alison Des Forges and Jean-Pierre Cretien identified mirror propaganda as a significant factor in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when hundreds of thousands of Tutsi men, women and children were killed.

Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project at Harvard University, has also identified mirror propaganda as one of the main techniques for inciting genocide.

Googling around, I see it’s also called “Accusation in a mirror.”

Citing Wikipedia is bad, but there’s this.

Republicans Do What They Accuse

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The old “Seeing the Forest Rule” (scroll down, it’s a whole category) is “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”

Today’s edition: Voter fraud. Republicans are accusing Dems of voter fraud. Turns out the only voter fraud is Republicans.

Daily Beast, Yet Another Resident of The Villages Busted for 2020 Voter Fraud,

A fourth retiree from The Villages has been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud at the well-known central Florida retirement community.

There are lots of examples of Republicans committing voter fraud. There aren’t any examples of Dems doing that. Of course.

Republicans Attacking Obama Because Republicans Blocked “Buy American” In Stimulus

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Sometimes it is painful to live in America and to also have a memory…
In the news, Republicans are running ads attacking Obama for “sending taxpayer dollars” out of the country in the stimulus… Republicans level outsourcing accusations against Obama,

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday launched a new website charging that Obama “sent taxpayer dollars” to build solar panels in Mexico, windmills in Denmark and batteries in South Korea. The accusation involves money from the 2009 stimulus package that went to foreign-owned companies or to companies relying on foreign suppliers.

And GOP looks to paint Obama as outsourcer of stimulus dollars,

At an event in Iowa on Tuesday, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus will debut a new website — ObamanomicsOutsourced.com — that features companies that received stimulus dollars and opened factories in foreign countries. Among the examples: a solar panel factory in Mexico, windmills in Denmark and a battery manufacturer in South Korea.
… “President Obama has promised over and over that he would focus on creating ‘jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,’ but his record speaks otherwise,” said Priebus in a statement. “Through his ‘stimulus’ program, billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers were sent overseas.

But here is what I remember about this:
Top Republican: Scrap ‘buy American’ stimulus clause.
and
Debate over ‘buy American’ in stimulus,

A “Buy American” provision being debated as part of the Senate’s nearly $900 billion economic stimulus package – requiring that infrastructure projects use U.S.-made materials and equipment – is sparking talk of a trade war and is forcing President Obama to choose whether to defend domestic industries or champion free trade.
The top Senate Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Monday that the measure should be stripped from the bill, saying it could endanger more U.S. jobs than it protects.
“I don’t think we ought to use a measure that is supposed to be timely, temporary and targeted to set off trade wars when the entire world is experiencing a downturn in the economy,” McConnell said. “It’s a bad idea to put it in a bill like this, which is supposed to be about jump-starting the economy.”

Remember the Seeing the Forest rule: “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”

A Clue To What’s Coming

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Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”
So here is a clue to what’s coming from the billion-dollar Republican campaign: the biggest smear and lie campaign ever “in US history.

RNC’s Reince Priebus Tears Into Obama: ‘Most Divisive, Nasty, Negative Campaigner’ In U.S. History | Mediaite

“This president has already shown that he’s not who he said he was. He claimed he was going to bring everyone together, he was going to be this uniter. He’s been the most divisive, nasty, negative campaigner this country’s ever seen without running any positive ads.”

Hey, It’s Copyrighted — The STF Rule!

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From the post, Balloon Juice ｻ Blog Archive ｻ There Is Your Opening, President Obama,

And, as a side note, this merely confirms what we already know- whenever the Republicans accuse someone of something, they are already doing it. Class warfare? Has he watched the GOP the last twenty years?

Now just a minute, that’s copyrighted. And trademarked. And patented. And placed in a lockbox. It’s called the Seeing the Forest Rule. (Click and scroll down…)

The old “Seeing the Forest Rule” is “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.”

You’ll be getting a letter from my lawyers.

“Death Panels” – How Rovian

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The old “Seeing the Forest Rule” is “When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing.” It is also very Carl Rovian, using the Sun Tzu tactic of attacking the enemy’s greatest strength in ways that turn it into a weakness.
So if you look at health care reform, one of the biggest complaints people have — and therefore one of reform’s biggest strengths — is that the insurance companies deny coverage if treatment is expensive: if the treatment might get in the way of the CEO’s bonus the patient can just die.
So guess what, now they are saying that health care reform means that if treatment is expensive you can just die. This is the basis of the “Death Panel” myth.
I hope people can figure out what is happening here.

Teabagger Parties – Remember The Seeing the Forest Rule

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The Seeing the Forest Rule: When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing. Today’s variation is when they claim they are doing the honest, innocent thing it usually means they doing are the dishonest, conniving thing. The promoters of the upcoming anti-Obama “tea parties” claim that they are “grassroots” but really they are one more corporate-funded, lobbyist-organized Republican bait-and-switch operation, tricking their supporters into supporting even more corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich.
Here is what I am talking about. The NY Post is owned by the same company as FOX News. SO take a look at this: TEA PARTIES: REAL GRASSROOTS – New York Post,

…these Tea Party protests aren’t the same old rituals with the same old marchers.
These aren’t the usual semiprofessional protesters who attend antiwar and pro-union marches. These are people with real jobs; most have never attended a protest march before. They represent a kind of energy that our politics hasn’t seen lately, and an influx of new activists.
[. . .] Instead of the “astroturf” that has marked the ACORN-organized AIG protests, this movement is real grassroots. So if you’ve had enough, consider visiting a Tea Party protest in your area — there’s bound to be one.
It’s your chance to be part of an authentic popular protest movement, one that just might save America from the greed and ineptitude of the folks who have been running it into the ground.

There are numerous posts and articles like this one, all claiming this is a “spontaneous” and “grassroots” event. In fact, as Jane at Firedoglake points out, the tea parties are organized, funded and promoted by a big lobbyist organization. Think Progress also writes about this and Media Matters writes about how these anti-Obama events are receiving exhaustive on-the-air promotion from FOX News, to the point of calling them “FNC Tea Parties.” (So does Think Progress.)
Also be sure to read Oliver Willis, The Seminal, Crooks & Liars, Washington Monthly, Newshounds and DownWithTyranny writes about the calls to violence associated with the tea parties.

Justice Dept Politicization – The STF Rule

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The Seeing the Forest Rule (click and scroll down for examples): when Republicans accuse it is a cover story for something THEY are doing.

Take a look at this nonsense: The Columbus Dispatch : Boehner attacks Justice Department over ballots; House GOP leader says cabinet department employs Obama supporters,

The highest-ranking Republican in the House is accusing the Republican-led U.S. Justice Department of playing politics when it comes to investigating voting-fraud allegations and monitoring balloting in Ohio.

. . . Boehner said today that the agency has been infiltrated by supporters of Democrat Barack Obama.

So here we are in the which year of a special prosecutor investigating the politicization of the Justice Department by the Republicans, where they were using the department as an arm of the Republican Party. And Boehner is accusing the department of being “infiltrated” by Obama supporters. Wow.

OK, this is the HOUSE MINORITY LEADER, one of the top positions in our government.

The country is facing serious problems that we have to solve. In fact we are facing this BECAUSE of people like this. We need to replace these people with competent people who are ready to approach the problems we face.

Palin’s Accusation That Obama is A Terrorist

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Sarah Palin repeatedly accuses Obama of having various “ties” to terrorists, and pretty buch of being a terrorist himself.
Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans Accuse it is a good idea to see if it is what THEY are really doing. The accusation serves as an inoculation. It works like this: Billy steals a cookie from the cookie jar. Billy runs to mommy and tells her Bobby took a cookie. Bobby responds with “No, mommy, Billy did it.” This gets Bobby is serious trouble, and Billy gets away scott-free — plus a cookie.
So of course an investigation into Sarah Palin reveals … you guessed it. A DailyKos post explains, and David Neiwert has a summary at his blog:
# That Gov. Palin, when a Wasilla city council member, formed an alliance with some of the more radical far-right citizens in Wasilla and vicinity, particularly members of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party who were allied with local John Birch Society activists. These activists played an important role in her election as Wasilla mayor in 1996.

# Once mayor, one of Mrs. Palin’s first acts was to attempt to appoint one of these extremists (a man named Steve Stoll) to her own seat on the city council. This was a man with a history of disrupting city council meetings with intimidating behavior. She was blocked by a single city council member.
# Afterward, Mrs. Palin fired the city’s museum director at the behest of this faction.
# She fomented an ultimately successful effort to derail a piece of local gun-control legislation which would simply have prohibited the open carry of firearms into schools, liquor stores, libraries, courthouses and the like. The people recruited to shout this ordinance down included these same figures, notably the local AIP representative (who became the AIP’s chairman that same year).
# She remained associated politically with the local AIP/Birch faction throughout her tenure as mayor on other issues, particularly a successful effort to amend the Alaska Constitution to prohibit local governments from issuing any local gun-control ordinances.

But really, what did you expect?

WHY Are Republicans Accusing ACORN Of Voter Fraud?

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The Republican noise machine is going absolutely full-force after ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), accusing them of committing vote fraud on a massive scale. You can’t turn on the radio or TV without hearing that millions of illegal votes will be cast for Obama because of ACORN’s massive vote fraud. If you Google “Acorn” and “rigging” you get over 50,000 hits.

The Republican National Committee website is headlining the effort. And they are issuing accusation press releases all day, every day, to drive this effort. They have a “fact sheet” listing numerous accusations.

Here’s the thing: ACORN is registering voters and is REQUIRED BY LAW to submit voter reg forms as the voter fills them out. Even so, the total “fraudulent” registrations they are accused of submitting nationwide is very low, maybe a few thousand. This is across the entire country when they have registered more than 1.3 million new voters. And this is all about registration forms that are filled out wrong by the voter, not ACORN, or a voter submitting more than one registration. This is what all the noise is about.

This is the key thing to know: None of these faulty registrations are capable of resulting in a single fraudulent vote. The problem is ACORN workers turning in forms that were filled out wrong, in some cases by the workers themselves to make it look like they were working when they weren’t. But vote fraud? The most common problems is duplication but if someone fills out 12 registrations, they’re still only goign to vote once. It is up to county election officials, not ACORN to worry about election fraud. And on a call today with ACORN they pointed out that while there are bad registration forms submitted, there is not one case of a person commiting actual vote fraud as a result of ACORN’s efforts. Not one, ever, anywhere.

So the question is, why? Why the huge hissy fit over ACORN?

Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans accuse, it is because it is what they are doing themselves.

Working on the Election Protection Wiki I am seeing more and more accusations of a massive nationwide effort to throw millions of voters off of the registration lists, and otherwise keep them from voting. One example accusation: states like Florida are purging voters whose names do not exactly match their Social Security or drivers license, so “Bob” on one and “Robert” on another disqualifies them from voting. Another, across the country the Republicans are accused of mailing faulty absentee voter applications to Democrats — they have incorrect addresses for sending the application, or when they can send them in they are thrown out for various reasons to do with the forms. Another: across the country students are being told they can’t vote. These are just a few examples — you may have heard that some states are even throwing people off voter registration roles if their homes are foreclosed.

Could THIS be why there are so many accusations against ACORN? To provide cover for the REAL voting scam that is going on?

Among the accusations is that they have “employed convicts to register people.” That sure SOUNDS bad, but so what? Also among the crimes they are accused of is submitting duplicate registrations for voters. Here is the thing to keep in mind, when a duplicate registration is submitted, the person is registered once and the duplicates are thrown out. Again, so what?

ACORN is an organization that helps poor and minority communities. One thing ACORN does is organize people to vote. They have submitted over 1.3 million new voter registrations this year. From their website,

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.

This sounds exactly like something Repubicans would hate. A lot.

Among the hundreds and hundreds of stories, these today:

ACORN Investigations Provide Rallying Cry for Republicans
Is Acorn Stealing the Election?
Obama Hired ACORN For GOTV
It’s time to shut down ACORN, work against voter fraud
GOP Renews Complaints Over Voter Registrations

ACORN’s Crimes

RNC: CNN Exposes How ACORN Steals Votes & Ties to Obama

Jive Turkey Rides Again

Palin’s Relationship With America-Haters

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So McCain and Palin want to accuse Obama “associating with terrorists.”
Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans accuse, it usually means they’re doing whatever it is they are accusing others of.
Maybe we ought to look at Palin’s associations:

Palin’s Traitor Accusation

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Palin says Obama is a traitor. So maybe it’s worth pointing out that Palin is associated with groups that hate America enough to call for dissolving it.
Yes, as weird and extreme as it sounds, it is really the truth. Her husband, for example, is a member of one such “secessionist” group that talks about “hatred” of America. I used the word “hatred” in quotes because it is a quote. Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans accuse, it usually means it is something THEY are doing.
Palin’s Attack On Obama’s Patriotism Legitimizes Questions About The Palins’ Association With Group Founded By America-Hating Secessionist

Sarah Palin attacked Obama’s patriotism today over his association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers — a move that makes it perfectly legitimate to raise questions about the Palins’ associations with a group founded by an Alaska secessionist who once professed his “hatred for the American government” and cursed our “damn flag.”

Go read the rest.