Yesterday I tried to have a conversation with someone who's still an Obama supporter.
I had such a hard time making any eye contact with him ...
Couldn't strike up any conversation ...
I just gave up.
If Obama wins the next president could be Michelle and Hillary could be her V.P (moving on up kind of thing), if there is anything left of America to govern. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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You may recall, I just noted D'Souza's third prediction which he admitted was a riskier long shot and would only occur if the political climate became accommodative.
We now have Obama apologizing to Karzai for the burning of Korans, rioting in Afghanistan ending in the killing of American troops.
Once again, Obama seeks no comparable apology from Karzai for the killing of our troops by rioting Afghanistan's. I hear nothing from him when Coptic churches are destroyed by rampaging Muslims blah blah blah.
Are we again witnessing our anti-Colonialist president engaged in duplicitous leadership? Is he about to take advantage of an unfortunate event while radicals stoke the flames in order to do as D'Souza predicted - this could eventually allow Obama to try American military in domestic criminal courts for war crimes as he has done with Islamist terrorists.
One more Obama nail in the Pentagon's coffin as he leashes America's projection of its power? You decide!
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As government gets bigger it has a tendency to strangle citizens with increased complexity. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Welcome to 'Obamascare!' Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader.
Remember we had to pass it to learn what was in it.
But of course, there is a teaching lesson in all this as well. STAY HOME and don't enjoy yourself taking risks and having fun!(See 3 below.)
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From The Mot;ey Fool and the four risks to the economy. Nothing realy new here. (See 4 below.)
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The first and foremost job of a diplomat is to avoid conflict. Therefore, it is no surprise our State Department has been warning , to the point of self-paralysis, that an attack on Iran will unite the people to rally round the flag and certainly that is sound advice.
But when such advice, sound as it may be, creates paralysis of action thus, allowing something worse to occur, then it is time to think outside the box.
Obama is always going to box himself in when it comes to a showdown between Muslims and the U.S. and when it comes to taking strong action. It is partly because of his anti-Colonial love affair with his father's dreams and partly his nature. He ducked virtually every hard voting decision and seems to spend his life dancing around critical issues that demand decisive decisions that wouldplace our nation before currying political favors. . (See 5 below.)
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The editorial staff of our local paper cheered Obama for apologizing to Karzai so I feel compelled to respond with this LTE which they may or may not publish: "I take issue with your concurrence regarding Obama's continuing apologist stance.
The genesis of his attitude is not based on empathy or compassion but his desire to implement his father's dreams which has led him to become an anti-Neo-Colonialist president.
He truly believes America is a questionable force for good when it comes to our foreign policy initiatives and we have intruded ourselves as past colonial powers .
His anti-Neo-Colonialist attitude manifests itself in a variety of ways. Domestically, he is at war with the rich because he believes, as a neo-Colonial nation, American Capitalism has been unfair in its treatment of the have nots and thus his policy to spread the wealth on behalf of some half cocked 'fairness' doctrine.
By increasing our nation's debt and weakening us financially he is setting the stage for being reducing our ability to project power and to curtail our military posture.
Omnipotence at home by growing government and impotence abroad as he reduces our military influence .
Dinesh D"Souza effectively explains the roots of Obama's rage in his latest book and I commend the editorial staff of our local paper to read it before writing any additional head in the sand lead editorials.
I would be more than happy to buy them a copy."
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Dick----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)Michelle Obama: Not-so-secret campaign weapon
White House Correspondent
First Lady Michelle Obama, vastly more popular than President Barack Obama, hits the road Thursday for a pair of political fundraisers in Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky that will highlight what an asset she is for her husband's reelection and for Democrats nationwide.
A public opinion poll released January 19 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Pressfound that 66% of Americans have a positive view of the first lady, while only 44% approve of her husband's performance as president. Just 21% of Americans said they had an unfavorable view of Michelle Obama, compared to a 48% disapproval rating for the President, spelling out starkly the Obamas' differing fortunes since he took office in January 2009.
On Thursday, she will attend a fundraising reception in Cincinnati to benefit the Obama Victory Fund. About 300 people are expected to attend, according to an Obama campaign aide. Tickets start at $250, but the invitation, which was provided to Yahoo News, invites the particularly well-heeled to consider a donation of $10,000, to be rewarded with a "senior campaign staff meeting, meet & greet, & Photo reception." She is then scheduled to travel to Louisville for an event expected to draw 900 people at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.
On March 2, she will head to North Carolina to attend an Obama Victory Fund fundraiser in Raleigh, followed by two more in Charlotte — both featuring special performances by James Taylor, and benefiting the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for the week of September 3.
On March 9, she will attend two fundraising events in Boston, both at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
And she is expected to hold similar events all the way up to election day.
A campaign aide provided details of the first lady's schedule on condition that she not be named.
1a)Michelle Obama Listed Daughters as "Senior Staffers" on African "vacation"
Can you believe this?
Now, if a Republican would do something like this, the press would be
all over it and yapping about it for weeks.
Michelle Obama listed daughters as "Senior Staffers" to justify expensive African vacation and safari October 5, 2011 The most accountable
administration ever:
Judicial Watch said the U.S. Air Force provided a C-32 a Boeing 757
modified by the military for the purpose of flying big-wigs around the world to
fly the First Lady and her entourage to and from Africa, at a cost of $424,142.
Another $928.44 was listed as the cost of providing 192 meals for the 21 people who made the trip The Obama daughters were listed on the manifest as "senior staff".
This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our
overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information. I missed this story yesterday, but it's worthy of our attention. The nation is suffering with the economy sputtering, the national debt soaring and Obama¹s economic rescue policies not only failing but actively making things worse.
Meanwhile, the First Lady justifies an expensive trip to Africa to take a vacation and safari with her daughters by saying it's official business and even going so far as to list her children as "staffers".
The level of arrogance and dishonesty on display here is nothing short of shocking. But, er, "hope for change" and "yes we can"...
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-ob
tains-documents-detailing-the-cost-to-taxpayers-for-michelle-obama-s-family-trip-to-Africa/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)President Obama’s Corporate Tax Reform Rearranges the Deck Chairs on the Titanic
American companies are hindered by what is arguably the world’s most punitive corporate tax system [1]. The federal corporate rate is 35 percent, which climbs to more than 39 percent when you add state corporate taxes. Among developed nations, only Japan is in the same ballpark, and that country [2] is hardly a role model of economic dynamism.
But the tax rate is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s also critically important to look at the government’s definition of taxable income [3]. If there are lots of corrupt loopholes — such as ethanol [4] — that enable some income to escape taxation, then the “effective” tax rate might be rather modest.
On the other hand, if the government forces companies to overstate their income with policies such as worldwide taxation [5] and depreciation [6], then the statutory tax rate understates the actual tax burden.
The U.S. tax system, as the chart suggests, is riddled with both types of provisions.
This information is important because there are good and not-so-good ways of lowering tax rates as part of corporate tax reform. If politicians decide to “pay for” lower rates by eliminating loopholes, that creates a win-win situation for the economy since the penalty on productive behavior is reduced and a tax preference that distorts economic choices is removed.
But if politicians “pay for” the lower rates by expanding the second layer of tax on U.S. companies competing in foreign markets [7] or by changing depreciation rules to make firms pretend that investment expenditures are actually net income [8], then the reform is nothing but a re-shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Now let’s look at President Obama’s plan [9] for corporate tax reform.
The good news is that he reduces the tax rate on companies from 35 percent to 28 percent (still more than 32 percent when state corporate taxes are added to the mix).
The bad news is that he exacerbates the tax burden on new investment and increases the second layer of taxation imposed on American companies competing for market share overseas.
In other words, to paraphrase the Bible, the President giveth and the President taketh away.
This doesn’t mean the proposal would be a step in the wrong direction. There are some loopholes, properly understood, that are scaled back.
But when you add up all the pieces, it is largely a kiss-your-sister package. Some companies would come out ahead and others would lose.
Unfortunately, that’s not enough to measurably improve incomes for American workers. In a competitive global economy, where even Europe’s welfare states recognize reality and have lowered their corporate tax rates, on average, to 23 percent [10], the President’s proposal at best is a tiny step in the right direction.
Article printed from Cato @ Liberty: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org
URL to article: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/president-obamas-corporate-tax-reform-rearranges-the-deck-chairs-on-the-titanic/
URLs in this post:
[1] world’s most punitive corporate tax system: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/americas-number-one-americas-number-one-oops-never-mind/
[2] that country: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/is-japan-the-next-greece/
[3] critically important to look at the government’s definition of taxable income: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-%e2%80%9ctax-expenditure%e2%80%9d-con-job/
[4] ethanol: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/with-ethanol-handouts-up-for-renewal-will-the-gop-side-with-corrupt-lobbyists-or-free-markets/
[5] worldwide taxation: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/europe-should-not-copy-americas-imperialist-and-anti-growth-worldwide-tax-regime/
[6] depreciation: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/killing-jobs-with-class-warfare/
[7] expanding the second layer of tax on U.S. companies competing in foreign markets: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/when-an-american-company-redomiciles-to-the-cayman-islands-what-lesson-should-we-learn/
[8] depreciation rules to make firms pretend that investment expenditures are actually net income: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/white-house-to-propose-26-percent-corporate-tax-rate-look-before-you-leap/
[9] President Obama’s plan: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/The-Presidents-Framework-for-Business-Tax-Reform-02-22-2012.pdf
[10] lowered their corporate tax rates, on average, to 23 percent: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/thanks-to-tax-competition-corporate-tax-rates-continue-to-fall-in-europe.
2a) By now, we're sure you've heard squawking about Obama's new tax bill… Next year, the dividend tax rate would increase to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6%. Including the phasing out of certain deductions and exemptions, the rate is 41%. Finally, if you add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, the 2013 dividend tax rate would be 44.8% – nearly triple today's 15% rate.
But dividends are paid after the corporation pays taxes on its profits. If you assume a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on earnings paid as dividends would be 64.1%.
But fear not… These new taxes would only hit the rich… as long as you define rich as individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000.
But isn't it typical of Komrade Obama to pit the "poor" against the "rich" as a political tool to push his agenda? The ugly truth is, he's not targeting the rich so much as he's simply targeting the successful. An increase to the dividend tax rate of this magnitude will hurt all investors, including many retirees dependent upon dividend income to meet daily living expenses. And as usual, the tax hike will hurt those at the bottom of the bracket much, much more than the top of the bracket.
Like all "taxes on the rich," this is NOT a tax on the rich. It's mostly a tax on the more successful upper echelons of the middle class, the small business owners, and the family farm owners.
According to a study by the Wall Street Journal…
Historical experience indicates that corporate dividend payouts are highly sensitive to the dividend tax. Dividends fell out of favor in the 1990s when the dividend tax rate was roughly twice the rate of capital gains.
When the rate fell to 15% on January 1, 2003, dividends reported on tax returns nearly doubled to $196 billion from $103 billion the year before the tax cut. By 2006, dividend income had grown to nearly $337 billion, more than three times the pre-tax cut level.
And according to a Cato Institute study, 22 S&P 500 companies that hadn't paid dividends before the tax cut started paying them in 2003 and 2004. It's no mystery… Money goes where it is treated best. Prohibitive dividend taxes drive companies to do other things with their capital, like simply retaining the earnings or buying back stock. You can be sure these companies are already working with swarms of lawyers to find ways around this. One easy solution is to expedite cash distributions… Assuming this tax increase becomes law, we'll see lots of companies pay large, one-time "special" dividends, as they're called…
Our only solace is that the dynamism of businesses and individual investors trumps the static nature of government, laws, and taxes
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3)From an astute pal on the Landings. Welcome to our future thanks to Obama !
This is an email I received yesterday from my niece in Toronto. Her son was injured in a snowmobile accident 7 weeks ago. He was seen in a hospital there, where it was determined that he had fractured ribs and extensive injury to both shoulders. He was sent home with pain medication! He hasn't been able to do anything for himself since then because of the severe shoulder injuries.
You won't believe the following email. - N---
Dear family and friends,
This is an update on B------. Today was his first visit to the Orthopaedic Surgeon. Unfortunately he is not a candidate for surgery now. They require more extensive investigation into the severity of the nerve damage as well as tendon, muscle, bone etc. in both shoulders. He is has to start physical therapy to get some range of motion back. They cannot do surgery with his condition now, if they do, he will never get that range back. He may never get it back even after physio and or surgery.
This all is a major set back for us as our Doctor insinuated it would be less complicated than it is going to be.
His EMG to look at nerve damage is not until March and he is on a list for an MRI. If there is nerve damage a plastic surgeon will also have to perform surgery on him. Basically both shoulders are a mess. It has been 7 weeks waiting and I have no idea how long his recovery will be at this time. Months I assume. The only good thing is knowing that it could have been worse.
Thanks for your kind messages of concern.
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4)The 4 Biggest Risks to the Economy
After four miserable years, the economy really is improving. Jobs are coming back. Production is on the rise. Debt is coming down. Confidence is going up. The improvement seems real. And I think it will continue.
But the best you can do when forecasting this stuff is to think in probabilities. The odds are goodthat things will keep getting better, but not perfect. If there's a 70% chance that the economy will improve this year, there's a 30% chance that something less enjoyable will happen. What might go wrong? Four threats should be kept in mind.
Gas pricesTwo months ago, a gallon of gasoline cost an average of $3.18. Today, it's $3.52 and rising virtually every day. If you think it's bad now, just wait until the summer driving season.
What's behind the jump? Probably nothing happening here at home. U.S. refinery output is at an all-time high, and U.S. consumption of gasoline is the lowest in 11 years. The U.S. is now a net fuel exporter for the first time since 1949.
Rather, geopolitical strife is likely to blame -- which, of course, U.S. policy is part of. As my colleague Dan Dzombak explained, "The U.S. has been pushing a plan among Iran's major oil customers to embargo Iranian oil over the country's nuclear program ... In retaliation, the Iranians have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway for 20% of the world's oil." A physical constraint of oil doesn't even have to occur here. Just the fear of such an outcome is enough to push global oil prices higher.
And that adds up fast. Americans consume about 358 million gallons of gas a day. When prices rise by $0.50 a gallon, an extra $65 billion a year comes out of consumers' pockets.
These spikes tend to self-correct quickly, as higher prices push people to drive less. But that's what's dangerous. Less driving usually means fewer trips to the mall, a canceled vacation, and less eating out. That can help weaken the economy, as happened in 2008.
EuropeIt's cliche to cite Europe as a threat these days, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Fallout from a Greece default or some other cataclysm within Europe's banking system could haunt the U.S. in two ways.
One, the U.S. exports more than a quarter trillion dollars of goods to Europe annually. A deep recession on the Continent could cut into that substantially, dampening what has otherwise been a strong point of the U.S. recovery -- manufacturing and exports.
Two, we could wake up one morning to learn that U.S. banks are more exposed to European assets than they assured us (how most financial crises begin). Scrambling to stem losses, they may then cut back on loan growth, reversing progress made on that front in the last year.
In December, I asked Reuters editor Chrystia Freeland what average U.S. citizens should think about what's happening in Europe. She replied: "The single most important economic actor in their lives is [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel. She is also, more than anyone else in the world, going to be the person who determines who is the next president of the United States."
PoliticsWhen S&P downgraded U.S. debt last year, its reasoning was clear: "The downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenge," the ratings agency wrote.
The best example is last summer's debt-ceiling debacle, when Congress came within hours of willfully and voluntarily defaulting on the nation's debt. Throughout the ruckus, most analysts reassured that this was mere posturing, and that Congress would never actually allow a default. In hindsight, they were right. But what if it's different next time? What if, in the intrepid game of chicken we call legislating, each side calls the other's bluff and refuses to budge? It's hard to guess the circumstances, but some self-inflicted wound can easily be imagined. When we asked Motley Fool readers in January what worried them the most, almost half said dysfunctional politics. You can hardly blame them.
Facebook has a sign in its corporate headquarters that says "Move fast and break things." This seems fit for Congress lately. And while it may be a good motto for a young technology company, it's an awful way to run a country.
Something totally unforeseenAuthor James Fallows once wrote, "What looks like tomorrow's problem is rarely the real problem when tomorrow rolls around."
There will be another crisis, another recession, and another panic. Many, in fact. And all will have something in common: They will be caused, at least in part, by factors and events that no one is talking about today. Japan could not have foreseen the economic hit caused by its tsunami last year. No one can predict the actions of a rogue trader. Wars, earthquakes, oil spills, assassinations... no one predicts these things because they can't be predicted. But they can have a huge impact on the economy.
Warning of "something unknown" might seem like a cop-out when making a list of risks, but it's probably the most important risk to think about. This is the basis of Nassim Taleb's best-selling book The Black Swan: It's the events we don't think about, or those considered highly improbable, that inflict the most damage. If everyone knows something is going to happen, it's probably nothing to worry about.
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5)Psychological Warfare Must Precede Strike on Iran
By William A. Levinson
Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago that war is of vital interest to the state, and a matter of life and death. Colonel Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare says the same of his science: "Yet success, though incalculable, can be overwhelming; and failure, though undetectable, can be mortal." Most of the West does not understand this science, and Israel is particularly deficient in its study.
Any attack on Iran's nuclear program will, in the absence of preparatory psychological warfare, unite the Iranian people against the attacker. Germans who had no use for Hitler and Nazism nonetheless fought harder when Allied troops entered Germany itself, and Russians who feared or despised Stalin took up arms against German invaders. Iran's government is obviously relying on its people to react similarly to any Western effort to derail Iran's nuclear program, and may in fact want to provoke an attack to divert the minds of Iranians from their government's numerous shortcomings. This is why a PsyWar campaign must precede an attack on Iran, and it may in fact make such an attack unnecessary.
The campaign must educate the Iranian people that the West has no quarrel with them, but only with their rulers, who plan to attack other countries with nuclear weapons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "World Without Zionism" poster shows a glass ball with the Israeli flag falling through an hourglass, along with a broken one with an American flag at the bottom. Iranians must realize that their leaders are effectively brandishing weapons of mass destruction, which both invites and justifies a pre-emptive response.
The first step of such a campaign is to identify the Propaganda Man, or hypothetical audience we seek to persuade. Most countries have more than one Propaganda Man. In Iran, for example, we have the soldiers who control the means of violence, as well as civilians who live in fear of the government and religious police. Both audiences are likely to dread the inevitable nuclear retaliation should their rulers put their threats into effect.
The propaganda campaign should therefore state, "The West has no quarrel with Iran unless Iran starts it, in which case the target of Iran's aggression would have no choice but to retaliate in kind and with overwhelming force. Tens of millions of Iranians would die, and the great cities and proud heritage that date back to your Persian ancestors would lie in ruins. This [insert pictures of victims from Hiroshima and Nagasaki] is not what you seek for your great nation, but it is where your self-serving rulers are leading you."
The phrase "self-serving" is important because a leader who does not serve his followers loses what China calls the Mandate of Heaven: the right to lead as derived from effective service to stakeholders. This argument can be phrased with the ancient Indo-European word dher, for the duty of a leader or ruler to care for the welfare of his subjects. It appears, for example, in the name of Darius (a king of Persia), Jemadar (lieutenant, holder in trust of a body of men), and Dharma (the Right Way). The Iranian words for duty and stewardship should therefore be used as often as possible.
The first step is therefore to persuade Iranians that the Ahmadinejad government, unlike a true Persian leader, rules for its own benefit and not for that of its people. The next step is to tell Iranians, and especially those who control weapons, what they can do about it.
Another great nation, the people of Germany, had a heritage of learning and culture that, while not as old as Iran's, was the envy of Europe. Then they made the mistake of electing a self-serving demagogue named Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he would lead Germany to greatness, but by 1944, it was clear that he was leading Germany nowhere but to utter ruin. Millions of Germans already lay dead, and the nations that Germany had attacked the way your government threatens to attack the West were closing in on it from both sides.
Then a group of patriotic German officers realized that loyalty to Hitler was not compatible with loyalty to their Fatherland. These German patriots conspired to kill Hitler, overthrow his government, and make peace with the nations whom Hitler had attacked. Had they succeeded, it is quite likely that the Allies would have made peace without occupying and humiliating Germany as they did in 1945. The elimination of the Nazi government and Germany's withdrawal from all occupied countries would have left the Allies with no real reason to continue to fight.
Does your duty to your countrymen and to Iran's ancient heritage call upon you to help start a senseless war in which your friends and families are likely to die wholesale, or to remove the self-serving rulers who call for this war in the name of an ideology every bit as deranged as that of the Nazis?
The appeal can add that the Italian people took matters into their own hands with regard to Benito Mussolini, and the famous or infamous pictures of Mussolini hanging upside-down could be included as a suggestion as to what ordinary Iranians can do with their government -- especially religious judges and secret police who have made Iranian dissidents disappear, or have sentenced women to be stoned to death for mostly imaginary offenses.
This propaganda offers the added effect of fomenting paranoia in the Iranian government, and Sir Thomas More's Utopia actually recommended this approach. It was the practice of More's fictional Utopians to offer a reward for the murder of the enemy leaders, with amnesty for any enemy leader who turned on his associates. The resulting breakdown of trust, at least in a despotic government, is quite likely to result in preemptive executions and/or assassinations.
Commentators on Sun Tzu's Art of War added a case study in which a country sent a "secret" message to a high-ranking official on the other side, with the intention that it be intercepted to make it look like the official was disloyal. The valuable official was put to death; Germany used the same technique to cause the execution of a Russian general during the Second World War.
Colonel Linebarger contended quite accurately that psychological warfare is the most humane of all weapons. If you can persuade an enemy to lay down his arms, desert, malinger, or otherwise not do his master's bidding, he won't kill you, and you don't have to kill him. The persuasion of the Iranian people to overthrow their dictators will save lives on all sides while offering Iranians a prosperous future free of religious oppression, violence, and the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night.William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.
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5)Psychological Warfare Must Precede Strike on Iran
By William A. Levinson
Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago that war is of vital interest to the state, and a matter of life and death. Colonel Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare says the same of his science: "Yet success, though incalculable, can be overwhelming; and failure, though undetectable, can be mortal." Most of the West does not understand this science, and Israel is particularly deficient in its study.
Any attack on Iran's nuclear program will, in the absence of preparatory psychological warfare, unite the Iranian people against the attacker. Germans who had no use for Hitler and Nazism nonetheless fought harder when Allied troops entered Germany itself, and Russians who feared or despised Stalin took up arms against German invaders. Iran's government is obviously relying on its people to react similarly to any Western effort to derail Iran's nuclear program, and may in fact want to provoke an attack to divert the minds of Iranians from their government's numerous shortcomings. This is why a PsyWar campaign must precede an attack on Iran, and it may in fact make such an attack unnecessary.
The campaign must educate the Iranian people that the West has no quarrel with them, but only with their rulers, who plan to attack other countries with nuclear weapons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "World Without Zionism" poster shows a glass ball with the Israeli flag falling through an hourglass, along with a broken one with an American flag at the bottom. Iranians must realize that their leaders are effectively brandishing weapons of mass destruction, which both invites and justifies a pre-emptive response.
The first step of such a campaign is to identify the Propaganda Man, or hypothetical audience we seek to persuade. Most countries have more than one Propaganda Man. In Iran, for example, we have the soldiers who control the means of violence, as well as civilians who live in fear of the government and religious police. Both audiences are likely to dread the inevitable nuclear retaliation should their rulers put their threats into effect.
The propaganda campaign should therefore state, "The West has no quarrel with Iran unless Iran starts it, in which case the target of Iran's aggression would have no choice but to retaliate in kind and with overwhelming force. Tens of millions of Iranians would die, and the great cities and proud heritage that date back to your Persian ancestors would lie in ruins. This [insert pictures of victims from Hiroshima and Nagasaki] is not what you seek for your great nation, but it is where your self-serving rulers are leading you."
The phrase "self-serving" is important because a leader who does not serve his followers loses what China calls the Mandate of Heaven: the right to lead as derived from effective service to stakeholders. This argument can be phrased with the ancient Indo-European word dher, for the duty of a leader or ruler to care for the welfare of his subjects. It appears, for example, in the name of Darius (a king of Persia), Jemadar (lieutenant, holder in trust of a body of men), and Dharma (the Right Way). The Iranian words for duty and stewardship should therefore be used as often as possible.
The first step is therefore to persuade Iranians that the Ahmadinejad government, unlike a true Persian leader, rules for its own benefit and not for that of its people. The next step is to tell Iranians, and especially those who control weapons, what they can do about it.
Another great nation, the people of Germany, had a heritage of learning and culture that, while not as old as Iran's, was the envy of Europe. Then they made the mistake of electing a self-serving demagogue named Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he would lead Germany to greatness, but by 1944, it was clear that he was leading Germany nowhere but to utter ruin. Millions of Germans already lay dead, and the nations that Germany had attacked the way your government threatens to attack the West were closing in on it from both sides.
Then a group of patriotic German officers realized that loyalty to Hitler was not compatible with loyalty to their Fatherland. These German patriots conspired to kill Hitler, overthrow his government, and make peace with the nations whom Hitler had attacked. Had they succeeded, it is quite likely that the Allies would have made peace without occupying and humiliating Germany as they did in 1945. The elimination of the Nazi government and Germany's withdrawal from all occupied countries would have left the Allies with no real reason to continue to fight.
Does your duty to your countrymen and to Iran's ancient heritage call upon you to help start a senseless war in which your friends and families are likely to die wholesale, or to remove the self-serving rulers who call for this war in the name of an ideology every bit as deranged as that of the Nazis?
The appeal can add that the Italian people took matters into their own hands with regard to Benito Mussolini, and the famous or infamous pictures of Mussolini hanging upside-down could be included as a suggestion as to what ordinary Iranians can do with their government -- especially religious judges and secret police who have made Iranian dissidents disappear, or have sentenced women to be stoned to death for mostly imaginary offenses.
This propaganda offers the added effect of fomenting paranoia in the Iranian government, and Sir Thomas More's Utopia actually recommended this approach. It was the practice of More's fictional Utopians to offer a reward for the murder of the enemy leaders, with amnesty for any enemy leader who turned on his associates. The resulting breakdown of trust, at least in a despotic government, is quite likely to result in preemptive executions and/or assassinations.
Commentators on Sun Tzu's Art of War added a case study in which a country sent a "secret" message to a high-ranking official on the other side, with the intention that it be intercepted to make it look like the official was disloyal. The valuable official was put to death; Germany used the same technique to cause the execution of a Russian general during the Second World War.
Colonel Linebarger contended quite accurately that psychological warfare is the most humane of all weapons. If you can persuade an enemy to lay down his arms, desert, malinger, or otherwise not do his master's bidding, he won't kill you, and you don't have to kill him. The persuasion of the Iranian people to overthrow their dictators will save lives on all sides while offering Iranians a prosperous future free of religious oppression, violence, and the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night.William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.
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