The left needs to reclaim "Freedom" and "Tyranny"
Freedom and tyranny are two, prominent tea-bagger, right-wing mantras used to hurt the left and fire up the right-wing base. The right owns these words. Beck, Hannity and any other flag-wrapped, right-winger can scream "we want our freedom back" and the right-wingers go wild.
They own these words because they are almost always associated with government actions, keep the government out of my life, etc. "tyranny" is almost always used to denote government oppression of individual rights.
The left needs to take these words back or at least muddy-them-up a little ("luntz" them up?) by pointing them at corporations and big-business. Focus on the things big, corporate interests do that limit people’s freedoms or borders on tyranny while screaming that we want "freedom" from the oppressive, "tyrannical" power of the big business. Make people realize that government is not the only threat to our freedom.
Use the words a lot. Build talking points around them. Run advertisements showing corporations and big-business forcing people to take pay cuts, moving jobs out of the country, encroaching on private individual land rights by polluting, mountain top mining and eminent-domain, show banks trashing retirement funds while paying CEO's big bonuses, manipulating markets to run-up electric and oil prices, dropping insurance coverage, buying political favors to increase profits. Again, show that tyrannical business can be just as bad as any government.
Point out that government should play the middle man, ensuring that individual rights and freedoms are not stomped on by the tyrannical power of corporate money and power.
Done correctly, this could give the left a fighting chance when some right wing lunatic like Hannity or Beck wraps themselves in the flag and screams that "we want our freedoms back".
TNB
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