Saturday, May 17, 2008

Teddy Bear Messages

Found this CL piece by Kiera McCaffrey from a little over a year ago. The whole thing is spot-on and useful reading, but the paragraph which caught my eye describes the performance art equivalent to what I've termed the "Kevlar Sentence" which JohnMcG should receive credit for identifying. Viz:

Another group, Healing Alliance (formerly known as Linkup), turned to Jeffrey Anderson to educate them about effective lobbying techniques. Those gathered at the 2003 annual meeting of the victims' support group were instructed by the lawyer-turned-showman that teddy bears are the key to influencing elected officials. He told them that, should an advocate call on a legislator who is not in his office, the advocate only needs to leave one of the stuffed toys with a staffer in order to turn a missed opportunity into a successful appeal: "You tell them it represents the innocence of a child—the innocence that's been stolen—and I guarantee they'll remember you."

So that's what the prosecutor needed to bring to court to nail Michael Jackson. Teddy Bears!

Maybe as the funding, popularity and relevance of these bigoted groups continues to dwindle they could begin the ceremonial nocturnal burning of kerosene-soaked teddy bears in priests' yards so it's guaranteed that Catholics "remember" them.

2 comments:

  1. Moreover, individuals from these various fields are joining forces, not to protect young people—if that were the goal, calls for reform would begin with the public schools—but to bludgeon the Catholic Church.


    Exactly!!!!!!!

    I ran into this phenomenon lately with a woman who was all het up about the victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse but did not seem to care two flips about the case of my late mom, who was repeatedly molested at age five by a mere non-clerical garden-variety creep.

    For some folks, victims only count, and their pain is only feel-worthy if the perps are Catholic priests. Amazing.

    It ereally does call into question the real motivations of these dudes who profess to be so moved by the (very real) plight of sex-abuse victims.

    Let's face it: There is no hierarchy of sex-abuse victimization. Victimization is victimzation, trauma is trauma, and pain is pain, no matter who the perp was or what his religious affiliation or lack thereof.

    That's yet another raeson why Rod Dreher is a bloody hypocrite.

    In spades. And to the nth power.

    Diane

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  2. Hey, did I mention Dreher?

    ;-)

    Well, since you brought him up, I should mention that I have a survey question up about him.

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