Comments on: Five Stages

by: Akkam’s Razor

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:21:07 +0000

[…] The Mahablog » Five Stages (tags: grief republicans) […]

by: dzman49

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:59:13 +0000

On 1 & 2, I think it was Andrew Sullivan’s site where I saw a comment about historical reaction to Repub scandal at “The Corner” that matched your schema:

First, silence (1. Ignoring)
Then, joking (2. Belittling)

by: bill

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:29:55 +0000

The stages are good, but it is missing one of the most important elements…Boasting or Bravado or Bluster. This is an attempt to jujitsu a controversey with its own momentum from a negative to a positive, the opposite of belittling. Careful because the user will try to quickly claim victory while you are stumbling around trying to decide what weakness in the argument to attack! In this case the argument is; Heck yea Bush ousted those attorneys, he appointed them so they work for him. Its his right to fire them as he wishes. Another one is, you bet we are gonna torture, terrorists don’t obey any Geneva conventions. So wouldn’t we be stupid to go into a fight with our hands tied? Last example is, we have to cut the social safety net like welfare, just look at how much harm these programs do to the poor, it makes them lazy and unable to provide for themselves.

by: Birmingham Blues » Blog Archive » Another Time Writer Wrong About Bloggers

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:39:35 +0000

[...] But Marshall and his reporters, who apparently don’t have anything better to do and may be slightly unstable, kept pushing this story until another U.S. Attorney, David Iglesias, went public with his suspicions about why he was fired. But even then Carney remained steadfast, writing skeptically, “If Iglesias names names, and others tell similar stories, I will take my hat off to Marshall and others in the blogosphere and congratulate them for having been right in their suspicions about this story from the beginning.” Of course, he still wasn’t prepared to waste his valuable time looking into the matter himself and he couldn’t resist getting in a little dig at bloggers, pointing out that “Suspicions aren’t facts,” which bloggers apparently don’t realize because they didn’t go to journalism school. [...]

by: republicanSScareme

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:35:59 +0000

I like your idea, but I think you are restricting your concept when to tie it to the “Five Stage of Grief” idea. I’m more enclined to think of it as the ‘Endless stages of grief because you’re a Republican and can’t think clearly’ idea.

For example:

A Republican is caught, red-handed with his hand in the cookie jar. A nearby citizen yells “Look, everyone, he’sstealing!”

The Republican responds:

“So what, everyone does it! People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones! Let’s not start pointing fingers now! Can’t we all just be friends? Let’s not go on any witchhunts, now! Get over it, stupid! Politics!!! Look, a flying saucer!

I am a published illustrator. Contact me.

by: Gordon

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:49:56 +0000

I think the 5 stages translate pretty directly (grief, after all, is the reaction to loss, which can be, say, loss of prestige).

Denial = ignoring or “don’t be ridiculous, nothing happened, nothing to see here”.

Anger = belittling, lashing out at the media, the vast left wing conspiracy, George Soros, Bill Clinton, or some backstabber.

Bargaining = “Clinton did it too”, “everybody does it”, “so and so is worse” (which implies the unstated, “OK, I’m bad”).

Depression only comes out on Charlie Rose or BookTV, as they indulge, years later, in self-analysis (usually beginning with “if only…”, followed by some incarnation of the tooth fairy).

Acceptance is never, ever news.

by: Jim in Raleigh

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:38:22 +0000

You might also consider the classic six stages of a project immortalized on a wall at Lockheed in Burbank, CA in the late 50’s/early 60’s.
1. Awarding the contract - Putting the inmates in charge of the asylum.
2. Solving small problems - Convincing the gullible there’s nothing here to see.
3 Panic at insoluble problems - The smokescreen is being breeched and the gullible are beginning to questioni authority.
4. Search for the guilty - Blame the MSM, Clintons, liberals, etc. It has to stick on somebody other than US.
5. Punishing the Innocent - Now that we have a plausable target make sure it sticks. [Note: The alternate plan is for a sacrificial lamb from within to assume ALL responsibility; absolving everyone else.]
6. Awards for the non-participants - Freedom medals to all the survivors.
Seems like maybe steps 4 and 5 aren’t working so well anymore.

by: Swami

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:53:41 +0000

How about larding with irrelevancy? I recall many instances of reading comments in postings about Bush’s warrant less wiretaps where the righties would incessantly make references to Muslim beheadings.
I like befogging category..a similar exercise would be what I call squidding. A classic example of squidding would be the support the troops argument, although support the troops is not a scandal, the technique is easily applied in all situations where obscurity of the real issue is desired. It’s both a defensive and offensive maneuver simultaneously.. a staple for the more sophisticated righties.

by: moonbat

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:05:41 +0000

Let’s not forget Distraction, or Faux Outrage, which occurs when It Gets Too Big to Ignore. Fr’ example, the All-Anna Nicole Smith, All-The-Time marathon we were recently treated to, or The War On Christmas from a few months ago was the perfect smokescreen (for the dense) to mask what’s really going on.

Similarly, yesterday’s troll posting, about Sandy Berger = Karl Rove (aka “They All Do It”) is in a similar vein.

by: SamFromUtah

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:55:27 +0000

Maybe there should be an optional “cashing in” step, though that might be considered an especially nasty variant of belittling/minimizing. “Club Gitmo” comes to mind.