No, because politicians aren't stupid and don't work off of a dialogue tree like some sort of shitty NPC. They can, in fact, say "No Comment", deflect the issue, or give a non-answer along the lines of "It's complicated and we're working on it". All of which are perfectly viable options that are not political suicide to take.
I'm going to destroy you here. Don't take it personally, it's partially what I helped do for prop-103, I wasn't one of the high ups, but I did get to see how to do a glorious hit job. And this is what this is-- a hit job.
Because I want a war. your right, I don't want filibusters, I want a full on, we're here to liberate your ass, war. myu clients want the south FREEDOMED. I'm going to say, budget about 1 million for this hit job.
Now the first thing to do is to get some party favors. I'm going to go through all the footage of slave auctions in the south. Amnesty has been filming them, and lots of people with cameras have, because again, these are public events. Now in RL my MA was in
British slavery and abolition, but it did involve a bit of the American side of things up until the 1840s.
One thing that was fairly common was the stripping and "checking" of women and girls. We have diaries of those as young as 12 being stripped and having potential buyers have them spread their vaginal folds, then bend over and open their ass cheeks. For a health check.
We've got two looks we can use as we're going through the footage. Crying, possibly urinating herself, or looking into the distance with a thousand yard stare like she's trying to pretend this isn't her body being fondled. Maybe do a little photoshop job on that. Bonus, if I can get a frame where the auctioneer or a possible purchaser is in frame.
Question is, do I have them look as they did in real life, or do some photoshop job, add a bit of weight, make them look absolutely disgusting? Maybe I don't have to--just them touching a 12 year old at all is going to trigger all sorts of "oh my god" reactions. I'm going to have to use pixilation, but that's fine. I can mention that all footage has been pixlated in parts to comply with the law. People's imagination is always better for that.
Right. Now for the ambush. I'm going to get the news media, get oh, twenty or thirty African Americans, including teens and girls that look as close to this one as I can get. Their going to have placards with the girls image on them, and if you said "no comment" that, if you said "it's complex" that. Maybe change it to "
why is it complex?"
The idea isn't to have a conversation. I don't want you talking. I want you flustered. "No comment " is great. Just going into your office is better. Remember, nothing you say here can help, because all your reasons, which do make sense, are complex and require people to think. The picture of a naked, crying girl on an auction block? That's simple and doesn't require thought. It plays to the twitter and youtube generation.
Oh, we need a name for the poor dear. Well, Celia is the actual name of a slave who was executed after murdering her rapist, so we'll go with her. (hell, she was fourteen in 1850, so this may actually be her). Now that produces a connection. She's no longer "naked girl on block," she's Celia. Everyone who talks to you on my team, everyone is going to nail you with that. "What about Celia? Have you found Celia? Why isn't Celia important?"
If I can get you to lose your temper, becuase jesus fuck you'd love to drop the 101st on their head and bring her back, but you're not
God!
Great. Safe politicians losing their temper because they aren't willing to keep little girls from being raped plays great with the demographic.
Next step, I buy ads on twitter, and use my legion of far more computer savvy kids to set up social media accounts. Thinking back to an anti-crime ad I remember from the 1980s, we'll take a bunch of photos of girls playing, doing track meets, playing the violin. This is going to be expensive, because I have to make certain that they
all sort of look like Celia. Because we're going to do a fade cut at the end of every scene of domestic harmony, cutting to Celia, naked, on that block.
Maybe have some of the kids give interviews, asking the interviewer where
they would be if they were in the South. Maybe get the soulful, tearfilled eyes where they confess that they have nightmares of being kidnapped and taken to the south. Likely, I can actually find some real cases of trauma on that, teens being teens.
For Celia: For the Children. It's a great tagline, because if you say anything against it, you're not for Celia, and you're
against the children. No Californian politician wants to be
against the children.
It doesn't matter if you were right, because again your arguments take time and thought to work on. Mine don't. Mine stop at
stinking southern child rapists. You can't
get a better slogan to turn off critical thought. (for prop 103? Have you had problems with your insurance, because duh, nobody
thinks about insurance unless they're having a problem.)
You're having people throw stuff at you or show up at your house so you need a police escort. (fun fact, demonstration on a sidewalk is protected speech).
That's even better: View of you leaving your home. "me.me.here has police, paid for with your money, to protect him."
"Who does Celia have?" Cut to an extreme close up, possibly with photoshop to make it look even more horrid, of the auctioneer or buyer.
Fade to black.
Red words:
For Celia.
When you come to work, your fellow politicians look at you with the look reserved for someone who has a fatal disease, because it's already looking like people are going to try to knock you off in the next election cycle. I don't know her, because obviously that would be wrong. But all of her canvassers? They're got a script that brings up Celia at some point, because we have demographic information for the whole neighborhood and we know who has kids, who has friends who are black or who is mixed race. Mentions that their candidate will
protect the children. Because we must
protect our children. By the way, did you hear the story about the Southern Slave takers who tried to get into California? I'll make certain that they are never welcome in CA. (I know you will too, me.me.here, but well, nobody is paying me to be fair to you.)
Now I want to keep my message focused. I'm not talking about war, but I'm pissing people off at you, and more notably, at the south. You're not the primary target, you're the
object lesson. Your replacement, or your colleagues will realize that the best way to solve this Is to become more Catholic than the pope. If you do survive, it will be with a major fight and bad memories that might make you decide to play nice.
But how could the Californian people fall for this? A war would be a catastrophe!
Maybe, maybe not. But we went in to Iraq. That went poorly. Everyone said, Never again, Obama's getting us out of this.
And then... we bombed the shit out of Libya, despite everyone telling us, from the very start that this was going to turn into an ethnic cleansing disaster. And it did. And people said: We're never doing that again!
And now, we're involved in Syria.
Three presidents, three wars that were very bad ideas. Note the pattern?
The electorate has a very short memory and especially now, it's based very much on emotion, and that applies to both conservatives and liberals. It's gotten worse now, since back in the 1980s it was harder to get your information via twitter--I couldn't have done this in the same way back then.
But Bush managed to get us into a war with someone who had shit all to do with 9/11, who didn't have nukes, and all he had were pictures of outhouses, trailers, and the kind of aluminum tubing you get at Lowes. You're fighting people who are weaponizing
raped kids. You're talking policy, and yes, it's good policy, it makes sense, but I'm leapfrogging that. I'm talking emotion, in a visceral way that has people go "Damn your policy." It's happened all over the US, if you look at the
stupid ass laws that have been passed because "think of the children" (and
don't think about whether or not this abomination of a law is going to work).
And here's the final problem. You
don't disagree with me. If you could build a giant robot that fired slaver blasting energy and picks up every slave and makes certain everyone got fed, you'd do it in a heart beat. You want the south gone, gone, gone, but you worry about consequences and what do we do if the south's reaction is to start slaughtering the fuck out of their slaves as our forces are advancing, and how do we keep the rest of the union from jumping in and I know those fuckers in London just
love the idea of us being pinned down here forever. You don't want to defend the south, you'd love nothing more than to shoot the auctioneer in the face, but you have to think about these things, because you expect to be here for the next twelve years or more if this is your first term, and you
don't want your very own forever war.
Me? I'm gonna collect my bounty, put on my bounty hunter PR serape, and stride off into the canyons of LA, the wind at my back, looking for another client. What happens when the guns start blazing? That's not my problem. That's your problem. I just lit the fuze on the bomb. Where to chuck it in the lake of gasoline you're standing in is up to you.
And if five years from now, it's going poorly and we've got a million poorly acclimatized ex-slaves with no skills in CA? Why, I'll put on my serape, draw my guns, and then using twitter and face book and my legion of allies, ask:
"WE need order in California. Why did me.me.here back the invasion of the South? Why didn't he plan for what could happen? Back Candidate X, a thinker, who will solve the immigration and refugee crisis me.me.here has placed California in."
That's... probably the point when you start thinking may be the South had a point with the whole "I can call you out for a duel and shoot you." custom.
