In Friday’s blog I compared the basic core narratives of extremists representing radical Islam and those representing the Teapublican Party here in the U.S. I promised that I would begin offering some possible counter-narrative strategies. Today I will discuss one that has demonstrated some promise at home and abroad.

First, a word about counter-narrative strategies in a “war of ideas.” Unlike the usual counter-narrative strategies found in marketing campaigns, the idea here is not to claim a superior brand (e.g., the U.S. offers a better way of life than does al Qaeda or the Taliban; Progressives/liberals offer a better vision for America than do Teapublicans).   Nor is the goal of a counter-narrative strategy to find an instant message/slogan/image capable of changing the target audience’s mind about our product. While these strategies may work well enough in a competitive business environment, they do not so work well in a highly charged political environment. Why?

There are two answers to this question. The first one is drawn from communication theory: “meanings are in people, not in words.” As my colleagues in the Consortium for Strategic Communication have argued, it is the audience that determines the meaning and worth of a message, not the sender or source, no matter how much money is put into the effort. For people who have grown up in a radicalized family or neighborhood, or who have gained exposure to it through a mediated environment saturated with a particular anti-U.S. or anti-Progressive worldview, no degree of branding, and certainly no instant slogan or image is likely to change minds already well accustomed to fending off challenges to the dominant local narrative. As Alex Baldwin points out in his blog this morning, there are still people in Nevada who never carry a dime in their pockets because it bears the image of FDR.

Images and icons are important. For example, the image of the U.S. as the “crusader” is particularly damaging in our efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Those of the Islamic faith are reared from childhood to recognize that crusader archetype within a particular narrative tradition, one that begins with the Pharaoh (Rameses II), a “tyrant” who dared to challenge the God of Moses and paid for it with his life, as well as the more recent historical crusades, where Western armies invaded their lands, stole their treasure, raped and killed their women, and otherwise did what invading armies generally do—wreak havoc and destruction while trying to convert the faithful to a different (and it is always claimed, a better) way of life. Put simply, our “brand” is tainted by deep historical associations that will not be easily remedied by trying to repackage U.S. efforts as anything but the work of a new tyrant (President Bush originally, now President Obama) and breed of Western crusader. Put simply, no one is listening. At least, not with an open mind.

This observation is as true among Tea Party members and the 70% of Republicans who, according to the most recent Gallup poll, identify with them. Our Progressive/liberal brand is one that many of them have been acculturated to hate, or at least to shun. Our archetypal Democratic heroes—FDR, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and now Obama, for example—are, for these citizens, the true villains who created and perpetrated a big government model to control society, and that use taxation and regulation to redistribute wealth, rob us of our liberty, and subvert the original intentions of the founders. And this is putting it in polite terms.

For right-wingers steeped on these core beliefs and historical associations, no business-like rebranding effort is likely to work. Bad enough that the left can be ridiculed as having given up the label “liberal” (around 1988) in favor of “Progressive,” but even worse is that those of us who share that political affiliation don’t offer a common definition for it. For those on the far right, Obama is a socialist (despite rational arguments to the contrary); Obamacare is government takeover of health care (despite the fact that Medicare and Medicaid already exist); taxes are the problem (despite the fact that under Obama we pay far less tax than ever before in history); and so on. Neither making rational arguments nor simply stating the facts, m’am, are likely to sway their opinion. Put simply, again, no one is listening. At least, not with an open mind.

The second reason for not choosing a rebranding counter-narrative strategy is a bit more complicated. Just as the Internet and global media have expanded access to information, so too have they narrowed the channels, websites, and/or news sources that we pay attention to. We have managed to create gated communities in cyberspace as well on the airwaves, with the result being that most of us only tune into those channels that carry commentators we already agree with. Jihadis replay cassettes featuring the fiery rhetoric of radical clerics. Tea Baggers listen to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck. In neither case do radicals trust news sources outside their own belief systems.

It isn’t that the truth isn’t “out there”; in fact, it may be. The problem is that any source that contradicts our core narrative with challenges to what we hold true is suspect, with the result being that no one outside of our worldview is a credible source for a message. This is true, obviously for the radical left as well. But unlike the radical right at home or the jihadis abroad, the left isn’t calling for a violent revolution or supporting armed insurrection against the government.

So here’s the problem: Unlike business marketing strategies that rely on saturating the airwaves and Internet with the same core message/advertisement/image in order to firmly implant a brand into our heads, when it comes to radical politics and ideologies, it won’t work because we only tune into those with whom we already agree. And there, on that bandwidth, the saturation is far more consistent and competent on the right than it is on the left. Doesn’t matter if the source is pro-Islamist or pro-Teapublican, the right at home and abroad is far better organized for message saturation than we are.

So what to do? One strategy is stop selling ourselves, period. Instead, we must use what we have learned about interpretive communities to defeat their narrative, their distortions, and their propaganda. As Jim Glassman, former U.S. Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs put it, “the priority is not to promote our brand but to help destroy Al Qaeda’s. …Think of American values and political system as orange juice. Think of the Al Qaeda system of violent extremism as lemonade. Our job for the short term is not to put all of our efforts into getting people to drink orange juice, but to get them not to drink lemonade.”

In short, don’t try to counter their narrative with ours; counter their narrative with the reasons why theirs is wrongheaded, unproductive, unhealthy,and/or is less likely to lead to the better life it promises, and so on.

How should we best accomplish that strategy? If they won’t listen to reason and don’t respect our facts, what may be done instead?

One method that holds promise across the political spectrum is the strategic deployment of humor and ridicule. It’s no secret that The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Rachel Maddow, and maybe even Bill Maher have done more to counter the Teapublican right than any concerted effort from the often feckless and ineffective Democratic Party. Unfortunately, this claim is also true for Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and a host of right-wing commentators who also deploy humor and ridicule to their listeners.

Similarly, the use of ridicule has been used against radical Islamists in Indonesia (for example, the Mas Selamat Kastari “jailbreak” caricature stemming from his escape from a Singapore prison) and is reportedly used by Special Forces troops to draw out Taliban fighters from hiding places in Afghanistan. It has also been reported that bin Laden fears ridicule more than he fears kinetic weapons. Students of politics and communication can also point to a long tradition of political cartoons as vehicles for challenging or resisting political and public figures, including the infamous Danish cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad that led to death threats and to mocking cynicism of Islam that contributed to the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

So there is a downside. More than one. For in addition to risking the wrath of those who are humiliated, the use of humor and ridicule as a counter-narrative strategy may lead to political inertia. As communication and society scholar Neil Postman expressed it years ago, as a society saturated by media opportunities, we risk “amusing ourselves to death.” Given that we have retreated to real and virtual gated communities, we may find ourselves laughing at humor and ridicule that is only fun to those who share our beliefs and values. Again, if no one is listening, how effective is the use of humor as a counter-narrative strategy?

So in the end it comes down to this one unfunny fact: it is unlikely that the use of humor and ridicule will change the minds of those who are seriously aligned against us. But it may help disrupt their narrative. Deflect their attention. Expose their vulnerabilities. And that is a good start …

Tomorrow we investigate a very different approach. Stay tuned!

San and I went to clinic for round two of the all-day chemo assault on the bad guys. But unfortunately we found out after my blood was drawn that my white count hadn’t quite recovered enough to risk it. So I was sent home.

You know what? That’s fine. Ironic as it is, San and I would much rather err on the side of caution when making decisions about pouring more of that poison through the port in my chest into my bloodstream. In times like these when I pause to think about it, I often find myself onstage in an imagined Monty Python scene of my own making. Here is today’s dialogue (and when reading it, please do so aloud and use the class-appropriate British accents):

Doctor: “It is neither good news nor bad news, but I’m afraid your results show you aren’t quite well enough to be poisoned again.”

Working Class Me: “But I will be well enough soon, right?”

Doctor: “Oh yes, you will be just fine in a couple of days. Then we’ll poison you.”

Working Class Me: “Oh good! Will there be sweets, like last time?”

Tia, the oncology nurse: “We always have sweets for you, Bud.”

Doctor: “I’ve been meaning to talk to you both about that. His blood sugar is a bit high. So we must cut back on the sweets.”

Working Class Me: “But I still get the poison?”

Doctor and Tia: “Oh yes, we promise you’ll get the poison. As much as you want.”

Me: “Well, good enough then. I’ll just be on my way …”

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Yesterday was a good long day at the chemo ranch with some morning blood work that allowed seven hours in the comfy recliner chair while my system received three different poisons, dextrose, Zofran, and a bunch of other secret ingredients designed to massively assault the bad guys in a way that also lessens the likelihood of negative side effects, and then, for the next two nights and three days, live and sleep with a fanny pack containing an electronic pump that keeps the chemo flowing through plastic tubes that run from my waist into the port cut into my chest and then into my blood system.

If you think that was a long sentence, imagine living it.

I tell you, brothers and sisters, you cannot do this end-of-life journey through Cancerland well without a lot of love and support from your family and friends, the kind of love that endures without complaint, that helps you manage the pain and the changes and the nausea and the boring in-betweens, that keeps the fun stuff fun if not funner, and that holds on to you—the you that you were before all this shit—in their eyes, their smiles, their talk, and their hearts.

Nor can you do it and not lose your way to the bottomless grip to the grief and self-pity without an oncologist you trust with your life – our Dr. Rohit Sud - and without a caring, compassionate and incredibly knowledgeable staff working in a place that feels right: Monica, Tia, Jan, Gerry, Ashley, Sandy, Donna, Lauren, and Terry of the Four Winds Cancer Clinic.

In all of these parts of living as well as I can while dying of cancer, I have been greatly blessed. But if you have been reading my blog regularly, you know that. I just cannot stop saying it

It’s all part of the Chemosabe life. If you want to know what that means, keep reading.

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Yesterday I completed another long day in the chemo chair, emerged from it tired but happy (you are always happy when a session is over and there are congratulatory hugs shared all around). Slept well but dreamt – for some reason – of next season’s “Sons of Anarchy” episodes. It will be interesting to see if my dream pans out. If it does, then one un-anticipated side effects of chemo is prescience and maybe I can channel that skill into a lottery win. J

In my continuing work here, trying to write about my/our journey through Cancerland, I feel a need to “go deeper” into my experiences (San is keeping her own journal), at least deeper than the opening paragraph, which, without the bit about SOA and a lottery win, is the kind of illness gloss that is true but isn’t very helpful in showing you “what it is like to” live with cancer. So in the spirit of doing that, what follows is a chronicle of yesterday’s chemo treatment and today’s reflection on it. It is a longer piece but I hope you find it helpful.

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Rebekah and I are in a faux competition with each other to see who finishes the long chemo day first. Since we are both on the same basic time protocol (but with some key differences in dosages and medicines given that I’m at least twice her size and we have different cancers) it is mostly fair faux race. At least that’s what we say to keep it interesting. And fun.

My guess is that unless you have been in a similar situation – in a full bodied all-out fight against cancer – or have been close to someone who has, the idea of “fun” is about as far removed from your thinking about chemotherapy as bacon is from a Kosher diet. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not just gallows humor that you hear in the Room of the Orange Chairs, in fact, there’s almost a total absence of it.

Instead, we have fun in the same ways you disease-free fleshies do: we play with words, we tell jokes, we make comments on news items, we laugh at ourselves, and this: we take something as not funny as the appearance of a fire truck, good looking young men in pressed uniforms, and an ambulance in the parking lot, and turn it into an impromptu performance script worthy of Daniel Tosh. Our combined laughter on occasions such as these can be loud enough to cause sweet Ashley to close our door, for fear of disturbing more serious conversations in adjoining rooms. In other words, we make a joyful noise. We crack each other up.

Pardon my grammar. But I reserve the right to mess with it. It’s fun. I also reserve the right for all of us to have fun. To have fun so hard our laughter causes doors to close.

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