Some tasty morsels for your enjoyment:
This is what they call the Cohen Memo. It was written by David Cohen, Senior advisor for Civil Ventures, a progressive D.C.Think Tank. The email’s date for this memo is December 23. 2012 and it was sent to Mike Glaze (Head honcho of MAIG) from John Fleinbatt (Chief Advisor to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for Policy and Strategic Planning):
And this is a screen cap (taken just now) from our friends of Moms Demand Action’s About page:
You draw your own conclusions.
And they have troubles trying to get the message across.. no wonder when they do not know the subject matter:
Remember when MAIG and WalMart came to an agreement some years ago about selling guns at the stores and keeping a registration of who bought what as a bilateral effort? And how WalMart was praised by Mayor Bloomberg for their part in reducing Gun Violence? Well, WalMart was giving the scorpion a ride across the river.
This is why we cannot deal with this people: they come to the table without any good faith and they will screw you on a millisecond’s notice.
OK, Ladies and gents. I am done for now scanning all these emails. But more to come.
So, what have we learned from this past posts? To me at least it confirmed that MAIG HQ is composed by a bunch of heartless political animals. That MAIG and the NYC Mayor’s Office were in cahoots and I believe that MAIG was in charge of some offices and officers of the NYC government as if they were employed by MAIG.
They do not have a real grassroots operation: they are top-heavy and need to be in control of all aspects of the message. They have great strategists for messages aimed at cities like NY or DC but they are myopic about the rest of the country. The access/control over the established media is amazing and troubling as it seems that journalist are not just complicit but subservient to them….but we have seen this applied in Washington this last 5 years.
They are victims of their own propaganda against the NRA and Gun Owners. They keep underestimating us and our reach to their own peril, something I do not mind at all. Napoleon is attributed to say that when an enemy is making a mistake, do not correct them. and this would be a case. Then again, if they figure out our “strategy”, they are also screwed as we are dealing from a position of truth, something that is toxic to them.
Just because they are fools, does not mean they are not dangerous. They have not only the media but a powerful set of financial weapons that I wish we had. On an even monetary playing field, we would erase their asses in about 2 years tops.
I wish we could lay our hands on more emails, specially after the battles in the senate and the collapse of the effort to see their state of mind. I bet they were filled with four-letter words.
MAIG faces a tough 2014. After the Colorado recalls, Bloomberg’s name has become toxic to local elections. and that has to chaff him to no avail. I have no doubts that he had/has presidential aspirations but sticking his nose in state elections while still a Mayor of NYC created this carpetbagger effect that is not well received by those south and west of the Hudson River.
Our enemies are not invincible, but they are tough. They can and will be beaten.
This is why I’m interested in getting e-mails dated later, because MDA didn’t come on the scene until a bit after Newtown. I’d really like to see if MAIG organized and/or bankrolled that whole effort, or whether someone else did it.
The Cohen memo was sent Dec 23. Moms Demand domain name was created on Dec 24….
I’ll be passing all 5 of these on. You have done a very good job.
Thanks… there is more stuff but I need a break. I read the equivalent of War and Peace several times over in a week?
I need more relaxing reading!
Sorry if this sounds rambling; it starts slightly off-topic, but I believe it’s relevant. Ilya Somin over at Volokh posted on a new paper called “The Shooting Cycle,” describing the public response to high-profile mass-shootings:
– Tragedy (mass-shooting event, news reports, fear, uncertainty, etc.)
– Introspection (people wonder about the cause and/or how to prevent tragedy)
– Resolve (emotionally-charged people decide to push for action)
– Action (people/politicians push for reforms to prevent tragedies)
– Divergence (people disagree on proposed solutions)
– Back to status quo (emotion fades, other events take higher priority)
How is this relevant? MAIG’s e-mail threads show one thing: They completely skip steps #2 and #3 of the cycle by moving from Tragedy straight to Action. In other words, they lack introspection, replacing it with blind (and tone-deaf) action. They’re losing because normal people are still waiting for the facts to come in and contemplating the tragic event while MAIG is already pushing for their pet reforms, and invariably, further introspection shows those reforms wouldn’t make a lick of difference. It makes the “gun control” groups look like the blood-dancing opportunists they are.
Contrast MAIG’s response with that of the NRA, which – while admittedly having its faults – did NOT immediately jump into the media circus with a public statement. That shows introspection, and puts it on a pace more in line with normal people.
Difference between MADD and MDA: MADD pushed to make driving drunk socially unacceptable and to provide stiffer penalties to people who did so or who killed someone while doing so.
If we were to compare apples to apples, what MDA is doing is trying to make ALCOHOL ITSELF socially unacceptable and the ownership, possession, and consumption therof illegal. Something MADD never touched upon.
Yet…
The reduction in DD has about peaked, increasing penalties are now showing minuscule incremental gains as the portion of the population that can be reached through education and deterrence has been. Many MADD local chapters now seem to be devolving into classic pre-Prohibition-style militant Temperance movements pushing mandatory interlocks in all cars and universal sobriety checkpoints.
And as a result, MADD is starting to lose a great deal of traction and respect that they used to have. People can get behind stopping something that directly caused or could imminently cause harm such as driving drunk (the gun equivalent of which would be firing randomly in a populated area), but once you start seriously inconveniencing people and start talking about taking away widely enjoyed past times that harm nobody, you start to lose a lot of people.
@Volfram: Good point. One is a “common-sense, reasonable” policy that affects only those who break the law, and the other is a prohibition that affects only those inclined to NOT break the law.
Big difference.
If MDA took a MADD-like position, they’d be advocating stiffer sentences for armed crime and making the irresponsible use of guns socially unacceptable.
In other words, they’d be siding with the NRA.
@Archer: Basically, exactly. In fact, I’ll take it a step further.
They would BE the NRA.
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Thanks for putting this all together and posting this Miggy. I have not been keeping up, I need all the help I can get. Thanks.
[…] Part 5 of Miguel’s series looking at the MAIG e-mails in more detail. […]
My favorite part is where they talk about teaching the difference between the “private sale loophole” and the “gun show loophole”. I’d love to hear their explanation of that.