Second Draft - Our Declaration of War

Breath of the Beast has been quiet for a couple of weeks now and my friends, allies and constructive critics know that when that happens, something very important must be distracting my attention. I am happy to say that we have moved into a new phase at Second Draft. Richard and I have been pounding out our detailed plan to establish Second Draft as the Organization of Record for the quest for honest and ethical media. The written plan is important because it will serve as our primary planning and fundraising instrument. It is, I say this in all modesty, a comprehensive plan to first understand and then to motivate change in the mainstream media. Here is our Executive Summary-

The Unique Mission of Second Draft

Why are there so many anti-Zionist Jews? Why do so many Westerners hate Israel and America? Why do so many people assume that our government is always wrong, fundamentally bad? Why do the media always seem to ignore, make excuses for or gloss over the actions of terrorists, hateful Imams and extremist Mullahs who spread virulent hatred and the violence it inspires?

Israel’s fight for survival is a microcosm of the conflict between Caliphate Islam and Western democratic Civilization. This is a complex and deadly conflict, made more deadly than necessary by lack of inter-cultural understanding. Among the major contributors to this incomprehension, the mainstream media plays a critical role. The media’s failure to realize how our enemies systematically exploit them in the asymmetrical war on democracy makes them easy dupes in that war. The media are not alone as dupes though, as westerners, we are all hobbled by many cultural blind spots.

Key Western Blind Spots (what psychologists call cognitive egocentrism)

• Believing they (the Islamists) are just like us. (tolerant and open)
• Thinking they want the same things we want (peace, liberty and autonomy in a civil society).
• hoping that we can find a “win-win” co-survival arrangement with them (positive-sum).
• Supposing that if we extend the hand of friendship they will return the favor.
• Feeling that if they are angry at us, we must have done something to make them angry.

In order to apprehend the true nature of the conflict we need to:

• See how these blind spots render us incapable of understanding the conflict

• Understand how our mainstream media, sharing those same blind spots, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by the enemy in this asymmetrical warfare.

• Develop simple reality testing exercises to reveal these misconceptions.

• Improve our own and our media’s ability to detect and challenge the distortions introduced by the Jihadi PR machine.

• Reaffirm that our highest values; the democratic social and political rights of tolerance, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion are sacred but are a two-way street and must only be granted to those who honor them in return. Those who use them to undermine the society (e.g. seek to curtail freedom of speech to prevent hurt feelings), degrade the culture (e.g. allow honor-killing, wife-beating, female circumcision, and the burkha) and to mortgage the future (e.g. stop teaching the superiority of western democratic values in schools) must be denied those very rights.

When a group aims to degrade the rights and liberties of others, as does Caliphate Islam, we must find civil and lawful ways of recognizing and neutralizing that threat. If we do not, our blind spots will remain breeding places for political-correctness, cultural relativism and moral equivalence- all of which are corrosive of the ability of our democratic culture to sustain itself in a battle with the pre-modern forces of religious imperialism.

At Second Draft we go beyond the daily identification and fixing of inaccuracies, to identify the fundamental sources of the problem and, targeting them, help to build a more alert, effective cultural response. Our research and communications reveal the blind spots and restore clear cultural vision.

The Jihadis use the mainstream media as a theater of war (where they are, till now, consistently successful), our first step in building that cultural defense, and Second Draft’s highest priority, is to not only challenge our journalists to inform us more accurately but to understand that real accuracy requires knowing where the blind spots are and learning what is in them.

END

Important: Join us in our Declaration of War!

Understanding is the key but having the morale and financial support to act on that understanding is just as important. If you ( or someone you know) are interested in helping us in this crucial battle for the very survival of western values, we will be happy to send you a copy of our full plan. We have been approved as a 501 (c) 3 Tax deductable organization and donations can be made via PayPals (on the left side of this screen) or sent to:

Second Draft
P.O. Box 590591
Newton Centre, MA 02459

Thank You,

YBM