Framing the Dems

[realFedUp]

I hope that many here saw the interview on Bill Moyer's NOW
last night with George Lakoff on how conservatives
have "framed the language" for years and Dems haven't.

When you don't have the truth or good intentions on your
side like conservatives don't, they reframe the language
(Bushspeak) to make it saleable to people. Like the
Clean Air Act...it should be reframed by Dems as the
"Dirty Air Act", because that's really its result.

This is a good article by Professor Lakoff on language
reframing. I hope the Democratic party hires him...fast.

http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/8/lakoff-g.html

Framing the Dems
How conservatives control political debate and how progressives can take it back

By George Lakoff
Issue Date: 9.1.03

On the day that George W. Bush took office, the words "tax relief" started appearing in White House communiqués. Think for a minute about the word relief. In order for there to be relief, there has to be a blameless, afflicted person with whom we identify and whose affliction has been imposed by some external cause. Relief is the taking away of the pain or harm, thanks to some reliever.
This is an example of what cognitive linguists call a "frame." It is a mental structure that we use in thinking. All words are defined relative to frames. The relief frame is an instance of a more general rescue scenario in which there is a hero (the reliever), a victim (the afflicted), a crime (the affliction), a villain (the cause of affliction) and a rescue (the relief). The hero is inherently good, the villain is evil and the victim after the rescue owes gratitude to the hero.

The term tax relief evokes all of this and more. It presupposes a conceptual metaphor: Taxes are an affliction, proponents of taxes are the causes of affliction (the villains), the taxpayer is the afflicted (the victim) and the proponents of tax relief are the heroes who deserve the taxpayers' gratitude. Those who oppose tax relief are bad guys who want to keep relief from the victim of the affliction, the taxpayer.

Every time the phrase tax relief is used, and heard or read by millions of people, this view of taxation as an affliction and conservatives as heroes gets reinforced.

The phrase has become so ubiquitous that I've even found it in speeches and press releases by Democratic officials -- unconsciously reinforcing a view of the economy that is anathema to everything progressives believe. The Republicans understand framing; Democrats don't.

continued

[realFedUp]

1. kick

kos I can.

[kentuck]

2. Simple facts do not work against Repub framing...

We have to frame the truth in a way to counter the specific Repub language.

[librechik]

3. you can also watch the interview at the NOW site

www.pbs.org/now

Remember these techniques have been used against us for DECADES. It will take decades of US using the same extortive, sneaky, manipulative techniques against the GOP to make a dent.

I don't think the Dems have a philosophy that will allow for this. Do you?

I like the interview and I'm going to keep this in mind in my discourse.

But can you really see some (MANY!) meme-busting organizations arising out of the left to combat the HUNDREDS of fat and well-covered (remember, Kerry gets a tiny fraction of the airtime that the Shrubbunch gets) think tanks, media outlets, puntits and politicos in the RW army?

I found it totally depressing, and I hope some better alternative appears. I was especially chilled by his assertion that Dems keep assuming that we will have a fair and rational political discussion with these people, and that is a LIE.

Why must I abandon fair and rational discussion in order to stop these bastards who are killing my Free America???!!!

you see my problem. None of US like to cheat. THEY ALL CHEAT!!!

Can we learn to cheat too? If we do are we still "Americans?"

[realFedUp]

4. Dems don't have to copy this

They just have to reframe the framed language
the conservatives have used.

Like Clean Air Act is reframed Dirty Air Act

Trial lawyers are reframed People's Protection lawyers

etc.

The point is NOT for Dems to use the framed language
that the rightwingnuts are using.
There is no war on terrorism...just an effort
to arrest the terrorists.

[CaTeacher]

5. I like that, I like it a lot!

No more "war on terror". Instead--we want to arrest the terrorists.
It is so much more correct, and denies him of this "war" meme.

[soupkitchen]

6. How about a Terrorist Containment Policy

[realFedUp]

7. Gov. Dean early on cited Lakoff's work

from: http://blog.deanforamerica.com/
Governor Dean has often cited the importance of Lakoff's work, and he has appeared as a guest on WDFA radio. Tune in to hear his ideas on what we need to do take back America, both in this year's elections and beyond. After the show, come back here and use this thread to comment on the interview.