MUST READ: Conservatives use of language in politics

it kind of suggests that the Dems are really missing out by not using language like the conservatives do

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

"Right now the Democratic Party is into marketing. They pick a number of issues like prescription drugs and Social Security and ask which ones sell best across the spectrum, and they run on those issues. They have no moral perspective, no general values, no identity. People vote their identity, they don't just vote on the issues, and Democrats don't understand that."

Our party basically stands as the anti-GOP.

They're on offense. We're on defense. It's been that way since they took back the House and will stay that way until we take it back from them.

Then we can set the agenda and carve out our identity.

And it didn't just happen. This has been a long concerted effort on the part of the right. Forget parties. Forget votes. Its minds we are fighting for and the right has a head start on organization. We need to get a counter message into the medium. We need to fight the battle that is really being waged. We are getting suckered by the Corporations and the right and we are fighting the wrong battles.

Not to defend Democratic Party leadership or marketing strategies, not that I could articulate them anyway, but by ditto-ing the supposed conservative strategy aren't we just letting them define the terms of the debate? My first and still current instinct is to say, WAIT, the strategy that the conservative side is using is probably so effective because it plays to their agenda, as well as being and "effective marketing tool." So, for liberals to "co-opt" that strategy, with a different set of words reflecting a fundamentally different philosophy, does not mean it will be effective for us. In fact,this has happened before, e.g. with "the evil of deficits" where we made a concerted effort to "reign in public spending" and we are rewarded with the next Republican spending spree and bankruptcy prospects for Social Security and Medicare. You see, we co-opt their strategy, and we end up heading down a road that demonstrates once again the obvious, that we actually have beliefs that are fundamental to us, not simply dictated by dogma and the "word." Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "knee-jerk Liberal."

They own most of the "wealth", as they define it, most of the "power", again as they define it, and we operate in a system defined nearly completely by their convenience (I dare not call it philosophy since I think a philosophy requires something more to defend it than "God and/or Pappy said so"). Because all that is our reality, we need to be careful not to simply parrot their methods in what is most important to us.

OK, so, back to the daily grind. Considering all that the Democratic Party is up against, I think they are doing well. Definitely not "wrong" that could be pointed at. Remember, we have one huge advantage: * cannot run on accomplishment, as his ads show to even the most die-hard supporter. I think Kerry is playing it fairly well. I think where we should really concentrate is on state and local elections, so that Kerry will have the support required to have those accomplishments to point to next time around.

Lakoff didn't argue that progressives should adopt the language of conservatives. That would be the ultimate in foolishness. Why would progressives promote conservative ideas?

Lakoff is saying that progressives should use the same methods and tactics of persuasion. Instead of relying on policies alone, we should also pay more attention to the words we use to communicate our ideas in order to ensure that the words we use are effective.

So, for liberals to "co-opt" that strategy...

It's not a call to "co-opt" a strategy. It's a call to HAVE a strategy. According to Lakoff, progressives have no strategy to persuade.

and I agree with it entirely.

I hate to say it but with Frank Lutz putting out his lexicon to Republicans every year, we should have our own.

I also agree that the Repubs have been at this for a long, long time and we are going to have to take a long view of this also.

Great link, thanks!

He's right that the RW has been more successful at framing discussions. I love the idea of reframing the idea of taxes as membership fees -- telling those who don't want to pay taxes that they're trying to get a "free ride" in this great country of ours -- it's beautiful.

A fantastic point about the wealthiest Americans using infrastructure more than anyone else yet complain bitterly about taxation.

"they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/130534_focusecond13.html

here is another one along the same lines, we need to get on the ball here.

Like referring to taxes as a kind of membership fee. Of course he neglects to note, that members of a club always try to drive their fees as low as possible, while still meeting the clubs goals. So the analogy gets weak as a argument for higher taxes.

Plus he makes some statements that are basically ludicrous. Like conservatives assume children are born bad. In my entire life, I've never once heard anyone, of any political stripe, claim that children are born bad. This statement alone qualifies as the turd in the swimming pool. It doesn't matter how much sense the rest of the article might make, I'm not buying it. This is the kind of B.S. one might expect from Rush, it is disappointing that it comes from a liberal. It is especially distressing to see it coming from one who would counsel the rest of us on getting our point across.

This, more clearly than in other places takes the touch step of defining the odd sorts of people that have been weaned, whipped and whipped up by "tough love messages, especially ones that put the whip, at last, seemingly, into their own hands.

Taking down the father figure who is vulnerable(Democratic government with its threatening freedoms and responsibility and meek realities) and lapping the hand of the stern new father who lets them share the joy of punishment, passing on the abusive pattern, the greed, the aggressive elitism, the verbal and physical abuse.

Unfortunately that is not something you would like to announce to America even though it is goes to the rotten heart of self-perpetuating,
human frailty in its abusive forms.

The methods of language in any event are plain speaking, healing and nurturing from at least a strong figure a.k.a. John Kerry. Ever wonder why we automatically selected out other qualified, even honestly fiery candidates? The persistence and victory of "humane" parties often depends on the failure of the mad dreams, the unsustainable con games and blind arrogance of demagogues and manipulators who take advantage of human dysfunction and irrationality with their own matching counter
reality of anti-service, enslaving and sapping and intrusive, non-participatory government by any other name.

That is why we have insane debates between apples and oranges defining exactly the opposite all perceived reality, having opposite goals- where the real victory is that merely having a legitimate contest between lies and truth guarantees a poisoned forum.

Though, obviously, and devastatingly, truth will have its way to the harm of all.

As for taxes or issues or pieces of the debate or points, keep to the wholeness and focus(like a laser) on work spots. "Taxes" are not even understood, much less their small place in the general money flow. Prices are "taxes". Competition is supposed to lower prices, but in unrestrained practice of "idealized capitalism" that is a secret cover
to hide an ugly reality- which is massive price fixing. Perot make a weak effort by analogy to cut to the quick. How much better for a more truthful application of common rhetoric?

Con men breed confidence in what is false for their own benefit. The neocons are aptly named. People can know when they have been had on taxes when the truth comes out. Inflation automatically raises taxes. Wages also control your money flow. There are so many hands going in and out of the American pocket no one can safely say what is theirs and for how long and who is profiting from the fruits of their labor or how that river will behave in their future. Most of us are drowning in it or flopping around like beached trout on the desert shore.

Only a wise and wholly democratic government participated in by the fullest extent by the educated and the producers of civilization(not gatekeepers, old money or middle men who produce nothing but empires of the self) can and must control its own life and destiny in economy or security. Delegation is a two way accountable structure not an anointed investiture. People deprived or people who have enough of it want such privilege, responsibility and humble power.

When you see the opposite you see all the necessary evils of that suicidal choice covered over by obstinate, fearful, angry denial and lies. War. Economic war. Every other plague not only not prevented but encouraged.

That too, you cannot achieve
Enough of that. When the Cub Scout budget for a light bulb drive came up it was hotly debated and voted down. You come to a point in the twist of things when meanness is produced by ordinary people like flies are in a stable. The flies are innocent, wear suits, fly and buzz, eat sh#t and die.

Changing language in fundamental spoilage of a society, a ripe vacuum and twist away from hard thinking in soft living might not be THE way to wake up and convert the masses, especially the disgruntled or uneasy spoiled Americans(not necessarily wealthy).

The source of lies, cognitive dissonance and its roots in people brutalized by triumphant little living, every individual his cave might be purged by catastrophe. Some people even want to be stopped that way, like addicts out of control. That dangerous event may just as well produce the opposite for even longer more systemic evils that persevere beyond opportunities for change whenever they arise.

The method we have to use is to really choose real leaders who DO have the best and brightest and most open ways of serving the nation, the race, the virtues of the best of humanity. In Europe they have revolted against the mediocre who perpetuate the hopeless mires of the past against the best aspirations of their peoples. People might swing left or right but Lord help us if the wrong people find a leader who appeals to that need falsely, grasping the brutalized, dumb by virtue of selfishness, yet appeal enough to the pragmatic "realism" of the best humans to carry along unnecessary and fatal agendas.

Talking the talk for real leaders siding with truth and full humanity means being sincere in themselves, flexible and not stuck under the ideological constraints that may be popular(such as presuming NOW we are mostly conservative as a nation- which is absurd).

Obviously in this windy rant there are few good examples of how to talk this to people. Someone has to have the gift who is primarily honestly sincere about the best. The other side cannot do this. Only actors and puppets can even convince themselves enough to put on a good enough show attended by glamorous props that do not bear the weight of truth. That such toads and phonies drawn from the ranks of cowards, dilettantes and those not acquainted with service, unless it were their Spanish maid, HAVE to lead the charade of the "Right" is the most egregious sign of having allowed too much power to the worst of humanity. The worst religious demagoguery so bad it runs counter to the basic dogma of faith, lies so bad they make the usual lies of politics seem innocent and professional. Rape, loot, punishment, fear, anger out of proportion to the cause, lies. Promotion of plague, addiction, crime and powerlessness.

People know that. The glamor of evil is strong. Tear is stronger yet. Fog and apathy stronger yet.

But stronger than all is reality, that we pretentiously sometimes pride ourselves in recognizing as the Truth. That is the wisest place to rally, though promising a curative tax increase is a great example of howe not to do it. Techniques cleverly born out of that bastion will succeed. False copies if the other side dares to lie its way into them will fail. OUR borrowing of their techniques that are plainly abusive further poisons our cause and are easy objects of scorn for all sides.
We don't need better devils. No one likes to face the unromantic fallibility of normal human life and striving when illusions promise more and easier distractions. Nor are the "best" humans, as well the other side knows, perfect, with different DNA, and superior potential.
Only the chosen direction makes us different and we should be eternally humble about that scary thought.

What we do offer is progress and hope. A future, not a looted present and a frenzy for the orgasm in and of itself as a defiant statement that our island of Eden is forever ours- and slaughter of someone else is the sacrifice that makes it holy. The mindsets of humanity are mixed even in the odd split worldwide between "liberal" and "conservative", the latter always outnumbered and more spiteful for it. Various races, colors, creeds or ethnic groups mean nothing compared to the moral choice people have to make about truth, values, compassion and the greater good(family, society, humanity) and their own integrity as individuals. In this century, where actually death and war is fairly small compared to the population, the fault lines and ignored evils and dumb, unexamined traditions are creating a prelude to a new 14th century, not the dreamy nineteenth of our American rustics, as devastating to civilization as Europeans were to native Americans. That- the least- is guaranteed if the the family black sheep are allowed to run the household. And it can be worse. But worse than all is the shameful failure, the abortion of human promise and evolution, the burning out of intelligent life on this tiny speck.

Humanity is not a paroxysm of violent combat. It is a sociable, not predatory mammalian intelligence predicated on nurturing and compassion. Spiritual progress, not primitive dualistic dramas with a pitiful big bang conclusion. What, a few thousand angels dispatched to clean up the mess and protect the dolphins? People KNOW who their friends will be, but if not their who will they turn to in the contest of regime rule? Who are they allowed to see and judge? Hope taken away disappears from
sane judgment. The other side wins by default and too often this party and others world wide seem the unimaginative micro managers of default. Using the language abuse of the cons is simply pathetic. It isn't us and is doubly insincere and false.

Lakoff is the bomb.