Lakoff begins: "Progressives had some fun last week with Frank Luntz, who told the Republican Governors' Association that he was scared to death of the Occupy movement and recommended language to combat what the movement had achieved. But the progressive critics mostly just laughed, said his language wouldn't work, and assumed that if Luntz was scared, everything was hunky-dory. Just keep on saying the words Luntz doesn't like: capitalism, tax the rich, etc. It's a trap.
Portrait, George Lakoff. (photo: Bart Nagel)
Words That Don't Work
07 December 11
rogressives had some fun last week with Frank Luntz, who told the Republican Governors' Association that he was scared to death of the Occupy movement and recommended language to combat what the movement had achieved. But the progressive critics mostly just laughed, said his language wouldn't work, and assumed that if Luntz was scared, everything was hunky-dory. Just keep on saying the words Luntz doesn't like: capitalism, tax the rich, etc.
It's a trap.
When Luntz says he is "scared to death," he means that the Republicans who hire him are scared to death and he can profit from that fear by offering them new language. Luntz is clever. Yes, Republicans are scared. But there needs to be a serious discussion of both Luntz's remarks and the progressive non-response.
What has been learned from the brain and cognitive sciences is that words are defined by fixed frames we use in thinking, frames come in hierarchical systems, and political frames are defined in moral terms, where "morality" is very different for conservatives and progressives. What lies behind the Occupy movement is a moral view of democracy: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly both socially and personally. This requires a robust public empowering and protecting everyone equally. Both private success and personal freedom depend on such a public. Every critique and proposal of the Occupy movement fits this moral view, which happens to be the progressive moral view.
What the Occupy movement can't stand is the opposite "moral" view, that democracy provides the freedom to seek one's self-interest and ignore what is good for other Americans and others in the world. That view lies behind the Wall Street ethic of the Greedy Market, as opposed to a Market for All, a market that should maximize the well-being of most Americans. This view leads to a hierarchical view of society, where success is always deserved and lack of success is moral failure. The rich are the moral, and they not only deserve their wealth, they also deserve the power it brings. This is the view that Luntz is defending.
Referring to the rich as "hardworking taxpayers" ignores the fact that a great percentage of the rich do not get their wealth from making things, but rather from investments in other people's labor, and that most of the 1% are managers, not people who make things or directly provide services. The hardworking taxpayers are the 99%. That is not the frame that Luntz wants activated.
But Luntz is not just addressing his remarks to Republicans. He is also looking to take Democrats for suckers. How? By choosing his frames carefully, and getting Democrats to do the opposite of what he tells Republicans. There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy's frame, you lose.
Take "capitalism." It arises these days in socialist discourse, and is seen as the opposite of socialism. To attack "capitalism" in this frame is to accept "socialism." Conservatives are trying to cast progressives, who mostly have businesses or work for businesses or are looking for good business jobs, as socialists. If you take the Luntz bait, you will be sucked into sounding like a socialist. Whatever one thinks of socialism, most Americans falsely identify it with communism, and will reject it out of hand.
Luntz would love to get Democrats using the word "tax" in the conservative sense of taking money from the pockets of hardworking folks and wasting it on people who don't deserve it. Luntz doesn't want Democrats pointing out how private success depends on public investment - in infrastructure, education, health, transportation, research, economic stability, protections of all sorts, and so on. He doesn't want progressives talking about "revenue" which is defined in a business frame to mean money needed for any institution to function and flourish. He doesn't want Democrats talking about the rich paying their fair share for the massive amount they have gotten from prior investments in a robust public. Luntz would love to lure progressives into talking about government "spending" rather than investments in education, health, and infrastructure that will benefit most Americans.
He doesn't want progressives pointing out that corporations govern our lives far more than any government does - and for their profit, not ours. He doesn't want any discussion of corporate waste, or military waste, which is huge.
Luntz would love to have Democrats talking about "entrepreneurs," which evokes a Republican view of the market as a tool for self-interest. His proposal to discuss "job creators" instead hides the fact that the business community has not been hiring despite record profits. He certainly does not want discussion of outsourcing and minimizing pay for work, which leads corporations to eliminate or downgrade jobs and hence keep wages low when profits are high.
Hidden behind his proposal to substitute "careers" for "jobs" is his attempt to appeal to young people just out of college and grad school who expect more - a profession - not just a mere "job." But of course, corporations are downgrading positions away from professional careers and more toward interchangeable McJobs requiring minimal ability and with minimal pay and benefits.
Luntz is right about not saying "sacrifice." He is right that most Americans are already hurting more than enough. They want a viable present and a future for themselves and their children and grandchildren. He is right to suggest "talking about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together." But that is the opposite of conservative morality. It is the progressive view of a moral democracy that all of Luntz's conservative framings contradict. It is an attempt at co-opting the progressive moral system, because the Occupy movement is showing that it is an idea of democracy that makes sense to most Americans. And it is an attempt to take Obama's strongest moral appeal away from him.
Unfortunately, Luntz is still ahead of most progressives responding to him. Progressives need to learn how framing works. Bashing Luntz, bashing Fox News, bashing the right-wing pundits and leaders using their frames and arguing against their positions just keeps their frames in play.
Progressives have a basic morality, which is largely unspoken. It has to be spoken, over and over, in every corner of our country. Progressives need to be both thinking and talking about their view of a moral democracy, about how a robust public is necessary for private success, about all that the public gives us, about the benefits of health, about a Market for All not a Greed Market, about regulation as protection, about revenue and investment, about corporations that keep wages low when profits are high, about how most of the rich earn a lot of their money without making anything or serving anyone, about how corporations govern your life for their profit not yours, about real food, about corporate and military waste, about the moral and social role of unions, about how global warming causes the increasingly monstrous effects of weather disasters, about how to save and preserve nature.
Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop.
Let's lure the right into using OUR frames in public discourse.
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Comments
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I have read forum posts by people who earn six figure salaries and think they are the targets of Occupy's discontent. Luntz's terminology taps into that misplaced resentment.
Occupy supporters need to understand and express aloud the clear distinction between those six-figure folks, who mostly do *earn* every dollar they make with honest work, and the parasites who earn 100 times that amount by gaming the system. The *real* workers, including the six-figure folks, need to remember that the gamer parasites they defend will snatch their money first chance they get. It's what they do.
And while they work hard they don't necessarily work harder than the 5 figure people, but they do pay less of a percentage in payroll taxes than the 5 figures earners do.
All we've got to do is get the attention of the dummies in the White House who really buy the right wing framing.
but misses the point.
liberals talk about social security as if it were welfare. it's not. but that is the framing they have accepted from the people who want to kill social security.
in this case its not the basic "morality" that is the problem.. it's that framing SS as welfare made it impossible to see that the "solution" to the "SS problem" was to raise the payroll tax (really an insurance premium) forty cents per week per year to make up for the longer life expectency of the people paying the tax.
now that Obama has turned SS into welfare by cutting the payroll tax and paying for SS with deficits and taxes on the rich... the argument doesn't matter anymore.
unless, of course people understand what's at stake and demand to have their "tax" raised.
It's the GOP that tries to pass SS off as some kind of charity for paupers. Like it's THEIRS to give out, or withhold -- belittling all of us who don't live on interest Granddaddy earned off the sweat of others.
And so far as I can tell, Obama has not yet "taxed the rich" -- though plenty of us have said it would be a great idea!
I don't agree with the 40 cents per week raise, although that would be OK. I'd prefer to increase the cap on which payroll taxes are levied to $10 million.
My specialty is words, focus, framing, and producing winning concepts seated in clarity and both visual and "feeling" description. Also a master speaking and advocacy coach. For 12 years I have often offered assistance to Democrats and liberal and progressive causes--always snubbed and rejected.
Yet every time I have experimented--j ust to see what would happen--and contacted Republicans at the local, state, and national level they have thanked and welcomed me. There is something wrong with this equation...
In fact, if taken seriously (which of course is unlikely) he's laid out the best working program for boosting Progressivism I've seen anywhere.
Do you expect all of us to read his works too?
I've often asked "What is Progressivism". Do you have an answer.
I will listen.
Ed
Progressivism is a perspective that looks forward to a more societally sensitive culture than we currently have. It is forward looking, toward a more hopeful future. As such it contrasts with Conservatism which tends to look backwards to a (largely imagined) past.
Are you listening?
A simple way of describing it might be that conservatism tends to (100% of the time) be a rationalization for utter selfishness.
Why do Progressives think these organizations are economically efficient?
I know of no one who understands the Obama care bill. Even the Speaker at the time couldn't understand it.
Fed Gov is too big and must be shrunk.
If they were honest and aware they'd say, "You mean you want me to share what was never solely mine in the first place and you want me to care about the Earth's resources so others don't go without or have very little?"
The people who want to shrink Government want to amputate parts of Gov. that don't serve their selfish interests.
Regulations increase because Government is forced to go on the defensive in response to the 1%ers dangerously, drunken and irresponsible frat party that constantly bullies the disadvantaged, but increasingly aware public.
More than that, their "efficiency" is less important than their NECESSITY. If you want to take "unregulated" medication, and send your kids to schools where no one has any idea if the teachers are child molesters or even finished grade school themselves, MOVE TO SOMALIA.
Your philosophy is already in action there, and you wouldn't have to argue with the like of Benjamin Franklin over the necessity of public libraries.
I paid 12.4% of my lifetime salary into SS. I won't even get
back what I paid in. I am screwed by SS. Coberly doesn't seem
to understand that.
As for me being a target of Obama's discontent, I feel that I am.
I invest my 401k in companies that Obama attacks - he is the most anti-business president since FDR - who doubts?
Our country is not about
a. Government is the solution
b. LESS government is the solution.
Every single issue can be resolved once you choose
(a) or (b).
I choose (b).
Just read
http://govpulse.us/entries/2011/11/07/2011-27184/prohibitions-and-restrictions-on-proprietary-trading-and-certain-interests-in-and-relationships-with
if you think more government is better.
And if Obama is really that anti-business, how does he manage to raise so much campaign money from the business community?
Btw, you paid 12.4% of your earnings up to a limit (currently $106,000, and this has been increased over the years), so if you were into significant six figures throughout your working life, you paid much less than 12.4% of your total income into the system. Since the rate has also increased over the years, your pay-in would likely be less than half the amount you claim. In fact, the proportion of income paid into Social Security actually DECREASES as your income increases past the FICA cap.
President Obama raises so much money from Wall Street because they want his favors. He can grant them trough regulation alterations without any kind of review. GWB could do the same as well as their predecessors. Think Loopholes. Think lobbying directly with the President. It's all very transparent.
The rest of us would like a say in all of this as well - that INCLUDES the serfs. The majority of Americans don't agree with your world view when push comes to shove.
For example, most of us get angry when planes, bridges, roads, our food and water supply, our medicine and the stuctures of our homes are not regulated and inspected. Some people even get upset when they open a can of food and find a dead rat in it.
Less government is the CAUSE of these problems, not the "solution".
States build roads with help from Fed $. Where have the Fed Gas tax dollars been spent? Please show me an accounting of all the dollars earmarked for roads both from the Federal Government and the State Governments. I can't find that story.
As I said previously, most Conservatives think governments have some role in regulation; just no the role they misuse and abuse today.
Please show me an accurate accounting of all the federal money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade. I have a hunch you're not too concerned about those multi-trillion dollar inefficiencies, right?
As for your last comment, either this is a moral / ethical issue or it isn't. There's no room for hypocricy here. Do you want the government to do anything or nothing? Plain and simple.
If you want the government to do ANYthing, you have to TELL the government to do that. If you want it to stop, the same principle applies.
The problem conservatives have with the federal government is that they don't get to dictate what it does in spite of the fact that their ideas would go against the wishes of the overwhelming majority.
If Obama wants to beat the repug candidate, all he really has to do is drive home the attitudes of the repug party toward Social Security. Whether you like it or not, it's a LOSING argument for your side and starting unpopular arguments on this thread won't change that.
And how about having Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker as one of his original mentors.
Those that say he's about Socialism FOR BUSINESS are right!
Who are you trying to "snow under?" or did you think no one would look at your reference? It is only a request to submit suggestions on the subject of restrictions to trading and it would try a lawyers patience to read it all.
For instance:
http://reason.com/archives/2008/12/10/bushs-regulatory-kiss-off
Again, I don't believe in zero regulation. But I do believe that most of the Federal Government regulations are unnecessary.
My FAVORITE repug argument is the one you just stated that, YES, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS FAR TOO CONSERVATIVE.
You don't need to argue with one of us. Your own words contradict you.
4theTeaParty used the same talking points as well.
First of all, no you didn't. You paid in 6.2% of your salary and the company you worked for matched it.
Secondly, do you NOT understand the meaning of INSURANCE??? You know how that works, right? Take auto insurance for example. You pay your premiums every month for most of your adult life. And as long as you don't get in an accident or get broken into, you will never ever get a thing back. Just think about that for a minute. Your "hard earned" money is going to pay the cost of repairing OTHER PEOPLE'S CARS!!
Social Security is INSURANCE. The vast majority of American workers don't make enough money to save for retirement. Social Security guarantees they will at least have something to live on. People who are lucky enough to earn what you are earning may never get out what they put in. That's how it goes. So stop resenting the fact that your payroll taxes might actually end up helping other less fortunate people more than they might help you. Try being glad that, had you been less fortunate, that same social insurance program would have been there for you.
Social Security is a cost of living in a society that chooses to take care of ALL its citizens, not just those who can most afford it. Read up on what happened to the elderly before SS existed. It wasn't pretty.
It's past time for us Democrats to state our position. I think Obama just did that with his speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas which featured a comprehensive defense of government’s role in combating income inequality and fortifying the middle class. WE HAVE MORALS AND THE MAJORITY ON OUR SIDE!
Socialism? It's the entire continuum that connects the two economic extremes . . . which, incidentally, have nothing whatsoever to do with democracy, fascism, totalitarianism or anarchy, all of which which are governmental/ma nagement systems. (You know somebody has drunk the Kool Aid when he tells you: "We 'Mericans ain't socialists! We're a democracy!")
Thus, the USA is a socialist state by choice, and Obama can't take us anywhere that we didn't find and choose by ourselves, for ourselves. We need him as our bulwark against the oligarchs and plutocrats who are intent upon snatching back those benefits previously earned and won by our middle-and-work ing class forefathers . . . and the GOP ain't on our side!
Believe it! Vote your pocketbook. Vote Obama.
Communism requires common ownership and removes property rights.
Socialism is just Government control of the means of production.
From my view, the overwhelming regulatory burden is becoming "Government control of the means of production" - a.k.a. socialism.
A "Mother May I" economy has never worked in the annals of human history as far as I know. If I am wrong, please enlighten me.
As I wrote above, neither pure capitalism nor pure communism has ever prospered for long, thus suggesting that the eternal "fix" is somewhere in the middle of the chain that connects the two systems. It also suggests that various governments may find their own comfort zone in an entirely different niche from its neighbors and all others.
Eg., Communist Russia leaned right with its ubiquitous Pepsi franchises & love affair w/ Occidental Petroleum under Stalin; its private restaurants & farms that appeared under Andropov & flourished under Chernyenko & Gorby; and the black market that thrived under everyone from Lenin on.
On the capitalist side, management moved left as unions formed and forced concessions such as 40 hour week, paid vacations, health care, pensions, etc.
Our only enemy here is orthodoxy and greed.
Ford Motor Company didn't become unionized until the 1950's.
Henry Ford, my ass!
*http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B13FC3D5D13738DDDAF0A94D1405B868EF1D3
http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/564881 has photos of the September 26, 1926 New York Times' article.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtime
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0817FE385C1B7A93C7A8178DD85F4C8385F9
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/flsa1938.htm
Why bother to pander or listen to or "lure" them into a discourse? They are 1%. That is the message. THEY ARE THE MINORITY! The fear is not in the words. It is in the numbers. Here is where the OWS has its power. It is in sheer NUMBERS! That is what has to be stressed and addressed.
I think the 99% should turn their back on anything and everything GOP/TP and move forward as though they do not exist. That is how the GOP/TP treated the 99% and turnabout is fairplay.
99% is ALL of America!
Second of all, what's YOUR take on the fact that deregulation of banks allowed them to sell mortgage loans and pretend it was actual money?
TRIBALISM
Liberalism is a rejection of tribalism. Conservatism is defined by it. There are absolutely no conservative arguments that can't be reduced to that one aspect of the conservative mindset.
The tribal systems people evolved in were (are) extremely communistic. A big part of our success as a species is because we took care of each other. In a tribe, people gain respect and become leaders because of what they can do for the group. Accumulating wealth is not respectable.
@ Smiley
My take on Billy Bob's point is that it agrees with yours, but goes even further. Tribalism was fine until humans literally outgrew the idea. A Nation of 310 Million is too large to function effectively as a tribe.
Progressives applaud the move from tribalism to Community. Community is tribalism modified to accommodate everyone. All 310 Million.
Tribalism functions on the basis of "Us v.s. Them". "My tribe v.s. Your tribe."
The present oligarchy (and all oligarchies by definition)func tion via economic tribalism which accumulates tribal power. The "haves" v.s. the "have-nots". Tribal greed writ large.
The oligarchs have had their day, but as Dylan said decades ago "The Times They Are A-Changin' "
Ask any conservative what he/she thinks of humanism.
Liberals were described as consensus seekers while conservatives were said to be bound by orthodoxy. I believe that we've sen ample proof of this over the past three years.
In that context, the term “middle class” merits a reality check. It is a divisive label that distances producer from producer. “Middle” as between the predators and … exactly whom? There is a snobbish implication in a term that appears to exclude the lowest-paid and often least secure of blue collar workers - the very people for whom the Tea Party freaks are making a pitch. It derives from classing people as friend or foe by their income rather than by how they acquire it. “Middle class” is a label that scores for the 1% every time it is used.
Now that Lakoff has understood that it is counterproducti ve to dialogue in an opposing frame, perhaps he can now discover dialectic propaganda, and sophist propaganda, that accuses, condemns, denounces, and puts Liberals in the cross hairs, and has done so without opposition from progressives, Liberals, for the past 50 years.
Now that Lakoff has discovered that one should not talk within an opposing frame of propaganda, perhaps he can also discover propaganda and how it is being used in American Society to control the American Populace and serve the best interest of America's Corporate Oligarchy at the expense of the many, the American Populace, the 90% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States.
"http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/394777/august-16-2011/colbert-super-pac---frank-luntz-commits-to-the-pac"
Fantastic!
AND, what this piece brought to mind in particular with regard to this passage --
Unfortunately, Luntz is still ahead of most progressives responding to him. Progressives need to learn how framing works. Bashing Luntz, bashing Fox News, bashing the right-wing pundits and leaders using their frames and arguing against their positions just keeps their frames in play.
-- is how much MSNBC needs to digest this message. We had to stop watching Maddow et al. over a year ago because the buy-in to the Republican frame, precisely as you characterize it here (i.e., precisely as Luntz would have it), and the incessant overkill of time spent on bashing right-wingers instead of promoting and explicating progressive takes on the issues became ultimately a noise-machine. Please spoon feed them a dose of your medicine.
"Too Big To Fail" was the key phrase used to convince the American Public that their financial well being is tied to how well Wall St. is doing.
Apparently there are a lot of citizens that weren't fooled, but only AFTER it was rephrased that because of the wealth being in the hands of the super rich the remaining 99% suffered. (Think OWS)
In a comment here I see that Social Security was well explained as Insurance, not as an entitlement.Nat ional Health Ins. won't happen until referred to as insurance, not as welfare to the sick.
The Post Office is run by revenue equals expenses,not taxes,and many people aren't aware that a bill congress passed in 2006 which mandated that the post office pay 75 years ahead in 10 years for benefits for retirees is the cause of the financial problems of the USPS,not Employee pay and benefits which some members of congress try to reduce by claiming benefits are too GENEROUS and more than private sector employees make.
The video I made describes how these people think .http://www.you tube.com/user/T he1234heythere1 ?feature=mhee
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