Lakoff: Obama Reframes Syria: Metaphor and War Revisited

[Jackpine Radical]

President Obama has reframed his position on Syria, adjusting the Red Line metaphor: It wasn't his Red Line, not his responsibility for drawing it. It was the Red Line drawn by the world, by the international community - both legally by international treaty, and morally by universal revulsion against the use of poison gas by Assad. It was also America's Red Line, imposed by America's commitment to live up to such treaties.

The reframing fit his previous rationale for the Red Line: to uphold international treaties on weapons of mass destruction, both gas and nuclear weapons. By this logic, the Red Line therefore applies not just to Assad's use of sarin, but potentially to Iran's development of nuclear weapons.

The new version of the metaphorical policy has broad consequences, what I have called systemic causation (that goes beyond the immediate local situation) as opposed to direct causation (in this case applying just to the immediate case of Assad's use of sarin).

Some will call the reframing cynical, a way to avoid responsibility for his first use of the Red Line metaphor. But President Obama's reframing makes excellent sense from the perspective of his consistent policy of treaties and international norms, which he has said was the basis for the Red Line metaphor in the first place.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/19269-focus-obama-reframes-syria-metaphor-and-war-revisited

[snappyturtle]

1. Me thinks reframing = spinning.....save face tactic. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Framing is always about spinning.

In this case, if it builds Obama an exit path, I approve.

[leftstreet]

3. How many times will he say '9/11' during Tues SOTU?

Enough we could make it a drinking game, or what

DURec

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Oh--I know that game.

We used to call it the Giuliani Wipe-Out.


The present context is just sad, pathetic.

[Hekate]

5. If you make it a drinking game, you'll be cold sober at the end

Not happy, but sober.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I'd be both sober and happy with that outcome.

[leftstreet]

9. +1 same here

[TM99]

6. Lakoff has an excellent body of work, however,

his objectivity begins to be called into question due to his strong partisan politics.

If the Red Line metaphor is consistent with his policy on treaties then we can expect Obama to not take unilateral military action as that violates UN treaties.

We must also expect that until the next President is elected, any and all uses of weapons of mass destruction must demand an immediate and swift military punishment anywhere in the world whether those countries are allies or not.

In the mean time, as the American President, we can therefore expect a reversing of the Bush interpretation and the bringing of us into full compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention which at this time is not followed because "the proposed protocol does not suit the national interests of the United States."

I would also expect him to propose full and consistent across the board adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons through out the world. This will, of course, require the US to withhold military and non-military financial aid to Israel as they are non-signing members yet possess nuclear weapons.

In other words, Lakoff is spinning like a top for the President he helped elect.

[Hekate]

7. Lakoff's work is extremely good. I look forward to reading the link later.

"Framing" is not the same as "spinning" as some have alleged in this thread. It's slower and more deliberate. It's how the RW, under Gingrich's tutelage, turned Liberal into a dirty word. That's the negative use that Lakoff brought to our attention. During the Bush admin, he tried to get the Democratic side to understand that they had to be diligent in reframing (and thus reclaiming) what our values are.

If Obama is doing some reframing, he is trying to reclaim himself/his admin/his thoughts/his words from the Beltway Spin. That's not inherently a bad thing. Especially when you realize, as Lakoff apparently has, that he is trying to lay the responsibility at the WORLD's feet and not solely the US's.