Once Kerry wins, we must take back the language

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

I feel very good about a Kerry win, but many people are asking,"What's next?" WELL...the right had a well oiled machine whose ideas prevailed because they FRAMED issues in a manner that could easily be repeated. Theirs was a manipulation...we don't need to manipulate but we DO need our ideas to be neatly packaged and easily grasped.

They had a web of organizations tied together...WE HAVE THAT NOW...we must not take the organization we created out of this election for granted..we MUST continue to use and promote these organizations to RESTORE democracy.

We must continue to monitor the media...and will probably have to do so for the rest of our days...and we must continue to monitor the opposition.

Never again can we allow a group the likes of the Arkansas Project to exist without an equal opposing force;

[mctrotter5]

1. Recommend George Lakoff book "Don't mention the elephant"

which talks about taking back the language and how Demos need to reframe the issues and get back the momentum nationally.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. After the election we should start a reading club in the meeting room

for that book...I love Lakoff's work.

[IrateCitizen]

13. I second a reading club!

It's easy for me, considering I read about 1 book every 7-10 days!

A couple of good ones I've read recently:

Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan -- an excellent book on global climate crisis
Silent Theft by David Bollier -- all about the theft of America's commons
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (OK, it's fiction -- but it's an amazing memoir!)
My current book is Born to Buy by Juliet Schor -- a scathing review of the ad industry directed at children

I want to read Lakoff's book too -- isn't it pretty short? I could probably finish it in a day or two.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Yeah it's short..another good one to read that's gotten little attention

on DU is An Air That Kills...can't remember the authors ..one is EPA official, the other a Seattle Post Intelligencer reporter about the poisoning of Libby Montana and the Repukes role in the coverup. It's a long read but you'll be in tears.

[MissMarple]

16. I'm a George Lakoff fan.

For those of you without the books here is link to some of his work an that of many others. www.rockridgeinstitute.org

The Rockridge Institute is devoted to creating a progressive framework for progressive/liberal ideas. A frame is the support on which the ideas and facts can hang. Without the right framework the facts just slide off. That's why it is so hard to talk to conservatives (reasonable conservatives, wingers may be hopeless). They get confused because they don't understand where we are coming from.

Our point of departure lies in traditional American values. They are progressive and liberal in nature. We have to clearly define the value and then link it to an issue.

How we say something is as important as what we say.

Kerry and Dean are understanding this and it has affected their messages.

edit: erk! affected/ effected?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. Thanks for the Rockridge link..I was going to link to it but have problems

posting on DU with another IE window open. ;-)

[billyskank]

19. Try Mozilla Firefox, it's free

and lets you have many web pages open simultaneously in separate tabs.

www.mozilla.org

[Misunderestimator]

2. Hear... effing... Hear

I'm planning on staying involved... for the first time in my life this past few years, I've taken a REAL part in our democracy by protesting, donating, volunteering... they are NOT going to take it back in MY lifetime!

[IrateCitizen]

3. Well, that means that WE must do it, Teena!

Because if we're waiting for the DNC career hacks (or even worse, IMHO, the DLCers) to do it, we'll be waiting until hell freezes over.

Did you see Bill Moyers' interview with Richard Viguerie this week on NOW? Viguerie summed it up quite aptly, IMHO. He said, "I get up every morning and think, 'What 5 or 6 things can I do today to help the conservative cause?' Democrats look at each election as a sprint that occurs every couple of years." But Moyers brought even more out than this. He highlighted how it used to be that the Democrats were the party of ideas, and the Republicans were the party of "naysayers". Now it's reversed.

That's how all of us need to start looking at things -- what few things can we do, each day, to help advance the progressive cause? Democracy for America seems to be a good start in this direction, and as someone else already pointed out, George Lakoff has given a pretty good guide on how to steal back the framing of the debates. The thing is, if each and every one of us who feels this way were to do just 1-2 things each day, no matter how small, we could take control of politics for the people.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. It's the thing I admire most about Dean

He got people lit up...and DFA is well organized...you and I have been on this language thing for a few years now...ULY and Armstead would be players too...as would SOteric and Salin...we CAN do it..and we can make it stick..we have the commitment...we just need to keep seeing it through.

Oh and hugs...I love it when you show up :-)

[IrateCitizen]

11. Hey -- where in the hell IS Armstead, anyway???

I haven't seen him here since before I went to AZ for the summer!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. He's popped in briefly a couple times over the summer

usually on Saturday mornings...

[Squeech]

8. We're still the party of ideas

They're the party of scams, fear, and fascism.

I'm not even sure we need to do remedial language arts training. I've been arguing all year that we need to beef up law enforcement. Most of what they do is illegal (as well as immoral and fattening), but they've gotten away with it so far because none of them have had to go to prison for it yet (e.g. Ollie North's conviction overturned on a technicality).

My biggest hope is that, once the guy who busted the BCCI Bank of Terror gets in office, miscreants like Tom DeLay will be talking to the judge.

My biggest fear is that Commander Codpiece will pardon the whole lot of them, like his father, and suppress the evidence.

[IrateCitizen]

10. I hate to say it, but we're really not...

Take Social Security as an example. Social Security, as it stands now, IS in trouble. Of course, if we had left the trust fund alone while the boomers were paying in, we wouldn't be in this mess. But that's all water under the bridge.

I'm reminded of the last debate when this subject came up. However half-baked the Republican idea is of privatizing it, at least it IS an idea. Kerry's response was simple -- do nothing to it.

Also, look at one of the Clinton administration's most touted accomplishments -- welfare reform. It was a Republican idea that ended up being promoted by a Democrat. Now, Clinton did try to save a few caveats for low-income people that the Republican would have gutted, but in the end analysis, this kind of action was indicative of a strategic retreat.

The grassroots may be full of ideas, but the national party is stale and bankrupt of ideas. We really need to recognize this and work to change it.

[Squeech]

14. Disagree

In the specific case, social security isn't anywhere near in crisis. It's projected to run a surplus for at least another decade, and the accumulated surplus of the last umpty-ump years should pay for the liabilities until 2035-2045. (I say "should" not because there's any doubt about the numbers, but because the surpluses got sucked into the general fund by Georgie's elephantine deficits.) And we could cover that shortfall by simply raising or removing the salary cap above which we stop collecting the tax (or other possible solutions, but that's my preference). The idea that SS is in deep doo-doo is Repuke propaganda. Don't take my word for it, read Paul Krugman.

In the general case, Kerry's idea that the government reinsure catastrophic medical care is IMHO the perfect 21st century solution to a lingering problem-- much easier to implement (and understand) than the Clinton health care proposal. The closest the Repukes have to an idea about health care costs is tort reform, which is pure blame-the-victim horse puckey. (I'd also like to see the medical profession police itself better, since 5% of the doctors generate 95% of the malpractice awards, but that's another story.)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. Besides which one can allow immigration to compensate for the

differences which IS the benefit on amnesty programs for migrants

[Kurt Remarque]

6. totally unrelated but let's work on that "nucular" thing too!

[Skidmore]

7. Why have we not done so by now?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. We control very little media and the bully pulpit is controlled by Bush

That language is droned thru people's ears daily..there is a group started by Professor Lakoff that is working on it...movements like this happen over time...I do believe we have made headway...everytime Bush tried to relanguage a bad idea (i.e. privatising social security calling it VOLUNTARY ACCOUNTS and this time using OWNERSHIP SOCIETY) he got nailed...people are waking up to it slowly.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. kick

[Cleita]

21. Buzz words are what you are speaking of?

Strictly out of "Mein Kampf". I always found Hitler's rantings on propaganda rather facinating because he claims he learned them from the Americans. But he thought that all you needed were a few concrete phrases to express your POV and then you just needed to repeat them over and over again, a sort of Pavlovian approach that seemed to work.

I mean let's start with "Clinton was immoral", move on to "WMD's", "9-11, Iraq", and now we have "flip flops", oh dear, oh dear what will the freepers do when they have to think?

[Pobeka]

22. 2 thumbs up for this idea!

Fortunately, I have 2 thumbs ;-)

The book club is a great idea too.

Regardless of the outcome tomorrow, the grassroots fight must go on with just as much energy. I think about the masses of people who have confused their devotion to party as a stand for principle. And that confusion has been explicitly caused by the symbolic references used by the far right to frame their messages.

Until we can have an informed, thoughtful electorate again (which is a LOT of work, it involves reforming the media, and reforming the educational system in this country) -- we have to understand the way to the hearts of the voters we have, not the ones we wish we had.

Cheers,
Pobeka

[Pobeka]

23. We must not be seen as elitest snobs any more.

Somehow we need to turn that meme around. The GOP has used that to harm progressive causes for far too long...

[TankLV]

24. Well, I can think of a few right off:

1) There are enough billionairs and millionairs in this country to let them all remain billionairs and millionairs while at the same time - GIVING EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY UNDER - SAY $100 GRAND A YEAR - PLUS EVERYONE WITH AT LEAST NO SAVINGS - ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY OFF THEIR ENTIRE DEBTS - INCLUDING MORTGAGES - SO EVERYONE GETS TO START FROM SCRATCH! NO VALUE JUDGEMENTS, NO - "but he spent his money wrong". A one shot lifetime deal. Combine it with counseling on creating and MAINTING wealth.

That'll KILL the outrageous high and predator interest rates, credit card companies and the like.

2) Immediately "de-personalize" all corporations. Only PEOPLE have rights, not corporations.

3) Health Care for all - EVERYONE - regardless of income. Notice I didn't say a "national health care system". The details can be done so that there is no take-over to some "national" system, but EVERYONE gets covered, no exceptions, no excuses.

Shocked a bunch of ya, huh?

I am serious.

We could go on to:

4) The vote is primary. Time limits are second to accuracy. Same procedure to be in effect in EVERY locality. Nationwide. No excuses, no exceptions. Have a million provisional ballots to count - get a million or half a million or a 100,000 volunteers to check and count - if it needs to be done in timely manner - take the number that has to be verified and divide by the time alloted and hire enough people to do the job right - spend even a few million to do it.

5) No plutocracy or aristocracy - enact CONFISCATORY ESTATE TAXES. Success will be determined by merit, not inherit. Would even accept a limit of up to half a million or so, so that the average joe can inherit his average joe's parents' house, or business, etc. - but BILLIONAIRS AND MILLIONAIRS will be exempt from benefiting.

It's amazing how we can find a few hundred billion here and a few hundred billion there to go to war, bail out the bush family banking brothers, or spread around to dictators around the world. The money is there - the will needs to be to.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

25. Some of those are good

but my brain is WAY too fried to go into detail now...

[Nordic]

26. Kool-Aid Konservatives

is one thing we can bandy about.

Also,after tomorrow we can just say "Bush supporter" and that will be enough to get anybody disqualified.

Bush is gonna be worse than Nixon when it's all said and done.

Far far worse.