Mike McCurry just did a brilliant thing....

[SeekingTruth]

I'm watching the repeat of Paula Zahn on CNN and along the lines of framing issues, Mike McCurry just did a brilliant thing....he referred to our soliders as "our kids"....

See, this is what Dems just don't get.....

For all the non-military family members out there - by this I mean, with no direct relative in the military at this time - when someone says "soldier" or "our men or women", what do you think? Now, ask yourself to think of this in the way of "kids" or "children" - it brings up a completely different perspective.

I have a brother in law in the military and "soldier" or "our men or women" does not evoke the same thing as "kids".

Thoughts?

[seraph]

1. Huh??

See, this is what Dems just don't get.....


Clarify please.

[SeekingTruth]

10. I really believe...

that on a whole and at a very basic level, Dems (especially liberals) and Repugs (especially conservatives) process information differently. And that right now in the US, Repugs have an advantage and we must learn from them - and as I've said in the past, not learn to be like them, but to use what they have discovered against them. In other words, let's let them do the work and hack through the jungle and make a path, then run past them.

Here is an example - I work in the court system and over the past twenty years visual aids have become huge and will continue to grow. Take jurors. Any more, because of many things, i.e. reality tv shows, COPS, prevalence of video, more and more juries want to see things for themselves and if such visual aids are not available, then that does more harm than good.

I believe repugs have learned things like this before us Dems - America is growing more and more into a visual country. And to further back this up, ask what is the biggest power base of the Repugs? Males. And men are visual animals.

George Lakoff has done some great stuff. I don't have his book but have read several interviews of him and we need to follow his advice.

[GreenPoet64]

2. I saw the interview--I totally agree!

[sundancekid]

3. it's all about the emotionally accurate use of language: "our kids" is

motherhood, apple pie, the flag, baseball and the sandlots all wrapped into one; PLUS, our kids are the most precious resource for our future ... when we say "soldier" etc... the EMOTIONAL "paragraph" that is conjured up is simply not the same.

GREAT OBSERVATION you have shared with us. Kudos.

[fujiyama]

4. I wouldn't say all Dems don't get it

That's way too broad a brush, but I do agree that many we have out there speaking for us, don't get it.

Language is important, especially language that connects.

[gumby]

5. I agree with the framing you notice

but the repukes reply that calling "Our Troops" "kids" demeans them. I've heard this many, many times.

However, I think the "kids" frame wins in this exchange. To every mother and father and sister and brother and aunt, uncle, neice and nephew and even friend, that "troop" is *their* "kid."

[ClassWarrior]

6. Definitely. The one thing progessives need to learn is framing.

Using language to change the context of the arguement, for the poster who asked above.

McCurry must be reading George Lakoff's books. "Our kids" is right on the mark. Kerry's TV ads are saying tax cuts for "the wealthy," not "the rich" - i.e., the word "rich" is perceived as good, but "wealthy" evokes images of fat cats.

24.

[pocoloco]

8. You are correct and

our first assignment is George Lakoff's "Don't Think Like an Elephant", short and too the point. Can you recommend any of his other books?

[chefgirl]

25. I can

I'm currently working my way through 'Moral Politics - How Liberals and Conservatives Think'.

It lays out in great detail what Lakoff calls the study of cognitive science, which is the interdisciplinary study of the mind.
It talks about differences in worldview between Liberals and Conservatives, and the origins of those worldviews.

It explains why Conservatives are so much better at using emotional hotbutton language than are Liberals. It has to do with the unconscious conceptualizing of certain words and phrases that suprisingly have very different meanings to the two sides.

Conservatives, overall, are much more likely to respond to the language that the Republicans have learned to use, in emotional, reactionary ways, which, in turn, translates into what we tend to see as the cognitive dissonance in supporters of the RW.

It can be a bit dry, but I've found it to be fascinating and essential to unraveling the mind of the typical RWer in this country these days.

I highly recommend it.

-chef-

[Must_B_Free]

7. He did that with everything he said

He was whoring it for our side with severly brilliant choice of words even more skillfully than Zahn does.

Everything he said was barbed. I loved when he said about the satellite photos - "I guess that could be the truck going to Syria with Russian intelligence":)

Was there a clear video from the TV station? Because the one Zahn showed was the web video that appeared blurred. Her whole show was to feed RWers some shred of plausible deniability. I was expecting it to be fair, but she was whoring for the right as usual.

[JSJ]

9. yeah, a lot of 'kids' and women, too, were slaughtered by our 'kids'

[shivaji]

11. Unfortunately 99% of parents whose kids are/have served in Iraq

talk in glowing terms of the work their kids are doing!
I guess brain washing works....just ask Goebbels.

[flygal]

12. I think it's starting to change...

My brother's in the guard and the troops are coming back from Iraq totally beaten down. One doctor got to eat with the civilian contractors - plush vip rooms, gourmet food. She came back so bitter. She kept an on-line diary and it wasn't all school-building, water well-digging. Hopefully a lot of their families have seen the truth and are pushing the Kerry lever Tuesday.

[SeekingTruth]

13. Disagree....

I was in the military and it has nothing to do with brainwashing. To be frank, I understand why those parents feel the way they do. Our soliders DO feel they are doing good things and we need to realize this. To fail to understand it will only hurt our cause.

I suggest you pick up "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges. It is not a pro-war book - it is an anti-war one and while he does explain how many of the things combat soldiers feel and think are not what they seem, he does get into the heads of soliders very well.

These young men and women believe in their government and leaders; they think what they are doing is good work and most of all, they do not want to fail their fellow soldier.

The issue should be that our government has lied to these honorable people. Our government has manipulated their thinking into believing Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Hussein and al queda are the same. Things like that should receive our contempt, not our soliders.

[JSJ]

14. please explain how killing 100,000 women and children..

...equates with doing 'good things' or 'good works'. And I do understand that you're only paraphrasing the troops.

[SeekingTruth]

17. Believe me, I don't like it....

I do not like the deaths of 100,000 women and children at all, but my contempt lies with the Bush Admin (and for any soldier who has committed any type of intentional atrocity) and not with the soldiers.

They have been doing something at the behest of our government. Sadly, our government has terribly misled them and I am sick for it happening. However, our soldiers are trying to stay alive. While we are safe at home, our soldiers are in an urban war unlike any war they have been in before. Time and Newsweek have written about the difficulties facing them - where all Iraqis, women, children, elderly, have been active combatants, or where insurgents attack and blend in with civilians. Our government have given them an impossible task to do.

I'm not trying to excuse the behavior of our government, but to try and describe what our soldiers might be going through. They deserve our understanding most of all - and sympathy.

[JSJ]

18. with all due respect...

...you're reciting the 'just following orders' defense given by the Nazis at the Nazi War Crimes Tribunal following WW2. That was rightfully disallowed by the judges hearing their cases. The result was the total abandonment of this defense by succeeding jurisdictions and hasn't been successfully argued since. The zeal by which this Administration rushes to demean and defenestrate this great doctrine and the World's Conventions governing warfare should tell us the true aims of our current goverment- but this 'official' behavior should at no time be allowed to lift the responsibility from 'the troops' for their own bad behavior. No man is an island, and no soldier is a law unto himself.

[SeekingTruth]

26. We're not talking of Nazi's here...

JSJ,

Why is it that some on our side are so quick to equate every military action he or she doesn't agree with to that of Nazis?

Let's get something perfectly clear - I am not defending some solider who with intent, criminally guns down women and children. What I am defending is something very basic - like it or not, people in the military take orders. They are mission oriented - they are given a task to do and then do it the best they can and try to stay alive.

Again, I am not talking about excusing people who would take a group of innocent people, line them up and them execute them. Sadly, too many people look at this war in black and white terms. It is made up of entirely many shades of gray and too many people examine it from the safety of their lazy boy while in their living room.

[JSJ]

31. here's a book for you called...

..."The I've Never Heard of the Nazi War Crimes Tribunal Which (hopefully) Once and for All Ended the Practice of Allowing the 'chust followink orters' Defense Used by Trooops to Justify the Murder of Civilians From Time Inmemorial Big Book for Those Who Did Forget"

[CAcyclist]

32. This is not a productive line of argument

[JSJ]

33. you mean from a pro-troop perspective, don't you?

[sangh0]

34. No, from a "reasonable person to reasonable person" perspective

.

[CAcyclist]

36. This is not a productive line of argument.

Stop it.

[mahina]

19. Agreed 100%!

You are so very right.


"The issue should be that our government has lied to these honorable people" bears repeating. They are coming around and the whole mess is heartbreaking for many families. The fallout will be manifesting for many years.

There are lots of service members who know what's what, we don't owe blind allegiance to the asshole in chief but a little grace for the men and women who put what our country asks of them ahead of their own families and personal safety please, it isn't much.

Judge not ya'll.

[JSJ]

20. i don't recall the country asking the troops to do anything...

...the Bush Adminstration, however, is another matter. It was they on penalty of any number of punishments, varying from mild to severe, who ordered them to Iraq. But then, most intelligent people think long and hard before becoming enmeshed in that crap.

[mahina]

21. You are talking to the wrong person.

Check your assumptions.

[JSJ]

22. closed mind, eh? or beholden to the military, maybe?

[SeekingTruth]

27. Been in the military?

JSJ,

I'm curious, ever been in the military? I'm not saying one has to be in the military to necessarily understand it or criticize it, but I grow weary of those who attribute those in the military as easily brainwashed or as robots. Many in the military are very amazing people.

[JSJ]

30. i don't see 'the troops' as any or all of those three things

[Hog lover]

16. It must be terrible to have a family member in Iraq.

Obviously, you want them to be risking their lives for a noble purpose. If they are not, the emotional torture would be too awful to endure IMO. Therefore, I believe that a lot of the families are just in denial.

[colonel odis]

23. 99%? really? you know that for a fact?

out of every 100 parents with kids there, 99 of them speak glowlingly of the war.

amazing. you know the figure's that high? yourself? you do?

[Yuugal]

15. the war... TO DEFEND AMERICA!

A while back I was flipping through the news shows and its was after a bad day in Iraq(are there any others?). The reps had to know they were going get hammered and I heard every single one of them use the same phrase every single time they used the word "war". So instead of just saying, "The war is going better than you think Mr. Liberal!" , it was always. " The war to defend America is going better than you think Mr. Liberal!"

Dems have finally gotten the hang of using talking points, now they have to get the hang of phrasing things in a way that makes it sound as good as possible so those talking points sound even better. Its cheesy but it works.

[venus]

24. Hate to tell you kids but

Kerry has already been criticized for calling the troops "our kids", or something to that effect. He probably dropped it but look at some of the transcripts of the debates. That's what he said - and it's true. Check out PBS's Lehrer each evening. He shows pictures, names, ages. Most are "kids" and Kerry knows it.

[DjTj]

37. More than half the casualties are under 25...

[democratreformed]

28. Dems don't get it?!? I have always thought of and referred to our

soldiers as "our kids". Yes, they are kids - the vast majority of them. That's yet one more reason that I am enraged that they have been misused and put in the position they are in.

Damn it, our KIDS deserve MUCH BETTER than they have gotten from this administration.

I don't have close family over there (only a cousin), but I have many former students who are over there. MANY. Good kids, each and every one of them. Great kids, as a matter of fact.

And I am mad as hell that they are getting a raw deal. YES I AM.

[Cha]

29. Do you mean..this is what

repubs "don't get"?

Awesome that Mike McCurry said this..

[UrbScotty]

35. Dems? You mean Repubs, don't you?

They're the ones who don't get that these are our children.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. My 83-year-old mom still uses the World War II phrase

"our boys." (She's not quite up to speed on the idea of women in the military doing anything but typing or driving jeeps around the base.)