You know, Noam Chomsky could really help us out right about now.

[Guaranteed]

We need some help with framing these issues that we're dealing with. As a linguist and media scholar, he's the perfect person to go to for help with that. I think our senior advisors need to have a very long brain-picking session with the man, see what they can get out of it. It is in this regard that they've had the least success fighting for us for the past, oh, thirty years or so.

If Chomsky can't help us, no one can.

[Wols]

1. Noam Chomsky here....

I wish.

[Guaranteed]

2. It's time for the party to embrace the man.

He oughta be treated like a king, at this point, really.

I don't think anyone else can help us.

[Hephaistos]

36. Chomsky is the WRONG man for framing

Interestingly, Lakoff and Chomsky are old academic 'enemies'. They deeply dislike each other.

Lakoff's cognitive linguists split from the (Chomskyan) computational linguists orthodoxy well over 25 years ago.

For reference, there was even a book written about this clash, "The Linguistics Wars" by Randy Harris:

At center stage is Noam Chomsky whose search for the innate structures underlying language revolutionized what had been primarily a descriptive, behavioristic science. Chomsky's followers, notably George Lakoff, James McCawley, Paul Postal and Haj Ross, came to view Chomskyan "deep structure" as a barrier to forging a link between sound and meaning. Their work, known as generative semantics, has been denounced by Chomsky as a heresy...

Politically, they also don't see eye to eye: Chomsky is an old-style hard-left polemicist, Lakoff is a pragmatic, moderate, but passionate liberal.

[ZombieNixon]

45. Linguist-in-training here

Chomsky's thesis is that syntax is sovereign and it is syntax that contributes more to meaning and preconception than phonemic semantics and allophonic variation within a dialect. I do most of my study of linguistics at the computational level (Chomsky-Halle is my main source for phonetic distribution within a language), but recently I've delved into framing as a method for political change, and to me Lakoff makes more sense in this respect. I agree, we should be looking to Lakoff (a psycho-cognitive linguist in contrast to Chomsky's computation approach) to reframe the message.

[alittlelark]

46. Are you for real?

So what if he has academic differences w/ others.....he's an MIT professor - if he did not have differences with others views he would be working at the local Wal-Mart.

[Teaser]

57. His work is not conducive to framing.

Chomsky doesn't really work that angle at all. Lakoff's work focuses on metaphor and, as such, is perfect for framing.

[FDRrocks]

3. He'll most likely e-mail you back

if you send an e-mail to his MIT address.

[Guaranteed]

4. Yeah, but it's really up to our party leaders to go to him...

and I don't exactly consider myself a party leader (although I wouldn't mind being one- well, maybe I'm thankful for that right now).

I can't email him and tell him to put in his two cents to the party- he's been doing that for years, and they just haven't listened. It's up to them to come to the realization that they need him.

[sangh0]

5. Stop waiting for the party to do your work for you

.

[Guaranteed]

8. It's not my work, man.

I'm not the one going on TV who needs to know the words to use. A discussion between me and Chomsky would do us no good. The people that matter have to do this.

[sangh0]

13. "Not my job, Man""

It's always someone else's job

[Guaranteed]

15. No, literally.

Seriously. I'm not Joe Lockhart.

Of course, you wanna get me a spot on CNN I'll definitely have a talk with Noam beforehand.

[sangh0]

22. Of course not

It's not like you're getting paid for it, right?

[Guaranteed]

23. Nope, you're still missing the point.

It's no USE for me to be getting talking points from Noam Chomsky- or if it is of any use, it's insignificant.

What IS of some use is our party LEADERS getting talking points.

Let me put it this way- who would you rather have with the right ammo to use against the Bush administration- me, or Joe Lockhart?

Besides, I already wrote MY letter. Now where's yours?

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Guaranteed]

26. Awww, there's goes sangh0 with the personal attacks just because

he lost the argument.

Awww.

Still waiting for your letter, BTW. I'm more useful than you are at this point. All you've done so far is attempt to disrupt a good, positive thread.

[sangh0]

27. A personal attack?

I agreed with you. You said "It's no USE for me to be getting talking points from Noam Chomsky"

"no use" = useless

[Guaranteed]

29. Stop being useless and write Chomsky a letter.

Be polite, though.

[sangh0]

31. Not if you're going to be so rude about it

.

[Guaranteed]

39. Here's my response from Noam himself (tee hee):

Glad to hear from you. I have my opinions, of course, and spend a lot of my time speaking and writing about them. Can't do so right now. Off to work. But maybe the form letter below will give at least a rough idea of how things look to me. If there's a chance for a discussion, I'd be much interested -- in principle. In practice is much harder. I'm scheduled with excruciating intensity, far ahead.

Noam Chomsky

------------------------------

Such a deluge of letters about this I'm reduced to a form response.

First, the basic facts. The population voted about 31% for Bush, 29% for Kerry. A few percent shift in vote would have meant that Kerry won, telling us nothing significant about the electorate, or the general situation. Furthermore, issues of substance were as usual kept out of the campaign. About 10% of voters say their choice is based on candidate's ""agendas/ideas/platforms/goals." The main issue was qualities, leadership, personality, etc. Furthermore, careful public opinion studies, scarcely reported, reveal that majority opinions on major issues do not even enter the political arena: both parties reject them as "too far to the left" (what is "center" in other industrial societies). For Bush voters, polls show that the main concerns were terrorism and "values"; for Kerry voters, economy, health care, etc. From that we learn only what we already knew: the campaigns were designed to project an image of caring about terrorism/values (Bush) or economy/heath care (Kerry). But these results tell us very little about whether voters approved of -- or even knew much about -- the agenda/ideas/platforms/goals of the candidates on these issues. To answer that, further inquiry is needed, and it shows that the majority of the population disapprove of the methods used by Bush on terrorism, prefer a health care program that does not enter the agenda of either party, etc. What would the results have been if the parties, either of them, had been willing to articulate people's concerns, even on the issues they pick as most important? We can only speculate about that, but we do know that it did not happen.

As for what to do next -- same as if there had been a slight shift in voting and the election had come out the other way.

[fleetus]

55. Thanks for posting Chomsky's e-mail.

The non-form letter part made me smile. Especially the principle vs. practice part.

As for the form letter, the 31% 29% comment is something I haven't heard mentioned until now and it's a powerful way of putting it. To me it emphasizes how we (democrats, media junkies, whatever) get caught up in the battle and fail to see the big picture. Chomsky's ability to take a step back and notice what's _REALLY_ wrong with this country has always impressed me. It also makes me think he'd never spend a great deal of time discussing a political party's strategy. Wrong man for that job.

[Wols]

6. It'll never happen

The Democratic Party, while I support them, is too full of shit. And Chomsky cannot tolerate bs.

[Avalux]

7. I don't agree

we need to reshape this party and we need to reach out to people like Noam Chomsky. Why leave it up to our so called leaders? Email him. What do you have to lose?

[Guaranteed]

9. Well, yeah, I don't have anything to lose...

But all I could really tell him is, hey, can you try to get in contact with Joe Lockhart and James Carville?

And how seriously do you think he's going to take me? Besides, don't you think he's pretty bitter at this point toward the party?

And why don't all these people telling me to do this do it themselves? I don't even have his email address.

[Avalux]

10. Allright, I'll find his email and give him a piece of my mind

I'm starting to think we need to kick all of these "leaders" out and do things differently anyway - Noam may like that idea.

[Guaranteed]

11. I think he would.

:P

Send it my way, too.

[auburngrad82]

53. It IS up to us.

Carville and Lockhart and every other high profile Democrat, Progressive, Liberal, whatever you want to call them has been labeled and identified as being part of the evil Liberals.

What we need is for ALL of us to talk to people on a daily basis. If we can convince people that the GOP has been feeding them what they want to hear just so they can get elected, then maybe they will be more open to high profile Democrats. Until that time they will discount everything they hear from a Dem on television or radio as just "liberal talk" and "party line" messages.

Besides, if the media is really slanted towards the GOP, as I believe it is, do you honestly think that Dems will get a good honest to God shot at getting their message out?

Our best bet is to talk up the Democratic values and point out the lies and the contradictions of the GOP every chance we get with normal people. If we wait for someone to do it for us, we will be waiting forever.

[0rganism]

16. Here's the contact info. Go ask him.

Right now, I consider you to be as much a party leader as anyone.

Our "official" leaders are obviously shell-shocked and in disarray, like an anthill struck by a flaming salami. They have no clue. Now might be a good time to ping Chomsky with your ideas, and see what he has to say.

[e-mail]

Here's his web page: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/chomsky.home.html

Please be polite. I've read a fair bit of his e-mail correspondence, and he does not suffer fools lightly.

[Guaranteed]

17. I was just planning on begging him for help. nt

[Avalux]

18. Organism beat me to it -

I'm going to write too. :hi:

[Bonobo]

41. BullGoose: My cousin is on speaking terms with Noam.

Please PM me if you want me to intervene. I will try.

[dolstein]

12. Sorry, but Chomsky can't do squat

He's a marginal figure idolized by the fringes. Get real.

[Guaranteed]

14. LOL we're not talking about getting him TV spots.

We're talking about picking his brain to give the insiders some ammo to work with.

The ideas and words are there, we just don't know what they are, yet.

[0rganism]

19. Maybe he can do some analysis of bush/Cheney's campaign speeches

Some of what they say is pretty dry, just presenting ideas their constituents are already wanting to hear. There's other stuff, tho, that I'm pretty sure is code. Like the "Dred Scot" thing, from the second debate. Maybe he can figure out what b/C is saying to make these people tick.

[Zuni]

33. But Chomsky is so far out when analyzing those people

he would automatically assume it was Bush speaking in code to the KKK to start the white revolution and take over Haiti or some other tripe. He ALWAYS assumes the worst if it is an American leader talking, no matter if it is Jimmy Carter or Donald Rumsfeld. Stalin could say 'I plan to nuke every American' in his speeches and Chomsky would argue it is evidence of Stalin trying to end the cold war...

[0rganism]

35. Maybe our problem is we haven't been far out enough!

> he would automatically assume it was Bush speaking in code to the KKK
> to start the white revolution and take over Haiti or some other tripe.

Why do you assume such a thing would be tripe? For all we know, that's exactly what's been happening. Do YOU understand all the wierd shit bush says? What is "Peeance Freeance secure Iraq"? Heck, I don't even pretend to know, I can't bear to listen to bush anymore, I just turn off the TV or the radio the second his wagging pie-hole makes a cameo.

> He ALWAYS assumes the worst if it is an American leader talking

And who, praytell, is the very worst American leader in our lifetimes?

Seriously, you gotta understand that even Noam Chomsky, who went sorta Naderish in 2000, realized he vastly "misunderestimated" the horror that is bush, and asked the people who pay attention to him to vote for Kerry in 2004. Yes, bush actually scared Chomsky into supporting a mainstream Democrat.

If ever there was an American leader of whom the worst should be assumed, Chimpy McCokespoon is that leader. I think Chomsky's neurotic tendency to blame American leaders could actually be an advantage in this situation.

[tsuki]

50. I never assumed that President

Roves Pierre was speaking to anything other than the worst in the American Psyche. Hate, Hate, Hate. Not much code there.

[DemBones DemBones]

40. Well, I could have told you exactly what the

reference to Dred Scott was about. But you need someone with an evangelical background to interpret some of the Biblical references, and that's not Chomsky's bailiwick. I've been reading some very depressing articles about the Dominionists today and I do think we have to pay attention to all Biblical references Bush** makes.
I don't know how we fight the Dominionists, though.

[The Minus World]

37. Laughable.

A marginal figure idolized by the fringes? How about the most quoted living human being? One does not attain that dignity by only appealing to "the fringes."

Give the man some respect. His dynamic understanding of political cause and effect is a template for intellectuals around the world, and your marginalization of him and his life's work is petty and unfounded.

Get real.

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. To paraphrase George Plimpton on the Simpson,

perhaps he has gone back to whatever it is that he does.

[Guaranteed]

21. Alright, you guys, here's my letter-

probably too amateur to be sending to a linguist, but I tried.

Subj: Hi Professor Chomsky

Dear Professor Chomsky,
You don't know me, but I'm an extremely concerned citizen of the United States and a member of the Democratic Party. I had the idea on a Democratic discussion board (called Democratic Underground- www.democraticunderground.com) of writing to you with my concerns about how our party over the past few decades has been repeatedly beaten in framing the political debate to our ends. My idea at first was that our party leaders should get in touch with you to get some ideas about linguistic changes that need to be made to our platform, but after discussing it with my fellow board members we decided it would probably be easier for us peons to just get in touch with you instead. And, as is typical of party politics, you're much easier to get ahold of than, say, Joe Lockhart or James Carville.

Anyway, like I said before, ideally the Democratic Party would come to its senses and meet with you for a good month or so straight so that they could maybe learn something about why they're losing. But they're in such a state of shock right now I don't think that they know what to do. They don't even understand what they need, which isn't surprising. They never did.

Is there anything you can impart to them to help our country, though? Actually, I shouldn't even ask if there is anything, as there most certainly is. I guess the question is: Would you help them, and us? I understand that it's possible that you wouldn't be to thrilled about working with them. But, would you be willing to reach out to them? We all desperately need you right now.

Thanks, Dr.

All my Best,

xxxxxx

[Julien Sorel]

25. If Chomsky could frame a decent message,

his own writing wouldn't be so tortured and opaque. Moreover, some of his political views might be viewed as a little more, shall we say, mainstream, if he were better at communicating them.

Framing a message is generally, with apologies to Lakoff, the job of admen, not linguistics professors.

[Guaranteed]

28. Linguistics is the essence of advertising, though.

Chomsky may not be on top of the issues themselves and what needs to be dealt with, but if he and the party leaders got together, with his understanding of the mechanics and their political knowledge they could make serious progress. Just MHO.

[Julien Sorel]

30. Here's an analogy:

Powerlifters are strong. Strength is a requirement to be a football player. But not all powerlifters are cut out to be football players; actually damn few of them are.

What Chomsky does (did, actually, as he hasn't made a major contribution to linguistics in 20 years) in linguistics is much more like what a powerlifter does with weights than a football player does with them.

Rove probably has next to no clue who Chomsky is, or what Chomskian grammar is, but he's damn effective at coming up with cute little phrases to warp the political debate. I've never seen Chomsky come up with a single clever phrase to explain his own political views, let alone someone else's.

[0rganism]

34. Sort of like asking a chemist to bake a cake, eh?

> I've never seen Chomsky come up with a single clever phrase to
> explain his own political views, let alone someone else's.

If "Manufacturing Consent" isn't a clever explanatory phrase, compact and cognitively rich, I don't know what is. Then again, that might have been Ed Herman's idea.

Look, it's not like his input on the situation could possibly hurt at this point. At worst, he suggests something completely incomprehensible; we squint, shrug and move on.

[kodi]

42. the phrase is from walter lippman

circa 1930s.

cited, "the chomsky reader" p 136. (paperback ed)1987

mainstream americans are not buying what chomsky is selling. they can not wrap their minds around the idea that they are not actually free and unaffected by propaganda.

[Guaranteed]

43. That's not what we're selling though.

We're not talking about pushing his ideas. We're talking about making USE of his ideas, and framing the issues correctly. We have to figure out how to beat the media.

[kodi]

44. how does one make use of ideas without pushing them?

chomsky's ideas are pretty basic:

he values both the freedom of the individual and the necessity for collective action.

he believes in the need for federal arrangements to create institutions of meaningful democracy offering people the means for controlling their own lives, communities, and work and for participating in the formation of public policy in broader realms.

as basic as these ideas are, they can not be shoved into a fortune cookie.

[Guaranteed]

47. Rove's making use of Chomsky's ideas without pushing them. nt

[kodi]

48. hardly. chomsky points out how rove and others game the system

that rove does it does not mean that rove is reading chomsky and is then using the methods of manufacturing consent chomsky discusses. chomsky is discussing rove and others who are manipulating the public.

rove does not need a primer from chomsky in manipulating the masses.

chomsky is describing a process, he is not causing it.

[Guaranteed]

49. I didn't say Rove is taking instruction from Chomsky.

I merely said he's using Chomsky's ideas. And I'm saying that maybe WE should be doing that too. Not professing his ideas, but making use of them.

[kodi]

52. and what ideas would those be?

3 posts in response to my initial one and you have yet to define what ideas from chomsky rove was using.

you can't argue that rove is using chomsky without telling what he is taking from chomsky.

[the_outsider]

32. No harm in trying, but don't think he will be useful for the party unless

the democratic party is willing to change itself radically. From what I read, his world view has very little in common with the way party is functioning. Of course, we can and should try to change it and no better time than now.

He barely endorsed Kerry as the only viable alternative though he strongly disagreed with Kerry's Iraq position and other policies. He has been blogging significantly and you may find his exchanges with Nader in his blog about supporting Kerry interesting -

http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entry/replying_to_nader/

There is a lot of insight in the comments as well.

Interestingly, he mentions both "business classes" and "Evangelical Christians" as strong forces constantly working (on behalf of the republican party) and the only way to counter them is to strengthen the mass organization and movements - labor, antiwar, feminist, civil rights, consumer rights and so on.. The challenge is these popular movements often work against the imperial agenda and interest of corporations which have strong influence on party's policies and directions.

[The Minus World]

38. Chomsky is not a strategist

He is an observer; an analyzer, necessarily detached from the engagement of popular politics. It is doubtful that he could offer us a game-plan that would effectively subvert a right-wing coup that has been decades in the making.

Now that our media has been co-opted by the right-wing and reduced to a series of flashing sound-bytes and a torrent of irrelevant information, it would take an actual strategy to break through that wall. I doubt that Chomsky could provide the bumper-sticker slogans that would appeal to our 30-minute drama culture. When the liars control what is truth and what isn't, you cannot fight the liars with the truth; he will not become our Rove.

[Swamp Rat]

51. Well, he was on Bill Maher's show last Friday.

That's the first time I've seen him on TV other than CSPAN once. The corporate media has kept him off the air for decades. That asshole Andrew Sullivan savaged Chomsky after he left.

I wish I had enough money to take a class or two with him at MIT.

[fleetus]

54. How was the show?

Everyonceinawhile I wish I had HBO.

[theboss]

56. Is this how desperate we are?

Someone with maybe 1 perecent name recognition is our last hope?

[Nederland]

58. Help us do what?

Lose more elections?