Why Conservative Lies Spread . .and what to do about it

[annabanana]

(Lakoff - http://www.alternet.org/story/147473/lakoff%3A_why_conservative_lies_spread_and_what_progressives_can_do_to_fight_them?page=1 )

If it seems to you that Democrats and Progressives generally are always chasing the issues that have already been defined by the right wing... you're right.


This is no accident and not wholly because our corpomedia® is predisposed to give the slant their bosses would prefer. The very language of the discussion is set early and often, and as anyone who is bilingual knows, Different words are more that just a "translation"..

This article is an excellent overview of wtf's going on around here...

[drm604]

1. Every progressive should become familiar with George Lakoff's work.

This is an important article.

I also highly recommend his book "Don't Think of an Elephant". It had such an effect on me that after I read it I bought a dozen copies and passed them out to members of my DFA chapter.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. GoodGawd! I wish I had $100 for every time I have mentioned that name on DU in the past year!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=538991&mesg_id=539103

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=511477&mesg_id=511504

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8195864&mesg_id=8196020

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7619089&mesg_id=7619486

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7604848&mesg_id=7604870

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7554881

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7554582&mesg_id=7554740

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7162261&mesg_id=7162514

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6802442&mesg_id=6802742

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=318310&mesg_id=321447

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=282209&mesg_id=282378

[quiet.american]

3. What will it take for Dem leadership to grasp Lakoff's essential point:

"When Democrats use conservative language to promote their agenda, it ultimately creates more support for Republicans."

Sometimes Dems get a little good at framing -- and then they lose it all over again and start making huge communication mistakes....

Republicans proudly have Luntz -- why can't Democratic leadership take Lakoff seriously?

[MedicalAdmin]

5. I think that the reason that many dems use conservative language.

Is because they are conservatives. I beleive we call them DINO's and DLC's . They're like lawn fungus - you can't get rid of that shit.

[tom_paine]

6. Did you ever consider that they don't really WANT to grasp it?

Anymore than the Washington Generals wanted to become fantastic basketball players (or were selected fr their inability to become so).

I hate to bring this up, but I am nearly forced to conclude that, the modern DLC Corporatized "Leadership" doesn't want to win, but to play Washington Generals to the Bushies' Harlem Globetrotters.

Their job, I am being forced to conclude (except for a relative handful) is to put on a good show for the Corporate Sponsors, and to make sure the rubes don't wake up to the fact that the WWE is staged, not a real wrestling match.

There, now, how bad did I butcher my metaphors?

In either case, I'm done asking, "Why do the Democrats seem to lose even when we win? Why can;t they see what is so obvious? Why do they continue to show weakness? Why does Obama play "bipartisanship games" when time and again they shit on him? Why did Obama secretly make a deal with Big Insurance to kill the Public Option and then pretend there was this long, tortuous debate?

After watching this for a dozen years and really more ("Why did the Democrats hesistate to impeach Reagan when they had him for High Treason? Why did they run the Iran-Contra hearings as if they WANTED it to die out? Why did they limit the Iran-Contra investigation only to post-1985? Why were they seemingly afraid of exposing the 1980 Bush-Iranian connection?") there are really only two possible explanations.

1) The hypothesis I laid out above

2) The Democrats are the most inept, clueless bumblers since the 1933 German Social Democrats

If you have a third possible explanation, I'd love to hear it.

[annabanana]

7. sigh . . . I really really really really want to believe that's not true. . . n/t

[tom_paine]

12. Neither do I, but after twenty and more years of this, I am finally starting to embrace it.

I don't want to believe it. But I am running out of excuses to tell myself.

Remember, the Watergate Conspirators, the ones we know of since The Pardon made certain that we never got even CLOSE to the bottom of it, let alone identified all the players, stated on the tapes their intention to "neutralize" the Democratic Party. If I recall correcly, the plan that was exposed by the investigation was Liddy's idea of hookers pumping Dem Congressmen for info on a wired-by-Republicans cruise ship.

What WASN'T revealed was what the Dulles-Bush, now the Bush-Cheney faction was up to. As usual, the "National Security" firewall and the Intelligence Service's ability to perform Black Ops outside of oversight, makes sure we will never know. (not to mention The Pardon)

In either case, hookers and bugged cruise ships aside, I no longer believe it is much of a coincidence that the modern DLC Democratic Party functions almost EXACTLY as the Watergate Conspirators envisioned. Neutralized, ineffective, half-in the corporate bag already, if not further, but still fucntioning enough as an opposition to provide plausible deniability to anyone who might think the Reality Show is rigged.

Most of it is speculation and supposition, except the public knowledge of the Watergate Conspirators' discussions on what they hoped to do to the Democratic Party. I infer from watching reality these last decades that, whatever the cause, the modern DLC Democratic Party "coincidentally" now resembles the weak bunch of compromised phonies (with some rare exceptions) that the Watergate Conspirators dreamed of long ago.

Yeah, I am connecting some dots, because to make an analogy, even in the absence of 100% proof, if I am flipping a coin and it comes up "tails" 5 times, I am not suspicious, but when it comes up "tails" 500 times, I feel justified in making the connection that the coin is crooked.

Do I hope you're right and I am wrong? Absolutely. I just see no evidence of it.

And I am sick of asking the same stupid questions like, "Why don't the Democrats just reinstate the LITERAL filibuster so as to make the Repugs pay for it every time they use it, thus (hopefully) making it much more difficult to use it on most EVERY SINGLE THING?"

They could do it. They could at least try. But they don't.

Just example #501.

[bbgrunt]

13. just like W never challenged the idea

that he was a stupid imbecil--because that meme let him hide the real agenda. People just believed that he was dumb, not in charge, and out-of-touch. Instead he reveled in it by telling people how c students could be president and made jokes about it. In fact, I think he purposely mangled language in order to accentuate that perception.

...after all, who can blame an imbecil?

the dems play the same game. They would rather that people think them incompetent and weak instead of in bed with the enemy. Thus people waste all their energy trying to "educate" and convince them instead of seeing with a clear vision who they really are and what must be done.

[quiet.american]

9. No, I don't buy into that at all.

Democrats' framing and communication may not be perfect, but their actions speak volumes that they are in opposition to the direction Republicans want to take this country.

Climate change
Green jobs
Healthcare reform
Finanical reform
Student loan reform
Social safety net
START treaty
BP
Veterans Affairs

No, Democrats and Republicans are on distinctly opposite sides on these issues and Democrats are not playing to throw the game.

[KeyWester]

10. Ya, change the words and they will vote for it.

Would never happen.

The GOP is for tax cuts, never before in history has so much money been spent so fast on tax cuts as with the stimulus package, and they all voted against it.

[tom_paine]

4. K & R

[scheming daemons]

8. the bottom line is that the left needs its own version of Frank Luntz

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. Thanks! Saving for later.

Lakeoff was the one who articulated for me my discomfort with the principal idiom of the Pro Choice movement; specifically the blunting effect of the word "Choice" on an issue that is really about saving women's lives. I always knew there was something wrong with advancing abortion rights as an issue of choice and privacy, but could not explain what was bothering me about it.

[Mr. Sparkle]

14. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”

That Mark Twain quote sums the Democrats up perfectly compared to our Republican counterparts.