Rachel Maddow on the SOTU

[ProSense]

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MADDOW: The president talking not just about the need to reduce unemployment, the need for more jobs, but the president talking in great, great detail about his vision of where jobs come from. I said earlier—and I still think it‘s true—that this speech was essentially a prayer to the free market, to the nation building in our own nation that comes from invention and from entrepreneurship.

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He stumped explicitly for infrastructure investment, and he did so at length. He framed the issue in terms of the business environment and American industry competing in the world. The president specifically shouting out expanded Internet access, roads, railways, high speed rail.

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The president called for ending tax breaks for oil companies. He called for an elimination of earmarks. But notably absent from his speech was any mention at all of gun control. No mention of extended capacity ammunition clips. No mention of changes to gun laws or to their enforcement. Nothing about that.

The overarching theme of President Obama‘s speech tonight was win the future. It was a point that he accentuated at the end of his speech with a call for all Americans to think big.

more

[JTFrog]

1. K&R!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. To win in the future, one must "invest" in the present...and not only with money, but

with actions that back up one's words. Making promises one has no intention of keeping is not an investment in future success.

The move to the center by the Dems has done more to ensure repuke re-invigoration and success than anything the repukes themselves have done. If left to their own devices, the repukes might have perished in their own fires. The Dems facilitated the rise of the Phoenix of the repukes from their own ashes.

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

* The Republicans out-message the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.
* The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.
* The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.
* The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.
* Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support - and elections - to the Republicans, because mainstream thought and language resides with the Republicans.
* Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging and move to the right.
* The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

Why? Is there anything the Democrats can do about it? First, it has to be understood. It doesn't just happen.
<snip>

Also worth reading...
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

Why has this man and his insight been ignored by the left, while the right worships Frank Luntz and the other RW messaging gurus?
One would think that upon seeing the success of the Luntz/RW approach,t he left might consider adopting a similar type of approach.
The repukes tell lies better and more convincingly that the Dems tell the truth..when the Dems even bother to try to get the truth out to the people.

[ClassWarrior]

3. Read this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=600197&mesg_id=600197

I'm wondering if the Prez and his team are starting to get it?...

:shrug:

NGU.

[mzmolly]

6. Excellent

article CW.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. hmmm. Guess only time will tell........

I hope that Noam Scheiber is prescient...

[scribble]

4. Not this time, Rachel

First; George Lakoff is not ignored by the Left. He doesn't have the impact you expect him to have, because he writes badly.

Second; Rachel is tiptoeing through a minefield right now, so I excuse her -- but Obama's speech was drek. He isolated no important problems, he proposed no specific solutions, and he blamed the wrong people -- you and I, for our national doldrums. Rachel is smart enough to see all this.

Watching just one Financial CEO take a perpwalk would create cultural gusto across the US, that would be worth a million jobs.

sc

[ProSense]

5. Wrong

He isolated no important problems, he proposed no specific solutions, and he blamed the wrong people -- you and I, for our national doldrums.

You must have watched Paul Ryan because the President did no such thing

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We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.

But we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone. We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and the quality of life those jobs offer. By the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise. By the opportunities for a better life that we pass on to our children.

That’s the project the American people want us to work on. Together.

We did that in December. Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today. Every business can write off the full cost of the new investments they make this year. These steps, taken by Democrats and Republicans, will grow the economy and add to the more than one million private sector jobs created last year.

But we have more work to do. The steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession – but to win the future, we’ll need to take on challenges that have been decades in the making.

Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.

That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts of once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear – proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game.

They’re right. The rules have changed. In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business. Steel mills that once needed 1,000 workers can now do the same work with 100. Today, just about any company can set up shop, hire workers, and sell their products wherever there’s an internet connection.

link

He laid out a number of initiatives that he will begin to address in his upcoming budget.

[mzmolly]

7. Thank you Prosense. One wonders what speech some are referring

to? It's certainly not the same SOTU I that watched.

[mzmolly]

8. Not this time, scribble.

The President isolated the most important problems we face, and he offered solutions.

"cultural gusto?" :freak: