Over on my Face Book page, someone started a discussion about what we are calling the object of our debate over Health Care. A Face Book poll asks me if I am in favor of government assisted Health Care. Someone had objected that supporters should not get involved with the poll and particularly SHOULD NOT TRY TO DEFEND "GOVERNMENT" HEALTH CARE.
I thought about it and I think they are right. I have written before about "framing". To some all such talk is pure semantics. If you are of this school, pass on, nothing to see here.
If you are not, consider my response in that thread and make up your own mind. I wrote this:
The question indicates that what obama is seeking is government health care. The assisted does not help that much. What we end up discussing is , do you want government (think big bad bureaucrats, red tape, incompetent. etc.)[running your health care].
A better question might be this: Do you support publicly assured access to health care? This gets up talking about our common obligation to each other to provide fair and equitable access.If the discussion touches on government involvement, it is now one component of the discussion, not the only one. There is NO presumption that the government will be providing my health care.
This all may sound like hair splitting, but given the complexity of health care reform, the frames and impressions left by the words we began to use as shorthand for the problem can matter.
That is my two cents, at least.....
Let me add that I tested this framing yesterday when I was approached by a supporter of the other side during a public demonstration.
I snapped on Sunday. No, it wasn't the heat - my power returned on Saturday morning. Let me explain.
My wife was away at church and one of her friends stopped by to see her. I invited her in to wait and so she and I sat talking, pleasantly enough. Then she said it: "Well, I'll tell you what I got tried of after Ike hit. It was all those people on the radio asking for help. I mean, I filled my bathtub, I got supplies. Everybody should be able to survive at least 2 days after the storm on their. It's the welfare mentality, this is what it is."
It has been an extraordinarily bad week for John McCain, what with his interest in Sarah Palin's boobs apparently keeping him from being sufficiently aware of the "fundamental soundness" of the economy...but luckily for McCain, the news cycle turns; and a hotel bombing in Pakistan might be the opening his campaign thinks it needs.
With that in mind, expect the next week leading up to Friday's Presidential debate to be full of references to McCain's favorite subject..."the transcendent challenge of our time-Islamofascism"...or something eerily similar.
His campaign is convinced this is the strongest place for him to make his argument for election-but what if it is not?
As we anticipate what is coming next from McCain, let's remind ourselves just how much of a foreign policy expert McCain really is-and let's do it using McCain's own words.
We've all gotten one. You know the kind of email I am talking about. It breathlessly lists a long litany of half truths and slanders against Obama and insists that you have to pass it on since the fate of the world, or at least the Republic depends on it. Its a modern form of gossip, I guess.
A new acquaintance collects them for study. I won't repeat the slanders here since that just pushes them up the ladder when people search for them. My personal favorite is the one that lifts sentences from Obama's books without page references or any context.
You have probably seen the buzz online or heard about it form the MSM. The New Yorker Magazine is running a cover which lampoons the extreme lying memes (message viruses) that are all over the net about Obama. Of course one finds these slurs more on the right wing net than anywhere else, but, they are also the currency of the anonymous chain letter so much the darling of the little old ladies with tennis shoes, the naive low information voter and the just plain bored cubicle denizens.
There is, I think, reason to be pissed about this cover, even granting that I get the satire. Will the average low information voter "get it"?
Bush's veto of the War Supplemental Act was read as "Bush protects the troops". A vote to override was a lose, lose proposition for the Dems. They blew it long before it came to this point.
A friend sent me this link to
Glenn Greenwald's piece of Saturday, - The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate". At the heart of Greenwald's analysis is this simple truth: failure to think ahead, meant that Dems were forced to play defense on the war vote and on the veto. It didn't have to be that way...
Renowned author and the father of framing, George Lakoff, will be in Austin Thursday night for a Texas Progress Council fundraiser. Lakoff has helped all of us refocus on effective progressive messaging, and his Rockridge Institute has helped us close the gap with the Right on critical infrastructure (a fancy word for organizations that can advance our values and help us organize day in and day out).
Framing is often misunderstood. Framing, a technical term in linguistics, is actually about the honest articulation of values that inform policies and political opinions. Framing is not spin. It simply refers to the use of language that makes sense to voters because it speaks to their values. It is an antidote to spin.
Lakoff will explain this and more at the TPC event Thursday night, 5:30, at the Driskill Hotel. It's a fundraiser, but committed bloggers and overworked legislative staffers should feel free to attend as guests of the TPC. Just tell us who you are at the door. If you can contribute, please do. But we don't believe in robbing Peter (you) to pay Paul (us), so join us if you can. Don't misunderstand. We need the money. But we need you, too.
Also, congratulations to Glenn on becoming a Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute. Elements continue to align to make sure Texas will be a battleground for progressive values in 2008.
LINK Four Texas environmental organizations are suing Gov. Rick Perry over his order to fast-track permitting for proposed power plant projects, alleging the actions are illegal and unconstitutional.
[snip]
"It is yet another unfortunate attempt by these groups to turn Texas into California when it comes to generating the power we need. If these groups have their way, a few decades from now Texans will flip a light switch and nothing will happen," said Royer. "The fact is we are one of the fastest growing states in America and our population will double to 40 million people in the next few decades and that creates a huge demand for energy."
This time he is not kidding, it really, really, really is his most important speech ever. I offer some ideas on what you could say in a letter to the editors in light of the Great Decider's upcoming Up is Down pronouncement.
The end is in sight. While nothing is certain, the Foley scandal has legs and it carries a real punch. In politics it is the kiss of death to be associated with a dead girl or a live boy (even if only by implication or vague intention).
But before we sit back and let it happen, we should take a deep breathe and realize that 5 weeks is an eternity, especially when the Repugs have their mighty Noise Machine oiled and ready to spring into action. They will do all in their power to turn the conversation back to immigrants and terrorists and national security. REVISED! The link should work now......
I understand the real desire to spare yourself from brain damage by avoiding these extremists and their incoherant rants - but sometimes you can find real gems in their, um, brilliance.
Gems (or is it stones?) that you can use to bury the GOP.
Yeah, Ann Coulter is a bitch (among worse things) but every time Coulter (or Malkin or...) says something extreme (which is, um, like all the time), she reminds Americans that the the GOP "Compassionate Conservative/We're really not that crazy" meme is just plain bullshit.
Some thoughts on world views triggered by SF writer David Edelman's essay on greasemonkey scripts. These are FireFox browser extensions that change the content of web pages. One greasemonkey he wrote is called Brockify in a twisted homage to David Brock, the conservative to liberal media spinner. Brockify changes every use of "conservative" to "liberal" and vice versa. He is sure that greasemonkeying won't stop with the web. Relatively soon you will be able to alter your own phones or televisions to bleep or convert objectionable words. Later on you will be able to biochip yourself and run your own reality scripts. Greasemonkeying will bring all of the words you read, things you hear, and scenes you view into your own reality zone.
How much is this different than people self-selecting what they watch and listen to? The mass media has splintered and in discussing politics, for example, people don't even agree on facts, much less opinions. Their facts are repeated on their channels, yours on different ones. Your facts don't match the facts in the reality they are exposed to. People tune out opposing facts to minimize cognitive dissonance. This link shows another example of political dissonance and media self-censorship.
[Bush's] remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break.
Bush isn't any good against terror, but Rove still knows how to abuse power to prop up a loser. This administration has failed against terrorism and has lost control of Iraq. The only thing left for them to do is abuse power to attack their political opponents.
In answering the old attack line: "Democrats are weak on crime, weak on national security", the key ideas will be competence, guarding the gates and efficiency.
(Want to learn framing? Here's your guy - promoted by krazypuppy)
From the Front Page of today Houston Chronicle:
LINKHunkered down under the near-summer heat, the Glencairn community looked like a ghost town. When the ice cream truck tinkled down the streets of the northwest side neighborhood, no kids followed. Most of them were sequestered in tightly shuttered houses. Inside, with their parents, they idly waited — desperately hoping the killers would not return.
Last week, resident Anna Garcia's backyard was the site of a fatal attack, possibly by gangs, on 15-year-old Cristian Ferman. The shooting, the fifth local teen slaying in less than three weeks, was followed the next day by the killing of a 14-year-old a few blocks away who reportedly had talked too much about the crime.
The 
