They want power, we want to do things.  They fight, we don't.  They will say anything, we are worried about what we say.

Framing is a pinhead elitist distraction.

Having said that, it appears many people get something positive out of these framing discussions, and I don't want to dismiss that.

Let the work continue and we'll see what good can come from it.  But, as for me, I am just plum tired of tortured intellectual debates about why the party sucks when Gore got more votes and Kerry may have won the electoral college.  

We are fighting crooks and liars.  We are not fighting a popular ideology.  No one likes a crook, no one likes a liar, no one is fond of a warmonger, or a war profiteer.  So, let's fucking call it like it is.  

But this has always been my style, ever since impeachment.  Fight, don't talk.  Speak plainly, the facts are on your side.  Win.

For some odd reason Booman is intent on distorting the reality of framing of what it is and what it isn't.

Framing has always existed read any of MLK speeches and you will see that they are loaded to the gills with powerful frames... that is the gift of a preacher whose job it is to promote values in people.

"I have a Dream"... dreams= hopes, wishes, desires, future

"I have been to the mountaintop"... clarity, perspective, range views

"Judge people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin"... abandon superficial notions

"The US Constitution is a Promisary Note"... it serves the people not the other way around

Booman is wrong.


Let's beat the Republicans by by electing our own... Republicans.

(1) Framing and propaganda intersect.  They are not the same.

(2) Lakoff never claimed to have invented framing.  But he is introducing and explaining it to a large group of people who have never thought about it systematically, and reflected on how it helps organize their political work, and explain some of their strengths and weaknesses.

(3) Lakoff is doing more than just talking about framing. He is also talking about root metaphors that structure our politics, liberal vs. conservative.

(4) All the things you point to as problems are real.  But so is framing.  It's not an either/or choice.  Nor is the situation you describe new.  The Democrats represented corporate interests in the past as well.  We are the only advanced industrial country to never have had a left party represented in our national legislature.  

But things have changed in US politics dramatically over the past 30 years while the political views of the American people have by and large not.  Part of the reason is that the right organized itself in a very disciplined way, and framing was a part of the story of how they did that.  Not the whole story, not by a long shot.  But a part of it.  And if framing just gave us even a little edge, it would be enough to start turning the tide back again, and then all those other factors would gain traction as well.

Sure, the Democrats aren't nearly as populist progressive as I'd like them to be.  But they still are significantly different from the Republicans. And lots of people either don't realize that, or don't realize what it means.  There's a huge gap between what they say they want, and how they vote, or how they rationalize not voting.  And framing can help us close that gap.

Propaganda "works" because of congitive reality, and framing is part of a study of cognitive study.

But it's about getting better fish, the wrapping takes care of itself.

Lakoff has stated this.

There is really no better explanation why so many keep REFUSING to accept this information about the theory they are discussing than the one than Paul presents... that it is bouncing off... it just MUST be about propaganda.

It's about ideas.

Metaphor and ideas.

The relation to propaganda is slight and indirect... it's not a LIE when Republican's call it "tax relief"... that's how they REALLY feel, they cast it how they really feel.

Compare that to how Dems cast their Robert's votes... how the hell do THEY really feel?

- pyrrho