2012 Talking Points: Rachel, Thomas, George, and Me

Most weekdays I watch the videos from the previous night's Rachel Maddow Show, and, as you can well imagine, very often I join in the discussion myself. Yesterday Thomas Frank, author of Pity the Billionaire, was one of Rachel's guests:

Thomas: You and I can sit here and say we’ve been engaged in conservative politics in this country for 30, maybe 40 years ... privatizing, deregulating, deunionizing, outsourcing, all of this sort of thing, but their answer to that is, "Uh-uh. We just haven’t gone far enough. And we’ll never be prosperous again until the day we deregulate all the way and we privatize everything. Until then you can’t say that laissez-faire or the free market has been discredited, because we haven’t been allowed to do every last little thing that we want." ...

Rachel: Your thesis absolutely has helped me understand what happened in 2010 and how the simplistic—incredible but simplistic—and vehement argument that sounds simple and effective repeated loudly can work. ...

Me: So this explains why the "trickle-down economics," "government-is-the-problem," "deregulate-and-privatize-everything" ideas still have traction? Because they've been repeated loudly and vehemently and often enough? No wonder it seems like so much of public discourse has become a fact-free zone.

Perhaps this touches on one of progressives' greatest difficulties. We like reasoned discussions; we like exchanging ideas of merit; we like refuting right-wing pundits' assertions. But when we do that, we often respond using the right's own language and ideas; we let them frame the discussion and we don't get to our own frames.

Let's invite George Lakoff, author of Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, to join us.

George: Progressives have a basic morality, which is largely unspoken. It has to be spoken, over and over, in every corner of our country. Progressives need to be both thinking and talking about their view of a moral democracy, about how a robust Public is necessary for private success, about all that the Public gives us, about the benefits of health, about a Market for All not a Greed Market, about regulation as protection, about revenue and investment, about corporations that keep wages low when profits are high, about how most of the rich earn a lot of their money without making anything or serving anyone, about how corporations govern your life for their profit not yours, about real food, about corporate and military waste, about the moral and social role of unions, about how global warming causes the increasingly monstrous effects of weather disasters, about how to save and preserve nature.

Progressives have magnificent stories of their own to tell. They need to be telling them nonstop.

Me: So in essence, this is what the right has been doing so effectively. They have hammered on their talking points until everyone is parroting them, not just the party faithful. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the right has its own 24/7 propaganda machine that happily reiterates right-wing frames over and over again. Still, you have to admit, they've been good at this stuff and progressives have not.

In the coming election year, beloveds, let's quit reacting to the right's provocations and focus like a laser on what we believe in: representative democracy, clean and transparent government, opportunity for all, the common good, the Bill of Rights, the well-being of the 99%, social as well as individual responsibility, inclusiveness and diversity, and compassion and empathy.

Only Money Has Free Speech

As it is now, advertisers make the decisions about the media, not the people, because the media exist for the purpose of making money. . . .

The fact that people with money can hire lobbyists to represent them in Washington limits equity in the political system. Poor people don’t have the money for this—if they spent everything they had, they couldn’t get enough money together to equal the lobbying power of the rich. After an election, people don’t have access to government, because lack of money prevents them from having equal access to the people in power. That’s an inequity that’s built into the system. That’s where money is more powerful than people.

People do have a right to vote. But whom do they have a right to vote for? They have a right to vote for whoever is chosen. That’s our dilemma right now. It starts with how much it costs to run for office—it now costs $3 million to run for governor in Tennessee. That rules out a lot of people. So the choice is between two people who are willing to spend $3 million, which is not a democratic choice. You can say that the people have a right to vote, but they only have the right to choose between two millionaires or people whom other people with money are willing to back.

—Myles Horton, The Long Haul, © 1990, pp. 169-170

You keep using that word...

In his statement on the Democratic victories in the Wisconsin state senate recall elections, Mike Tate, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, had this to say: "Democrats . . . shifted the balance of power in the state Senate away from conservatives. . . . Only now is Walker—who has acted unilaterally to advance a staunchly conservative agenda throughout his Administration—talking about 'bipartisanship.'"

Mike! You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means!

We have conservatives??? In the Wisconsin state senate? Really? Coulda fooled me! You couldn't possibly be referring to Walker and his cronies, because they are anything but "conservatives." I expect, though, that Walker et al. really appreciate your calling them that. No doubt they would like nothing more than for those who truly are conservative among the good people of Wisconsin to believe that they can be numbered among them and will look out for their interests.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., defines "conservatism" as follows: "1 capitalized a: the principles and policies of a Conservative party b: the Conservative party 2a: disposition in politics to preserve what is established b: a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change 3: the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change"

Don't we wish! Walker and the other power-grabbing, overreaching Republicans in the state legislature have a disposition to destroy what has been established in Wisconsin. They subscribe to a political philosophy that is based on greed and upheaval rather than "tradition or social stability," undermining our established institutions, and forcing abrupt change on the people of Wisconsin.

The unprincipled despots who have turned Wisconsin into Fitzwalkerstan are not conservatives in any sense of the word. Please, call them what they are: radical right-wing demagogues intent on undermining everything that is good about Wisconsin, determined to set themselves and their billionaire masters up as plutocratic feudal lords and to make the good state of Wisconsin into their private fief and its people their serfs, not to mention making this great state a subsidiary of Koch Industries. There is nothing remotely conservative about them or their agenda. They are utterly destructive.

From the "U Frame It" Files: Moral Imperatives

Radical right-wingers are really good at framing the debate ("the presentation of political ideas and principles so as to encourage one interpretation over another"), in part because they're good at coming up with catchy, sticky, snarky frames and in part because the right-wing-owned mass-media propaganda machine loves those catchy, sticky, snarky frames and repeats them incessantly until all of us are repeating them without ever giving them a second thought.

So I propose to do just that—give them a second thought—as a now-and-then feature of the Worley Dervish. We'll call them the "U Frame It" files.

Today's installment: entitlements, as in "entitlements are the greatest domestic challenge the nation faces" (straight off the Heritage Foundation's website).

Really? Really? Not joblessness. Not our imperiled economy. Not the rapid disappearance of the middle class. Not our crumbling infrastructure. Not three—count 'em, three—wars. Not poverty. Not homelessness. Not corruption. Not out-of-control military spending. No, "entitlements" are our greatest domestic challenge.

More from the Heritage Foundation website (I'm still cringing from actually having gone there. It feels like I mighta got some on me. Ewwww...): "The middle class retirement programs, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, will cause federal spending to jump by half, from the historical average of twenty percent of the economy to thirty percent by 2033. This tsunami of spending is a major threat ..."

"Tsunami of spending." Yowzer. That's truly elegant. And completely twisted.

We must protect the prior earnings of American workers set aside in Social Security or private pensions. They have been earned through hard work and discipline. Taking these earnings away is theft, despite the Right’s use of the word "entitlements." (George Lakoff, emphasis mine)

Calling those programs "entitlements" makes their privatization and the theft that that entails more palatable, much less morally reprehensible than it actually is. It enables greedy, morally reprehensible people to dismantle our democracy for their own profit. It takes us that much further down the road that turns the middle class into feudal serfs.

Medicare, if made available to all Americans, would not only save us money; it would make us, well, healthier. And for many, it would truly be a matter of life and death. Life and health are not "entitlements." The Common Good is not an "entitlement." Life, health, and the Common Good are moral imperatives.

Your mission for today (or this week, or this month), should you choose to accept it, is to read Lakoff's recent column "Why Democracy Is Public." When you're done, read it again. Bookmark it. And then recommend it to everyone you know. It's really, really, really that important.

Stand Up for the American Plan

I love George Lakoff. He understands how I think. Really. I love it when someone understands how I think. Don't you? It's one of the best feelings in the world, to be understood.

Not only that, George Lakoff understands how people who don't think like I do think. And that's something really special. Because, really, how people who don't think like I do think has been a great mystery to me. George Lakoff is a cognitive scientist. He studies thinking and communication.

In the HuffingtonPost today George weighs in on health care reform. He has a keen-sighted take on what has been happening (and not happening) and some excellent suggestions on where we go from here. I know it's long, but it's worth reading. If you just don't have time, bookmark it and make sure you read it later. And for now, read the following two paragraphs. There's much, much more, but these two paragraphs are sparkly gems of dynamic communication:

Insurance company plans have failed to care for our people. They profit from denying care. Americans care about one another. An American plan is both the moral and practical alternative to provide care for our people.

The insurance companies are doing their worst, spreading lies in an attempt to maintain their profits and keep Americans from getting the care they so desperately need. You, our citizens, must be the heroes. Stand up, and speak up, for an American plan.

Read it a few times. Take it in. Ah, clarity.

George suggests the term "American Plan" instead of "public option," which is boring and uninspiring. I'm for it. I'm for the American Plan. It is the answer to our health care emergency.

Thank you, George, for your insight and clarity. I hope progressives get the message. I hope Americans get the message. I hope we get our American Plan.

¡Sí, se puede! Now Is the Time!

In a Mercury News article about Wednesday's marches for immigration reform, Juliana Barbassa quotes a scholar from the Foreign Policy Research Institute: "Go down to the unemployment office and ask what people lined up think of immigration reform—you'll get an earful. . . . It's the wrong time, at the wrong place, and the wrong issue to invest your political capital now." Bull hockey (ahem). I heartily disagree. Al contrario, this is exactly the right moment. Exactly.

Ah, well, consider the source: According to SourceWatch.org, the FPRI is a conservative think tank, "an activist organization driven by its own ideology." It describes itself as being "devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests" and lists as one of its goals to "shape the national debate on foreign policy through frequent appearances in the national news media."

So what we have here is the FPRI seeking to "shape the national debate." That has been much of our problem: not that we are widely opposed, but that we are noisily opposed. In other words, we are being bullied. Can I please hear a loud "Stop that!" from all good people of common decency and good sense?! Thank you.

In fact, while the most recent attempt at immigration reform was still before Congress in 2007, according to a CBS poll, "most Americans surveyed support measures contained in the bill, including a guest worker program and the possibility of permanent residency for illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S." Granted that our economy is in much worse shape now than it was then, but there is no indication that vast numbers of the American people have changed their minds about this issue as a result of the economic downturn.

Decent, good-hearted American people—that is, the majority of Americans—understand that immigration is a very complex issue and that unauthorized immigrants don't come here on a whim or because they were bored down south.

But there are some bullies in our midst, and unfortunately they're very noisy. They would like you to think that they're in the majority, that the American people will not tolerate immigration reform while the economy is in such terrible shape. This is the reality that they are actively trying to bring into being just by repeating it over and over again. Please, do not let them.

In an article posted on the Rockridge Institute website, George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson make some excellent suggestions for how we can be the ones to shape the national debate:

• Address the issue as one of globalization. "If capital is going to freely cross borders, should people and labor be able to do so as well, going where globalization takes the jobs?"
• Address the issue as a humanitarian crisis involving "mass migration and displacement of people from their homelands at a rate of 800,000 people a year. . . . As a humanitarian crisis, the solution could involve the UN or the Organization of American States."
• Address immigration as a civil rights issue. "For the most part, [the 12 million immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization] are assimilated into the American system, but are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. They are denied ordinary civil rights."
• Address immigration as a "cheap labor issue." "Undocumented immigrants allow employers to pay low wages, which in turn provide the cheap consumer goods we find at WalMart and McDonald's. They are part of a move towards the cheap lifestyle, where employers and consumers find any way they can to save a dollar, regardless of the human cost."

Activating these frames rather than the old "they're eating our pie" frame will help us to reshape the national debate and enable lawmakers to enact just, compassionate, and pragmatic immigration reform.

One of the primary reasons that now is the time to push for a just and humane immigration policy is that the Democrats would not have had such a sweeping victory in November had it not been for Latino voters, for whom immigration reform is an especially high priority. In other words, we have some political capital right this instant. We mustn't let it slip away.

The FPRI and myriad nativist hate groups recognize that political capital, and they're afraid. So they are using their well-practiced tactics to try to convince us and everyone else that now is not the time and that we have no political capital. They know that the momentum is with us. They know that our time is now.

The following quotation, as big as life, appears on the WhiteHouse.gov page describing the Obama administration's agenda regarding immigration:

The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. … We need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace. … But for reform to work, we also must respond to what pulls people to America. … Where we can reunite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with the skills our economy needs, we should.
—Barack Obama, Statement on U.S. Senate Floor, May 23, 2007

I could do without the bit about "stronger enforcement," but remember this was before the launch of the horrendous ICE raids. I'm heartened by Obama's pragmatism as well as his refreshing willingness to see the complexities involved: "For reform to work, we must also respond to what pulls people to America."

And of course, our president will never forget that he himself is the son of an immigrant. The Day of the Immigrant in America is indeed at hand. The time is now. Now! That's what he said. Well, actually, he said "now" way back in 2007. In which case, the time is past due.