ALERT THE VILLAGERS! Barbarians Inside The Gates!

[DistressedAmerican]

Sometimes I feel like these guys are ransacking the village but no one has even noticed. How can that be? This guy is the most radical threat of my lifetime and here he is for a second term.

What is wrong with the townsfolk? Is it Ye Olde Media? Or is it just Ye Olde Stupidity?

[bahrbearian]

1. He's just giving Barbearians a bad Name.

[DistressedAmerican]

2. My Apologies To The Barbarians!

It is hard to compare this guy to anything without being insulting. Even Retarded Monkeys are getting a lawyer! Make that lawyers!

[DistressedAmerican]

6. Hey Vikings, My Bad!

Should give them a special apology since they were the "barbarians" being singeled out. You guys had some killer culture there!

[CBHagman]

3. Good point, and I think it's due to...

...ignorance, exhaustion, framing the debate, media manipulation, and political mind-set. In other words...

*Many people don't really understand how our tax system, Social Security, and the U.S. budget work. They don't see how individual policies affect them and their communities.

*A fair portion of the U.S. population is working and trying to rear a family and/or take care of aging parents. Some are going to school and working. They can't or won't keep up with current events.

*The media is owned, for the most part, by large corporations who are beholden only to shareholders and the bottom line. It's not in their interest to promote egalitarian policies, just to make money. If they scare people or create phoney scandals, they can make money.

*George Lakoff makes the point that many Americans operate on the "strict father" model in politics and therefore respond to the rhetoric and approach of a Bush or a Schwarzenegger.

People need to grasp the enormity of what is happening -- putting the tax burden on the middle and lower classes, slashing the social safety net, straining the National Guard and Reserve beyond belief, pouring billions into missile defense while neglecting basic security provisions, building up more secrecy in a White House that eliminated some post-Watergate reforms. WE HAVE OUR WORK CUT OUT FOR US. Call, e-mail, and write those lawmakers, and keep those letters to the editor coming.

[DistressedAmerican]

4. I Love That Phrase "Strict Father" Model.

I Hadn't heard it before. Sums up our country's blind obedience well. Especially in the days post 9/11 when many, many BushCo. crimes flew under the radar! I'll have to read some more Lakoff!

[DistressedAmerican]

5. Found a really enjoyable article on the fraing the debate issue.

Admittedly, I saw several others as well.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/25_lakoff.shtml

-sinp-
Linguistics professor George Lakoff dissects the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases

By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 26 August 2004

BERKELEY – With the Democratic National Convention over and the Republican one beginning next week, it seemed a good time to check in with George Lakoff, the UC Berkeley professor of cognitive linguistics whose scrutiny of the language of politics has begun to bring him national recognition. The author of the seminal book "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," Lakoff's specialty is dissecting "framing," or the ways in which conservatives and liberals position issues to fit their respective moral worldviews. (For more on framing, read this excerpt from the NewsCenter's October 2003 interview with Lakoff.) He grasps how Republicans use language more effectively than Democrats, and what Democrats can do about it.

When we last talked to Lakoff, he had just embarked on a one-year sabbatical from UC Berkeley to work on three books, none of them about politics. He got sidetracked. Presidential candidate Howard Dean made "Moral Politics" required reading for his campaign staff, more than 200 advocacy groups called for Lakoff's advice, the Democratic senators invited him twice to their policy retreats, and he began getting calls from progressive groups around the country. The Rockridge Institute, the progressive think tank he cofounded with seven other UC professors to reframe public debate, began buzzing with activity. In response to demand, Lakoff set aside his linguistic research for intense — and in many ways more challenging — study of the application of linguistics and cognitive science to politics.

In the last couple of months he has written a short book, "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate," which will be marketed at first over the Internet with the help of a host of advocacy groups. Billed as the "essential guide for progressives," the book is praised by such members of the liberal pantheon as Dean, the founders of MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club's Carl Pope, and billionaire political activist George Soros. The $10 paperback can be ordered from the publisher, Chelsea Green, and from Amazon.com; it will be published around September 8.
-end snip-

I still haven't gotten a copy of his book but, as a fellow anthropologist, I really should give it a read soon.