"Framing" Fans: how do you deal with the fact that Repugs make sh*t up?

[emulatorloo]

To me it is not so much that Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove et al are masters of "Framing," but that they just make crap up, repeat it over and over, as loudly as possible, and depend on the good faith (or laziness) of Americans that respectable men/women in suits on TV won't lie. . .

Basically the strategy is tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth.

For example, Ken Mehlman goes on TV, is all reasonable sounding and says JOE WILSON IS A LIAR! VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY NEVER SENT HIM TO NIGER!

Of course Joe Wilson never said that Vice President Cheney personally sent him to Niger. That's just stupid.

And as Judge Marilyn Milian of the People's Court might say: "Ken Mehlman, you're either the dumbest person ever born or a bold-faced liar!" (and wouldnt it be grand to hear Russert or Matthews say that).

Mehlman and Rove depend on repetition, and that they won't be questioned.

As a survivor of grad school seminars where the cool kids latch onto the latest cool theory to the exclusion of everything else, I will admit that I am skeptical about the Lakoff framing craze.

But I would like to know more - how do Lakoff and his disciples address this?

ON EDIT: THANKS TO ALL IN ADVANCE

[salin]

1. More incidious than just framing -

this was written in 2002 - an excellent article about the use of "polling" by bushco - they take ideas they want to push but the population doesn't like - and keep giving it new "names" and market test it until they have orwellianly found the "name" that the public likes then they sell the public on the policy.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0204.green.html

Anyone who hasn't read this, really should read it.

[expatriot]

2. A central "debunking the urban legernds" resource

with talking points that some major Democratic or progressive organization could sponsor.

[expatriot]

3. oh yeah.... and more Air America stations. nt

[Sapphire Blue]

24. Along those lines...

Media Matters: http://mediamatters.org/

The American Progress Action Fund - Claims vs Facts Database: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/custom/cap/findorg.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=124702

[pstans]

4. The corporate media

The corporare media gives them the repitition they need. The cable news channel play the crap over and over, Rush and the other shrieking midgets of AM radio repeat it over and over, and then the American people finally start to repeat it while they are sleeping.

[nashville_brook]

5. if we were better educated, we wouldn't have to market our ideas

just watch Robin Cook's resignation speech. no framing there. just the truth. no jujitsu. just a common-sense.

i was one of those students in grad school seminars dazzled by the promise of a silver bullet. if only we could find the perfect way of saying it -- the sleepers would awaken. but rhetorical modalities are necessary only when the game is hacked. truth is truth no matter how it is packaged.

i think we might do well to return to a good old "marxist" approach: asking who has the money and who benefits.

[omega minimo]

12. Critical thinking, bullshit detectors, punk rock

Folks at every education level need to be able to believe their own bullshit detector when it goes off.

One challenge is the infiltration of marketing mentality and craft in every discipline and every aspect of life. Students and civilians alike have to have the gumption to be real and not accept the convoluted mechanisms of marketing-speak that wallpapers their awareness.

Follow the money. "Truth is truth no matter how it is packaged."

[nashville_brook]

15. oh hell -- thank you for that!

my first post of the day -- pre-coffee --- you are so right. it's the punk rock that did it for me.

for the longest time i've had this idea to teach critical thinking to high school students. i know it's asking too much to be required -- but what if it were an extracuricular activity -- like Rock School. punk rock. empowers while sharpening bullshit detection.

i've also noticed, listening to Sirius radio, that the music stations actually take their cue from shit going on in the world. the DJs -- yes, DJ's -- actually comment on real life shit. politics -- and play music that responds to the issues. when was the last time you heard that on commercial radio. it's been neutered. there's no culture in our culture anymore.

but back to the topic at hand -- follow the money -- the marxist approach as my profs called it.

[omega minimo]

17. Cawlifawneeyaw Uber Alles

"It's the suede denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece!"

How did critical thinking ever become extracurricular? :smoke: Oh yeah-- dumbed down populace easy to hoodwink!

"when was the last time you heard that on commercial radio."

Yeah, that's what radio used to do-- and it WASN'T that long ago. Radio started dying during the punk era as big business scarfed up all the stations and record companies. AND WHY DID THEY DO THAT? So that now, someone would have to listen to Sirius to hear what used to be public domain. The final nail in the coffin, after Kurt Cobain singlehandedly (hi Kris and Dave!) blew the lid off corporot media cult-ure for about 10 minutes. The Nirvanawannabes ruined it all over again.

.........................:sarcasm:.............:sarcasm:................:sarcasm:
Imagine! "music stations actually take their cue from shit going on in the world."

[nashville_brook]

19. ain't that the truth, about kurt -- and the wannabees

and what happened to real indie rock? in the 80s you could hop in a van and travel and play your music and people came out. i could be living in the wrong town -- but it just doesn't seem that easy anymore.

This Band Could Be Your Life? could it?

I must not think bad thoughts -- what is this world coming to?

it's not like i got critical thinking in high school, 1980-84. but we did have decent history classes. but now that i think about it, my fave history teach, mr brady, was fired after a conservative girl lied about him making passes at her. she drove an afla romero that her dad bought her when she was 15. she didn't like that brady spent so much time on the Vietnam War.

when i got to college, the critical thinking requirement for a phil degree was considered a huge stumbing block. students avoided it like it was the plague. when i got the guts to take it, not only did i find it second nature, but it was one of my fave classes bar none. it was fun.

high school kids are naturally know-it-alls -- most would jump at the chance to really be good at it calling out bogus shit. i need a damn grant.

[omega minimo]

27. OMG a FREEPTEEN?!!!!!

Future Ann Coulter? Wonder if she got over what she did to him and his career?

Yeah the Nirvanawannabe spirit has morphed (and Kurt's face still sells magazine covers) into pompous prog metal, which is really funny/sad. Sad cuz it takes itself so damn seriously.

A lot of times the fave teachers are the ones who simply listen to students and validate their.... the fact that they ARE thinking. That's pretty radical these days.

You were in high school during Raygun's first term. A lot of attitudes and basic AWARENESS shifted then. Kids grew up with the cognitive dissonance of that doddering fraud being the President in the first place.

Go with that education idea-- you can do it in one form or another and make a real difference. Gonna check out your blog. Good luck!

:toast:

[nashville_brook]

29. thanky -- i think she wore it as a badge of honor

"i got brady fired," was the bathroom talk.

we thought raygun was about as bad as it could get. we were wrong.

[kentuck]

6. We should put what they say into comparative sentences...

For example, "They say that Joe Wilson is a liar but the facts prove that Joe Wilson was telling the truth and that it is they that were lying.."

[salin]

8. "So what if it was Cheney that sent Wilson, or if Cheney told the CIA to

send someone and they sent Wilson... that doesn't change the fact that we lost a very important intelligent network that worked to keep WMDs OUT OF THE HANDS OF TERRORISTS AND ROGUE NATIONS - due to the leak."

[BillZBubb]

7. Classic example of the failure of the corporate media.

They allow the Repugs to lie without ever calling them on it. They expect the Dems to respond to the lie. The reporter stays out of the battle. But this is exactly what is polarizing the country. If conservatives hear a Repug say something they believe it and they tune out whatever a Democrat says in rebuttal.

But, if the moderator of the show called the Repugs on it and insisted they provide proof of their claims, even conservatives would eventually get a clue.

The corporate media also gives airtime to the liars as if their statements were of equal weight to that of the other side. Consider the SwiftLiars for example.

I don't think 'framing' is even the major part of our problems. It's the propaganda techniques used by the Repugs with the complicity of the corporate media.

[Mountainman]

9. One reason it works is because the media treats the lies as if they were

just the other side of the political spectrum. To the media, a fact and a lie have the same weight.

Also there never is a rebuttal to the right wing talking heads or if there is, the left spokesperson is outnumbered at least 3 to one and they gang up on them with the host siding with the right or just not calling them out on their lies.

The idea that Bush went to war because bad intelligence is so over the top that it should be called bullshit every time someone says it. Everyone knows they cooked the intelligence to make up a case for war even though a lot of people are in denial about it.

[Maraya1969]

14. When I hear that: "Bush went to war over bad intelligence" I say, "How

come Michael Moore knew there were no WMD'S and Bush didn't?" Remember him trying to talk at one of the first award show, (forget which one) where he said, "There is no threat" and people were booing him in the audience? I think this was right before we went into Iraq or shortly thereafter. Even Hollywood didn't know we were being bullshitted at that time, along with the Senate and Congress.

[dissent1977]

18. Not just Michael Moore...

Scott Ritter the former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq did not think there were WMDs, and Hans Blix the inspector immediately before the invasion expressed some doubts as well. Now there is no doubt Bush has "bad intelligence", people should have known that before they allowed him to become pResident. Just look at all the stupid things he says. But for people to trust his "intellegence" over the weapons inspectors themselves and then try to cover themselves by saying "everyone thought there were WMDs" shows their complete ignorance. I didn't think there were WMDs and the former chief UN weapons inspector did not think there were WMDs, so whenever I hear somebody say "everybody" thought they were there I think that person has absolutely zero credibility. And when the media lets that talking point/lie to go unchallenged, well then it shows the media has zero credibility.

[LunaC]

20. "Bush went to war over bad intelligence" I say,

Bush MADE the intelligence BAD.......

In September 2001, Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was authorized to create the Office of Special Plans.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml

The Office of Special Plans (OSP) was a secret group of analysts and policy advisors with no status in the intelligence community. Nevertheless they reported directly to the White House and National Security office with cherry-picked intelligence from questionable sources to support the case for invading Iraq. The OSP circumvented formal, well-established oversight procedures, ignored intelligence that didn't further their agenda, expanded the intelligence on weapons beyond what was justified and over-emphasized the national security risk. They became more influential than the C.I.A. or the Defense Intelligence Agency who didn't even know the ultra-secret OSP existed for at least a year.

Because they were based in the Pentagon, it was assumed that the OSP was an intelligence-gathering agency that was second-guessing the C.I.A. but in actuality it was the White House Military Marketing Machine charged with the task of writing the PNAC's "Get Saddam" sales pitch for the public. Shading and bending reality to suit their own purpose, it wasn't important for the OSP's stories about Saddam to be factual, only that the average American believed them to be - in true Hollywood fashion.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

[gratuitous]

10. It's hard to keep up, for sure

And even when someone comes totally prepared (like the guy on CNN, who had a copy of Who's Who sitting on the desk, ready for Novak to lie his pasty white ass off), they'll just strip off the microphone, pronounce "bullshit" and walk away. And everyone will be too polite to mention the sour fart hanging in the air.

But the truth and sunshine make for a good disinfectant. Use them whenever possible.

[Nevernose]

11. Quite simple, really

My suggestion for dealing with the right-wings almost incomrehensible aversion to the truth?

Start by having Democratic politicians and talking heads remove the words "untruthful" and "misstatements" from their lexicons, and replace them with the phrase "goddamned dirty liar." We have to call them on the lies. When they're wrong, point out that they're wrong, and when there's no way they could simply be incorrect, call 'em what they are -- liars.

If we own the terminology -- and it's an accurate, fair terminology -- then we have "framed" the debate.

[Maraya1969]

13. You have a great sentence right here:

"Of course Joe Wilson never said that Vice President Cheney personally sent him to Niger. That's just stupid."

We should "frame them" as they really are. LIERS AND STUPID! Well I know that is not really "framing" but using words such as: absurd, ignorant, uneducated is what I use sometimes. And use these words to define people who BELIEVE the lies.



Here is a partial list from Dictionary.com - the Thesaurus


Definition: stupid
Synonyms: doltish, dull, dumb, fatheaded, half-witted, ignorant, imbecilic, impassive, lethargic, numskulled, obtuse, phlegmatic, simple, slow, slow-witted, sluggish, stolid, thick, torpid
Antonyms: alert, clever, intelligent, quick, sharp, smart


Main Entry: dull
Part of Speech: adjective 1
Definition: unintelligent
Synonyms: addled, backward, besotted, boring, brainless, daffy, daft, dense, dim, dim-witted, doltish, dumb, feeble-minded, half-baked, half-witted, ignorant, imbecilic, indolent, insensate, low, moronic, not bright, numskulled, obtuse, retarded, scatterbrained, shallow, simple, simple-minded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupid, tedious, thick, unintellectual, vacuous, wearisome, witless

[linazelle]

16. Imagine if every democrat said: "The Republicans are lying

about Joe Wilson..."

Not only would they get this simple message across, they would wake up the media with the out and out blazen truth. The dems need to adopt shock and awe messaging strategery.

[stepnw1f]

21. Laugh in Their Faces and Dismiss them As Tools

That's what I do when I hear bullshit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I can only go so far, until I have an echo machine

[rman]

23. Not two different things: the RW frames its lies well.

We just have to tell the truth and frame it well, and call them on their lies.

[proud patriot]

25. " Now seriously that's Snake Oil and Americans aren't buying it "

you have got to call them on it .

[proud patriot]

26. "Republicans trying to Divide America when we need to Heal"

"look the republicans are an excellent demolition team
but at some point it's time to rebuild and that is what
We Democrats are good at " ...."Here's our Plan"

[wli]

28. it doesn't matter, if the reich isn't getting their way they cut the mike

We're not cut off because we didn't figure out that we need to call them on it. We're cut off because we're *LITERALLY* cut off. Anyone who tries something like that is kicked off the air. It's been seen happening in progress on several occasions. It's part of why they don't let real liberals even get on the air in the first place, but rather only shills paid to roll over when the bullshit starts.