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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (18158)	7/15/2005 4:21:56 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20773

It can't happen...but I find it possible that eventually Russia, China, India, all the "istans", and Iran form a unified block somewhat like EU. Iraq, Turkey, and Syria may or may not join.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (18158)	7/16/2005 8:33:39 AM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Linguist helping Democrats Frame Issues By Lesley Messer Published: July 15, 2005 2:30 PM ET NEW YORK The cover story by Matt Bai in the upcoming Sunday issue of The New York Times Magazine profiles the man some liberals allegedly consider a possible new “messiah” for the Democratic party, George Lakoff. An adviser to the party on “framing” issues, he wrote “Don't Think of an Elephant”-- a book about politics and language based on his own linguistic theories. “Framing” is the process of choosing the best words to describe individual issues and characterize a debate. Bai hails Lakoff as the father of the concept. His ideas seemed to gain some success recently in putting the Bush social security proposals in peril. Next they will be severely tested in the upcoming fight over Supreme Court nominees. Lakoff preaches that to understand language on the whole, one must first study how an individual would comprehend that language in terms of personal experience and thought processes. He also says that metaphors allow people to process abstract ideas. And nobody better used this philosophy before, says Lakoff, than the Republicans. In the 2004 election, George W. Bush labeled John Kerry as a “flip flopper,” and repeated this throughout the duration of the campaign. He even put out an ad that featured Kerry windsurfing, back and forth, which hammered home this idea in a visual manner. Democrats, on the other hand, tried to pin too many criticisms on Bush, none of which stuck. Thus, as Bai writes, “Bush was attacked. Kerry was framed.” In the article, Lakoff says that Republicans are also skilled at using loaded language and repetition to create lasting concepts in our unconscious. This is largely in part to the work of Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster renowned for creating euphemism for conservative issues. Lakoff explains, “The frames in our brains can be 'activated' by the right combination of words and imagery, and only then, once the brain has been unlocked, can we process the facts thrown at us.” Basically, he says, Republicans re-program the way people think about things. Therefore, Lakoff has taught Democrats in Congress how to combat this through their own framing of Republican ideas. For example, in the recent debate over filibusters, Democrats explained that the GOP was changing a 200-year tradition and doing so on a whim. Lakoff compared it to Bush rolling the dice. With the debate over social security, Democrats explained that Bush was going to privatize it, which frightened the public. To represent this idea, Democrats portrayed the president as "an old-fashioned traveling salesman, with a cart full of magic elixirs and cure-all tonics." “[The approval rating] is down to, like, 29 percent or something,” Representative Nancy Pelosi, minority leader in the House, tells Bai about Bush's social security plan. “At the beginning of the debate, voters were saying that the president was a president who had new ideas. Now he's a guy who wants to cut my benefits.” But Luntz tells Bai that the problem with Lakoff's ideology is that if an idea is bad, no language can make it sellable. “He's one of the very few guys who understands the limits of liberal language,” Luntz says . “What he doesn't understand is that there are also limits on liberal philosophy. They think that if they change all the words, it'll make a difference. Won't happen.” Other Republicans simply see Lakoff as a deeply desired messiah for the left. Some liberals ridicule Lakoff as what Bai called a "new progressive icon." In the April issue of The Atlantic, contributing editor Marc Cooper wrote that Lakoff sees the American people as, “Red-neck, chain-smoking, baby-slapping Christers desperately in need of some gender-free nurturing and political counseling by organic-gardening enthusiasts from Berkeley.” And even Lakoff himself worries that his complex ideas are often misrepresented as overly simplistic. Nevertheless, he has been spending his time doing speaking engagements and writing his next book (about how Republicans have redefined the word “freedom”) due in 2006. But the biggest trial of Lakoff's framing theory will be how Democrats deal with the selection of new Supreme Court justices. Will they be successful in achieving their end goals, as they were with the debates over filibusters and social security? Or, will they lose, as they did with the GOP's crippling of John Kerry? Bai concludes: “The right words can frame an argument, but they will never stand in its place.” Lesley Messer (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is a reporter at E&P. editorandpublisher.com

To: TigerPaw who wrote (18158)	7/16/2005 4:44:58 PM
From: tsigprofit	Respond to of 20773

That's interesting. Isn't China going down a similar path of Japan in the 1910-1930 period? Modernizing, and it needs lots of resources. Part of the reason for WWII's Japanese attack on the US was the US strangle-hold we used on their resources at the time. But this is different, because the US is China's biggest customer, and China is the US's biggest banker/lender. We need each other. China is doing a giant vendor finacing deal with the US - lending us their money to buy their stuff. We get the stuff and debt, they keep making money - lending it to us - and keep their people happily working in factories, so they don't overthrow the Communist leadership there. How long can it go on? Who knows. In the meantime, they play their hand, build up chits in the world, get more and more levers, build up their military, and wait. They are a very patient people. We are inpatient. See how most in the US now are turning against Bush now?? I think it's more from boredom than anything else. The US public always turns agains a Pres. in the 2nd term - Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, now Bush Jr. They start getting bored with them, and things always happen, then they get the blame. A shame the public had to give him a free pass in 2003 when he started the current war.