Politics of Language

Health Freedom is really good…

What about “Defense”? That way you imply an attacker too.

“Defending America’s Health”

“Conserving Health”?

Preliminary thoughts on other issues…

Pro-Choice ==> Defending Families’ Choices
Gay Marriage ==> Responsibility and Stability for all Americans
Steeply Progressive Taxation ==> Rich and Poor, Working Together
Massive Education Spending ==> Putting Value on Our Values?

You could almost envision an add with someone drinking Sprite: “Ahhhh…tax relief.” How about “life relief” for the death penalty?

But seriously, rather than thinking up the best counter propaganda, how about promoting honest language?

Of course, “illness” doesn’t encompass things like simple check-ups or fractures, but that’s a failing of the English language, which doesn’t have a good punchy word for “state of lacking healthcare.”

Another point in favor of “Freedom from Illness” which I forgot to mention is the way it evokes Roosevelt; the point is to get people to start thinking of healthcare as a human right as essential as freedom of speech or religion.

How about “Fair and Balanced Taxation” instead?

The “Fair and Balanced” catchphrase is a little over(mis)used nowadays. How about “A Fair Deal On Taxes”? “Deal” makes it sound to whoever’s listening that they personally will benefit more than the politician making the offer, i.e. the same sense as “getting a deal on a new car”. And again you get a vague inclination of the ever-popular FDR.

I seem to recall somebody from the distant past saying that economic freedom is the freedom of some to rule over others.

Yes, the Republicans – and the right in general in the English-speaking world – have managed to hijack a lot of words and use a lot of lexical misdirection to convince people to support the opposite of what they think they’re supporting. I keep thinking that this time, surely, the public must have caught on. But no. It never happens. They get suckered the same, every time.

I’m afraid my guild requires to me to try to make sure words actually correspond to referents, so I haven’t got any ideas how to fight them on this front. I hope Lakoff does. We lefties have a long history of identifying the disease and having no luck providing a cure.

This approach has been tried before: Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of Rights. Nice phrase, but it didn’t help much, obviously – judging by where we are today.

Fyreflye,

My only concern about “Health Security” is its association with the Clinton health plan, which was titled the “Health Security Act of 1993.”

isn’t that it is impossible to match infinite desires with finite resources, the real problem is bad rhetoric

Yes. The present regime has deftly used the latter to mask the former.

In the meantime, with massive bureaucratic waste, fraud, long waits, and denied care, aren’t you glad we don’t have socialized medicine? Imagine how bad that would be…

“Affordable Health Care for All” seems to cede the ground already to the conservative “frame.” Leading with “affordability” comes from the same matrix of cultural values that can speak of “tax relief.” The really progressive part of the slogan, “for all,” ends up dangling on the end. Kerry does the same thing, in my opinion, by diluting social justice issues into a plan for “expanding the middle class.” Affordability of health care is only instrumentally valuable as one step towards making health care more equitable.

How about just “Just Healthcare”? This would help claim the high ground of social justice; it’s not that it’s simply unfortunate that millions of children cannot afford health insurance. It’s unjust. Why can’t we simply say that?

Apropos of this whole discussion, I think, is what Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners (www.sojo.net), has been arguing for some time about the conservative monopoly on religion as a “frame.” Democrats, Wallis has argued convincingly for the last year, need to stop giving morality and religion away to the Republicans as framing devices. Valuing the profitability of pharmaceutical companies over the health of children, for instance, is a moral and a religious issue.

Everyone does this already.

Pro-Choice. Who is against choice?

40 million Americans without access to health care. All dying in front of the hospital. Well not really. All using the emergency room as a primary health care giver. But 40 million Americans using the emergency room as a primary care giver doesn’t quite have the same ring as 40 million Americans without access to health care.

Maybe it works maybe it doesn’t.

I doubt it.

I think that I might have cause to disagree with this idea that “framing” will solve our problems.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, and think it’s great. I think it’s a natural thing that politically active people do – they try to put the best face on a policy that they support.

I don’t think it’s the be-all, end-all because of what Ross said above. One of the first ideas for “reframing” the Health Care debate was Health Security. As we all now know, Pres. Clinton already advanced that as a “reframe.” And we know how that ended.

“Reframing” is a good idea – I’ll be the last in the world to dissuade you all – but a much more important goal is build an unassailable position. Build your argument (my latest favorite is that Public Health is the linchpin of Homeland Security), then consider how it will be countered. Anyone who thinks that the Clinton White House effectively argued against the “Big Gov’t – Harry and Louise” ads is asleep, I think. They should have hired “Harry” and “Louise” first and made their own commercials arguing against “Big Business in our medicine cabinet.”

The reason that conservative ideals catch hold in the mainstream isn’t because of effective framing. It’s because their framing attempts get played in the press over and over and over and over.

Well, we’ve reached the part where I decide I’ve been rambling.

Keep up the good work, all.

Clinton’s health plan didn’t fail becase of faulty labeling. It failed because he had no plan when he went into office and spent too long a time formulating one too publicly. By the time his team had come up with an unwieldy structure designed to subsidize the insurance industry everyone was sick of hearing about it and Republican hordes had retaken the House. Why everyone thinks Clinton was a brilliant politician has always puzzled me.

Specifically, he says they must develop the ability to counter Conservatives’ ruthless efficiency and almost fanatical devotion…

No one expects a Spanish Inquisition!

Another example he pointed to on the show concerned the Bush Administration’s environmental policy. Bush touts “common sense regulations,” which is short hand for saying: “We don’t need to consult environmental experts (who almost universally oppose what we’re trying to do.” But it carries a compelling double message — we’re doing something straightforward, and those who oppose it are not using common sense.

As someone who lives in a rural western U.S. region that has been among those bearing the economic brunt of federal environmental regulations, I can assure you that a dose of common sense is indeed needed.

Let’s consider framing and the questions we ask. “Environmental experts” disagree with the Bush adminstration’s policies. Fine. How does one become an environmental expert and what types of people are inclined to become such? The federal government’s policies over the Clinton years especially tended to lock up federal land and prevent any human use. This has undeniable environmental benefits, particularly to wildlife.

Fine, but in the case of forests, in particular, we now have a case where California’s timber harvest has been reduced by 90 percent from its peak, but the state is using no less wood. Instead of being harvested here, that wood is clear-cut from the formely pristine Canadian boreal forests, because the Canadians have plenty of territory and, collectively, don’t give a snort about those deep dark woods.

Now, not cutting wood in California’s national forests has undeniable benefits for spotted owls and other critters, but is there really any net, global environmental benefit if the net, global timber harvest remains the same, but is shifted to the convenient locales with the most relaxed regulations? It’s possible, but I doubt it.

This redneck would have more respect for environmental experts if they thought about the whole supply chain, rather than just outsourcing U.S. environmental damage along with its jobs.

Blurry,

Sure. We can only make laws for ourselves. That being the case, would it not be wise to ask, for instance, “How can we sustainably meet our needs for wood and other building materials?” (The Reagan-era clear-cutting was not, I’ll stress, sustainable.)

Again, part of the framing depends on which experts you ask for advice. A forest ecologist will give you different answers than will a forester, who’s just a glorified tree farmer (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’ve heard Sierra Club spokespersons dismiss the arguments of foresters simply because they are foresters who by professional necessity belive that cutting trees down is OK, and vice versa.

Again, without even venturing into the global economy, it seems fair to ask that human needs be taken into account in environmental discussions. What’s the best way to harvest the wood we need, to divert the water we need. Most environmentalists, at least on the Left Coast, don’t feel they need to even address that kind of issue. I suppose it’s understandable for them to think they’re saving the Earth and the conservatives’ blessed free market forces can work out who pays for it, but they shouldn’t be surprised when the working-class types whose mills shut down decide that they’re going to vote for the guy who advocates raping the planet.

trotsky-

check out a salon article from today on forest policy, the bush administration, and small-scale loggers:

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/07/27/healthy_forests/index.html

For “gay marriage,” don’t lead with “gay,” which gives some of the audience the opportunity to reflexively object, and the “gay” modifier marks it as some special case of marriage.

The issue is “Equal Marriage” — and who can be against that?