Posted on 01/19/2004 9:24:55 AM PST by .cnI redruM
If Lakoff were right, McGovern, Goldwater and Buchanan would all have one elections by now.
The reaction of the Bush administration is just what you would expect a conservative reaction would be—pure Strict Father morality: There is evil loose in the world. We must show our strength and wipe it out. Retribution and vengeance are called for. If there are "casualties" or "collateral damage", so be it. The reaction from liberals and progressives has been far different: Justice is called for, not vengeance. Understanding and restraint are what is needed. The model for our actions should be the rescue workers and doctors—the healers—not the bombers. We should not be like them, we should not take innocent lives in bringing the perpetrators to justice. Massive bombing of Afghanistan—with the killing of innocents—will show that we are no better than they. But it has been the administration's conservative message that has dominated the media. The event has been framed in their terms. As Newt Gingrich put it on the Fox Network, "Retribution is justice." We must reframe the discussion. I have been reminded of Gandhi's words: Be the change you want. The words apply to governments as well as to individuals.
So Dean isn't just a "metrosexual," he's "bi-conceptual" as well.
It is telling what was not in the President's September 7 speech. He sought help from other nations, but he refused to relinquish control over the shaping of Iraq's military, political, and economic future. It was to a large extent the issue of such control that lay behind the UN Security Council's refusal to participate in the American attack and occupation. The reason for the resentment against the U.S., both in Europe and elsewhere, stemmed from a widespread perception that American interests really lay behind the invasion of Iraq. Those interests are: control over the Iraqi economy by American corporations, the political shaping of Iraq to suit U.S. economic and strategic interests, military bases to enhance U.S. power in the Middle East, reconstruction profits to U.S. corporations, control over the future of the second largest oil supply in the world, and refining and marketing profits for U.S. and British oil companies. The 'Iraqi people' would get profits only from the sale of crude, and those profits would go substantially to pay American companies like Halliburton for reconstruction.
Feel free to click on the link and read on. It gets worse.
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the first, and she won’t be the last, to envision a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Like most dragons, this one is based in truth: right-wing conservatives have become extremely adept at expressing and communicating their message. This success is charted and discussed in a book entitled Moral Politics by George Lakoff, who is a professor in the department of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. TomPaine.com’s Sharon Basco spoke with him about his theories.
Oh boy.
And Howie is the "metro-conceptual"!
The halls of academia.
If you think Lakoff is a funny name, there's an even more renowned cognitive theorist whose name is Jackendoff.
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