I attended an excellent program organized by Planning for Peace in Groton, MA last Thursday on George Lakoff's ideas about "framing". Having watched Lakoff's video and delved into his book "Don't Think of an Elephant" I am reeling from the revelation of just how very behind progressives are in their use of language. Lakoff shows in simple strokes how conservatives are framing political discourse and winning the debate, even though the facts are not on their side!

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Framing has to do with using short phrases to evoke ideas and connect to values. For example, conservatives have come up with the concept of "tax relief". To have relief requires that there is an affliction, an afflicted party and a hero relieving the afflicted party from the affliction. Thus taxes are cast as an affliction and anyone who is against "tax relief" is against the hero and for the affliction. Progressives need to reframe taxes as an investment. Taxes built the interstate highway system, the Internet, vast portions of the scientific and medical research establishment, commerce infrastructure, banking infrastructure, and on and on. Lakoff gives many more examples of conservatives' word games in his book.

Ultimately an issue has to be framed from the point of view of a core set of values. The reason conservatives have been so successful is that they know exactly what their values are and how to frame an issue in terms of them. What are the core progressive values? Lakoff lists them: empathy, responsibility, strength, protection, fairness, fulfillment, freedom, opportunity, prosperity, community, service, cooperation, trust, honesty and open communication. We must frame and reframe every issue from this core.

Lakoff does a much better job of explaining the ideas. Here's a web site to get your feet wet: http://www.thinkingpeace.com/Lib/lib108.html. Get the video to learn more. Read the book to drive it home.

The workshop with Planning for Peace included a screening of the Lakoff video followed by general discussion followed by small group discussions. Each of the small groups was given a topic and a few values. The task was to create a bridge between the topic and the given values. My group's topic was terrorism and the values were compassion and community. Try bridging that with language. The best we came up with was "Don't forsake compassion and community in developing a balanced response to acts of desperation."

Other groups had topics such as privacy, the environment, freedom of expression. Here is a sampling of their "sound bites":

- Privacy is essential for preserving human dignity.
- We are in a unique position as humans to provide a safe and clean future for our children.
- My knowledge is a direct result of the freedom of expression of others.
- Strength through an informed public.

We need to do a lot more of this kind of wordsmith work to imprint the sound bites that are linked to our values into the minds of the "swing" voters. We are way behind. Get the Lakoff video. Read "Don't Think of an Elephant". This is of fundamental importance.