President Bush is holding our troops hostage and threatening them with death. Here is what he is saying to Congress:
"Order me out of Iraq, and I will abandon the troops in the field. The blood of your children will be on your hands, not mine."
Every coffin that comes home shows he means business.
This is the ugly truth Congress wrestles with but will not name. Congress has been terrorized, like any family whose children are kidnapped and held hostage.
Vote to stop funding? Vote for an immediate start to withdrawal? American soldiers will die. As they have been dying. Bush knows he can blame Congress and the public's lack of "will" for the continued horror.
Written by George Lakoff and Glenn Smith, Senior Fellows of the Rockridge Institute. Research Assistant Christina M. Smith contributed to this report.
Critics of Congress' passage last week of the Iraq supplemental spending bill lament a lack of political courage. But Congress would find it easier to act courageously if the public understood the constitutional stakes. And that public understanding requires correct and persistent framing by Congress itself. What needs to have been framed — indeed what still needs to be framed — is Congress' constitutional responsibility and power to set the course on military missions like Iraq.
Two of the country's most distinguished scholars on Constitutional powers recently testified to Congress.
At this time of year it seems there are only two things certain in life, taxes and anxiety about taxes. Instead of the perennial talk of a simplified tax form, how about a simplified understanding of the progressive values that underlie our tradition of progressive taxation?
Such an understanding won't move the tax deadline. But it might eliminate some of the anxiety. Understanding the hidden truths behind progressive taxation might also lead to more coherent—and more just—tax policies.
Progressive taxation—taxing the wealthy at higher rates than the poor—is a moral issue. Like many moral issues, it sparks heated debate. The debate is borne of conflicting worldviews, values, and understandings of values. But as we at the Rockridge Institute have written, when progressives understand the values and ideas that underlie their positions on issues, they can articulate arguments authentically and with greater persuasive force. These arguments will appeal to those whom we call biconceptuals—the great majority of Americans whose worldviews borrow in various ways from both progressive and conservative values.
Now that the Democrats in Congress can hold hearings with sworn testimony, the word "accountability" has finally become a staple of the daily news. But what, exactly, does "accountability" mean?
Under the policies of the Bush administration, income gains in our economy enrich military contractors in the Washington, D.C. beltway disproportionately. These policies fail to advance a goal of broad prosperity, which would ensure that all Americans have a fair opportunity to prosper.
A new column by economist James K. Galbraith provides important insights into the sources of income inequality, among people and especially across geographic areas. His insights can help us to recognize why broad prosperity matters, and what we can do to achieve it.
Mort Kondracke, who has spent much of his career playing a liberal on TV, has a new column out today that portrays California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a "post-partisan" model of the politics of the future. What is this new world of politics that Kondracke promotes?
A familiar means of denying a reality is to refuse to use the words that describe that reality. A common form of propaganda is to keep reality from being described.
In such circumstances, silence and euphemism are forms of complicity both in propaganda and in the denial of reality. And the media, as well as the major presidential candidates, are now complicit.
If I told you about a blog written by Iraqis working for an American news service, you would probably be interested in the glimpses it provides into the lives of ordinary Iraqis. After all, American reporters in Iraq today have little chance to tell such stories, and many of us feel a responsibility to try to understand the consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
But empathy for people whose lives may be very different from our own is a value that often separates progressives from conservatives.
How one right-wing blog (Redstate) responds turns out to be very revealing.
Conservatives have long invoked family values to promote wedge issues and win elections, but the implications of family values on our politics and society run far deeper than campaigns and elections. In the new video that the Rockridge Institute is releasing today, George Lakoff examines the extraordinary influence of James Dobson on parenting in America. He also discusses progressive and conservative conceptions of family values, and why progressives must overcome the conservative dominance of this subject.
The U.S. House of Representatives today began debating a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq. Democrats pushing the measure deserve support and thanks. The House action raises important questions about the ideas behind the debate and the ways those ideas have been framed.
Bush announced his policy of sending over 20,000 more troops to Iraq in early 2007 when most of the country was calling for a withdrawal of troops. The administration called the buildup of troops in the proposal a "surge."
It is interesting to note that in today’s coverage of the debate, the Washington Post uses the word "surge" only once – and that in a paraphrase of Republican John Boehner’s defense of Bush’s order. The term used in this case was "troop-surge."
In his 2002 State of the Union address, George W. Bush referred to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil." Four years later, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. Now, the Bush administration has agreed to a multilateral package of assistance for North Korea worth hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for the dismantling of its weapons program. Since North Korea was only able to gain this aid after demonstrating its nuclear bomb, what precedent has the Bush administration's policy set?
In his "axis of evil" speech, Bush asserted that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea constituted a special type of threat:
"By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic." [emphasis added]
As members of the reality-based community, progressives recognize the unprecedented threat facing our world, as well as our responsibility to protect our common future. In a column today characterized by classic conservative capitulation, the National Review Online's Jonah Goldberg emboldens our enemies with defeatist rhetoric and even a hint of appeasement. Is he not aware that his words provide aid and comfort to carbon emitters throughout the world who, this very minute, conspire against us?
The $2.9 trillion budget that the Bush administration proposed this week cuts the budget for public broadcasting by nearly 25 percent. The cuts have already prompted the reaction that the Bush administration surely expected: progressive groups are asking their members to lobby Congress to protect PBS and NPR. Are progressives falling into a right-wing trap that reinforces the conservative framing of PBS and NPR as tools of a "liberal elite"?
Yesterday, a conservative Christian group demanded the firing of two bloggers hired by John Edwards' campaign based on claims that their past writings were vulgar and bigoted. Today, John Edwards has fired both bloggers[Updated]has fired both bloggers, according to a report on Salon.com. (See corrections below.) I would like to share the reactions of two of my colleagues at the Rockridge Institute, who commented on very different aspects of this case study of political communication.
First, I got an insider's account of what campaigns face from a successful political strategist who has led campaigns that challenged the character of George W. Bush and the actions of Tom Delay. Then, I listened to another perspective on the matter, focusing on the ethical responsibilities of political leaders. I hope you'll take a look at both perspectives, then share your own.
A member of Rockridge Nation recently alerted me to a column on SmartMoney.com assailing the "entitlement mentality." Its author, a hedge fund manager, writes that "the problem in America isn't with those who are succeeding, but with those who are struggling." These struggling people, he asserts, wrongly believe they are entitled to "the things necessary to live." From this classic strict father explanation, we can see how conservatives use language to mislead and how we can challenge it.
In his essay "The Entitlement Mentality Doesn't Fly in Investing," Jonathan Hoenig writes to his audience of investors, "Aren't we all looking to get in on the next Microsoft (MSFT) or Google (GOOG)?" He then proceeds to write that investors who profit from such investments "rightfully feel pride in our accomplishments" because "we earned it." He laments that people "resent" successful CEOs because of their wealth.
As we mourn the passing this week of Molly Ivins, let us consider a young woman starting out today with the talent and promise that Molly showed when she began her career. In this time of media consolidation, what opportunities are open to her as she offers employers in the local media her keen insights and colorful observations?
In recent years, many progressives have been learning that facts alone — without framing that conveys their context — are not enough. This lesson is forcefully demonstrated in cases in which conservatives tenaciously resist the use of language that reveals truth and lays bare their failed policies.
The latest examples of this include a proposed non-binding Senate resolution opposing the deployment of greater numbers of troops to Iraq and an international report on the future of the world's climate.
In an article published today, Chalmers Johnson, a former professor of Asian Studies and one-time consultant to the CIA, makes a persuasive argument that, "We are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire."
The language and concepts that Johnson uses reveal much that is left out of mainstream political debate and conventional news coverage. It is vital for progressives to bring these ideas before the broader public and to speak out for the values that are at risk.
