Blogger nom de plume "Zombie" explains DU's psychosis & why CC exists

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic, by George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling (Free Press, $11)
 
George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley — and highly regarded Democratic tactician — has just released his playbook for the 2012 election. Titled The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic, it purports to be the ultimate insiders’ guide to liberal messaging and left-wing ideology.
 
Before you even open the book, its sly self-referential gamesmanship leaps off the cover: the very title itself is a wink-wink-nudge-nudge ironic-but-not-really reference to Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, the kind of hidden-meaning secret message that progressives like to call a “dog whistle,” although they insist that only conservatives resort to such underhanded gambits.

DU's favorite challenge-avoidance tactic is to decry anything that they cannot answer as "Just a RW talking point" and then sending the MIRT after the offender.

Why?

Because they've been told to do it:



Zombie explains why this is a losing strategy:

A prime example of Lakoff’s ruinous recommendations can be seen in the debate over abortion, which never seems to get resolved despite a trillion words being expended on it every day. The “conservative frame,” to use Lakoff’s language, is that a fetus is a human being who has not yet been born; thus to “abort” the fetus is to kill it, which means a human being has been killed, which is tantamount to murder. In response to this frame, Lakoff recommends — a recommendation that liberals dutifully follow — that those on the left completely ignore the conservative argument, and instead “reframe” the issue with metaphors like “freedom of choice” and “women’s independence” and “reproductive rights.” All those positive words — “freedom,” “independence,” “rights” — recast the entire debate in a different light, allowing liberals to “win” the debate by not acknowledging that the opposing side has even made a statement.

...

So the Lakoffites can yap about “freedom of choice” and “women’s independence” and “reproductive rights” all day long, yet the listener will think: But you aren’t addressing the fundamental question. Is it murder? “Stop thinking in those terms,” cries Lakoff. But the public can’t stop, because the idea of abortion as murder has already been stated, and the idea of fetus as human existed even long before the modern political debates. Even if there were no Republican party, no conservative movement, a great many people would still have moral compunctions about abortion, because the controversy is rooted in biological realities, and was not fabricated out of thin air by reactionary rabble-rousers.

Now, dig this next part:

While Lakoff’s foolish insistence that liberals never repeat conservative frames means that conservative notions never get directly rebutted, this insistence backfires in other ways as well. Why? Because conservatives take the diametrically opposite strategy: They seize on every utterance that liberals make, and repeat their “frames” as loudly as possible to demonstrate how deceptive they are. So while liberals studiously avoid analyzing anything conservatives say, conservatives meanwhile are avidly dissecting every single thing liberals say. The end result is that conservatives, to their own satisfaction as least, successfully challenge and de-fang every liberal notion; but liberals never challenge or de-fang conservative notions, instead seeking to snuff them out with a lethal dose of Silent Treatment.
 
But it gets worse, because it is the very euphemisms and other ludicrous “conceptual metaphors” recommended by Lakoff which give conservatives so much grist for their mill. Every time a liberal talking head gets up and uncorks another howler in the Lakoff style, conservative fiskers and deconstructionists latch on and tear it to pieces, trumpeting it as further evidence of liberals’ cluelessness or mendacity. So not only does Lakoff recommend holding fire against conservative frames, the ammunition he saves only ends up being used against the liberals themselves.
 
And this man is considered their master strategist?

Read the whole thing.

http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/07/09/the-little-blue-book-quotations-from-chairman-lakoff/?singlepage=true

It's good mole training as well.

[Duke Nukum]

Duckspeak lives!

[DumbAss Tanker]

The obvious flaw in #1 is that it can only work as Professor Knowitall envisions it if the other side abandons their own frame and adopts your own chosen words and frame of reference in their response.

Dr. Goebbels he ain't, but not for lack of desire.

[Jasonw560]

Isn't this just kind of rehashing "Rules For Radicals" in a way?

[Duke Nukum]

Isn't this just kind of rehashing "Rules For Radicals" in a way?

Yep. Saul Alinsky should sue for infringement. Maybe 0bama will do it on Saul's behalf.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Yep. Saul Alinsky should sue for infringement. Maybe 0bama will do it on Saul's behalf.

I would say probably not.

Lakoff (rhymes with...) is more interested in rhetoric where Alinsky spoke about action.

[Karin]

Interesting.  Thanks Snugs for posting it. 

decry anything that they cannot answer as "Just a RW talking point" and then sending the MIRT after the offender.

Boy is that ever true, drives me nuts.  I'm sure it drives them nuts, too.  Someone points something out that happens to be reality-based, and their fellow DUmmie shouts them down:  "Take your RW talking points and go elsewhere you ****in teabagger!" 

[RWKindaGuy]

Yep. Saul Alinsky should sue for infringement. Maybe 0bama will do it on Saul's behalf.

He would, but he gave up his law license.   

[HACKSAW]

Interesting.  Thanks Snugs for posting it. 

Boy is that ever true, drives me nuts.  I'm sure it drives them nuts, too.  Someone points something out that happens to be reality-based, and their fellow DUmmie shouts them down:  "Take your RW talking points and go elsewhere you ****in teabagger!" 

In other the words, the truth is a "Right Wing Talking Point".

[USA4ME]

Good find, SB.  The whole article really spells it out.

I borrowed one of Lakoff's books a few years ago just to see what he had to say.  I almost got half way through before I couldn't stay awake anymore.  His thoughts are that of a simpleton cloaked in long, important sounding sentences.  He talks down to his audience in a way that makes you laugh at his preceived self-importance.

I'm glad he's on their side.

.

[Jasonw560]

Lakoff (rhymes with...)

Would calling him the rhyme be considered one of his "conceptual metaphors"?

[jukin]

Those ten rules would be good reasons for commitment into a mental institution and probably why modern liberalism (big-gov totalitarianism) is considered to be a mental disease.

I know that I have won an argument with a leftist when the words "Don't you feel that...."

[movie buff]

Zombie always rules, and remains one of the best greassroots weapons against liberalism!

I would say probably not.

Lakoff (rhymes with...) is more interested in rhetoric where Alinsky spoke about action.

I always thought the first syllable of Lakoff's name rhymed with "Fake," rather than "Pack"?
Good joke, though.

[Chris_]

I love Lakoff's imaginary ideal of the "liberal family".  Liberals have been fighting the idea of the traditional family for decades and love nothing more than to prop up single mothers and fatherless children with dozens of "safety nets" at the taxpayer's and society's expense.  That's if the children ever make it out of the mother's body alive (it's a choice).

[franksolich]

Whoa.

I just discovered this.

Great post, SGT Snuggle Bunny!