Saturday, December 23, 2017

George Lakoff's call to arms

Again, he says it best in this FB post, copied below. This truly is a war of weaponized information for the heart of American values, and we have to clearly and strongly define and defend them. Lakoff:

"This is a battle over how we define freedom and how we govern our nation.
We must:
-Frame the debate around morality and values, not policy
-Emphasize the role of the Public, and the Public Good
-Understand the operative metaphors and use them
-Learn from past victories/defeats
To quote President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "This is more than a political campaign. This is a call to arms."
The Trump era reminds us that we must never take the blessings of democracy for granted. The preservation of freedom and justice has always required the active engagement of citizens.
Abraham Lincoln called this “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Every generation of Americans is called to defend it. Organizing and mobilizing voters is crucial. Yet this is largely a war of what Republican strategists call "weaponized information."

Republicans are not fighting abstract policy battles; they’re fighting for an ideology. The vision they seek to impose upon the American people is dark, cruel, and terribly unpopular. But we can’t just be against what Republicans want. We must seize the opportunity to define the progressive, Democratic plan for America’s future. Persistence in a positive vision beats negative resistance.
After all, they aren’t just fighting one-off policy battles. They are stacking the courts, gerrymandering the Congressional districts, making it harder for people to vote, and making it easier for wealthy interests to game our political system for their own greedy benefit.
Republicans are playing on a systemic level. We must rise to the challenge and advance a strong, positive, moral plan of action that preempts and undermines Republican ideas and connects with people on the deepest level – the moral level."


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