Fucking with language for fun and profit

[Stinky The Clown]

The Republicans are expert at it. Manipulating the language to get their message out.

The all time best is "Homeland Security" ..... winner of several Golden Globes, Emmies and Oscars for evocative imagery.

"No Child Left Behind" ....... ah, such a caring image from that, huh?

"New Clear Skies Initiative" ...... no way that saying it was intended to mean what its spoken form sounds like, was there?

"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" sounds so smart and innocuous. High tech. Truth serum-ish. Surely not torture. Right?

What are some of your favorites?

[hobbit709]

1. WMD's-The invisible kind

[malaise]

2. Islamofascists

easily the most fucked up of them all.

[nightrider767]

3. The Homeland

Where the fu$k did that come from!?!



Home, Homeland on the range....
Where the monopolists and "chicken little" war mongers are all the rage...
Where seldom is heard,
An allowed contrarian word
ANd the Dem's cooperate and get beaten up everyday.....






Go Navy!

[hobbit709]

6. That came from george's grandfather's buddy-A.H.

[nightrider767]

10. Yes A.H,,, one of the chief conspirators

Recruited and groomed the CHimp.

WHat a swell guy.....

[blondeatlast]

13. That's my "favorite" too.

My guess is it's a way to steer the rhetoric away from words like "Federal" and "National," all while appealing to the more Reichish inclinations of the 29%.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

34. it came from Berlin, circa 1933 -eom

[Virginia Dare]

4. Food insecurity...n/t

[Sugar Smack]

20. I know. That one pisses me off.

[Retrograde]

47. I liked my suggestion better

the Committee for State Security - or in Russian, Komityet Gosudarstvyennoy Bezopasnosti. Let's not mince words here.

[ThomCat]

32. There should be laws against that kind of bureaucratic

obfuscation. x(

[MuseRider]

5. I'm with you.

Homeland Security, actually anything with homeland in it. I creeps me out every single time I hear it.

My really all time favorite is Talibornagin. Not one from their side, I believe I saw it used here first.

[razorman]

7. "Investment" instead of "government spending".

Unfortunately, both parties are guilty of this one.

[randr]

8. Moral majority, compassionate conservative,

illegal aliens, etc, etc.

[Solly Mack]

9. Oh now. It's not - Fucking with language for fun and profit

It's - Optimizing communication to better meet the needs of a post-911 world


I slay me

[blondeatlast]

16. Frank Luntz is on Line 2, solly... nt

[Solly Mack]

17. Now that's scary

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. Death Tax.

More here:

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=213

[nightrider767]

14. Excellent Example!

Oh,,,, it's a death tax! It's not fair.

I ask, what tax is fair?

[samplegirl]

12. Oh lets see they cant convey much without their

hideous sidestepping spin.......How about Benchmark?
Surge or my favorite "Straight shooter"

[blondeatlast]

15. I was just thinking I wanted to post a "salute" to Frank Luntz, but this

will serve nicely!

[ThatsMyBarack]

18. Does "Operation Iraqi FREEDOM" count??

If not, how about "GIT R DONE"?

[Virginia Dare]

21. Mission Accomplished..

[TlalocW]

19. Family Values

When a republican says, "Family values are important," it means, "I'm secretly gay so I have sex with male prostitutes while I support any legislation attacking the LGBT community."

TlalocW

[Stinky The Clown]

25. Yeah ..... that's another one

I have a family. We have values.

But we also could care less about sexual orientation (we're neither pro nor con, per se ..... we're just uninterested).

The "Fambly Vayews" crowd is about much more than hating gays. they hate anyone and anything not like themselves.

[kineneb]

41. which they apparently completely lack...

goes along with resigning to "spend more time with his family" (what rot!)

[BrklynLiberal]

22. Framing the debate is exactly what George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute are about.

How to Respond to Conservatives by George Lakoff, December 2, 2004
An excerpt from the book Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate.

What's in a Word? Plenty, if it's "Marriage" by George Lakoff, July 22, 2005
George Lakoff analyzes the current debate over same sex marriage.

A Cognitive Scientist Looks At Daubert by George Lakoff, July 29, 2005
Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc (1993) has made our judicial system significantly less fair and more politically conservative. Daubert is not just about the application of some procedural rule. Daubert functions in its application as a strategic initiative that significantly moves America in a conservative direction, in the moral and political spheres, as well as in the legal sphere.
Framing Katrina by George Lakoff, John Halpin, John Halpin, October 20, 2005

Simple Framing by George Lakoff, February 14, 2006

An introduction to framing and its uses in politics.
"War on Terror," Rest In Peace by George Lakoff, February 28, 2006

Conceptual Levels: Bringing It Home to Values by Jason Patent, George Lakoff, March 15, 2006
Why is it so easy for the radical right to label progressives as wishy-washy flip-floppers? Why is it so hard for progressives to shake these labels? The answer lies in some old habits.
The Strategic Framing Overview by The Rockridge Institute, April 13, 2006

Framing Versus Spin: Rockridge as opposed to Luntz by George Lakoff, Sam Ferguson, June 12, 2006
(c) The Rockridge Institute, 2006 (We invite the free distribution of this article)
Two weeks ago, Rockridge published The Framing of Immigration by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson, an analysis of the framing surrounding immigration used by progressives and conservatives, as well as a discussion of framings not being used, but which would reveal important truths. Late last week, the DailyKos leaked a memo by Frank Luntz, the Republican messaging strategist, advising Republicans how to talk about immigration. If you want to compare what Rockridge does with what Luntz does, this is your chance.


Bush Is Not Incompetent by George Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger, Sam Ferguson, June 25, 2006
Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush’s “failures” and label him and his administration as incompetent. Self-satisfying as this criticism may be, it misses the bigger point. Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault.

Occupation: The Inconvenient Truth About Iraq by George Lakoff, July 2, 2006
It is time to tell an inconvenient truth about Iraq: it is an occupation, not a war. In wars, armies fight to dominate land. The US won the war three years ago when Bush said, “Mission Accomplished”. Then the occupation started, and our troops were not trained or equipped for an occupation under predictably hostile circumstances. Finally getting the courage to tell the truth that the US is an occupying force drastically changes the picture in Iraq. You cannot “win” an occupation. “Cut and run” does not apply to an occupation. Occupiers have to leave; the only question is when and how. Progressive Democrats agree that it should be soon; they only disagree on details. Political courage is called for. Truth now!

Strategic Framing is an effort to revitalize progressive discourse by reframing progressive policies in ways that speak to shared American values.
The Framing of Immigration by George Lakoff, Sam Ferguson, May 25, 2006
Framing is at the center of the recent immigration debate. Simply framing it as about “immigration” has shaped its politics, defining what count as “problems” and constraining the debate to a narrow set of issues. The language is telling. The linguistic framing is remarkable: frames for illegal immigrant, illegal alien, illegals, undocumented workers, undocumented immigrants, guest workers, temporary workers, amnesty, and border security. These linguistic expressions are anything but neutral. Each framing defines the problem in its own way, and hence constrains the solutions needed to address that problem. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we will analyze the framing used in the public debate. Second, we suggest some alternative framing to highlight important concerns left out of the current debate. Our point is to show that the relevant issues go far beyond what is being discussed, and that acceptance of the current framing impoverishes the discussion.

..lots more at...
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Loads of examples at the 'Unspeak' blog - and in the book he's written

http://unspeak.net/

"This blog follows on from the book Unspeak, which analyses state-of-the-art rhetorical weaponry, from community through sound science and ethnic cleansing to the war on terror. "

He's British (writes reviews occasionally for The Guardian), but a lot of his examples come from the US, so you won't get too lost.

See eg "Extreme interrogation" - 'Hitchens on torture again'; "Clients" - at Guantanamo; and "Warlords" - ‘Concerned Citizens’ in Iraq and elsewhere:

It’s hard to escape the suspicion, then, that “war lord” as it is most often used nowadays encodes some amount of xenophobia and moral superiority. Happily, there is no inescapable reason why it should. The OED defines a warlord simply as: “A military commander or commander-in-chief.” I therefore suggest that the US government should begin referring proudly to George W Bush as a warlord. This would be a thrilling coup of public diplomacy. It would call to mind irresistibly the exciting medieval-themed gorefests of many videogames; as well as, perhaps, Lord Vader. What better way to get disaffected American youth finally behind the Iraq adventure?

He's very, very good with sarcasm.

[blondeatlast]

24. Great site! I'm something of a language wonk so that's a great find. Thanks. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Soldiers making the "Ultimate Sacrifice".

As if they writhed around in agony singing the Star Spangled Banner with a vision of Dubya in their eyes before they died for nothing.

[blondeatlast]

27. Indeed. Possibly the most sickening of the Luntzian rhetoric.

Probably has some good competition, though.

[Stinky The Clown]

29. And the corollary "In Harm's Way"

They LOVE these near-biblical phrasings.

[warren pease]

28. And how NOT to do it...

Democrats again demonstrating that they have absolutely no idea how to use language to inflame emotions and claim the high moral ground: What could have been the "Children's Health Care Act" or the "Healthy Kids Program" or "Healthy Head Start" or...

Instead, it's called S-CHIP, which sounds more like a computer component than a kids' health care plan.

Don't they ever learn? Aren't they finally getting sick of GOPers laughing their asses off at democratic ineptitude? How can they be so consistently stupid about using the power of language to manipulate public opinion?

So instead of creating an opportunity to embarrass the stingy rat bastard GOPers -- and, by the way, help something like 20 million kids who are without access to health care in the most selfish society ever to disgrace the planet -- they take a sure winner and turn it into another losing proposition. Worse yet, it makes them look like the idiots they are while allowing BushCo to screw a bunch of innocent kids without apparently incurring any popular outrage or further political damage.

It takes real talent to play the game that badly. I'm constantly amazed that any congressional democrat can still walk, given how many times they shoot themselves in the foot.


wp

[Stinky The Clown]

39. You're spot on about "S-CHIP". Arcane inanity at its grandest.

I'm usually pretty informed, but the first time I heard the term, I couldn't even remember it to repeat it. I called it "You know ...... that health insurance for kids thing ...... in Congress .... the Democrats ...... ::::snap snap::::: .... wucthacallit ....... "

Sheer genius. Yeah ......

[Iggo]

30. "Enhanced Interrogation"

Actually, they borrowed that one from the Gestapo. But hey, whatever works.

[anitar1]

31. Homeland Security is sooo Hitler, IMHO. n/t

[alfredo]

33. Water boarding instead of Water torture. Transfer tubes instead of

body bags. rendition instead of kidnapping.

[FloridaJudy]

35. "redaction"

Well, it's not as if we lied exactly...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

36. President Elect.

:patriot:

[Canuckistanian]

37. You forgot "Healthy Forests"

Another Orwellian term meant to soothe the masses.

[pepperbear]

38. "War on Christmas" n/t

[warren pease]

40. And there's always "partial birth abortion," one of the best framing jobs of all time. n/t

[kineneb]

42. resigning "to spend more time with his/her family"...yeah, right.

oh they of the "(no) family values"...

[blondeatlast]

43. "Family values." nt

[SunDrop23]

44. "Mobile chemical and bio weapons labs"

[blondeatlast]

46. Y'know, there's THOUSANDS of them in my neck o' the woods.

They're even isolated into "Mobile Chemical and Biological Weapons Parks."

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

45. Include "government" and you will get a winner. nt

[tavalon]

48. Homeland Security

evokes Nazi imagery for me, so I guess it didn't work on me the way they might have hoped.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques also evokes the Nazis, specifically the SS for me.

The rest of the ones you mentioned just infuriate me. I don't like being 1984ed as though my government really thinks I'm that stupid. It bothers me that for so many people, they are completely correct in that low assessment.

[blondeatlast]

49. "Coalition of the Willing." nt

[Martin Eden]

50. Operation Iraqi Freedom

I always thought it should be

Operation
Iraqi
Liberation