Coordinated violence and the frame of “war”

Imagine that it is broad daylight and you are attending a large public festival.  Now imagine that you suddenly realize that you are walking around in your underwear.  Perhaps you are one of the many people who would find it disconcerting to suddenly find that so much of your skin, and most every crevice, curve and imperfection of your body was exposed to public view.

This thought occurred to me while I was at a municipal swimming pool with my children.  I was surrounded by hundreds of people who were wearing swimming suits that covered no mobeach-at-nantucketre skin (and often less) than the underwear that many of these people likely wore.  Yet these people strutted about and proudly spread out on their towels and lawn chairs without any apparent concern that they were flagrantly exposing so much of their “private” areas to total strangers.

What is it, then, that convinces people to expose so much of their bodies to strangers in one case but not in the other?  It would seem that the context of being at a public swimming area constitutes a “frame.”

George Lakoff wrote of the great power of frames in his book, Don’t Think of an Elephant!  Know Your Values and Framed the Debate (2004).  Here is how Lakoff describes frames:

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world.  As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a

…
Share

Continue ReadingCoordinated violence and the frame of “war”

We’re batting .060 at our checkpoints in Iraq.

Brian Palmer reports on this statement of a USMC training officer, a captain: "Over the last 12 months or so we killed about 1000 Iraqis at blocking positions and checkpoints," the captain told the grunts. "About 60 -- six zero -- we could demonstrate that, yeah, he was a bad guy.…

Continue ReadingWe’re batting .060 at our checkpoints in Iraq.

Don’t question Bush’s newest “Plan” for Iraq

Bush’s newest “Iraq” plan is to continue bashing those who question this costly war.  There’s still no metric and no projection of how many more Iraqi and American deaths will occur or what might be accomplished by those deaths.  Only more rhetoric.

As reported by Media Matters,  the Bush Administration’s Iraq strategy is truly bizarre.  It is not a war strategy at all. It is only a PR strategy and, with very few exceptions, it has been gobbled up by the official stenographer for the Bush Administration: the mainstream media.  Here are the official talking points for the “new” Iraq strategy:

  • Republicans are “pro-military” and “support the troops,” while Democrats are “anti-military” and “attack the troops.”
  • Democrats want to “cut and run.”
  • Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.
  • Democrats are “divided” or “weak” on national security.
  • The Republicans will always win debates on national security.
  • The Republicans won the Iraq debate.

    • What’s especially curious about this “war” strategy” is that it could never have served to justify invading Iraq. Not even neocons could have bought this, could they?  It would have been transpararent for all to see back in 2003. 

    For those who are so currently so numbed to evidence-based reasoning, though, it’s interesting to note that this “Iraq” strategy could actually serve to justify any military endeaver anywhere in the world (just substitute any other country for “Iraq” in the third point).   Notice the absence of facts in this strategy–it is actually a highly …

    Share

    Continue ReadingDon’t question Bush’s newest “Plan” for Iraq

    The 2006 midterm elections- even more decisive than we think.

    Yesterday’s coverage of the 2006 midterm elections on NPR’s All Things Considered immediately grabbed my interest. Like the major Democratic upset of 1994, polls show that the public feels extremely disillusioned with those currently running our government. This could lead to a decisive shift in the composition of the House, just as when the Republicans took control 12 years ago. This year’s election parallels the 1994 election in many other ways: voters that identify with the minority party feel more energized than those of the party in control, and independent voters claim they prefer the opposing party to the current majority.

    That part doesn’t really surprise many people at this point, though it does invigorate me a bit to see Americans have actually paid enough attention to the legislature’s behavior in recent years to find it disturbing. The real surprise in this story lies in what makes this year’s election different from the one in 1994: voters don’t just dislike Republicans, they dislike Democrats too.

    In 1994, dissatisfaction with the Democrats drove many to vote for the then-better-regarded GOP. But this year, polls by the Wall Street Journal and the Pew Research Center show that Americans have a marked distaste for both parties:

    “The proportion saying the current Congress has achieved less than previous ones has climbed to 45%, double the number who said this in the 2002 or 1998 midterms, and higher than the number who expressed frustration with Congress in 1994 (38%). Republican leaders in Congress are blamed

    …
    Share

    Continue ReadingThe 2006 midterm elections- even more decisive than we think.