YKOS

dr. elsewhere here

No doubt all of you are aware of the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas. Just wanted to let all of you know that C-SPAN is airing much of it, starting yesterday. My apologies for not posting this earlier, but I didn't realize it myself until late.

Of particular interest was the FDL (firedoglake, who rule this topic, second only to Waas) panel discussion on the CIA leak, which included Joe Wilson, Murray Waas, Dan Froomkin, and Christy Hardin Smith (reddhedd), among others. Extremely provocative presentations and discussion, and I'll try to post on that tomorrow at some point. Was just able to catch a panel on framing that included Jeff Feldman, folks from drinkingliberally, and Mr. Framing himself, George Lakoff.

I'll take this opportunity to connect myself with Dr. Lakoff, as he and I shared a fascination with metaphor. Years ago, I fed him and his wife a dinner and plied him with Jim Beam to get him to admit an important point that was missing in his theory of cognitive linguistics. Very succinctly, the theory simply exposes the many conceptual structures that are defined by metaphors that dominate in our culture. (For example, "argument as battle" is exposed in such phrases in our language as "She attacked his premise" and "His blitzkrieg of points devastated the strength of her position." Powerful stuff, especially when you realize how difficult it is to shift the metaphor's predicate from "battle" to "dance," for another example.) My question was, even more simply, how do these structures happen? Lakoff was not only completely unable to give me an answer, he did not even try. He just shrugged it off as a job for cognitive neuroscience.

It was a trick question, admittedly. I've actually been working for over two decades on an answer to my own question, and hope in the coming months to get some of it out there. I was exceedingly grateful for Lakoff's work, as it covered an enormous range of stuff I was thereby relieved of researching and presenting myself.

But I'm also grateful for how Lakoff has taken this whole project into the political realm with framing. Basically, he's suggesting we have to reclaim many of the core expressions of the progressive Democratic tradition by reframing the dialogue. The right claimed things like abortion and gay marriage as expressions of values - their values - when all we as progressives have to do is return the focus of discussion to the larger principles of keeping the government out of our personal decisions, and championing the value of each individual's right to choose his or her life for themselves. The easiest way to do this in a discussion with a ditto-head is to suggest they consider the shoe get moved to the other foot. If your daugher were brutally raped, would you insist that she complete the pregnancy? Do you want your government telling you whom you can and cannot marry? Do you want your government telling you how and whom you can worship? This last question actually opens up the debate on the Christian right's demand that the government be made into their own religious image, which will then allow you to infiltrate at least two of the basic delusions they tend to foster. One, our founding fathers were Christian (NOT), and two, Bush's policies are Christian (WAY NOT).

A final comment on the conference in general, at least what I've seen of it. It's pretty exciting. I wish I was there, even given how much I HATE ABHOR AND DESPISE conferences. But YKos appears to be a nubile and exilarating "happening" that exposes the exuberance and energy of a real movement that overshadows all the silly distractions that make more traditional conferences so stifling. This movement is the blogging reality, the liberal movement on the web, and the New York Times has TWO articles - here and here - on the LVNV conference today.

Also, atrios and dailykos and firedoglake and mydd and I'm sure others are all blogging updates, which are kinda fun. Pictures! And C-SPAN plans to rerun Joe Wilson's comments tomorrow (Sunday) at 3 PM EDT, though you can typically review previous airings by downloading their archives. Note that this event is currently top billing at C-SPAN.

Be proud of your presence here, even if you are not there, and your participation in this revolution.

Now. The focus moves to ACTION.