The Democrats, playing from the Chomsky playbook and using their hegemony in the mainstream media to shape opinion, have been trying to create a false choice in the minds of the vast, non-affiliated “middle” in American politics; asking “Is Rush Limbaugh the voice of the GOP?”, while quite deliberately setting up and glorifying non-conservatives (Chuck Hagel and Arlen Spector nationally; regionally, the likes of Lori Sturdevant burn lots of cycles setting up the likes of Ron Erhard as “responsible” Republicans, which translates to “indistinguishable from the DFL in every particular”).as an “alternative”.
The normally-very-sharp David Frum buys into the madness, playing the Dems’ game for them.
So who’s the voice of conservatism and the GOP in America?
Me.
I, Mitch Berg, am the voice of the Republican party. My agenda – support growth, limit government intrusion, destroy the enemy (via violence, dipomacy or humanitarianism, it matters not), cut taxes, support the family, defend our culture – is what the party’s agenda should be.
Having an agenda, of course, is of little value if you can’t get it elected. Republicans – conservative, moderate, whatever – need to get together, figure out the 80% of the message that 80% of us agree on, and convince the other 50% of this country (the ones that aren’t already either Republicans or lost causes) why it not only matters to them, but is a much better choice. By this time next year, it might not even be all that hard – if we can stop letting the bad guys set us against each other.
So yeah. I’m the voice of the GOP.
Of course, so are all of my True North colleagues.
And every conservative Republican in Minnesota who doesn’t write for True North, or write at all.
Also every conservative in America, from Rush Limbaugh and Tom Coburn through the guy in the plumbing supply store in Clear Lake Iowa who’s wondering how he’s going make ends meet.
There’s your voice of conservatism.
Note to the liberal media; I hope that settles this.
Speaking of which – I see Kathleen Soliah, the voice of the Minnesota DFL, is coming back to the state…
Nah, it’s Limbaugh.
Michael Steele speaks for me, baby.
Off the hook,
/jc
David Frum sharp? Maybe once but he seems to have caught a mutant strain of BDS/PDS and lost his mind over the past year.
Here’s something that concerns me. A very large group of national security/economic conservatives are trying to throw the social conservatives under the bus. I don’t think they realize that there are millions of people out there who don’t follow current events or politics, but have strong views on things like abortion and the definition of marriage.
AC… you get your “inciteful political analysis” from Alan Moore and “Watchmen”.
AC:
“It’s not a comic book, it’s a graphic novel!”
Chuckwagon observed: “I don’t think they realize that there are millions of people out there who don’t follow current events or politics, but have strong views on things like abortion and the definition of marriage.”
They’re called “morons.”
Morons? Democrats who have strong views on abortion and the definition of marriage are morons?
So instead of “Blogger Berg” you will now be known as “Leader Berg”?
I saw a few references this weekend to “Leader Limbaugh” and thought “how dumpbachmannesque”.
Here’s something that concerns me. A very large group of national security/economic conservatives are trying to throw the social conservatives under the bus.
I don’t believe that for a minute. Every so often someone starts a “OMG they’re trying to get rid of the social conservatives!” meme and it’s usually either (a) someone turning a comment from a single or couple of pundits or virtual unknowns into a “very large group” of people or (b) someone trying to create an artificial feeling of oppression among social conservatives, sort of like members of the identity politics crowd who try to convince ethnic minorities that they can’t get by without them.
But just to play along, how many people constitute a “very large group of national security/economic conservatives” and can you give me the names of some of the leaders so we can determine whether this is a type a or type b situation?
Well put Mitch, I too have no need for a self- or media-appointed “leader” to speak on my behalf just so the MSM and some conservative pundits can hope to create yet another media-created controversy where none existed before.
“playing from the Chomsky playbook”
OK. Color Me Curious. What is the Chomsky playbook?
> OK. Color Me Curious. What is the Chomsky playbook?
Using a teleprompter and Hooked on Phonics.
Otherwise, Obama couldn’t talk his way out of a Kenyan birth certificate.
/jc
What is the Chomsky playbook?
Control the language. Control how words and thoughts are defined.
If you control language, you control thought.
Using a teleprompter
MPR did note that Obama uses the teleprompters for even the shortest “off the cuff”, “informal” remarks, like no president ever.
He can’t even appear in front of a friendly room for five minutes without ’em.
Of course, when he’s tried, he’s been a gaffe machine…
Mitch, I believe Chomsky’s work in linguistics is separate from his political activisim.
Chomsky’s transformational grammar seems to have a dead end. What does it mean to find the meaning of meaning?
He had a worthy goal. Surely it is significant that if you were to put a modern American factory worker and an ancient Egyptian pyramid designer in the same empty room they would, eventually, figure out a way to speak to one another.
I guess I’ll have to hang fire for your structural linguistics post.
Michelle Obama preparing for a romantic liason with Barry:
“Honey, why are you setting up the TelePrompter scxreens?”
Mitch:
“If you control language, you control thought.”
Like Newt advised the GOP in his memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”?
Seriously, I think you have Chomsky, confused with George Lakoff. Lakoff thinks there is an important difference between Democrats and Republicans and that individual Democrats can compel more favorable press coverage/public reaction through a disciplined program of word choice (ala Newt). Chomsky thinks there is no difference between the parties and that the mass media are inherently biased in favor the views of large corporations. For Chomsky, there is no point in trying to ‘message’ better, because the media will never deviate from its own agenda.
Like Newt advised the GOP in his memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”?
Newt’s a smart guy.
Seriously, I think you have Chomsky, confused with George Lakoff.
No – Lakoff was a student of Chomsky, and many of his ideas about using linguistics to further political aims are derived from ground Chomsky first covered.
You are correct in noting that Lakoff developed those ideas’ political application.
And as to Chomsky’s approach to that application; you’re not wrong. But noodling about the inside-baseball of linguistics isn’t really a mass-appeal discussion.
But when was the last time I said you “weren’t wrong”, hey?
I, too, am Spartacus – er, Mitch Berg. 😉
I took peevee to task the other day over his hatred of Limbaugh.
Limbaugh is a talk show host / entertainer, not an elected official.
I have yet to hear anyone claim Sean Penn is the leader of the Democrat party. I am a conservative. Please don’t confuse conservative with GOP.
btw, it is soooo easy to make peevee look like an Assclown.
hmmm, is that statement of truth derogatory toward peevee or Assclown? You decide.
Mitch:
So instead of the guy who wrote a book (some might even call it a playbook) on how Democrats can use language to control public perception of their (anti-Republican) agenda, you meant the guy who wrote a book about how Democrats, Republicans, and the media share the same corporate agenda and use the media to prevent any alternative viewpoint from getting a hearing?
I see Kathleen Soliah, the voice of the Minnesota DFL, is coming back to the state…
QUICK!!!! RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!
One of the last times Mitch referenced Soliah in a post, it caused Peev to become more deranged than normal.
you meant the guy who wrote a book about…
Among many, many other things? Yes.
RickDFL, you are confusing Chomsky’s linguistic work with his political screeds.
Mitch Berg Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
What is the Chomsky playbook?
Control the language. Control how words and thoughts are defined.
If you control language, you control thought. >>
A brilliant concept, but not so easily executed I think in practice as it is posited IMHO.
I”m always up for a good linguistic discussion….
Didn’t Lakoff suggest that taxes be renamed ‘user fees’ and a bunch of other nonsense?
I’ve read that he has fallen out of favor in Dem strategic circles. Possibly because they dreaded correcting interviewers every time they said ‘taxes’ instead of ‘user fees’.
One of the last times Mitch referenced Soliah in a post, it caused Peev to become more deranged than normal.
Ah, the memories….good times. 🙂
Mitch-
If you were to tune the television to the daily lottery broadcast and you found out you’ve won a hundred million bucks this has a defined and predictable result on your physical state. Heartbeat increase, blood flooding areas of your brain associated with pleasure, etc. Yet if you were hosting a young, blonde, female Finnish exchange student who spoke no English and she had the winning ticket in her pocket she would watch the broadcast and yet have no physical symptoms. She got no meaning from the lottery broadcast.
So meaning has real-world affects, measurable by scientists. Yet how is meaning determined? Is it by the individual mind on its own or the individual mind as instructed by learning? Or is the individual mind constructed by nature to find meaning in narrative (stories with beginning, middle, end)? What does it mean that I can use words to think about the meaning of words?
The starting point of Chomsky’s academic work is questions like these.
Mitch: How can the GOP separate itself from the last 8 years of failure, when you can not even cop to a minor, rather understandable, error?
Terry:
“you are confusing Chomsky’s linguistic work with his political screeds.” How so? For the record, IIRC Chomsky says there is no relation between the two.
“I’ve read that he has fallen out of favor in Dem strategic circles.”
He has a brief run as THE guru for messaging. Now he is still read with interest, but a strong degree of skepticism.
“Didn’t Lakoff suggest that taxes be renamed ‘user fees’ . . .?” I guess Pawlenty stole that idea.
Mitch: How can the GOP separate itself from the last 8 years of failure, when you can not even cop to a minor, rather understandable, error?
Because it’s only an “error” in the sense that you aren’t seeing the same connection between Chomsky, Lakoff, and the political control of language that I – a guy with a BA in English who co-concentrated in linguistics – do. You can see it differently; feel free. I have my perspective. It’s not an “error”, it’s a cognitive mismatch.
And I dont’ think the GOP is waiting on us to sort this out, honestly.
Mitch:
“you aren’t seeing the same connection between Chomsky, Lakoff, and the political control of language”
I don’t think Chomsky has a linguistic critique of the media. (If he does I would love to hear about it.) There is no linguistic critique in Manufacturing Consent, rather Chomsky says, big corporations own the media, respond to the big corporations that advertise in their product, rely on the government for access, and ect. That is why it is subtitled “The Political Economy of the Mass Media”. The difference is important. For Lakoff, if you want to change U.S. policy towards e.g. Columbia, it would be important to start calling the FARC, rebels or freedom-fighters, instead of terrorists or drug-gangs. For Chomsky, such word games would never affect media coverage. To do that you would probably have to end media as a for-profit business. You don’t change the words, you change the ownership.
Thus, Chomsky wouldn’t write playbooks for Democrats on how to choose your language, he would propose new FCC regulations.
“It’s not an “error”, it’s a cognitive mismatch.” Hurray for right-wing post-modernism.
“Didn’t Lakoff suggest that taxes be renamed ‘user fees’ . . .?” I guess Pawlenty stole that idea.
My mistake — Lakoff proposed calling taxes ‘membership fees’ rather than taxes, not ‘user fees’.
So Noam Chomsky is summed up in one book he wrote?
Not only is RickDFL simple, he thinks Chomsky is too. *shrug*
Troy:
If you want to explain Chomsky’s criticism of the media, have at it.
Mitch was talking about language, not media. You just keep inching up on the moron scale, RickDFL. Say, you voted for Obama, didn’t you?
RickDFL:
No, I’ll let you explain him away in the context of the one book you read. 😉
Terry:
“Mitch was talking about language, not media.”
Fine. Then he should explain how Chomsky applied his theory of language to politics. Chomsky said he didn’t. You seemed to agree. To what linguistic theory of Chomsky’s, does Mitch refer? Where did Chomsky say something like “Control the language. Control how words and thoughts are defined. If you control language, you control thought”?
Talk to Mitch, not to me.
I won’t let you get away with changing his argument, however.
“Talk to Mitch, not to me”
Fair enough. Lets see if he surfaces. Mitch? To what linguistic theory of Chomsky’s, do you refer? Where did Chomsky say something like “Control the language. Control how words and thoughts are defined. If you control language, you control thought”?
Seems like someone has fled the field of battle.
Maybe “a successful academic” who “may be able to use his success to reach the general public on matters about which he is an idiot” isn’t really worth fighting about? *shrug*
Troy, you have elevated confessions of ignorance to an art form. Mitch clearly thinks it is important, if only for his self-esteem, to insist on attributing certain positions to Chomsky, not Lakoff.
But I will grant you that arguing Chomsky with you would be a waste of time.