Sunday, August 29, 2004

Lackoff the Wizard

Linguistics professor George Lakoff dissects the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases in the Berkely News. Lakoff has significantly improved the way Progressives approach public policy debate. However, sharpening Progressive's ideological combat skills is only a small part of the struggle to put Progressive ideas back at the center of American politics. Even when we win the debate with the RadCons, we still have to overcome the central weakness of our political system: campaign financing.

We may effectively package and pitch our values and policy directions, but is the Democratic Party as it now exists capable of delivering on those promises? The Rad-Cons face the same dilemma, now. They promise a government-backed war against smut, homos, abortion. They promise prayer in school, church in government, and, apparently, a Fundamentalist Pope in the White House. Except for the latter, they have failed completely to deliver, despite being triumphantly in control of the government. The reason? The Rad-Cons voters may want these things, but their financial backers do not. The establishment, the wealthy and the special interests, who finance the Republican Party and its candidates don't mind the lip service if it brings the votes, but they won't stand for actually delivering the goods. They dribble out cheap appetisers hoping the hoi polloi will get bored and go home so that they can break out the real feast.

Those same folks who tuck into the Republicans' buffet pay for and, ultimately, control the Democratic Party. The same corporate officers, wealthy families, and foundations steer money into both parties. The same interests own both parties.

If you think the wealthy will gladly tolerate a flattening of this nation's income disparities, greater economic equity and security, universal health insurance, and greater investments in human capital in this country simply because it is the Democrats promising it, you are mistaken. The danger to Democrats is the same danger that now faces the Republicans: failed expectations. Having successfully delivered a message to voters that they respond to, and having captured ultimate political power, can you now walk the talk? What the Republicans have delivered in the past four years is a bonanza for the real owners of the Republican party and a plethora of hot air and empty genstures for the voters who actually put them over the top. How long will socially conservative voters tolerate Republican impotence on thier issues? Who knows. The Fundies seem obdurately oblivious to being used like a cheap whore, but they won't tolerate such treatment forever. Then either the Republicans will have to put up, or find millions of new voters to replace Christian conservatives.

Four years from now, Kerry may find himself in the same postion. Can he deliver affordable health care for all with the insurance industry breathing down his neck? Can he lower the price of prescription drugs with billions for the pharmas on the table? Can he wean America off petroleum with the oil companies financing his Congress? Can he hold off the investment banks and financial companies baying for privatization of Social Security? Is the reason that Kerry officially tolerates follies such as NCLB, Star Wars, and the current farming subsidy system that powerful special interests benefit of them? You bet. Kerry faces the very same institutional incentives which drive Bush. Will he respond judiciously and with circumspection, instead of with criminal glee? Certainly. But respond to them he must.

Our present campaign finance system only benefits those with the money to foot the bills. Without deeper systemic reform in our political system, more effective rhetoric is merely a way to put a fresh and sympathetic face on the same cruel masters. When the coin of the realm is given political rights, as Buckley v. Valeo does in our realm, he with most coin has most of the rights. In our duopoly political system, if you provide the coin to operate both parties, you always get to win. If we want this nation to be run in the interest of its people, not it's corporations, conglomerates, and cronies, then we need to do much more than sharpen our message.

Lakoff is a genius. Progressives do need to re-learn how to connect with voters and he's helping with that. But winning elections isn't enough. We need to reform the corrupt and crudely implemented American political system to ensure that our government can never stray so far from the real needs and priorities of its people again. Not only Progressive people, either. All people. Even the bloody 'Fundies. The system should operate to represent the interests and priorities of everyone, especially those who have less than five or six zeros trailing their net worth.

If we fail in this task, this 'most important election of our lives' will be just one of a never-ending series of struggles to keep the ship of the American state off the rocks. I don't have the energy for that, and I don't want my children and grandchildren to have to battle back creeping facsism all of their lives, or to suffer under the sort of invasive, arbitrary, corrupt, racist, dangerous, xenophobic, and destablizing government the Rad-Cons are now providing.

Before we become too smug in our moral superiority, it would behoove us to recall that throughout this century the worst of Democrats and the Democratic party have also been corrupted, and also played the game of neo-imperialism, and also served special interests and the wealthy to the detriment of the common good. The current batch of RadCon yahoos are only a difference of degree, not of kind. If we want to give birth to a better democracy, we have to reform our system of democracy. The same incentives and the same institutions will only produce the same dysfunction and gridlock. As we improve our rhetoric, we had best ensure that the ideals which underlay those words can become reality, and not just another in a very long string of unfulfilled promises to America.

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