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By Jeff Shesol October 31 at 2:07 PM

THE ALL NEW DONT THINK OF AN ELEPHANT!

Know Your Values and Frame the Debate

By George Lakoff

Chelsea Green. 168 pp. Paperback, $15

Progressives, as a rule, do not look back with nostalgia at 2004 a dismal, disempowering year, a time of swiftboating and flip-flopping and generally being left sputtering in the face of the Bush-Cheney barrage. One exception to that rule is Barack Obama, whose keynote address at that years Democratic National Convention launched him toward the office he now holds.

There is at least one other exception: George Lakoff, distinguished professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. For Lakoff, those were heady days. The election and its aftermath brought sold-out speaking gigs; invitations to dinner with Democratic strategists, Hollywood liberals and former president Bill Clinton; the label guru; and, at one memorable gathering of Senate Democrats, hugs.

In the wake of John Kerrys defeat, Democrats turned to Lakoff to teach them how to communicate, how to get and stay on message, how in Lakoffs semi-scientific parlance to frame. The professors calling card the one that earned him a seat at Democratic tables that year was a handbook titled Dont Think of an Elephant! In it, Lakoff set out, for a lay audience, his theory that physical structures within the brain, activated by the use of coded and morally loaded language, determine our responses to political stimuli. Put differently, framing is what Republicans were doing when they said, repeatedly, that John Kerry looked French. As your cognitive unconscious was well aware, this was not a compliment.

Ten years on, Lakoff is still a proponent of framing. He puts it to work in the title of his new book, The All New Dont Think of an Elephant! As readers of the previous edition will discover, this one is not all new; it is, in point of fact, only slightly new, but Lakoff has always held that progressives put too much stock in facts. He begins the book with a quick victory lap: In 2004, he tells us, hardly anyone had heard of or thought about ... how social and political issues were framed. Today, millions of people have. That, Lakoff notes, is a lot for one small book to have accomplished.

Nor is that all. The Elephant playbook, its author contends, helped Obama to win the White House and Senate Democrats to expand their majority in 2008. Hope, as we know, was the mantra that year, and Lakoffs hope was that the superior framing would continue. Well, it didnt. Within months of Obamas inauguration, Lakoff believes, the Democratic Party slid back into its mumbling, losing ways and the GOP regained framing superiority in public discourse at the national level. Now, having snatched back the ground they lost in 2008, the Republicans are setting their framing sights on the cities as well as the states. Republican metaphors know where you live.

Excerpt from:
Book review: The All New Dont Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff

The All Progressives Congress has warned the Federal Government to desist from compounding illegality by compelling members of the House of Representatives to sign a paper seeking to reconvene the House ahead of the December 3 adjourned date.

This was contained in a statement in Abuja on Friday by APCs National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

The party said, We have heard from the grapevine that the FG is inducing legislators with a view to reconvening the House, but this will amount to piling illegality upon illegality since only a resolution by all principal officers of the House can reconvene the House.

We cannot put anything beyond a government that will unlawfully withdraw the security details of the countrys number four citizen, who has not been removed as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, simply because he defected from the ruling party to the opposition. For as long as he remains Speaker, Rt Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is entitled to all the statutory perks of his office.

APC accused the President Goodluck Jonathan-led government of ruling by vindictiveness, rather than in accordance with the rule of law.

It added, Despotism, arbitrariness and impunity are the watch words of the Jonathan administration, hence it has

desecrated most national institutions, including the judiciary, and has now put the legislature in its cross hair.

The legislature is one of the last standing institutions after the onslaught of the ravaging Jonathan Administration, which has

nothing but contempt for the concept of the separation of powers, the rule of law and perception of the country by the international

community.

Read the rest here:
Tambuwal: APC warns against attempt to reconvene House

A former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, in Kaduna on Friday said the withdrawal of the security details of the Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, was a plot by the Federal Government to eliminate him(Speaker).

The former Minister, who accused President Goodluck Jonathan of masterminding the withdrawal of Tambuwal security aides, alleged that the Speaker was one of the targets of snipers being purportedly groomed by agents of the government.

Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo had in his open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan last year alleged that agents of the Federal Government was grooming snipers that would target some prominent Nigerians.

Speaking to newsmen after picking his expression of interest and nomination forms as an All Progressives Congress governorship aspirant in Kaduna on Friday, the former minister claimed that the Speaker was one of the targets of the killer squad.

That was why the Inspector-General of Police, on the order of Jonathan(president), withdrew the Speaker security aides, he added.

Warning that no harm must befall the Speaker, the former minister noted that it was irresponsible on the part of the Inspector-General of Police and the Federal Government to have withdrawn the Speakers security details.

The APC chief explained that the withdrawal was done deliberately so as to pave the way for the killer squad to eliminate the Speaker for defecting to the APC.

According to el-Rufai, the removal of the Speakers security is part of the continuation of the Jonathan-led governments penchant for impunity.

The former Minister, however, reminded the Jonathan government that impunity had limitations, saying that the Nigeria government should learn from Burkina Faso when the people were fed up with the government.

El-Rufai said, The withdrawal of Tambuwals security aides is on the order of the President Goodluck Jonathan. The IG doesnt act that way. The president ordered the IG to order the removal. Its just the continuation of the Jonathanian impunity.

Continue reading here:
El-Rufai accuses FG of plot to kill Tambuwal

Let's own up to it -- there's something wrong with progressives in the Catholic church. It's the same malady that plagues progressives in national politics -- we just don't get angry enough. We don't scream and yell. The fire and brimstone script is not our thing.

We seek a "middle way." Call it the wimp factor.

For proof, look no further than the hellfire and damnation that has followed in the wake of the extraordinary synod on the family. Pope Francis, apparently under the delusion that he was head of the church and could set its direction, sought to shift (to what degree it is unclear) the Catholic dialogue on a host of family issues -- and was greeted with head-on challenges from the right wing that would be considered blasphemy if progressives has directed them toward Popes John Paul II or Benedict XVI.

The latest example comes in the most recent New York Times column from Ross Douthat. Quick confession here: though he leans right, Douthat is my favorite Times columnist -- he is always thought-provoking and rarely an ideologue. He strikes a reasoned and reasonable tone that makes his arguments worth examining and respecting.

Not so much this time.

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Just so you are forewarned, his column is headlined "The Pope And The Precipice." The precipice of the title is the cliff over which Francis is pushing the church as he nudges it towards some bit of reform. For added measure, Douthat begins his column with an examination of papal infallibility, informing readers that -- really -- the whole thing wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously.

This is an argument I had not seen him make under previous (traditionalist) popes.

But the stage is now set for the rest of his argument, which is, essentially: hey, it's okay to push back against Francis, it's okay to fight him, ignore him, pillory him. Okay for the right-wing, that is.

He ends his column with a rallying cry for strong dissent:

Originally posted here:
The wimp factor

The All Progressives Congress has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to show better understanding of democracy by immediately restoring the police security details the Inspector General of Police withdrew from the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal.

In a statement in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party described the withdrawal of the Speakers security details by the IGP as a usurpation of the role of the Judiciary by the Inspector General of Police especially bearing in mind that the question of the interpretation of Section 68(1)(g) of the Constitution on which the Inspector General of Police anchored his illegal act is currently before the courts for resolution.

The party said the position, including the manner a person becomes the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was to be found in the Constitution, arguing that no constitutional provision or legislation says membership of the ruling or dominant party in the House is a pre-requisite.

The party added, Furthermore, as the number four citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the security details and apparatus attached to the person of the Speaker are not based on his lineage, person and or political leaning. It is on account of the position and the protection required for that position and in Nigerias best interest.

This unfortunate use and deployment of Nigerias security forces in a partisan and political way portends danger and further weakens important institutions of governance and jeopardises national security. Under President Jonathan, we now have a Police Force that is monitoring and making conclusions with respect to party membership and qualification of an otherwise elected official. This is unheard of in any decent democracy.

It is unfortunate that President Jonathan, who had been a successive long term and unique beneficiary of our democracy and Constitution, is now demonstrating the greatest disregard for the laws that govern and guide us as a people. President Jonathan, who is the only individual who benefited from the same Constitution to become a Governor from a Deputy Governor without an election and from a Vice President to President in similar legal circumstances, now desecrates the same Constitution.

The All Progressives Congress rejects this challenge to democracy and modern society. We reject President Jonathans illegality and call for respect and compliance with the law. We reject this meddling in the affairs of the Legislature, especially given the resolution of President Jonathan and his close advisers yesterday at their meeting to ask the Deputy Speaker Mr Emeka Ihedioha to unlawfully reconvene the House before the adjourned date.

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APC asks Jonathan to restore Tambuwal security details