Enough with the Framing Already
The Green Knight has a great post called, quite aptly, Framing While the Earth Burns -- asking questions about the $350,000 fee George Lakoff negotiated to "reframe" the environmental movement. "So far, the results have been few," concludes the knight. This on the heels of the UN study on the state of the world that says the strain put on the earth by growing populations and expanding economic activity is extremely critical. "Much of the leadership of the environmental movement in the USA is now spending money and time navel-gazing and hoping for a set of magic words, while the world burns and ecosystems collapse," he says in his excellent rundown.
On the subject of framing -- I friggin' hate that word, and in large part I think it's just an intellectual beat-off. You can talk all you want to about how the right has been successful in "framing" its issues, but their real success can be attributed to a tremendous organizational effort that can only be mimicked through a lot of hard work that starts at a one-on-one community level. I have been witness to the most hair-splitting masturbatory verbal ping-pong matches on DKos over "framing" that wound up as nothing more than a gargantuan waste of time, the liberal equivalent of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." If all the effort that went into all their gassing were used instead to walk out their doors, shake hands with their neighbors and talk from the heart about how they could change their community for the better, something might actually get done.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/31/2005 02:10:00 PM
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