Class Notes - November 23, 2004 December 7 - Lakoff will talk to Democratic Congress - need to keep them from moving to "the right" - give them some progressive framework Questions & Bring up People's Work [student] Potential use of heritage vs legacy (linguistically) - reclaim heritage from heritage foundation - can we find strong liberal foundation? heritage as wealth creation as good for everyone - what are the pitfalls (other than heritage foundation) - seems to have a history of something other than is just about receiving something, can be negative (poverty for example) - not everyone knows about the heritage foundation - Lakoff: what's going is that they're trying to claim heritage for their use - legacy seems to have more of a negative connotation than heritage linguistically? - Obama's speech - pride seems to harken back to heritage rather than legacy - legacy seems more private than heritage which seems like a broader idea of what we all inherit from the previous generation - Lakoff: environment is not conceived of as American heritage... it's not a thing, but a thing you do... you can't talk about the commons as heritage even though it's an inheritance - heritage: practices that are handed down as things you do rather than things - American is a really common adjective for heritage, not legacy... it's less about what the family passes down and more about what the culture brings down Lakoff: we need to reclaim all of these words - do we have a family/business heritage (Microsoft heritage- that makes no sense). Does it have to be your country? - it seems like it has to be an institution that passes it down - has to do with large cultural institutions... something you're born into If you aren't actively practicing your heritage, it can be lost - essentialist quality - no ways of getting a better one, but there's the idea of rejuvenating it American Progressive Heritage - this can make sense Taxes, Tax Loopholes - doesn't make sense in the transaction metaphor for taxes (certain things don't count as transactions) - tax break is a government expenditure - use the tax as an adjective - taxes on transactions is not normal - it's an economist thing... - but property taxes are taxes on wealth for the right to keep property How is taxation to be understood? What are the distinctions and what are the other possible ones? - taxation as investment, providing subsidies - tax loopholes - forms of a negative income tax... money gets transfered from the tax payers to you prototypical tax - taxation on earned income - should you tax earned or unearned income more? right now, we tax earned income more... - what intuitive metaphor lies behind that sense of justice - taxes are conceived as induce you to do something... sin tax, buy a business tax, etc. there to induce you to not use these products - tolls on bridges are to keep you off the bridge Why does it seem fair to tax work but not nonwork - with work, you're already giving something away... when you are taxed, you are giving more away... it seems unfair that those who are lazy aren't taxed - it's assumed that you will create jobs if you have money... yet, there's nothing intuitive about creating jobs simply because you have money very little money from stock goes to helping the company (something like 9%). the majority of it goes to the wallstreet las vegas to drive up the stock even more. - you're partly owners of the company - but you are really hoping on more suckers down the line so that you can raise more money people who are making large amounts of money are not because of working harder or giving to society... you get it from gambling. what is work? - work is giving something to the society - work is selling a product (your labor) and getting the value of that product - selling vs. giving are very very different - double taxation is seen as a form of punishment Metaphors: Work: Is work selling your labor as a product or is work something that you give to society? - selling: you're getting rid of something less desired than the thing you're getting for it - when you give, you're making a positive contribution - when you take labor as a resource... it's not something that is inherently valuable. work in a factory as selling vs. being a teacher as giving - myth: when you're selling your labor, they're getting what they paid for... myth is that labor is just a commodity - Marxist notion of surplus labor... what you're selling for $1/hr, they're selling for $2... they should be taxed on that - the non contribution - companies talk about revenue per employee Labor Unions require the metaphor of labor as a resource... if you sell a small amount of that labor, you can only make a small amount off of it... but if you corner the market on a particular type of labor - Can you get back to the metaphor as labor as contribution. from labor as a resource, it's completely fair... as labor as a contribution, it's not fair. what work does a VC do? a capitalist tries to make sure that the money being invest has - we don't have the means for talking about this - when you first buy stock, you feel like you're part of the company [degraded into a discussion about the ethics of Google going public... very negative slant by people in the class... critique that they went public to make money only and that the founders will just go away with the $1B each] out and out attempts to re-engineer society but it's not coming out into the public. how do you actually vocalize this so that you can address the massive changes that are occurring? - how can you get democrats to come out and call the republicans on what they're doing as well as offer an alternative - incrementalism, moving to the right, adaptationism... this will kill us. Pell Grant removal in a matter of 48 hours (see recent NYTimes) - lots of students lost their grants so they are signing up for military to get $... that's the goal - get people into the military. Club for Growth wants to do away with FDA... Merck did voluntary policing recently to show that they can do away with the FDA (same is happening with EPA) - there's a move to alter the definition of a clinical trial - most drugs are only 10% effective + 30% placebo... - the companies don't actually put out all the data on their clinical trials, even though they should - the lawyer for the FDA was previously the lawyer of Pfizer and the tobacco industry... when people try to sue pharms, the FDA stops them with federal protection if it was approved by them - with anti-depressants, the placebos work for most people just as well, but without the suicide problem FDA/EPA have a moral function - to protect society... it's not just a regulatory group. What they're doing is giving up the moral functions because they aren't protecting people against criminal corporations. privatization - selling off the public good for private.. no way to talk about it right now. - no way to talk about this our job is to find the 5-10 things to say not the 500+ things to say per day... need to talk about betrayal of trust generally. comes out overtly with tom delay... but we don't see the hidden betrayals. they are creating a form of government that is just as bad as they say... government used to be able to do food in cafeterias... so there's an assumption that you have to go private. corporations are private governments. private corporations are determining how you run your life but they're not accountable to anyone. scandals change things. government invests in america and americans and it protects people. these are essential qualities of government. equity, equality and government as government as investor/protector. openness of government (transparency). FDR produced a vision for the country... FDR said that government is the people, for the people all the people. We need to be more than defensive. Clinton: if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be supported. That's only one piece. It's hard to communicate to people in government - they are scared shitless - Taxation as investment is not easy to get across Two Tier economy - 80% of Americans think that they are part of the middle class... a two tier economy doesn't make sense to them - productivity has gone way up but wages have not - middle guys are stuck with the lower guys who aren't even making enough to get along. how do you unite these very different segments of the population? - middle class is afraid that they're not able to hold on to the middle class... rove was good at separating them from the working class to not allow them to work together - we need to get back to the living wage arguments but the responsibility goes beyond their employers... now you need to design a policy direction to get that to work because the current state of affairs is not good - they are destroying opportunities - comes down to work as contribution Care Economy vs. Thing Economy - Fred Block - Care Economy - cares for people (teachers, doctors, nurses, etc.) - Thing Economy - people who make and distribute things - Public Care Economy is being dismantled and there's no private care economy that will take its place... it's not being privatized in a way that we can afford... - where would the money for the care economy come from? it has to come from the thing economy - what is a moral economy? one that has a public care economy in it [break] Kerry and Bush - using two totally different typefaces that signify very different images of them. Probably chosen for the aesthetics of their interests, not the views of everyone else. Body language is key, not just vocal language. With Clinton, you look and you feel nurturance. He looks at you, he's connecting with you.. he has a look of sincerity. Obama is an interesting variation on that.. he has the African softness (think Mandela). Least aggressive person, but strong... strong softness... similar to Clinton. Complete fluidity and articulateness with an intellect but nothing to force it on you. Obama is the best we have right now... What should progressive messengers be like? Soft and strong, relaxed. You have to look directly at the camera. You need to look at the viewer. Relate to the camera. Media training for lower-level candidates is beginning. Education. Uses mechanistic or economics, not human frames. - products of education... they're the movable objects - parents are the consumers of the education so parents get consumer choice. - quality control like in a factory.. have to be tested to show that they are of the right quality - use failing schools, focus on schools rather than on the district or the classrooms - Nancy Urban wrote a dissertation on this... teachers are resources. efficiency in the school is the reverse of more teachers per student... - conduit metaphor of spoon feeding - rather than training minds - use plant metaphor instead... focus on the tending [meta note... as we discuss these things, i get more and more depressed... i really don't deal well with negativity. hmmm...]