Re: [UUPoly-L] Identity Polytics.

[Tara_Affinity <tara_affinity@yahoo.com>]

Dear Earthfather:
 
As I said elsewhere, I shall also say here...thank you for explaining more deeply why this issue is important to you, and perhaps should be to others.  
 
The more I reflect on this entire conversation, the more it highlights to me, how we impact other polyfolks in the way we carry out our relationships, and speak about ourselves.  There are other lists I belong to, because generally some good conversation comes up.  I don't see this so much here, but on the others I sometimes feel concerned with the wide sweeping variations on a theme.  I just don't know, in a community that values free thought and conduct,how it can be any other way. 

Peace:
Tara 
(in Lancaster PA)
 
Tara's page - http://360.yahoo.com/tara_affinity - a sacred living, sex-/poly-positive exploration
Meet Up for Lancaster Poly-Tantra - http://tantric.meetup.com/14/ 
Yahoo Group for Lancaster Poly-Tantra - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LAPTN



 



----- Original Message ----
From: Earth Father <earthfather@cfnc.us>
To: uupoly-l@uupa.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 1:23:54 PM
Subject: Re: [UUPoly-L] Identity Polytics.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tara_Affinity


> I've actually be in a
> bit of wonder as to how much energy has gone into picking it apart.  Nothing
> personal toward anyone who's engaged in it, but it seems like a lot of energy
> over linguistic issues that may be.......<trembling and
> ducking>.......obsolete or so obscure to the general population, that no one
> but the most intellecually elite would even ponder it.  ?????

The reason for putting that much energy into it is that words have power.
Especially as a small, oppressed minority, how we present ourselves to the
larger society, and how we are presented by others, can make a *dramatic*
difference in how we are received.

The Conservative Republican party gained its control of Congress and the White
House by being smarter about words than the Democrats.  (We can see by the
results that it wasn't that they had better ideas.)  The Republicans figured
out how to pick words that would hit people at such a visceral level that they
would vote *against* their own interests.

This process is called "framing", and the Republicans had a master wordsmith
named Dr. Frank Luntz.  He would test out various ways of describing issues and
policies that the Republicans wanted to get support for, and then pick the
specific words that would accomplish that.  He would then publish a "playbook"
that was distributed to all their politicos.  It was no accident that all the
Republican candidates used *exactly* the same words and phrases.

So they called their bill to allow clear-cutting of old-growth timber the
"Healthy Forests Act".  They called their bill to allow much higher levels of
pollution the "Clear Skies Act".  They called the bill to destroy many of the
fundamental freedoms that the founders of this country fought so hard to
establish, the "PATRIOT" Act.  And the bill that many analysts think was
designed to eviscerate the public school system (to make it easier to get
public funding for church-related schools) and to eliminate education for
critical thinking was called "No Child Left Behind".

In order to cut taxes for their wealthy friends, and turn the US from the
world's biggest creditor to the world's biggest debtor, they labeled what they
were doing "tax *relief*".  That was a new term in the history of politics; the
word "relief" implicitly defines taxes as a problem; you only need "relief"
from bad things.  So whenever someone tried to oppose their plan, they were put
in the position of arguing against "relief"-- essentially, they had lost before
they started.

One of the most extreme examples of framing that the Republicans used was when
they wanted to repeal the estate tax.  This is a tax that only applies to the
wealthiest 1% of Americans, so the problem was how to sell it to the average
American who would *never* be subject to the tax-- and if it were repealed, the
revenue would have to be paid by middle income people instead of the wealthy.
Dr. Luntz tested more than 400 terms to describe the estate tax; but no matter
what they called it, people realized that repealing the estate tax was bad for
all but the very wealthy.  Then they came up with the phrase "death tax"-- and
that did it!  Even when people were *told* that the tax would never apply to
them, and that repealing it meant they would wind up paying *more* taxes, the
phrase itself convinced most people to support repealing the tax.

The above are not just random thoughts that I came up with.  This issue has
been studied extensively by linguists and political scientists.  Anyone who
would like to learn more about framing and other related issues can visit the
Rockridge Institute's section on framing:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research?Subject=Framing

or get George Lakoff's book, "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values,
Frame the Debate".

So that's why I see these discussions about terminology, which may seem picky
points to some folks, actually are addressing very serious and consequential
issues.

Michael Rios

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