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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780977197293 |
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
"Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world....When you hear a word, its frame is activated in your brain....In politics our frames shape our social policies....Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames." — George Lakoff
For decades, the powerful communications machine of the conservative movement has controlled our national political discourse. One of the biggest obstacles to progressive victory has been seeing what American political speech looks like when it is not "framed" by the Republican noise machine.
Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (and Win Elections) is about unleashing the power of communication in contemporary progressive politics. The book presents fifteen key speeches by American presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush — in order to define the big ideas and images — the "frames" — that each speech evokes to show how those framing techniques can be applied to today's political debate in order promote a progressive perspective.
An essential book in today's political climate, Framing the Debate will be instrumental in helping to reshape progressive political language and rhetoric.
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Charlie Quimby, May 2, 2007 (view all comments by Charlie Quimby)
I've noted in my blog that the New York Times review seems to be a deliberate misreading of the book's intent. Here's my take:
"Changing the conversation" is a modest, but important goal, as can attest any Minnesotan observing the current tug-of-war over how to talk about taxes and government spending. We don't just need magic words like "investment" to replace "tax-and-spend." We need a better way to hold a meaningful conversation about the future of the state. The Republican frame effectively forecloses that discussion.
To me the most useful part of the book is not Feldman's analysis of individual presidential speeches. (He and I might even disagree on some frames being evoked.) The real meat of the book for progressives is found in the lessons following each analysis, helping politicians, activists and citizens consider how to apply particular techniques. He charges each of us to become active and thoughtful observers of how language paints us into policy corners and suggests ways to conduct dinner table conversations that escape these traps.
The best chapter of all is titled "The Three P's of Progressive Politics," which ? far from proposing new magic words ? invites us to think deeply about what it means to be progressive and how to "develop a set of habits that structures a new experience of politics." An experience that rejects the corporatism, clericalism and conquest the conservatives have used to temporarily gain control of America.
A more extended review is at Across the Great Divide:
http://tinyurl.com/yt9k2v
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780977197293
- Subtitle:
- Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (and Win Elections)
- Author:
- Introduction:
- Lakoff, George
- Author:
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Ig Publishing
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Presidents
- Subject:
- United States - 20th Century
- Subject:
- Political History
- Subject:
- Politics, practical
- Subject:
- General Political Science
- Subject:
- Political Process - Elections
- Subject:
- Political Ideologies - Conservatism & Liberalism
- Copyright:
- 2007
- Publication Date:
- April 1, 2007
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 201
- Dimensions:
- 8.24x6.04x.45 in. .56 lbs.










