Life Panels – How the Left Loses Debates Before they Start

As a liberal, and a progressive, I am often underwhelmed by the left’s messaging. The right has a well oiled message machine.

But it’s not just the method of delivering their message that gives the right political advantage. It’s their ingenious way of framing issues. While the left comes at an issue with complex three-dimensional thinking, rational thought and facts, the right uses one-liners and catch phrases. They don’t have to explain their true positions on issues, because they frame everything as simple, and black-and-white. No one in their right mind would want to “pull the plug on grandma.”

Right-wing politics, run by the uber-rich for the continued benefit of the uber-rich, has become the political movement of the common man. And the left, who would actually like to see the people wrest more power and wealth from the system, is the party of eggheads and “intellectual elites.”

The problem is two-fold. Conservatives are too good at messaging, and liberals aren’t good enough.

There are many issues where this lack of framing is hindering progress and prolonging debates that should actually have been long settled. Today I’d like to focus on three.

Creationism in Schools

“It’s just a theory.” We’ve all heard it. It’s how religious factions label proven, chipping away at its legitimacy, and falsely placing it on even ground with their religious mythology. Then, as we all know, use that false equivalency to teach their creationist mythology in public school science class.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

When you and I speak colloquially, theory has a certain meaning. “I have a theory that the Steelers will win the Super Bowl.” Now, this “theory” can’t be tested. I have no evidence to back it up. It can’t be tested until Sunday, and it can’t be repeated.

It’s not science.

What my colloquial theory is, scientifically is a hypothesis. In science, the word theory has a completely different meaning, of course. A scientific theory has been tested, results observed, and repeated. A scientific theory stands up to the rigors of peer review. It is accepted, in science, as fact.

But science hasn’t properly educated the public on the different meaning of the word, and we have to deal with “It’s just a theory.”

The problem is made worse by the even more confusing term “scientific law.” The two terms suggest, to lay-persons, a hierarchy or chronology that is actually quite different from the truth. That the words law and theory have very different meanings only adds to the confusion.

Hypothesis. Theory. Law. Messaging.

Is the scientific community at fault for not getting their message across? Maybe, but playing the blame game won’t solve any problems. As liberals and progressives, we should take it upon ourselves to spread the facts far and wide.

Abortion

“Pro-Life.” I have real issues with the Pro/Pro framing of the abortion debate. On this issue, the liberal catch phrase came first, but it was a terrible one. Choice is so fleeting. It is such a soft word. It eludes to a whim. “Oh, I’ll make the choice to end this pregnancy.” After Roe, the anti-abortion crowd turned pro-choice around on women’s rights with pro-life.

Pro-life, compared to pro-choice is a hard term. It is the better term, for the worse policy position. The abortion rights crowd of the age should have been able to forsee their term backfiring on them.

Now we all know pro-lifers are not always pro-life. They’ll send soldiers to die or put parents in jail for nonviolent offenses, and engage in economic policies that extend and expand poverty, leaving unaborted fetuses without a notion of any kind of quality of life. But fuck you once you’ve been born, right? Pro-life is the bullshitters way to bullshit their way into a religious debate, that has no place in our secular civics.

One needs not pro-abortion to be pro-abortion-rights. The fact is, throughout our patriarchal society’s history, pregnancy and motherhood are used as weapons against women and their equality. That this is true ought to leave us ashamed to call ourselves civilized.

I’d like to live in the perfect world where every pregnancy is planned and wanted. I’d like to live in a world where every unwanted baby has an adoptive family waiting for them before gestation is complete.

We don’t live in a perfect world. Abortion must remain safe, legal and available until we do, or else women are second class citizens.

When we say pro-life and pro-choice we are skirting the issue. Abortion is one of the most complex issues of our time, and, if it’s going to be an issue (despite it being settled law) then we need to talk about the issue, in all of its ugliness and horror.

Hiding behind the terms pro-life and pro-choice is a chicken-shit way to avoid frank conversation.

Health Care

“Death Panels.” President Obama campaigned on a platform to reform the United States’ health care system. Then, when he actually tried to accomplish his campaign promise, the right freaked.

And they won.

The right took a republican sponsored amendment, pinned it to Obama, called it “death panels” and reframed the entire health care debate.

Now, health care reform passed, but it did so at the expense of most of of the Democrats’ political capital, and by the time Obama signed the bill, popular support of the thing had waned.

Right wing political framing took the idea that the world’s richest country ought to be able to care for its citizens, a bill that was actually quite moderate and compromised, and turned it into Nazi-Hilter-Commie-Pinko-Marxist-Gestapo-Communism.

But we’re the intolerant ones when we say that the right wing are vitriolic.

There is much to be gained if the left can improve their messaging. Preemptive catch-phrasing. Not being afraid to call them out on their bullshit. And forcing them to talk about their true positions on the issues.

We have to know that the other side isn’t playing by any rules, and they have no respect for facts or reality. Until we do, the playing field is tilted.

Glenn Beck says he’s no More Reputable Than a Comedy Show

He said it. He said it himself.

Glenn Beck, America’s favorite purveyor of chalk-board situated conspiracy theory, appeared on “The Today Show” Wednesday, to promote his and pop-psychologist Keith Ablow‘s new self-help book, “The 7: Seven Wonders that will Change Your Life.”

During the appearance, Meredith Vieira actually pulled a little journalism out of her ass hat, and asked Beck the pressing question of the day. She confronted Beck with some of his more incendiary statements and asked him if these statements were “adding to this dialogue of hatred.”

Here’s the video via The Huffington Post.

Beck said that all of his vitriolic statements were “Jokes,” and that Vieira, if she wants an answer to her question, should “ask Jon Stewart. Ask ‘The Simpsons.'”

Glenn Beck just told us how to take him. He is a satirist. He’s a comedian. His show, like “The Daily Show” or “The Simpsons” should not be taken seriously.

By comparing himself to some of America’s top satirists, he is telling us, in plain language, not to take him seriously. We should have a good laugh, (I don’t get it) and go about our day.

I’ve said it for a years; Glenn Beck is a college dropout and a radio jockey. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with that. I was a college dropout for nearly a decade, and I aspire to be a radio jock. The difference between me and Beck, is that no one in their right mind is stupid enough to make me the de facto leader of a major politcal movement.

The difference is, Jon Stewart and The Simpsons cop to the fact that they are satire, that they are comedy. Beck wants us to take him seriously. He wants every chalkboard squiggly, every rant, every, oh what’s that called when you say something that isn’t true? Oh yeah, Glenn wants every lie to be taken as gospel.

And that is why Beck’s unanswer to Vieira’s question is so inappropriate. Beck wants his listeners and viewers to take him seriously, but when it comes time to face up to the consequences of his actions, he wants to take refuge in satire.

You can’t have it both ways Glenn.

And that brings us to the biggest difference between the right-wing media in this country, and the left-wing media. President Obama does not go around parroting Keith Olbermann. Rachel Maddow constantly urges Democrats to do better. Meanwhile, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between a John Boehner press conference and “The Rush Limbaugh Show”.

The Republican Party has been infiltrated by the extremists. The Tea Party and the talk radio hosts are setting the agenda for one of the only two major parties in our country. And that is extremely dangerous.

Edit 01-20-11: Added link to Daily Kos post about Beck’s violence. “Comedian.”