serious stuff

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

This article explains the single biggest problem that "liberals," "progressives," "hippies," "tree-huggers," whatever pejorative term the people who want to further enrich the rich, to curtail essential freedoms, to govern in accord with their personal religious feelings, to let huge corporations set policy, and to turn this country into their own exclusive country club want to use for those of us who think this country is teetering on the edge of disaster, face in the continuing battle. It is some deep reading, but it explains WHY, in this day of a plethora of resources to find accurate information about world events, an astonishingly high percentage of people believe that Saddam and Osama were working together, that Saddam had nukes, and all of the FOX news baloney that flies around us every day. THIS is the battle that we have to learn how to fight, the battle of what almost is subliminal programming, terms that one side develops that semantically place them at an advantage, terms like "pro-life," "partial-birth abortion," "tax relief," and so many others. When you set terms like that in play that fall into general use, you establish a positive-negative premise that predisposes people to favor one side over the other. Let's face it, many people do not use facts and logic to make decisions with in favor of "instinct" and "gut feelings" and the people who control the right-wing agenda in this country have been perfecting this linguistic sleight-of-hand for thirty years now. We have a lot of catching up to do, but if you want to help stave off disaster, this article will arm you with the best weapon you will ever find to be able to turn the tide.