HBO’s ten-part miniseries, “The Pacific,” moved me. In his excellent memoir, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, Eugene Sledge, one of three marines featured in the HBO series, concluded: “War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark … [Until] countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to … make sacrifices.”
We applaud our veterans, past and present, but we take for granted that which has set them apart from us. We who have not experienced combat need to fathom as best we can their sacrifices. Thank you, HBO, for assisting us.
“As the troops used to say,” Eugene Sledge wrote, “‘If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.’”
I respect his sentiment, but I cannot accept his framing. At what point does a country cease to be “good enough”? When it has become acutely callous and selfish? When its policies are determined not by its citizens’ needs but by tons of money? When its soldiers are sent to war for reasons other than defense of country? We are not the America of 1944.
We citizens have, therefore, our own burdens of responsibility: to be well informed, proactive in effecting change, contributive in restoring America to that state for which soldier sacrifice is not dishonored and about which Eugene Sledge’s words ring true. History will record whether our degree of love of country sufficed.
Printed May 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
May 22, 2010, in The World
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I had somewhat of a dust-up with the Siuslaw News editor about the printing of the following letter. After having waited a week and a half to see it printed, I emailed her with an explanation of my intention of advocating State Representative Arnie Roblan’s candidacy until the Nov. election. I received back this message:
I appreciate your letters, Harold, and will always run them when I can. But using the editorial paper to campaign for a single candidate is not a great idea. You might consider trying to get others to write in.
I responded with this email message.
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I want others to write, as you suggest. No doubt two or three or four will do so sometime this late summer or fall. If you believe this letter is premature or inappropriate at this time, so be it. I do want to endorse this candidate, however, soon, with some information that most people just don’t know. Be certain that his opponent and his supporters will smear him and the Democratic legislative majority soon without compunction. It is frustrating to call registered Democrats on the telephone to speak on behalf on Arnie Roblan and recognize that the vast majority know him only as a name with a “D” after it. Correct me if I have misunderstood your message but I believe you are advising that I not go crazy writing a bunch of letters about this candidate. I appreciate that your duty is to present a broad spectrum of opinion, not be a blog site for a particular point of view. Having one person extolling the same candidate repeatedly would not only, probably, be counterproductive but it would open you and the paper up for deserved criticism. Consequently, how many letters would you advise that I not exceed? I really need to know. Assuming that they were worthy of being printed, would 3 be too many over the course of 5 months?
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The editor printed the letter two days after receiving my message. She hasn’t responded to it; I strongly suspect she will not. I will have to find out by submitting future letters just what kind of limited she will place on my submissions. Here is the letter eventually printed.
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You cannot recognize the worth of a man if you don’t know him.
How well do you know our State Representative Arnie Roblan? Very little, I suspect; state officials receive scant media coverage. Having audio-taped most of his Florence public appearances and having conversed with him often enough, I can tell you quite a bit.
I met Arnie in February 2004 when he came to speak to the Florence Area Democratic Club. He was retiring as principal of Marshfield High School in Coos Bay that June and had filed to run for the House District 9 seat. Believing his father’s dictum, “Always leave a place better than when you found it,” ending his 32-year career as an educator, he wanted to serve in a larger capacity. He has, admirably.
Arnie Roblan is a genuine public servant. He once said, “I am willing to do what I do if I believe there is hope to improve things that are really important: education … the heart and soul of what I believe in …, public health, welfare of kids.”
You recognize, talking with him, that he is very intelligent, that he has a curious mind, and that his range of knowledge is broad.
He knows that “simple solutions to complex problems never work.” He believes that government has a definite role to play in people’s lives.
He is compassionate. “Unless people believe there is hope for them in this world, opportunity for them, we are in real trouble.”
He has that rare attribute of wanting to bridge differences to achieve beneficial solutions. “If there are really good ideas,” he has said, “I don’t care what side of the aisle they come from.” Elected in 2009 President Pro-Tempore (the number two position in the House) unanimously by members of both parties, he is the most respected member of that chamber.
Accessible, fair-minded, principled, Arnie Roblan, up for re-election this November, has served us well.
Printed June 5, 2010, in the Siuslaw News
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The Republican Party excels in disseminating misinformation. One tactic they use is called “word-framing,” the attachment usually of an untruthful, negative opinion to a word or short phrase that is to be used repeatedly. Here is a letter I wrote on the subject and a letter amplifying it.
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A recent Gallup poll found that independents favor Republican Party congressional candidates over Democratic Party candidates 45 percent to 35 percent. They would put back into power the party that in so many destructive ways brought this country to the brink of disaster.
What should we have learned since the 2008 election? Republican officials will say and do anything to protect and maximize corporate interests and regain political majority. The juggernaut Republican propaganda machine never slows, snaring susceptible minds. Republican word framing to support political assertions (example: tax cuts grow the economy) never deviates from GOP ideology. Repetition, repetition.
Despite ample evidence that its assertions are bogus, the word frames become a part of the language of the mainstream media. Democrats are lousy at word framing. Many Democratic officials lack the courage to champion liberal ideology. Rather than to attempt to shape public opinion, Democrats too often take polls and then adopt specific Republican policy positions to woo outside-the-party support. Example: We should pay down the national deficit rather than increase it in the short term by rebuilding infrastructure, investing in green energy and bailing out state governments.
Take away the ruthless exploitation of the Senate filibuster rule by Republicans and you would have seen the Democratic majority pass into law major beneficial legislation on several vital fronts.
Democrats, get truthfully nasty!
Printed July 21, 2010, in the Register-Guard
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Thanks to Harold Titus for his July 21 letter about “framing” and the difference between Republican and Democratic language. The terminology is from the work of George Lakoff, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of linguistics and his 2004 book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant.”
Lakoff’s central idea is that Democrats argue using facts while Republicans argue using ideological “frames” and that, in any debate, frames trump facts. It’s an oversimplification, but it has some truth to it. Frames combined with facts work best of all, but facts alone, sent against frames alone, will lose every time.
Corporate-sponsored think tanks have understood this for decades with impressive results, which generally involve regular conservatives supporting big business against their own interests. “Liberals” are only beginning to grasp this dangerous tactic, as evidenced by their recent use of “progressive” to replace a word that implies wishy-washy and undisciplined.
In other words, by agreeing to refer to themselves as “liberals,” they had accepted a Republican framing. Something similar happens every time anyone refers to the “right” and the “left.” The word “right” obviously enjoys the association of “not wrong,” while the word “left” carries baggage from the days of anti-communism (‘leftist” equals un-American) as well as biblical associations with the devil, and the simple fact that most people are right-handed. Just using this terminology lets Republicans start any race 10 paces ahead.
I recommend exploring Lakoff’s ideas on YouTube. Whether you’re conservative or progressive, you owe it to yourself to understand this subtle brainwashing.
Steve Downey
Printed July 24, 2010, in the Register-Guard
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Here are several paragraphs from an article/interview of George Lakoff that provide a Republican Party example of word framing.
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The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
...
[So what should they be calling it?]
It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists - vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues - you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.
[So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.]
It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country - the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use (Powell 5).
Work cited:
Powell, Bonnie Azab. “Framing the Issues: UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff Tells How Conservatives Use Language To Dominate Politics.” UCBerkeleyNews, October 27, 2003. Net. https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
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