 Eduardo Gonzalez (1)
  Unity, solidarity, fairness, equality, respect, integrity, and honesty. In my work as a trade union trainer I have found that these are the values our members most commonly attribute to trade unionism. Yet throughout the world the working class has repeatedly elected governments whose policies go against every single one of these values. We sell out so quickly! In the face of debt, terrorist fears, differences (racial, gender, age...) and the whole dominant regime of competition, our values are made to seem idealistic. In the meantime the conservatives' values are set in stone. In this discussion we're going to look at why. And we're going to see if there's something we can do to change things. We'll see how conservatives have conquered the moral high ground, and how for twenty years now we have been tricked into fighting them with a set of weapons which they devised; a set of weapons which they change at will. We'll discuss how unionists can "reframe the debate", so that we are building an alternative vision for society, and a new trade unionism, based on our values, and our agenda for change.
 John Steinbeck (2)
The things we admire... kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest: sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success.
Eduardo Gonzalez
Before we go any further, let me introduce George Lakoff - a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, previously with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. The combination of these two areas of study mean that Lakoff knows very well how words and behaviour are linked. He has written extensively on "framing". The words below are compiled from statements in his excellent book: Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate (2004).
George Lakoff (3)
 Back in the 1950s U.S. conservatives were as divided as progressive forces are today. They hated each other. There were the social conservatives, the libertarians, the anti-communists, the fiscal conservatives, and the religious right. But William F. Buckley Jr and his group started to lead a conscious process seeking common ground. Then the Vietnam War came along, and this, more than anything else, helped bind conservative groups closer together in a fight against "the enemy within". In 1971 Lewis F. Powell wrote an enormously influential memo to the Director of the US Chamber of Commerce, calling for a corporate campaign to shift the nation's consciousness. Powell's memo (see excerpts below) influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and many other powerful organizations. Today eighty percent of the talking heads on television are from conservative think tanks. Eighty percent!
Lewis F. Powell, writing in 1971 (4)
(lawyer, member of 11 corporate boards, and soon-to-be Nixon-appointed Justice to the Supreme Court)
 "...the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued... The sources are varied and diffused. They include, not unexpectedly, the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries... (but) the most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians. In most of these groups the movement against the system is participated in only by minorities. Yet, these often are the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking... What specifically should be done? ...The overriding first need is for businessmen to recognize that the ultimate issue may be survival - survival of what we call the free enterprise system... The first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking. It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public. ...It is time for American business -- which has demonstrated the greatest capacity in all history to produce and to influence consumer decisions -- to apply their great talents vigorously to the preservation of the system itself." (excerpted from a leaked copy of the memo, available here)
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lakoff's first rule
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When you are arguing with the other side, do not use their language!
We need to learn how to frame our views in such a way that our statements reflect our values. This requires a language which makes it clear what we are FOR, instead of what we are against. |
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Peter Hall-Jones (5)
 Lakoff maintains that given a conflict between values and logic, people will almost always side with their values. Conservatives have understood this, and have framed their policies in terms which are heavily laden with commonly-accepted values. Whichever way progressives respond, we simply reinforce this link, and are seen (often unconsciously) as trashing the values concerned. Thus in Australia unionists campaigned against "WorkChoices". In the US they oppose "Right to Work" legislation. We are seen to reject "open market" and "free enterprise" economics. We oppose "tax relief". We defend "death tax".
We have moved from being seen as a liberating force to a chorus of hecklers. As a result , even when we think we have won the debate, we are trumped by the public's perception of who stands on the side of values. Think Bush in 2004. The exit polls showed that many of those who voted for him were too embarrassed to admit it. Conservatives are seen as championing Freedom; Morality; Choice; Democracy; Opportunity; and Getting Ahead. The irony of this will not be lost on future generations. In the meantime, progressives are angry declaimers, jointly identified only by what we stand against. And even there we are divided. Who knows what "progressive values" are? What does the organiser of a community group have in common with an anarchist? How do environmentalists feel about gay marriage? What is the feminist position on liberation theology? And - perhaps the biggest question of all - to what extent are "left wing" and "working class" politics mutually supportive?
This brings us to Lakoff's first principle of framing: "when you are arguing with the other side, do not use their language!" Let's take a step back. Do progressives share the same values? For the last four months the New Unionism network has been running a survey in which we ask people: "What values do you think the union movement should prioritise, represent and promote, within both your workplace and the world?". (You can take part in the survey here). Below is a snapshot of the top 15 results as at October 07. It seems to us that there is enough common ground in here to build a winning movement. We just need to learn how to reframe our arguments around shared values, as the conservatives did.
Top 15 Union Values
Bernie Horn (8)
 This is the message framing trick: the right wing's "moral values" refer to private, not public policy values. "Private values" signify commonly accepted measurements of a good person. They include loyalty, piety, generosity, courtesy, bravery, respectfulness and patriotism. The term "public values" means commonly-accepted measurements of good public policy. Substantive public values include fairness, justice, equality, freedom, opportunity and security. There are also procedural public values, like efficiency and transparency, which measure the administration of government whether the substantive policy is progressive or conservative. Significantly, the private value most commonly misused by conservatives is "personal responsibility." Unemployment, hunger, discrimination are all the individual's problem, they say. They're not a societal problem. In other words, conservatives twist the language of responsibility to shirk responsibility.
Emma Goldman (6)
 For effective social change to take place there must be a supportive system with values, institutions and propaganda that can stand up to and take the place of the prevailing culture. In other words, a counter culture.
Lily Tomlin (7)
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
 M.C. ReFrame (9)
Look at those values listed above. Solidarity, equality, community, unity, fairness, integrity, humanity, honesty, knowledge, courage, creativity, family-friendliness, independence, teamwork and cooperation... Now doesn't that sound like a movement you'd want to be part of? How does that compare with the dominant set of values in your country? It's like Steinbeck says above: The things we admire... kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest: sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success.
Okay, now it's time for a game. Imagine you're in a room with the hoariest bunch of rednecks, neocons, hawks, monetarists, and new-right evangelists ever assembled. Every night someone gets voted out. After a while all that's left is you, Maggie Thatcher, Milton Friedman, Jerry Falwell, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Richard Bermann. Below are the kinds of things they're saying. How do you respond? You can use the box on the right to reply. Remember: the goal is not to attack their views, but to put forward your own, framed around the shared values system above (ie not your own individual views, but the collective values we are wanting to promote). Can you get those right wingers evicted?
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reframing the debate
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 You can suggest a reframed message by clicking on "Response" below, or click here to send email. Don't forget to say who you are responding to, and remember to use the values set in the graph above. We reserve the right to delete any responses that are rude or silly (even if they're really funny).
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Milton Friedman
 "A society that puts equality... ahead of freedom will end up with neither."
• As freedom and equality grow apart, both lose their meaning.
• Freedom of choice means a society that can choose its destiny, and make its own decisions based on the values that matter to that society. Taking away that choice is taking away their freedom.
• Separating freedom and equality is like separating peace and social justice. They are not independent; in fact they make each other possible.
• It's an age old battle. Freedom and equality have to be won, again and again, decade after decade, generation after generation. There's always an elite, with its little troupe of intellectuals, who want to separate or diminish them. But why would an elite want to deny equality? Go figure.
• Without equality one person's freedom comes at the expense of another.
That's it folks... Friedman was first on the list of quotes, but as you'll see from the eviction notices below, he was last to be thrown out. I hereby declare an end to the game.
Nah - I take that back. This is too much fun. Keep it coming - we'll add your responses as they come in.
Margaret Thatcher
 "I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it... They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society."
• Poverty is a trap. Society's job is to run the escape committee.
• I think we've been through a period of YOYO economics, ie You're On Your Own. Government's job is to serve society, not to deny it's existence.
• Homeless people can't take themselves in. Unemployed people can't offer themselves jobs. The sick can't prescribe their own treatment. Social problems have to be dealt with by society. If not, we pay a social price. Social welfare is a safety net for us all.
• Where I come from being anti-social means reading a book when everyone else is down at the pub. To our Lords and Ladies it means committing certain acts that make them feel insecure. But to deny that society even exists, as they did in the 1980s - man, that's really anti-social!
... and with those words I think it's only fair that Lady Thatcher becomes the first person to be evicted from the room. We have offered our condolences by way of her foundation (at www.margaretthatcher.org), and have invited her to reply.
Now... who's next???
Dick Cheney
 "I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real, and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it."
• We need to rebuild our democracy around fairness and integrity, so that resources are directed towards hospitals and schools, not weapons of mutual destruction.
• You can't win peace without first ending the war.
• The greatest threat to world security is
the creation of a class with nothing to lose.
• Separating freedom and equality is like separating peace and justice. They are not independent; in fact they make each other possible.
• We must face the hard facts: we have been extracting wealth from the Global South for so long now that all they have left is a sense of loss and a need for revenge. We can try and bottle this up forever, with military force and puppet governments, or we can make amends. The second option is more humane, more just, more lasting, and less expensive. It's globalization's first no-brainer.
• The money the United States has spent on war could have put food on the table for far more than it has killed, and would have reduced the threat of terrorism by creating global fairness.
Mistah Kurtz - he dead! Bzzzzzt! The tide is clearly turning against the sort of righteous violence which neocons peddle. But there's an awful lot of dead bodies littering their trail. We wrote to Mr Cheney through the Whitehouse's web email thing, but received no reply. There's clearly much more to be said on this subject, but lets hope we can say it in a way that promotes our progressive values - rather than just calling him a conniving, thieving, murdering (fadeout to the sound of tapes being erased).
Jerry Falwell
 "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."
• Christ said "love one another". There were no ifs and buts. There were no excepts or unlesses. There is nothing more heretical than hatred in God's name. Or Allah's, for that matter.
• You can tell false prophets by their real profits.
• God seeks to work directly with you. He doesn't get His people to speak to your people. You don't book His time through agents, or get word back through His brokers. Don't buy Him second hand off anybody.
• By far the most common injunction in the Bible is to assist those in need. This crusade over sexual preference is subverting Christ's words and diverting the church. Let's return to those in need; to those whom so many of us have forgotten, abandoned or ignored. It's their forgiveness we need, not their campaign funds.
• Leviticus says: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is an abomination. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." Nothing particularly ambiguous there. In fact Falwell's a softy by comparison. But it also uses the same word (abomination) to describe the eating of shellfish. Anything you'd like to confess, Jerry? It condemns the cutting of hair on the sides of the head. And the trimming of beards. And the eating of pork. And how does this death penalty tie in with "Thou shalt not kill"? Here's a possible clue: "..if your virtue is no more than the virtue of the Orthodox legalists you will never reach the kingdom of heaven." And here's another: "...if you wish to pray, do not do it as the hypocrites do. They love to pray in the churches and in the sight of men. They do it for men's praise, and from men receive what they aim at." Luckily Christ made it so very, very simple. "Love one another, as I have loved you".
Amen to that. I think it's time that Jerry Falwell was politely escorted off the premises. As with the others, we have offered him our condolences. We'll let you know if we hear back.
Now... who's next???
Jean-Marie Le Pen
 "When Joan D' Arc was asked by her judges why as a Christian she did not love the British, she answered that she did love them, but she loved British in their country. In the same way, we do not hate the Turks, we love them, but in their country."
• Nationhood belongs to citizens, not nationalists.
• There's not a lot sadder than hearing some elderly person - often from the same generation which lost so many friends and family in the fight against fascism - bitterly espousing those same racist philosophies.
• Patriotism is not about killing and dying for one's country, it's about living for it. The vast majority of people work their lives away in the hope that society will in some small way be improved by their efforts; that it will be better off rather than worse for their having been around. Unfortunately these are the same lives which merit the least attention. The tiny few who claim the benefits of all this work are those who set the restrictions and barriers and punishments. They select the characters and direct the plot, and they're working on the final chapter now.
• We're all transients, migrants, vagrants. This is globalisation; get used to it. But if capital moves round the world at will, we can't deny labor the same freedom.
Makes sense to me. Poor old fella - he is history in sooo many ways. We've contacted M. Le Pen with the bad news and will relay his response, if he chooses to make one.
Now... just one person left... Milton Friedman; the man who brought you the yuppy, the shoulderpad, and the dole queues of the 1980s.
Richard Berman
 "People are rejecting (unions) today because they see them as unnecessary, and the unions think they have to do something more. But they're selling the same old Model T Ford they always have. Most companies trying to sell the same old product they were selling 50 years ago would be out of business, but businesses have evolved and unions haven't."
• A Harvard study showed that if U.S. workers felt free to join, unionization would be almost eight times higher than it is. Why wasn't that a story? Most top-performing economies in the world have strong or very strong labor movements. Why don't we read about that? We really need to restore media independence.
• Most companies which were in operation 50 years ago are long gone. In the USA 90% of businesses fail in their first year. One third of those which remain are still running at a loss four years later. This is understood; business is about taking risk. But there are some things which society can't risk, such as emergency services, the justice system, transport infrastructure, social support, education and defence. Unions have defended these things for more than a century. Call us old-fashioned.
•
Unlike so many slick operators in corporate consultancy, the union movement is open and clear about who it represents. We don't hide who pays our bills and puts food on our table. And in the face of corporate spin doctors we'll continue arguing for more openness, more fairness and more democracy - in society, in government and at work. We're not in this for ourselves. If we were we'd be working as corporate spin doctors.
Fair enough... I think it's about time Berman went the way of our other defenestrati, don't you? Bzzzzzzzt! You're gone. Our condolences to you and to... well... whoever it is you work for. However... never let it not be said that you were denied the right of reply! We've written to Mr Berman via his website, and we look forward to a good hot blast of engineered slogans.
(Just don't invoice us for them, okay?)
M.C. ReFrame
Now here's the thing about values: they exist in context. So for game two we're going to take some of the most common value-laden terms and ask you to come up with an alternative which make our own values clear. They don't have to mean the same thing; in fact they can be a counter-platform. Again, in order to do this we'll ask you to use the values identified in the poll above: solidarity, equality, community, unity, fairness, integrity, humanity, honesty, knowledge, courage, creativity, family-friendliness, independence, teamwork and cooperation. Remember - this is about showing what we are FOR, collectively-speaking, not restating what we are against!
(We've included one example for each to get the ball rolling).
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Changing the Record
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You can suggest an alternative term by clicking on "Alternative" below, or click here to send email. You're also welcome to use this to suggest other terms we can play with. Keep your contribution to about 150 words max, as there's a character limit. Again, we reserve the right to delete any responses that are just too rude or silly.
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Current term |
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Alternative or counter
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Note: In some cases these ideas are reframed so that their real nature becomes more obvious (eg neoliberalism = market extremism). In other cases we suggest a suitably framed counter-proposal (eg democratisation as opposed to privatisation). |
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free market |
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fair exchange
public fair
social business
fair market
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human resources
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workplace relations
labour stakeholders |
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family values
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social values
public values |
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corporate greed |
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Wall St |
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neo-liberalism
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market extremism
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war on terror
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liquid war
terrorize through war
terror war |
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privatisation
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open access
democratisation |
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union bosses
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labour leaders
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minimum wage |
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guaranteed wage |
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social partnership
labor-management co-operation |
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workplace democracy |
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conservatives |
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cons |
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free trade |
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fair trade |
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weapons of mass destruction |
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weapons of mutual destruction |
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meritocracy |
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equal opportunity |
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liberalization |
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democratisation |
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big government |
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effective government |
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work-life balance |
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worklife balance |
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merit pay
performance bonuses |
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work recognition
team rewards
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trade unions |
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labor unions
unions |
Eduardo Gonzalez
It would be wrong to ignore our anger about the way things stand in the world today, but as American writer Julia Cameron once put it: Anger is meant to be acted on; it is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us. If we build our unity around shared values, rather than anger, then we will find our place in society changes. Our allies will see a more positive role for themselves, and our opponents' real agenda will become more obvious, as they are forced to respond to us, rather than continuing to pose all the questions.
So what now? How do we begin the process of building a values-based unity? And can we do it internationally? We do not have the enormous wealth that the conservatives had in the 1970s. However we do have an incredibly strong base among working people and the union movement (by far the largest democratic force in the world), and we have a huge number of allies in social democratic parties, churches, academia, community groups and non-governmental organisations. We also have a new generation of communications technology. If we want to acieve a values-based unity, what is the first simple, achievable step we can take?
The floor is yours...
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What's the First Step?
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If you are in general agreement with all this, what do you think we should do next? If you have a proposal, or want to respond to somebody else's proposal, click on "Ideas" below, or click here to send email. Please try to keep your ideas concrete and practical. (More general feedback can be given by way of the form further down the page).
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feedback
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We would really appreciate your feedback, even if it's absolutely negative. You can use this form, or post a comment at the top right of the page.
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Notes
(1) Eduardo Gonzalez is an education officer with the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU) and a member of the New Unionism network.
(2) John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was a US novelist. These words were put into the mouth of his character Doc, in the novel "Cannery Row" (1945). Click here for more.
(3) George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of the influential book, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, (Second Edition, 2002). He is also the author of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About The Mind (1987) and co-author of Metaphors We Live By (1980) [with Mark Johnson], More Than Cool Reason (1989) [with Mark Turner], Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge To The Western Tradition (1999) [with Mark Johnson], Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being (2000) [with Rafael Núñez] and, most recently, Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate (2004).
In addition to his teaching and research commitments, Dr. Lakoff has been on the editorial board of Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, Journal of Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics, Philosophical Psychology, Connection Science, and the University of Chicago Press Cognitive Linguistics Book Series. He is regularly interviewed in the public media and has appeared on such radio shows as Talk of the Nation (with Ray Suarez), Bridges (with Larry Josephson), To the Best of Our Knowledge, and Forum (with Michael Krasny).
(4) Lewis F. Powell
In 1971, Powell was a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations. He wrote this memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell's nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy. Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building. Click here for more.
(5) Peter Hall-Jones is the communications guy with the New Unionism network.
(6) Emma Goldman (1869-1940) US anarchist, born in Russia. Click here for more.
(7) Lily Tomlin 1869-1940, US comedian and arch social commentator. Click here for more.
(8) Bernie Horn is the Senior Director, Policy and Communications, at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (http://www.stateaction.org/)
(9) MC ReFrame doesn't exist. Pity; he could do with his own show.
the end
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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reframing the debate 
