I just watched the DVD, How Democrats and Progressives Can Win, Solutions from George Lakoff. I think Lakoff is much more successful in recognizing the need for Democrats and progressives to engage in framing political debate than he is in actually framing political issues. The language he uses is actually only compelling to liberals. It is no death blow to Evangelical Right Wing Conservative political rhetoric.
So, I propose aggressive adoption of the following frame:
Bush is full of Texas horsepucky when he invokes his "ownership society." An ownership society would transform us into shareholders, but that's not what his programs are about. His proposal for Social Security is to borrow yet more money and divert privatized profit as transaction fees to the financial services industry. He is yet again digging America deeper into a debtor society. His insane proposal is nothing more than a crude shakedown of the American workforce.
So what would a real "ownership society" be? It would be a progressive tax code that would provide services to the American people. That's right, it would be the system that the Republican Party has been dismantling for the past 25 years.
And speaking of framing,if I were a big freakin' deal in the Democratic Party, I'd be asking the following question at every one of my public speaking opportunities: Who's Got Your Back? This is a tough-talk sound bite that would set me up to rattle off every swindle the Bush Administration and their cronies ever shoved down the throat of the American people and every bait and switch Bush and Rumsfeld suckered the American Military with.