ALERT - The following words is being repeated in the newest PR scheme promoted by the Bush White House and designed to trick Americans into harming Social Security:
bankruptcy
Do not use this word.
Americans believe that we are strongest when we all stand together, and weakest when we are forced to stand alone. With Social Security by our side, Americans feel confident about the future. Despite this, the Bush White House wants to bleed Social Security until it is too weak to extend its arms around Americans in need. The Bush White House PR campaign promotes a culture of selfishness, spreads fear about our future, and weakens our country.
QUICK CHANGE - When talking about Social Security do not use the words of banking and accounting. Instead, remind Americans that Social Security is about strength through unity. Use these words:
- America is strongest when we all stand together
- Social Security stands with us when we might otherwise be forced to stand alone
- Americans value the general welfare over individual self-interest
Frameshop is open...
It's About Unity and Strength, Not Banking
In the latest round of the Social Security match being promoted by the Bush White House, President Bush has argued that Social Security, "is on the road to bankruptcy" (see this
yahoo news story). Vice President Cheney has also been using this same word. Take a quick look at how our Vice President sets it up:
"The time has come for an honest, straightforward, and realistic discussion about the future of the Social Security system. The system has been in steady service, uninterrupted, for nearly 70 years. It has fulfilled the promise announced by President Franklin Roosevelt - providing vital income to millions of seniors, and assuring generations of working people that their retirement years would have some decent measure of security. For today's generation of senior citizens, the system is strong and fiscally sound. But younger workers are understandably concerned about whether Social Security will be around for them when they need it. The problem is simple to state: With an aging population, and a steadily falling ratio of workers to retirees, the system is on a course to eventual bankruptcy."
--
Vice President Cheney, Catholic University, Jan. 13, 2005
The game that the Vice President is inviting us to play is hidden in the word "bankruptcy" and in the unfeeling terms that he uses to discuss this program that has stood by Americans since the the Great Depression. The Vice President wants the debate on Social Security to be a fought in the accounting department using the language of deposits and withdrawals and the imagery of cold, steel deposit boxes half-filled with $10 bills.
But wait a minute. Does America believe that Social Security is about financial accounting? Is the language of empty deposit boxes the "reality" of Social Security? Should anyone believe what Vice President Cheney tells us about what FDR did or said?
Absolutely not. Bush's and Cheney's words are just the latest part of a million dollar PR scheme purchased by the Bush White house from Frank Luntz to con the American people into hurting Social Security.
Reality sounds more like this: Americans believe that this country is strongest when we all stand together, and weakest when we are forced to stand alone. With Social Security by our side and watching out for us, Americans feel confident about the future.
Our Vision
As FDR stated so clearly in 1935, Social Security is not about the accumulation of money, but about the vision we hold as Americans that our unity is the key to our strength. In difficult times--like the Great Depression or September 11--certain voices rise up that try to convince us that America is a nation that values selfishness and greed over collective well-being. Certain people benefit when Americans believe in selfishness and greed over the general good--in particular, the people who make a lot of money when small investors head to retail stock brokers firms with their paychecks. That is why the Bush White House is determined to bleed Social Security, ultimately leaving Americans alone to fend for themselves in retirement and times of need.
But Americans have always been able to distinguish those words from our true commitment to standing together.
Presiden't Bush's and Vice President Cheney's use of the term "bankruptcy" in their PR appearances is a sucker punch intended to knock the wind out of the American public's loyalty to Social Security. That is not the fight we should have.
The Social Security debate is about strength through unity as a key American ideal. And we establish the rules of that debate not by using the banking terms repeated by the Bush White House and their million dollar spin machine. We can control this debate and protect Social security by remembering FDR's language about the strength of America being rooted in our belief in the general well-being, and by ignoring those who promote selfishness and greed.
If we want to talk about money, great. But we must try to set the frame so that it defines what the issue is in Social Security in terms true to American values. Something like this:
The real issue here is that Bush wants to weaken America. He wants to bleed the Federal government until it's too weak to extend its arms around Americans in need. If Bush is allowed to starve Social Security, it will leave retirees and people in need aout in the cold to fend for themselves. What's worse, Bush is even stealing from the trust fund that Americans set up to make sure Social Security has a long and healthy life.
And so on. It's still about money! But all the language of bank accounts, and crisis are gone. Even more: When all the financial accounting terms vanish, this clears the way for us to use the metaphor of
moral accounting, which is much, much stronger. After all, Americans who work hard and are there for each other deserve better than a President who promotes a culture of selfishness and greed. Americans deserve a president who believes in the strength of American unity.
And once the frame is set about Social Security being about Americans standing together, then we can start to generate those phrases that push the frame.
And that's your job, so get to work...