Ask Rockridge: "Rescue the Troops"?
As part of our new "Ask Rockridge" initiative, where we've asked you, our participants, to contribute questions for Rockridge staff to consider, we are responding to a suggested framing for the Iraq occupation. Let's look at what one Rockridge Nation member has suggested and our take on it.
Like many activists, I've run into the "support the troops" frame since before Gulf War I. The first time I came up against it as a mantra was in college when I was protesting the Panama invasion. Well, the other day I was thinking about the Jessica Lynch story and why it formed such a compelling narrative (at least until it turned out fraudulent). I was wondering if there was a way for progressives to reframe the "Support the Troops" frame by drawing on that same powerful narrative which resonated with core values of the American people - loyalty, brotherhood, caretaking, and daring.
The Dem majority is currently encountering framing problems with regard to the Bush "cutting off funding" frame and "playing chicken with the troops" (no thanks to Obama and the AP). One possible reframing of this would be for Dem legislators to adopt a "rescue the troops" frame, drawing on the same cathexis of energy which flared up during the Jessica Lynch hoopla.
Is there anything to this? What do people think about this as a successful way of framing the Iraq pullout?
Rockridge Nation member extrapol
President Bush has used the “support the troops” frame as code that really means “support my policy.” In this way, he has managed to turn any criticism of the policy and especially threats not to fund the occupation indefinitely into a lack of support for the troops.
By this framing, if we say we support the troops, then we support the president and neo-conservative policy. If we say we don’t support the troops, then we don’t support protecting the vulnerable and weak (soldiers) who are in harm’s way. Either way we lose. This happens because the word “troops” evokes the idea of individual soldiers, understood through the Nation as Family metaphor as “America’s children.” They are vulnerable and need our protection, which evokes empathy for our “children.” Focusing attention on individual soldiers deflects attention from where it should be – on the policy and those who made it.
“Rescue the troops” perpetuates this idea by activating the troops frame. It suggests that the troops are weak and need rescuing and it falls into the conservatives’ framing. If we replace the word troops with “military” or “army,” it doesn’t work and becomes absurd. “Rescue our Army” is a nonsense statement because the army is supposed to be protecting us. This is also true for “Support our Army” or “Support our Military.”
Ironically, congressional opponents of President Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans understood the distinction between troops and policy. The attitude can be summed up very neatly in a statement made by Tom DeLay back in 1999. "You can support the troops but not the President." This reinforces the idea that the moral authority behind conservative policies is what should not be questioned.
What’s not being said is that the soldiers are vulnerable because they were put there by Bush’s policy and were not given sufficient equipment (body armor, military vehicles, etc.) to protect themselves. It is a shield. The administration says Congress doesn’t want to support the troops when they pass a supplemental spending bill with time limits and conditions. The administration looks like it has empathy on their side, that the troops are innocent victims (of Congress). This is a deep frame that defines the problem in terms of Congressional meddling. What is in fact occurring is that the administration is betraying the very same troops it accuses Congress of not supporting.
Emphasis on the well being of our troops also conceals another fundamental fact – that the “decider” is not the President. Decisions on whether to declare war, the funding of that war, and certain other policy options are within the constitutional powers of Congress. During most of the Iraq invasion/occupation, the Congress did not exercise any of these responsibilities. Congress gave the administration a blank check, abdicating their responsibility to be the overseers of the executive branch. The current Congress is now starting to exercise its role in maintaining the checks and balances the Founders wisely included in the Constitution. Frames put forth by the administration, such as “strings attached” and “they are not supporting the troops” conceal this essential truth.
This entire issue must be reframed to reveal it as a policy problem. It also needs to be seen for what it is, a betrayal by the Bush administration of the troops and the American people. A deep frame for this aspect of the issue must be in place before a surface counter-frame, or slogan, can be utilized. What we must do is refocus the argument on the failed conservative policy, its destructive foundational neo-conservative philosophy and the betrayal by this neo-conservative administration of America and our Constitution. When the deep frame is in place, a surface frame can then be utilized that might look something like this: “Support America, End the Occupation.”
Another deep frame is missing that needs to be established. We need to reinforce the idea that it is the right and responsibility of Congress to redress harmful presidential policy. This is a duty mandated by the Constitution as part of the checks and balances.
The Bush administration keeps accusing Congress of “meddling,” when the truth is that Congress is exercising its responsibility to preserve the separation of powers. The current framing of the debate conceals this truth. Until this deep frame is in place, a counter surface frame will not be effective.
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"rescue our troops"
I think this is a very plausible avenue to pursue since it appears that the spins used by the current Administration has a "catch phrase" and they tend to run with it till it is "beaten like a dead horse" (sorry could not help myself).
Troops as Children
Very astute, the "Troops as America's children". I have some difficulty though in reframing the war simply as a policy problem because "Support America; end the Occupation" is an abstract construction. Its hard to characterize "America" and "the Occupation" as protagonists in a larger narrative.
I was also thinking of another approach. As a way to highlight the irresponsibility of the administration and their petulant destruction of our military, one could apply a sorcerers apprentice narrative. Just as in "Fantasia", the Disney film, our present administration is like a Mickey Mouse character who is sowing chaos and squandering our troops like chessmen. At first, their actions make them feel superficially more powerful, but the end result is disaster, a mess which shames them before the wise parent magician.
This frame recasts the administration as the prodigal "children" and Congress, by implication, as the "adults" in the struggle for control over policy.
This dovetails with assessments of neoconservatives in general, pre-W. Didn't the old conservative hands like Baker, etc, often refer to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc, as the "Crazies"? In fact, what they were is naive--hostage to their own simiplistic manichean ideology and longing to get their hands on the power once the adults weren't paying attention.
Perhaps now its time for the magician to return, and the adults to take over, since the "Decider" has gotten us in over his head.
Support the troops...
Bring them home!
By the way
As important as it is to understand framing and how it works, the "answer" given to the question of "rescue the troops" is too rigid in its own use of frames. Granted, Prof. Lakoff has hit upon something of substance. However, unless that substance unsticks itself from being shoe horned into its own ideology, it will ultimately fail to connect with what is deepest in the human heart.
You folks at Rockridge really need to spend some time reading Mencius and the Confucian Analects. You want frames? THEY got frames. If you think you invented the view of nation as family, you're about 2500 years too late. And given the longevity of the Chinese civilization, Westerners would do well to look East.
Oh, and for some cross-cultural cognitive studies, check out Richard Nisbett, PhD. at Univ. of Michigan in addition to Edward T. Hall's books on cultural anthropology.
I'm offering these in order that Rockridge be more useful than just another "liberal" ideology that ends up doing more harm than good because it fails to think holistically.
Heroes as victims, victims as heroes
Hi All,
The problem with "Rescue our Troops" is that it plays directly into the deeper frame of melding "victims" and "heroes." The students that were shot at Virginia Tech are now being portrayed as "heroes" (including flag-draped coffins), while the troops in Iraq are almost universally portrayed as "victims," and especially by progressives.
Most of the students at Virginia Tech were not "heroes." Most of them didn't PUT themselves in harm's way. They simply FOUND themselves in harm's way; they went to class and someone showed up with a gun and started shooting.
Conversely, our troops aren't "victims." They didn't FIND themselves in harm's way. They PUT themselves in harm's way; they volunteered to serve in the military, and knew or should have known that serving in the military might mean real combat.
When someone PUTS him/herself in harm's way to protect someone else, that can be heroic. But is it inherently so? Is EVERY soldier, sailor, airman, and marine in Iraq a "hero?" If someone is an adrenaline addict looking for "adventure," as many young people are, with worldviews molded by combat-based video games and an endless torrent of pro-war propaganda disguised as "documentaries" or "movies" ... and that person volunteers for the military secretly hoping to live that "adventure" in real life, complete with shooting people and being shot at ...
... is that person a "hero," or just someone who wants to join our "official youth gang," hoping to someday have the kinds of "heroic" stories to tell that he/she sees on The Military Channel or The Military History Channel?
From a moral perspective, does it matter whether the person volunteers to serve during a time of national crisis (say, an attack on the U.S.), or after the U.S. has invaded another country in violation of international law and just war doctrine? If that person volunteers to risk his life in a cause that he knows (or should know) is illegal and immoral, is he a "hero" or a "henchman?"
If he believes he has a duty to fight for his country, regardless of whether the fight is legal or moral, is he "idealistic," "misguided," or "brainwashed?" If he's looking for a chance to dice with death under his country's flag, is he a "patriot" or a "sociopath?"
At the most basic level, do we want the United States of America to be a new Athens, or a new Sparta? Our founders seem to have been focused on the former. Our society has become focused on the latter. The difference, at a moral level, ought to shape our appreciation of and consideration for "the troops."
Crissie
Troops as victims
crissie, you make some thought-provoking statements and raise some fascinating questions. They tend to blow apart all the customary frames.
I suppose many will get angry, but as you point out, there are so many frames inherent in how we look at our troops, and in individual cases at least, these frames could be entirely wrong.
Rescuing the troops and supporting the troops are two overused and very bad frames from which to regard the current situation. Our troops are human beings, yes, but they are tools of our foreign policy. They have always been such, and as such they are never victims, although sometimes heroes. You can't cast them as victims, particularly when we do not have a draft.
This is a debate that needs to be framed in terms of "correcting our foreign policy" so that we don't waste our military tool.
I disagree with you on one point, however. Maybe we do need to talk in terms of saving our Army before we have no national DEFENSE left.
Sue
I agree, Arianna
Hi Arianna,
I'm not saying all of our troops are thrill-seekers. And to the extent that some might have joined up looking for the "adventure" of war, our society has trained them almost from birth to do so.
I'm saying the problem isn't limited to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice.
There were Representatives and Senators who could have stood up - in public - and said "Mr. President, only WE have authority to declare war, and we demand to know and to debate publicly your reasons for doing so, and the evidence upon which you are relying."
They didn't.
There were generals who could have stood up - in public - and said "Mr. President, this war would be illegal, immoral, and almost certainly doomed to failure." They knew or should have known those things.
They didn't.
There were ministers and rabbis and priests who could have stood up - in public - and proclaimed as with Pope John Paul II that "This war was illegal, immoral, and almost certainly doomed to failure," and that anyone who supported it would share the moral responsibility for what happened.
They didn't.
There were reporters who could have stood up - in public - and demanded the so-called "evidence" the White House was using to trump up the war, who could have said "Mr. President, we will not accept national security as an excuse; you're asking us to send our children to die, and we demand to know what information you have and where that information came from."
They didn't.
There were parents who could have stood up - in public, and in our homes - and told our children that war is not glorious, that it is ALWAYS evil, even when it may be a necessary evil, and that the breast-beating interviews of veterans on television are propaganda intended to convince a new generation to shed their blood for others' gain.
We didn't.
It's easy to blame the President, but we all failed those troops. Maybe we can't rescue that failure this time, but perhaps at least we could avoid making the same mistakes next time. Maybe, maybe, we can learn.
But not if we keep blaming Someone Else.
Crissie
Demonstrating against the war
Hi Crissi,
Does demonstrating against the war (with millions of people on the whole planet) count as showing opposition?
We walked in the streets of San Francisco to put our bodies in the machinery to halt the developments towards war, but this administration didn't listen. They didn't want to hear what the people of our own country had to say or, for that matter what people in other countries were telling them loud and clear.
Janna
Troops as tragic heroes
Good comment. Our narrative impulse to construct drama from incohate events means that we always are biased towards heroes at the expense of victims or bit-players, even when those heroes are "anti-heroes". Your mention of the VT massacre is apt--and explains the fascination with the murderer Cho. Cho hypnotizes the viewing public because his agency as protagonist trumps his moral valence. We are compelled to speculate on his dark motivations, is he insane or just evil, was his act premeditated, etc. because, as the hero, he compelled the action.
To reframe the troops I think we have to first accept them as "heroes" in the way you describe--individuals who have PUT themselves in harm's way rather than just FINDING themselves there. But I would add "tragic" to that hero designation--since they are still puppets of fate. Fate, in this case, are the decisionmakers that exploit their courage.
Like any hero at the mercy of forces beyond their control, our hero-troops have found themselves to be actors on a stage, controlled by the hands of unseen playwrights: the neocons, who have, like irresponsible, mischevious Gods, misused their instincts towards Good and exploited the troops sense of duty to the country.
The Media's fault
I've been reading many of the interesting comments posted, and noticed that there is something missing: focussing our attention on the media.
Many of us seem to be focussing on the Pressident, or Congress, when we ought to have our attention on media dis-information. After all, this is why Rockridge exists.
Our leaders would not be able to do what they did if it wasn't for media cover up, or lack of investigative journalism.
It's really the media that victimizes the citizens; most importantly journalists, and other talking heads who don't use their critical faculties. How are the people in America suppose to make informed judgements when the mainstream media ill-informs them, and helps hide, and cover up what our leaders are doing? It's really the media that gets us into wars and messed up policies. But where is the moral accountabiliy, and outrage over journalist, news reporters, and columists.
My concern is that we need to frame the American people and troops as good and decent citizens who want to do the right thing. How can the folks in our country, and those in the millitary be held morally accountable when they are being lied to?
Also, we need to frame the war not from the perspective of government polcies, But corporate polcies. We need to talk about policies from an understanding of corporate ideology, and its stranglehold on government, and media.
Perhaps we can learn to emphasize the "freedome of the press" part of our constitution and bring this issue into dialog from an understanding of being money domminated, and to refer to our country as a plutocracy, and not a democracy.
People are basically good and decent, just lied to, or indoctrinated.
Can we frame part of our discussion on policies to include looking at issues through a corporate lens?
It's not our country's occupation, it's the corporations occupation, or oil company's occupation and policy. Perhaps the best way to influence policy through government is to promote boycotts of certain fuel stations, or haliburton products. Expose them.
"Protect Our Troops"
Would the frame of "Protect Our Troops" be more appropriate for what is going on here?
Protect our troops from inadequate training.
Protect our troops from being deployed too long.
Protect our troops from being stretched too thin.
Protect our troops from an Iraqi civil war.
Protect our troops from shifting and vague goals.
.....the list goes on.
As a nation, we are sending our troops into harm's way. Who wouldn't want to protect them?
This Discussion is Reinforcing the Troop Frame
While this is a very stimulating discussion, I can't help but notice that the dominant theme throughout nearly all of the posts is commentary about troops.
In the article that has prompted this discussion we point out that any language that evokes troops will frame the debate as being about "war", "protecting metaphorical children", and other related ideas. What about the duty of Congress to respond to bad presidential policy? Why aren't we talking about that?
This discussion shows how powerful deep frames can be. The situation in Iraq (and more broadly the problems associated with terrorism) has been framed as a military problem that requires military solutions. I comment on this in my discussion of deep frames here:
http://www.rockridgenation.org/blog/archive/2007/03/26/thinking-points-discussion-of-chapter-3-part-1-frames
Public discourse has been successfully framed in conservative language so deeply that a group of progressives familiar with framing still fall into this trap. We need to be proactive and express our values.
One of our most important progressive values is social responsibility. Another is empathy. In order to empathize with military personnel stationed in the disastrous occupation of Iraq during a civil war, we need to recognize why they are there in the first place. They are there because of bad policy decisions that have only become more destructive through the continued application of strict father values by the Bush Administration and a complicit right-wing Congress.
Well now we have a Congress that expresses social responsibility. We need to empower this Congress (not the one that held power last year) to recognize their responsibility to reign in bad policy before it does any more damage to our country and its citizens.
If enough of us express this idea, it will become "common sense" as a deep frame. That was the main point of the article and I hope we can explore the importance of shifting the public debate away from War Frames and toward healthy forms of government.
Joe
thanks to Joe for the (re)focus
- Wow! I just read the post and the comments all the way to Joe's powerful reminder at the end that we are losing sight of the real challenge before us: REframing the debate entirely. It would be so incredible if the public could be engaged in a debate about conservative vs. progressive policies/theories of government, and if that debate informed their vote in 2008 (not that there seems to be a suitable candidate for progressives, but one can hope). (On a heartening note, I received an email about an upcoming forum with Rick Perlstein and William Kristol discussing this very topic
- the failure of conservative policy/ideology -- I can't locate it right now but in trying to find the organization I came across this fascinating post from 2005 that seems apropos today! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-perlstein/i-didnt-like-nixon-_b_11735.html)
I always try to remind fellow citizens about Katrina; it seems to be one of those common ground events where partisanship magically evaporates. People remember those images on TV, and they remember their shock and the bewildering question that loomed so large: How can this be happening in the United States? Where is the government?
Once people revisit that time in their minds, they can begin to see the outlines of a choice between (neo)conservative ideas about government and progressive ideals, how those choices mean more to their daily lives than they realize (that it's not just some academic debate for fancy poli sci classes, it's a real-life situation with real-life consequences) and how they can be empowered to make informed choices.
I have said it before and I will say it again: Katrina is the key. I firmly believe that. It has been the best springboard/entry point for discussion that I have found so far to get people thinking about these concepts that most find off-putting, pointless, intellectual drivel that has less than nothing to do with their daily concerns of making a living, filling the tank, feeding the family and paying that mortgage.
Hooray for Rockridge in moving this forward!
In Australia: rolled gold policy failure
Hi,
Just to note that the Leader of the Opposition (a progressive party) has consistently criticised the Government policy of involvement in the Iraq occupation as a "rolled gold policy failure."
The great thing is that he has been up front and emphatic about it. In parliament you could see the Government benches hold their breath when he made the accusation.
Kind regards,
Daniel
Rolled Gold?
What does that refer to? Can you parse that for us clueless Yanks? :)
Rolled gold explained
Hi extrapol,
Thanks for your question.
I'll have a stab at the metaphor: artifacts made with rolled gold are "classic" "priceless" and "first class". It appears to be an ironic mapping to the domain of "policy failure", meaning that this policy failure (troops in Iraq) is an especially dismal one. Another way to put it would be to say that, "in a contest of policy failures, this one takes first prize."
The main point though is that Kevin Rudd, Opposition Leader, framed the debate as "policy failure" as opposed to "saving the troops".
Kind regards,
Daniel
War or Police Problem
Joe--I re-read your Part 3: http://www.rockridgenation.org/blog/archive/2007/03/26/thinking-points-discussion-of-chapter-3-part-1-frames
and see what you mean about the deep "war" frame and how its adoption carries with it a whole slew of baggage.
I think this is why the Right has been so lackidasical about catching Bin Laden--because he doesn't fit the war frame--he's just a criminal mastermind without a country, so "catching" him plays into the international police frame.
How can we re-activate the police/crime frame at this point? A good question.
The irony here is of course we're not really at war in Iraq at all, we're occupying it, trying in vain to police a civil war, after getting the wrong guy in the first place!
I agree that we have to get away from this "war" nonsense. It really does just play into the hands of the Right.
Putting the focus back on Bin Laden and "bringing him to justice"--that's a good way to reify the police frame, IMO. Kerry tried it in 2004 but rather half-heartedly, in my opinion, he was playing too much into the war frame I think so it diluted the message.
Dubya as the prodigal son
Joe,
I think the "rescue the troops" theme would be a disaster. Can you imagine what conservatives would do with that? They'd have the country in stitches with images of sissy progressives who are so oblivious to the evil terrorists that they think they can just walk in and rescue the heavily-armed troops.
I think that we should first play "name that frame". I think it's neccessary to first say just what Joe did, that "when the president says support the troops he means support my policies." I wonder if it would resonate with the average American the way it did with me when I read it because of its succinctness. That statement is even short enough to be a soundbite, the ultimate test. As long as Bush is able to use the "support the troops" frame unquestioned it's going to have an effect, so it first has to be neutralized by being exposed. A critic of the administration could then list the ways the administration has not supported the troops, all of which have been listed here.
Perhaps progressives could use the strict father model against the administration by portraying W as the prodigal son who rebels against his father, ignores his father's advice (as has been reported by Woodward), and embarks on a reckless course of action to show up his father that ends in tragedy. Seriously, the longer this war continues the wiser his father looks in retrospect and the more foolish Dubya seems. Bush the Elder was an imperialist, but at least he knew what he was doing. Now the foolish son has to be reigned in by his elders (Iraq Study Group?). That is a narrative as old as the Bible.
That could be developed further to say that we've done our job, we got rid of Saddam, and now the Iraqis have to grow up and take care of themselves. We can still offer $ support, but it's time for the kids ("our" Iraqis) to get out of the house and become self-sufficient.
Another "common sense" way to frame the issue is to note that when you realize you've made a mistake, you don't continue doing what you were doing. You don't think "since I've already worked 2 days on this mistake I'll work on it another 2 days so I won't have wasted my time." A rational person would 1) stop 2) undo any bad effects of the mistake and 3) embark on a new course of action.
To summarize: Neutralize the "support the troops" frame by revealing what it really means, and portray W as the reckless rebel who needs to be reigned in, say that the onus is now on his Iraqi clients to take care of themselves, and remind people that they know what you're supposed to do when you make a mistake, even if Dubya doesn't.
Good points
I like the "Prodigal W" narrative very much, since it fits with what W has done to most of our capital, literal and figurative, over the past 6 years. It also catches the many fiscal conservatives and independents who see corporate welfare and Iraq expenditures as wasteful.
Unmasking the Orwellian way W has "exploited the troops" by simply calling it out is a good tack as well.
"When the president says support the troops he's really saying support my policies".
I'll use that one. It works because its true.
"Rescue the troops"
No offense or pun intended but the rescuing the troops frame is as disasterous as the attempt to rescue the Iranian Hostages in 1980.
My cousin was killed in Iraq in Oct. 2004. I was sick the night he left home for the middle east but he didn't need rescuing. He was a tough, well-trained young man who served out of sense of duty, and the possible opportunies his service would create for his own young son. He was acting like a father (a responsible adult) not a child who needed to be rescued.
The "Rescue" frame implies helplessness. Our soldiers may or may not be in a "hopeless" situation but they are not helpless. You don't rescue Chuck Norris or "Rambo". As much as those film are fantasy, they represent the "rescue" frame.
I think any reframing of the war must focus elsewhere - Occupation, W's misguidedness, betrayal, wishful thinking, etc. - something other than rescue.
Thanks to everyone for thinking about, and working on, these issues.
What's the deep frame?
"Until this deep frame is in place, a counter surface frame will not be effective."
Just for clarafication: In this exercise are we seeking the deep frame, because it currently is misplaced? Are we constructing the deep frame because it is in pieces? Are we inventing the deep frame because it doesn't exist?
Am I the only one here a little befuddled about how to get my arms around the "deep frame?"
If we start with values, especially core values, and we focus on policy, would we be focusing on a deep frame that has to do with empathy, responsibility and strength?
Dear Rockridge, some more clues would be helpful to identify the deep frame.
From Ohio
Very Important Question
Hi cwatts,
I am still learning how to explain the subtleties of framing, and the Thinking Points discussion is giving new insights all the time. Here is an attempt. Please help me clarify if you still don't understand. I want to get better at explaining these things.
The appropriate deep frame is not "misplaced" or "in pieces." It does exist (in theory - as opposed to in the brains of most Americans) but is not readily expressed. When we say that the appropriate deep frame "needs to be in place" we are saying one of two things:
1. There is no deep frame in existence and one needs to be constructed
or
2. There is a deep frame but it has not been activated enough to dominate other competing deep frames that are being used in discourse
To understand why these are the interpretations (and not others like frames being misplaced) it is necessary to think about how our brains process information. A metaphor that helps me when I think about deep frames is this:
A piece of knowledge is a pattern in the brain
This metaphor is literally true. Any knowledge, understanding, idea, or meaning that makes sense in your mind will be expressed in your brain as the activation of neural circuits that reconstruct knowledge when the appropriate neurons are firing.
A deep frame can be understood with this metaphor as a pattern in the brain that:
(A) provides logical rules for evaluating the goodness and badness of information.
(B) Determines what kind of situation you are dealing with
Surface frames have rules for the knowledge of words (like the rule for the concept of "cup" that says the cup must have liquid in it in order to drink from it). Deep frames have similar kinds of rules that are about evaluation.
An example is the deep frame for war. When a situation is defined as a military problem, the right things to do involved organizing an army, having effective generals, and being sure the morale of troops is high. These are "good" things to do in this frame. A bad thing to do would be to have soldiers put their weapons away and go off to gather information during a battle. But if the deep frame were about police activities this would be a "good" thing to do.
Deep frames also provide information about what kind of situation you are dealing with. Surface frames can have goodness and badness too, like the understanding that a cup that is full of liquid is better than an empty cup when the deep frame is a situation dealing with thirst. When the deep frame is a situation dealing with the need to store marbles, a cup full of liquid is not useful, and it is bad that the cup is full. (You might pour the liquid out so that you have a place to store your marbles.)
In politics, there are deep frames that have been reinforced many times by repeating them over and over. Our brains become habituated to responding to information by organizing it around these deep frames. In order to replace these deep frames with others, it is necessary to retrain our brains so that they are habituated to responding with a different pattern of neurons that represent an alternative scenario. This process takes time, and sometimes is a matter of constructing completely new scenarios (still based on aspects of past experience, but organized in a manner that has never been activated before).
Clear as mud? (If so, please ask for clarification)
Joe
The Deep Frame of "Suppor the Troops" is War
The assumption of a Righty slogan like "Support the Troops" is that we are in a state of war in Iraq, with all the components of a war against a specific enemy.
I think, in fact, that this "War" deep frame is the big lie in this instance--there's nothing about Iraq's current reality that fits a condition of "War"--we have troops on the ground, but they are hardly "at war" in any sense--instead they're occupiers and interlopers in a civil war: sitting ducks for multiple enemies rather than an army fighting to take territory and impose our will on a foreign country by force.
The "War" in Iraq ended when we defeated Saddam's army and took control of the country--everything since then has been an occupation.
Only when we understand that the "War" frame is a fiction, can we realize that the whole Manichean logic of winning/losing disintegrates.
Here's an excellent blog entry that explains the difference:
http://webmerica.org/2007/01/11/iraq-are-we-winning-war-v-occupation/
Followup
In fact, if I was a Democrat running for office today, I would constantly refer to our forces as "policing the country" of Iraq, which is actually what's happening. Policing, nation-building, occupation--these words are all more accurate than "War". If people object and start grandstanding against me, saying "We're at WAR!"--reply with the obvious: "We won the war ALREADY." Since 2003, we have been occupying the country against the will of the people, referencing recent Iraq parlimentary majorities that want us to leave.
I'm reminded of something that happened to me on 9/11. Shortly after the planes hit, I wanted to get into Manhattan to help, and since the subways were closed, I tried to walk in. But I was stopped at the Brooklyn Bridge on foot by a policeman, who turned me back, saying "We're at war now. Go home." That one blunt assessment, an hour after the event, has stuck with me as a patent misunderstanding of what was happening.
New! Not all the same
Crissie,
As I'm sure you're aware, many of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq did not volunteer for that assignment. Many are National Guards who never dreamed when they signed up that they'd be seeing combat. In addition, those who did volunteer for the military did not volunteer to serve with insufficient gear, protection, etc (because this administration hasn't sufficiently funded that as it's clearly not a priority). They also did not volunteer to serve consecutive deployments with little (and insufficient) time in between, or to be told their deployments will be extended way past the (supposed) legal termination dates.
The soldiers have been betrayed. Sure there may be some who are the thrill-seekers you mention and went into the military with eyes wide open, but also keep in mind that the vast majority of those who enlist have few other viable options, as they come from low-income families and have little education. As such, they are serving as fodder - risking their lives for some later perceived benefits (education, etc).
In addition, among those who are returning home, many have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and are not getting the attention and care they need from the VA. Another example of the administration's betrayal.
Arianna