Propaganecdote

I hear what you are saying, maybe framing is not accurate, it does speak to the underlying tone and background story - which is the hardest thing to get about a frame. I do think it is helpful to be able to rattle off some of the bad frames that our society has bought into (welfare queens). I guess I didn't really realize the rest were specifically aimed at one person. There is something to that as well, the right has been quite successful at character assasinations. I guess that is why our candidates seem to have a plastic coating.

What can we do about that (the character assasinations)? It seems to hinge on the fact that if someone points and laughs, we laugh first then think about it privately later. And then if someone is still making fun, we assume that the object is not serious.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Mahatma Gandhi

I always come back to the need for the public to be educated.

current propaganecdotes:
illegal immigrants come and gouge our social program riches
unions are made of lazy, greedy, not specially skilled construction sign holders
I can't afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart
Public schools suck
regulating business is bad for the economy
free trade has something to do with personal liberty
Major problems of today like torture, global warming, sweatshop labor, hunger cannot be solved so why bother (a recent theme in advertising)
 

First, in passing, I'll assert that "public schools suck" has more than a little truth to it

but means they should be fixed (and teach thinking and facts, not propaganda), not abandoned; private schools also suck is often true -- often to a far greater degree. Education in general sucks in the USA, except perhaps at the highest (and most expensive) levels -- the places most Americans can't afford.

As for "I can't afford to shop anywhere but Walmart", that's also often true of many people. It's part of being poor.

As to word, however -- propaganecdote -- I've tried, and no, I can't pronounce it without great concentration. Certainly not three times fast: try it. I suggest either "crap story", or to be more refined "tabloid story". If someone tells you one tell them you heard Elvis was spotted in a Phoenix racquet ball court last week. Or tell them the story was just made up and that there has never been a small farmer put out of business becasue of the estate tax, that there are no substantiated incidents of veterans being spit on by demonstrators, or whatever truth needs to be understood.

Then tell them you heard about an old retired newpaper guy who instead of just retiring on his pension spends his days making these things up and earns $700,000 a year doing it. Make up you own stories that "you heard somewhere", and challenge the listener to disprove it. Reduce all such assertions to "a story I heard".

You can try to refute these things with facts, but I've found that they can make up stories ten times faster than you can find the facts to refute them. One guy was going about telling how a man was at a Bill Clinton news conference and asked a question not pre-approved (this is laughable in light of what Bush has since done), and he was arrested by the Secret Service and tols he would be charged with physically assaulting the president, and the only way he escaped conviction was by running for Congress. I spent a several hours researching and found the source: it was Chicago Congressman who was ejected from the conference whan he snuck in with a false press pass and disrupted the meeting -- and that true account of it was in a transcript on Oliver North's radio program. The guy telling this lie never retracted or apologized, and is still a right-winger.

You can also tell real stories which augment the liberal POV, however. That's like reframing, in story form, and there are plenty of real accounts such as people who were on welfare for a while and made good, and other such stories. They don't invoke the false story/frame but do reframe and get the message out.

The story I just related about the false press pass is true -- I could probably even find the links I supplied in my archives if I needed to. The first thing to do if you want to refute, however, is google on a name or a unique line of text, checking for sites like Snopes, which often debunk such crap stories -- especially handy when you get one of those spam emails, especially on a list or message board where other people read them too, and may be "poisoned" by them.

(Speaking of poison, see
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&;p=30205&s2=31 ; http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2201103.ece and the other accounts on Uruknet concerning the propaganda about the Najaf massacre)

I do NOT accept that examples I gave public schools suck and 'I can't afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart' are true.

The reason why is close to what you first said - they may have a grain of truth in them, but the whole story is sold as a fact.

I have not shopped at Wal-Mart for years, but I have 3 accounts at local consignment. Just as cheap and better made clothes - not to mention that it is recycling. What I have realized is that more than half of what you walk out of the store with in your cart .... IS TOTAL UNNECCESSARY CRAP. And yes, that goes for poor people too (my hometown only has one store for sundries - Wal-Mart. I know LOTS of people that go there several times a week. My grandma goes there for excercise... and plastic crap she doesn't need!).

For the Wal-Mart argument, I would cite our consumption heavy society for those thinking that they can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart. Also, I have heard of stories that Wal-Mart IS NOT cheaper - they only have more dramatic loss leaders.

Public schools don't suck, funding for public schools sucks. Public schools are ailing due to neglect.

Do ailing and neglected people suck?

I guess I have to be specific, and personal, with this. I'm disabled and can't work, and living on SSI. You can look it up

that's now up to $623 a month. What I buy at Walmart are mostly patent medicines (needed but not covered by Medicaid, cat supplies, some food -- although I generally shop at Aldi which is even cheaper -- and a few other things which ARE cheaper than at other stores. (BTW, last year or so the government took many drugs off the "prescription list", meaning that Medicaid no longer pays for them.) Clothes? The only clothes I bought in the last 5 years which were not used was a sweatshirt (most of which was paid for by exchanging some holiday gifts), sneakers, and some socks at the Dollar Store (seconds and discontinued). Walmart is not always cheaper, but often it is, sometimes dramatically. That can be different in other, less rural areas, but other discount stores are similar to Walmart, even with less noteriety.

In fact, some of the "high priced" stores are no better, and the extra money goes to the store owners or chains, not to the workers, and the merchandise comes from the same sources. Those $120 Nikes cost about $10 to make.

Yes, of course people buy crap they don't need there -- I see them all the time. But even so, Walmart is generally cheaper and often the only alternative to stores who charge a premium in this area. Yes, their prices are on the backs of other poor, and I don't like it one bit, but there isn't much I can do about it. The only way I have survived is having a relative who is generous enough to give me some needed things. No, I don't buy unneccesary crap -- I just don't have the money. Frankly, I don't miss that stuff anyway; I've always had very little money and have learned to make do in a variety of ways. This is still an incredibly rich country: even being well below the US poverty guidelines I am still in the top 13% in income in the world, and many of the worlds poor would be extatic to have access to the garbage we generate. I've known othe people with as little money as me, or even as much (especially people with kids): and there are more of "us" all the time. Most don't make out as well as I do just because they don't know how. "Poor" is a different world -- actually several because it includes levels above abject poverty -- malnutrition as opposed to starvation, for instance.
No, I'll stick with my statement that it's often true for many people.

As for schools, I always had complaints. Not all schools -- but the ones I know about, for the most part, are not good. In fact, I dropped out of high school 45 years ago because I couldn't stand the fascist (imperial) propaganda and hogwash -- that was when I lived in a New Jersy suburb of NY city. The problem wasn't funding; it was the system. Public school is an organ of the government and cultural hegemony, and long has been. That goes back to the industrial revolution where the purpose was to train factory workers well enough, and only well enough, to perform those jobs. Good teachers bucked the system, and some got away with it, but they had to buck the system to do it. Even back then there were tiers in education, and when I was going there were two tracks for kids from early on: ollege bound and industrial worker -- but even the college bound were destined for middle management. Real education was obtainable only at private schools or a few of the public schools in rich neighborhoods. Sure some kids broke out of the system -- some people alwasy do, but that was not because of the schools but in spite of them. What we have now, this fascistic empire, has been building for as long as I've been alive -- it was just less blatent and harder to see early on. Dropping out meant I took a financial; hit, of course, but in retrospect I'm sorry I couldn't have done it earlier: I've had to spend decades unlearning garbage I was poisoned with when young, and I still haven't cleared myself of it all.

Funding is important, of course, but more important is that schools need a major change in culture. I could go on for pages about this, and much of would bring back rather unpleasant memeories and evoke some stong emotional reactions, but I will avoid that. Suffice it to say that in terms of framing, it is the school system where much of the framing of imperialism and authoritarianism is first established. Americans are rather arrogant even while ignorant about the rest of the world, and have a hard time breaking out of their mental boxes and authoritarian mindset -- and if you look at the school system, you'll find much of the source of that problem right there.

You got me on medicine because I don't have a clue and have been able to get by without scripts for the most part. However, I still don't buy into the story that Wal-Mart is generally the cheapest. Wal-Mart does monopolize many towns. I can see it would be difficult, but no, it would only be in true desparation. I have stayed in those isolated areas with only a WalMart, and you can drive an hour or two and stock up elsewhere. There's usually at least another grocer in town, and a big one a town or two away. I'm from a town of 6000.

WalMart is the biggest corporation in the world and they have bad practices that hurt people. It is feeding the biggest beast tormenting us.

I'm sorry your experience with public school sucked. Mine didn't. Sure I had sucky times; I also spent 16 years of my life in and around public schools, so some sucky things will happen. I had some really great teachers and learned some great basics. I'm sure you could find a million people to agree with you as I could with me. That's why supporting an absolute frame against a public institution ("public schools suck") is against my progressive grain. I can empathize with your unique experience of suckiness (i.e. had a bad teacher, got bullied, academically weak) and agree we should seek improvement on it, I simultaneously ask you to be kindly aware of the frames you are telling yourself (and others). In all seriousness, take a look at your paragraph #4. I would not guess a progressive wrote it. You may think it means that I disagree with your sentiment, but I don't. In fact, I am terribly alarmed because only in the last couple of years have I learned about the very stuff you are referring to (indoctrinating a worker bee or smart bee type student) and my oldest is about to start Kindergarten.

I don't dig getting down on public institutions in general. In specific, sure, if you have constructive things to say. :)

I can't drive an hour or two, physically

or with the price of gas. For me, a real alternative is 40 miles away, and even the closest next town is 15, so I avoid going there unless I can work it in with other reasons to go. Yes there are some other grocers, but they do cost more, often considerably more. Price of eggs just went up: was about 80 cents last summer, now $1.37 in Aldi, and $1.56 in Walmart, so there is no savings there. Walmart isn't real cheap on many or most food items, but yes on some. But big bags of catfood are about $9 in Walmart and over $10 in the other market. Local drugstores are significantly more. As with everything, however, you have to know the proces for individual items (and of course try to buy on sale).

Bottom line is there are very few ways to buy without "sin" since most everything is consolidated and intermixed, and also keeps changing. Also, sources and practices are largely hidden so you can't always know what you are supporting. Chocolate? Who knows where their chocolate comes from and if it's grown with child labor (African -- http://www.american.edu/ted/chocolate-slave.htm but that's old information)? What we can do is work on a system level, though, and work to pass laws for fairness, and for unions.

For schools, first I'll "tell a story" -- a true one. When I started US history in HS, the teacher announced, first day, that "this is the class constitution" as he handed out his list of silly-ass rules. "Constitution -- yeah -- right -- this from the history teacher. Then he told us about topic reports. He listed topics on a paper tacked to the board at the back room in the corner. He tolds us we each had to have a different topic, and everyone go back and pick theirs. Well, first, that means that you need a topic you can find material about, aside from the topics which were just boring and irrelevant, or inherently more difficult to write about, so there were better topics, and much worse ones. Naturally everyone made a mad dash to get something decent, elbowing each other out of the way. What a potent model for the "dog eat dog" competitive business world! What a delightful way to learn! A few years later he was made head of the history department, then principal, and I think he eventually becaem chairman of the Board of Education -- this paradigm of enlightened education.

There are many such stories I could tell, about that school and others -- about kids made to participate in gym after having broken a finger, about a teacher who threw a kid down a flight of stairs for talking during the Pledge of Allegiance, about teachers going on and on with conservative propaganda, about a science teacher who still taught the ether theory, about emotionally and verbally abusive teachers in grade school, about the grammar school principle who was proud of having "mediocre teachers for mediocre students", about a teacher who stole things brought in for "show and tell". Check out http://www.nospank.net/main.htm to learn about children being physically abused.

This is not to say that public school is bad, but that many or most of OUR public schools are bad, in much the same way that many or most of OUR businesses and employers are bad. Our public insititutions are bad because they are run by an imperialistic culture, power structure, and government -- that's why and how we got into this mess. It's been getting worse over the years. That's why people have to wake and change them. The choice is not between public and private institutions, but bad public and good public. Privatizing institutions and the commons is just one step further away from good insititutions, with bad public being an interim step towards direct control by the "nobility". Expensive private schools, BTW, also usually enforce the authoritarian and fascist frame -- but with the assumption that those students will be the ones in power -- the inner party. Lesser colleges are for indoctrinating the outer party (cf Orwell 1984). But it's the same frame. Compare these with Montessori schools, Neill's Summerhill, and other progressive schools.