7 Reasons Why Obama's Speeches Are So Powerful

By George Lakoff, AlterNet. Posted February 24, 2009.

With systemic causation goes systemic risk. The old rational-actor model taught in economics and political science ignored systemic risk. Risk was seen as local and governed by direct causation, that is, by short-term individual decisions. The investment banks acted on their own short-term risk, based on short-term assumptions, for example, that housing prices would continue to rise or that bundles of mortgages once secure for the short term would continue to be "secure" and could be traded as "securities."

The systemic nature of ecological and economic causation and risk have resulted in the twin disasters of global warming and global economic breakdown. Both must be dealt with on a systematic, global, long-term basis. Regulating risk is global and long-term, and so what are required are worldwide institutions that carry out that regulation in systematic way and that monitor causation and risk systemically, not just locally. Obama understands this, although much of the country does not. Part of his challenge will be to formulate policies that carry out these ideas and to communicate these ideas as well as possible to the public.

7. Contested Concepts and Patriotic Language

As president, Obama must speak in patriotic language. But all patriot language in this country is "contested." Every major patriotic term has a core meaning that we all understand the same way. But that common core meaning is very limited in its application.

Most uses of patriotic language are extended from the core on the basis of either conservative or progressive values to produce meanings that are often opposite from each other.

I've written a book (Whose Freedom?) on the word "freedom" as used by conservatives and progressives. In his second inaugural, George W. Bush used "freedom," "free," and "liberty" over and over -- first, with its common meaning, then shifting to its conservative meaning: defending "freedom" as including domestic spying, torture and rendition, denial of habeus corpus, invading a country that posed no threat to us, a "free market" based on greed and short-term profits for the wealthy, denying sex education and access to women's health facilities, denying health care to the poor and leading to the killing and maiming of innocent civilians in Iraq by the hundreds of thousands, all in the name of "freedom."

It was anything but a progressive's view of freedom -- and anything but the view intended in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. For 40 years, from the late 1960s through 2008, conservatives managed, through their extensive message machine, to reframe much of our political discourse to fit their worldview. Obama is reclaiming our patriotic language after decades of conservative dominance, to fit what he has correctly seen as the ideals behind the founding of our country.

"Freedom" will no longer mean what Bush meant by it. Guantanamo will be closed, torture outlawed, the market regulated. Obama's inaugural address was filled with framings of patriotic concepts to fit those ideals. Not just the concept of freedom, but also equality, prosperity, unity, security, interests, challenges, courage, purpose, loyalty, patriotism, virtue, character and grace.

Look at these words in his inaugural address, and you will see how Obama has situated their meaning within his view of fundamental American values: empathy, social and well as personal responsibility, improving yourself and your country. We can expect further reclaiming of patriotic language throughout his administration.

All this is what "change" means. In his policy proposals, the president is trying to align his administration's policies with the fundamental values of the framers of our Constitution. In seeking "bipartisan" support, he is looking beyond political affiliations to those who share those values on particular issues. In his economic policy, he is realigning our economy with the moral missions of government: protection and empowerment for all.

It's Us, Not Just Him

The president is the best political communicator of our age. He has the bully pulpit. He gets media attention from the press. His Web site is running a permanent campaign, Organizing for Obama, run by his campaign manager David Plouffe. It seeks issue-by-issue support from his huge mailing list. There are plenty of progressive blogs. MoveOn.org now has over 5 million members. And yet that is nowhere near enough.

The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. The conservative leadership institutes are continuing to turn out thousands of trained conservative spokespeople every year. The conservative apparatus for language creation is still functioning. Conservative talking points are still going out to their network of spokespeople, who still being booked on TV and radio around the country.

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George Lakoff is the author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (Chelsea Green). He is professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley and a senior fellow of the Rockridge Institute.

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