Occupy Miami and Occupy Wall Street: it's all about messaging ... by gimleteye

Click 'read more' and two news reports worth reading, for those interested in how the media is reporting Occupy Miami and how the OWS'ers need to think about their action and message to a wider audience. The first is a Miami Herald report about a group that "turned out" to the Society of Environmental Justice annual meeting. It is not a very focused picture. The second, is by George Lakoff-- whose work on message framing virtually covers the spectrum of modern American politics. Pay attention to Lakoff, OWS'ers. And if you want to find some sharper points of focus on the environment in Miami, there are plenty to be found right on this blog. Start with an archive search on "US Century Bank", "housing crash" and "UDB".

Rally for environment in Miami finds a friendly audience

By Jon Silman
jsilman@MiamiHerald.com

Maybe the best way to air out your environmental grievances is by rallying for a group of environmental journalists. “We’re preaching to the choir here,” said Ana Campos, 41, a community organizer for the Clean Energy Coalition of South Florida, “but we’re asking the choir to sing louder.”

According to a police estimate, between 75 to 100 people, and numerous environmental groups buoyed in numbers by the Occupy Miami movement, turned out for the Society of Environmental Journalists Convention at the InterContinental Hotel on 100 Chopin Plaza in Miami. The groups stood with signs, forming a unified line, facing the hotel across the street behind a long strip of yellow police tape.

There was the “Millions against Monsanto” group, who want to end genetically modified foods. The “Save Lolita” group, who want to free the killer whale from the Miami Seaquarium. And the “Save the Frogs” group, who use the tagline “Frogs are cool!”

During the rally, a group of musicians played bongos and tambourines and danced while waving signs. A man with a beard and green shoelaces on his Chuck Taylors named Nathan Pim said opposing corporate tyranny is something he can get behind. He said he’s part of the occupy movement, but he’s a proponent for environmental issues as well, so the idea of unifying the two groups made sense.

“We kind of got married today,” said Kimo Nour, a member of the occupy movement and a student at FAU. He said occupy bolstered the number of attendees at the rally by a lot.

Journalists with name tags attending the conference mingled among the ralliers, taking fliers and notes. Joseph B. Treaster, editor of TheMiamiPlanet.org, said he welcomes the addition of voices to the environmental dialogue.

“For reporters, this is one more voice,” he said, “this is one more thing to consider when you’re writing about these subjects.”

Around 3:15 p.m., the rally started to die down, and a group of musicians played a song about rebels and “sighting for the light.” People crowded into a circle around them, and it turned into an impromptu sing-along. While the band played, a man bounced his “end the fed” sign along to the music, and a woman went around and picked up trash.

After the song, dozens of the ralliers marched back to the government center, to continue the fight.


Read more:

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/22/v-print/2467454/rally-for-environment-in-miami.html#ixzz1bctUDJ00From: Nation of Change
Published: Thursday 20 October 2011
“It’s a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends.”

A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street

I was asked weeks ago by some in the Oc­cupy Wall Street move­ment to make sug­ges­tions for how to frame the move­ment. I have hes­i­tated so far, be­cause I think the move­ment should be fram­ing it­self. It’s a gen­eral prin­ci­ple: Un­less you frame your­self, oth­ers will frame you — the media, your en­e­mies, your com­peti­tors, your well-mean­ing friends. I have so far hes­i­tated to offer sug­ges­tions. But the move­ment ap­pears to ma­tur­ing and en­ter­ing a crit­i­cal time when small fram­ing er­rors could have large neg­a­tive con­se­quences. So I thought it might be help­ful to ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion and start a dis­cus­sion of how the move­ment might think about fram­ing it­self.

About fram­ing: It’s nor­mal. Every­body en­gages in it all the time. Frames are just struc­tures of thought that we use every day. All words in all lan­guages are de­fined in terms of frame-cir­cuits in the brain. But, ul­ti­mately, fram­ing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which de­ter­mines how we act.

In pol­i­tics, frames are part of com­pet­ing moral sys­tems that are used in po­lit­i­cal dis­course and in chart­ing po­lit­i­cal ac­tion. In short, fram­ing is a moral en­ter­prise: it says what the char­ac­ter of a move­ment is. All pol­i­tics is moral. Po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and move­ments al­ways make pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions claim­ing they are the right things to do. No po­lit­i­cal fig­ure ever says, do what I say be­cause it’s wrong! Or be­cause it doesn’t mat­ter! Some moral prin­ci­ples or other lie be­hind every po­lit­i­cal pol­icy agenda.

Two Moral Fram­ing Sys­tems in Pol­i­tics

Con­ser­v­a­tives have fig­ured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It in­cludes: The pri­macy of self-in­ter­est. In­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­ity, but not so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity. Hi­er­ar­chi­cal au­thor­ity based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hi­er­ar­chy of who is “de­serv­ing,” de­fined by suc­cess. And the high­est prin­ci­ple is the pri­macy of this moral sys­tem it­self, which goes be­yond Wall Street and the econ­omy to other are­nas: fam­ily life, so­cial life, re­li­gion, for­eign pol­icy, and es­pe­cially gov­ern­ment. Con­ser­v­a­tive “democ­racy” is seen as a sys­tem of gov­er­nance and elec­tions that fits this model.

Though OWS con­cerns go well be­yond fi­nan­cial is­sues, your tar­get is right: the ap­pli­ca­tion of these prin­ci­ples in Wall Street is cen­tral, since that is where the money comes from for elec­tions, for media, and for right-wing pol­icy-mak­ing in­sti­tu­tions of all sorts on all is­sues.

The al­ter­na­tive view of democ­racy is pro­gres­sive: Democ­racy starts with cit­i­zens car­ing about one an­other and act­ing re­spon­si­bly on that sense of care, tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­ity both for one­self and for one’s fam­ily, com­mu­nity, coun­try, peo­ple in gen­eral, and the planet. The role of gov­ern­ment is to pro­tect and em­power all cit­i­zens equally via The Pub­lic: pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture, laws and en­force­ment, health, ed­u­ca­tion, sci­en­tific re­search, pro­tec­tion, pub­lic lands, trans­porta­tion, re­sources, art and cul­ture, trade poli­cies, safety nets, and on and on. No­body makes it one their own. If you got wealthy, you de­pended on The Pub­lic, and you have a re­spon­si­bil­ity to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cantly to The Pub­lic so that oth­ers can ben­e­fit in the fu­ture. More­over, the wealthy de­pend on those who work, and who de­serve a fair re­turn for their con­tri­bu­tion to our na­tional life. Cor­po­ra­tions exist to make life bet­ter for most peo­ple. Their rea­son for ex­ist­ing is as pub­lic as it is pri­vate.

A dis­pro­por­tion­ate dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth robs most cit­i­zens of ac­cess to the re­sources con­trolled by the wealthy. Im­mense wealth is a thief. It takes re­sources from the rest of the pop­u­la­tion — the best places to live, the best food, the best ed­u­ca­tions, the best health fa­cil­i­ties, ac­cess to the best in na­ture and cul­ture, the best pro­fes­sion­als, and on and on. Re­sources are lim­ited, and great wealth greatly lim­its ac­cess to re­sources for most peo­ple.

It ap­pears to me that OWS has a pro­gres­sive moral vi­sion and view of democ­racy, and that what it is protest­ing is the dis­as­trous ef­fects that have come from op­er­at­ing with a con­ser­v­a­tive moral, eco­nomic, and po­lit­i­cal world­view. I see OWS as pri­mar­ily a moral move­ment, seek­ing eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal changes to carry out that moral move­ment — what­ever those par­tic­u­lar changes might be.

A Moral Focus for Oc­cupy Wall Street

I think it is a good thing that the oc­cu­pa­tion move­ment is not mak­ing spe­cific pol­icy de­mands. If it did, the move­ment would be­come about those de­mands. If the de­mands were not met, the move­ment would be seen as hav­ing failed.

It seems to me that the OWS move­ment is moral in na­ture, that oc­cu­piers want the coun­try to change its moral focus. It is easy to find use­ful poli­cies; hun­dreds have been sug­gested. It is harder to find a moral focus and stick to it. If the move­ment is to frame it­self, it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a par­tic­u­lar agenda or list of pol­icy de­mands. If the moral focus of Amer­ica changes, new peo­ple will be elected and the poli­cies will fol­low. With­out a change of moral focus, the con­ser­v­a­tive world­view that has brought us to the pre­sent dis­as­trous and dan­ger­ous mo­ment will con­tinue to pre­vail.

We Love Amer­ica. We’re Here to Fix It

Most news sources are funded by cor­po­ra­tions and in­vestors. Their goal is to drive peo­ple to ad­ver­tis­ers while push­ing the cor­po­rate agenda. Na­tionofChange is a 501(c)3 or­ga­ni­za­tion funded al­most 100% from its read­ers–you! Our only ac­count­abil­ity is to the pub­lic. Click here to make a gen­er­ous do­na­tion.

I see OWS as a pa­tri­otic move­ment, based on a deep and abid­ing love of coun­try — a pa­tri­o­tism that it is not just about the self-in­ter­ests of in­di­vid­u­als, but about what the coun­try is and is to be. Do Amer­i­cans care about other cit­i­zens, or mainly just about them­selves? That’s what love of Amer­ica is about. I there­fore think it is im­por­tant to be pos­i­tive, to be clear about lov­ing Amer­ica, see­ing it in need of fix­ing, and not just being will­ing to fix it, but being will­ing to take to the streets to fix it. A pop­ulist move­ment starts with the peo­ple see­ing that they are all in the same boat and being ready to come to­gether to fix the leaks.

Pub­li­cize the Pub­lic

Tell the truth about The Pub­lic, that no­body makes it purely on their own with­out The Pub­lic, that is, with­out pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture, the jus­tice sys­tem, health, ed­u­ca­tion, sci­en­tific re­search, pro­tec­tions of all sorts, pub­lic lands, trans­porta­tion, re­sources, art and cul­ture, trade poli­cies, safety nets, … That is a truth to be told day after day. It is an idea that must take hold in pub­lic dis­course. It must go be­yond what I and oth­ers have writ­ten about it and be­yond what Eliz­a­beth War­ren has said in her fa­mous video. The Pub­lic is not op­posed to The Pri­vate. The Pub­lic is what makes The Pri­vate pos­si­ble. And it is what makes free­dom pos­si­ble. Wall Street ex­ists only through pub­lic sup­port. It has a moral oblig­a­tion to di­rect it­self to pub­lic needs.

All OWS ap­proaches to pol­icy fol­low from such a moral focus. Here are a hand­ful ex­am­ples.

Democ­racy should be about the 99%

Money di­rects our pol­i­tics. In a democ­racy, that must end. We need pub­licly sup­ported elec­tions, how­ever that is to be arranged.


Strong Wages Make a Strong Amer­ica

Mid­dle-class wages have not gone up sig­nif­i­cantly in 30 years, and there is con­ser­v­a­tive pres­sure to lower them. But when most peo­ple get more money, they spend it and spur the econ­omy, mak­ing the econ­omy and the coun­try stronger, as well as mak­ing their in­di­vid­ual lives bet­ter. This truth needs to be cen­tral to pub­lic eco­nomic dis­course.

Global Cit­i­zen­ship

Amer­ica has been a moral bea­con to the world. It can func­tion as such only if it sets an ex­am­ple of what a na­tion should be.

Do we have to spend more on the mil­i­tary that all other na­tions com­bined? Do we re­ally need hun­dreds of mil­i­tary bases abroad?

Na­ture

We are part of na­ture. Na­ture makes us, and all that we love, pos­si­ble. Yet we are de­stroy­ing Na­ture through global warm­ing and other forms of eco­log­i­cal de­struc­tion, like frack­ing and deep-wa­ter drilling.

At a global scale, na­ture is sys­temic: its ef­fects are nei­ther local nor lin­ear. Global warm­ing is caus­ing the fe­roc­ity of the mon­ster storms, tor­na­dos, floods, bliz­zards, heat waves, and fires that have dev­as­tated huge areas of our coun­try. The hot­ter the at­mos­phere, the more evap­o­rated water and the more en­ergy going into storms, tor­na­dos, and bliz­zards. Global warm­ing can­not be shown to cause any par­tic­u­lar storm, but when a storm sys­tem forms, global warm­ing will ramp up the power of the storm and the amount of water it car­ries. In win­ter, evap­o­rated water from the overly heated Pa­cific will go into the at­mos­phere, blow north­east over the arc­tic, and fall as record snows.

We de­pend on na­ture — on clean air, water, food, and a liv­able cli­mate. And we find beauty and grandeur in na­ture, and a sense of awe that makes life worth liv­ing. A love of coun­try re­quires a love of na­ture. And a fair and thriv­ing econ­omy re­quires the preser­va­tion of na­ture as we have known it.

Sum­mary

OWS is a moral and pa­tri­otic move­ment. It sees Democ­racy as flow­ing from cit­i­zens car­ing about one an­other as well as them­selves, and act­ing with both per­sonal and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity. De­mo­c­ra­tic gov­er­nance is about The Pub­lic, and the lib­erty that The Pub­lic pro­vides for a thriv­ing Pri­vate Sphere. From such a democ­racy flows fair­ness, which is in­com­pat­i­ble with a hugely dis­pro­por­tion­ate dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth. And from the sense of care im­plicit in such a democ­racy flows a com­mit­ment to the preser­va­tion of na­ture.

From what I have seen of most mem­bers of OWS, your in­di­vid­ual con­cerns all flow from one moral focus.

Elec­tions

The Tea Party so­lid­i­fied the power of the con­ser­v­a­tive world­view via elec­tions. OWS will have no long-term ef­fect un­less it too brings its moral focus to the 2012 elec­tions. In­sist on sup­port­ing can­di­dates that have your over­all moral views, no mat­ter what the local is­sues are.

A Warn­ing

This move­ment could be de­stroyed by neg­a­tiv­ity, by calls for re­venge, by chaos, or by hav­ing noth­ing pos­i­tive to say. Be pos­i­tive about all things and state the moral basis of all sug­ges­tions. Pos­i­tive and moral in call­ing for debt re­lief. Pos­i­tive and moral in up­hold­ing laws, as they apply to fi­nances. Pos­i­tive and moral in call­ing for fair­ness in ac­quir­ing needed rev­enue. Pos­i­tive and moral in call­ing for clean elec­tions. To be ef­fec­tive, your move­ment must be seen by all of the 99% as pos­i­tive and moral. To get pos­i­tive press, you must stress the pos­i­tive and the moral.

Re­mem­ber: The Tea Party sees it­self as stress­ing only in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­ity. The Oc­cu­pa­tion Move­ment is stress­ing both in­di­vid­ual and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity.

I be­lieve, and I think you be­lieve, that most Amer­i­cans care about their fel­low cit­i­zens as well as them­selves. Let’s find out! Shout your moral and pa­tri­otic views out loud, reg­u­larly. Put them on your signs. Re­peat them to the media. Tweet them. And tell every­one you know to do the same. You have to use your own lan­guage with your own fram­ing and you have to re­peat it over and over for the ideas to sink in.

Oc­cupy elec­tions: voter reg­is­tra­tion dri­ves, town hall meet­ings, talk radio air­time, party or­ga­ni­za­tions, nom­i­na­tion cam­paigns, elec­tion cam­paigns, and vot­ing booths.

Above all: Frame your­selves be­fore oth­ers frame you.