Tag: politics

Slogan

The use of a slogan towards a goal

An operator (a person or entity) uses a slogan to direct someone else’s attention to their goal. A policymaker (operator) says a slogan (tool) for the passage of legislation (goal).  

An organization can use that same phrase to their end, namely self-perpetuation. If there are competing goals internally, self-perpetuation overrides given the requirements of stakeholders.

A slogan as a tool

A craftsman shapes a tool towards a goal. For example, a craftsman shapes a hammer towards a goal of hammering a nail. A hammer has a handle connected to a metal head for that purpose.

Slogans can be thought of as tools.

Activists create and use a slogan so that it fulfills a goal. For example, environmental activists use “Save the Planet” to further efforts against climate change.

But if an organization uses that same phrase to meet its goal, there is confusion. If the goal of an organization is self-perpetuation, then the phrase does not have the same power it did as it for activists.

For clarity, it is easier to think of them as different slogans entirely.

  1. [“Save the Planet” for saving the planet]; and
  2. [“Save the Planet” for the self-perpetuation of an organization]

Because we just hear or see the phrase “Save the Planet,” we can easily assume these are the same slogans and assume that the activist and the organization have the same goals.

Power of a slogan

The confusion between a phrase (“Save the Planet”) used for different goals weakens the power of the activist’s slogan.

Power of a slogan seems to be the alignment between the operators, the words of the slogan itself, and the use of the slogan towards the goal specified in the slogan. The more outside operators use phrases of a slogan for their own, different goals, they create more confusion and weaken the power of the original slogan; because people mistake one use of the phrase in a slogan for another’s use of that phrase. We have a shared language and no restriction on who can use a phrase or not.

An example of the power of a slogan is when President Lyndon Baines Johnson said “We Shall Overcome” in an address to a joint session of Congress on March 15 1965 after the attack of state troopers on a massive protest march led by John Lewis in Selma, Alabama.

Here, President Johnson (operator) said “We Shall Overcome” (tool) when pressing for the goal of the activists: a protection of voting rights for all Americans.

That he said “We Shall Overcome”:

  • as an government official;
  • in spite of his previous lukewarm support for the activist’s goals;
  • And now as an advocate in line with their goals

lent the slogan power.

Awareness

But doesn’t the use of “Save the Planet” lead to greater awareness in general?

If awareness itself is the goal, okay.

But the power of a slogan is to tie its use with a goal in the world. Awareness itself may be a detriment to the initial goal, because awareness will be substituted for or used as an evidence of action when there is none. “Save the Planet” has been used since the 1970s, but there has not been substantial action to avert climate change.

No Vacancy

In mid-March, a group of homeless and housing-insecure people calling themselves the Reclaimers took possession of eleven vacant houses in a quiet working-class neighborhood called El Sereno, east of downtown. The houses are among hundreds that Caltrans, the state’s transportation authority, bought last century, with the goal of demolishing them to make way for an expansion of the 710 Freeway. They were vacant—many of them unoccupied for years.

From the New Yorker

Super Tuesday

With our vote, we selected our representatives for our own betterment

There was great optimism in the air on Tuesday! A military veteran poll worker thanked me for voting at my local polling station. My colleagues wore their “Voted” stickers. People talked about how their early votes for candidates who dropped out were not going to a viable candidate. Campaign stickers were posted to buildings.

And I saw a camel grazing near my polling station!

Camel grazing near a tree within a courtyard
How did this camel appear?

Civic Engagement in Milwaukee

The mission [Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities] explained to me, “is to increase the quality of life for black people in Wisconsin by expanding their idea of civic engagement. Civic engagement isn’t just voting—we have folks on staff that can’t vote in 2020. It’s also learning about the difference between city and county government, about how to talk to your alderperson or county executive. We ask people what issues they have—say they want speed bumps—and we identify the process to get that issue resolved. People feel they don’t have the power to make a change, because they don’t understand where they fit. We help them understand their power.”

Joseph O’Neill, “How Milwaukee Could Decide the Next President“

Consumer Online Privacy Act before the Senate

You, in a digital age, should have the right to control your data – that is, what information is collected about you, what information might be passed on or sold to a third party, the ability to have your information deleted once it might be collected, you decide you don’t like that organization or that entity and to make sure that no discriminatory practices are used against you.

Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington) on NPR

James Madison and Current Polarization

Exacerbating all this political antagonism is the development that might distress Madison the most: media polarization, which has allowed geographically dispersed citizens to isolate themselves into virtual factions, communicating only with like-minded individuals and reinforcing shared beliefs.

From Jeffrey Rosen’s article in the Atlantic “America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare”