[Seth-Trips] George Lakoff and Robert Stein, Berkeley, December 4, 2004

[Aaron Swartz]

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/events/files/BLSP.pdf

Framing, Communicating, and Building the New Voice of Business

Prof. George Lakoff of the Rockridge Institute and author of _Moral
Politics_ and the new New York Times bestseller, _Don't Think of an
Elephant_ will decode the Orwellian ideas and language of the right,
tell us why they are so poweful, and explain what we can do to combat
them.

Rob Stein will be presenting his famous PowerPoint, described in the
New York Times magazine thusly:

> What Stein showed him when they met was a PowerPoint presentation that laid out step by step, in a series of diagrams a ninth-grader could understand, how conservatives, over a period of 30 years, had managed to build a ''message machine'' that today spends more than $300 million annually to promote its agenda.
> 
> Rappaport was blown away by the half-hour-long presentation. ''Man,'' he said, ''that's all it took to buy the country?''
> [...]
> The presentation itself, a collection of about 40 slides titled ''The Conservative Message Machine's Money Matrix,'' essentially makes the case that a handful of families -- Scaife, Bradley, Olin, Coors and others -- laid the foundation for a $300 million network of policy centers, advocacy groups and media outlets that now wield great influence over the national agenda. The network, as Stein diagrams it, includes scores of powerful organizations -- most of them with bland names like the State Policy Network and the Leadership Institute -- that he says train young leaders and lawmakers and promote policy ideas on the national and local level. These groups are, in turn, linked to a massive message apparatus, into which Stein lumps everything from Fox News and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to Pat Robertson's ''700 Club.'' And all of this, he contends, is underwritten by some 200 ''anchor donors.'' ''This is perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system,'' he said.
> 
> [...] What made Stein's work compelling was the genius of its packaging. For some reason, perhaps because most political operatives don't function in the business world, no one had ever thought to unearth all the evidence and put it on color-coded slides in a way that ordinary people could immediately grasp.

The two presentations will be followed by a panel discussion and a
reception where speakers, panelists and guests can talk informally.

When: Saturday: December 4, 2004  -  1:00 pm - 4:45 pm (Registration:
12:30 pm)

Where: St. Johns Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA

Tickets: BLSP Members $100  / Non-members $150