Wyzga On Words

How Politics Became A Business.

Who wrote the following and when?

"1. The immediate objective is the defeat of the compulsory health insurance program pending in Congress. 2. The long-term objective is to put a permanent stop to the agitation for socialized medicine in this country by (a) awakening the people to the danger of a politically-controlled, government-regulated health system; (b) convincing the people, through a Nation wide campaign of education, of the superior advantages of private medicine, as practiced in America, over the State-dominated medical systems of other countries; (c) stimulating the growth of voluntary health insurance systems to take the economic shock out of illness and increase the availability of medical care to the American people."

Would it surprise you to know it was 1945 in retaliation to a proposal by then President Harry S. Truman? 

Earl Warren, former Governor of California and later Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court had proposed compulsory health insurance for Californians after he had fallen quite ill and wondered how others who were not so well off as he would cope with medical bills.  His proposal was severely trounced. 

Months later President Truman proposed a national program. It was severely trounced. How did this happen?

In her riveting 7 page article that reads like a political campaign whodunit, Jill Lepore writing for The New Yorker magazine, "The Lie Factory," takes us back to the early 1930s when the world of political consulting was born of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker.  They named their prodigy "Campaigns, Inc." and political life has never been the same.  

If you think, even vaguely, that you are getting the straight scoop on this election, The Lie Factory may disabuse you of that comfortable notion.  It's downright scary even for a realist.

How Do You Move A Mind? Tell An Emotionally Meaningful Story.

 

I never excelled at math but I understood enough about formulas to create this one decades ago:

"content + context + value = emotionally meaningful story"

What does it mean?  Lawyers are storytellers. Your client's legal story depends on power, passion and precision to develop and deliver a persuasive argument. Otherwise, the story is equivalent to "water, fire, marshmallows, silicone - now draw your conclusions."

Our justice system turns on legal elements.  But those legal elements came about because somebody did something to somebody else under a set of circumstances.  Facts are necessary to prove the case; but it is the personal, emotional and conflicting aspects of the case that create compelling stories from the same forensic fact pattern.

Whether you are writing a brief, preparing for alternative dispute resolution or presenting your case to a jury, there is no substitute, no silver bullet, no simple technique that substitutes for hard work, creativity and this formula: content + context + human value = emotionally meaningful story.

The same holds true for anyone who uses narrative to relate, motivate, innovate, incite, appeal, agitate, and so on.

Click here to read Maggie Koerth-Baker's article, "The Mind of a Flip-Flopper," delving into the scientific research studying moral attitudes, the ways in which emotions and attitudes interact and, how to change a strongly held belief.  Excerpt.

"Moral attitudes are especially difficult to change, Haidt said, because the emotions attached to those preferences largely define who we are. “Certain beliefs are so important for a society or group that they become part of how you prove your identity,” he said. “It’s as though we circle around these ideas. It’s how we become one.”

We tend to side with people who share our identity — even when the facts disagree — and calling someone a flip-flopper is a way of calling them morally suspect, as if those who change their minds are in some way being unfaithful to their group. This is nonsense, of course. People change their minds all the time, even about very important matters. It’s just hard to do when the stakes are high. That’s why marshaling data and making rational arguments won’t work. Whether you’re changing your own mind or someone else’s, the key is emotional, persuasive storytelling."  [emphasis added.]

How come story works this way? Here's one answer: 

"Timothy Wilson is a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and the author of the book “Redirect,” about how we change our minds and behavior. Stories are more powerful than data, Wilson says, because they allow individuals to identify emotionally with ideas and people they might otherwise see as “outsiders.” Wilson says researchers speculate that children who grew up seeing friendly gay people on TV will be more likely to support gay marriage as adults, regardless of other political affiliations and religious beliefs. Once you care about a character, Wilson says, you can find a way to fit them into your identity."  [emphasis added.]

TIP:    content + context + value = emotionally meaningful story.

 

8 Pictures 8 Stories About What a Two Year Deferral Means To 8 Illegal Immigrants.

There is so little over which we as children had control: in many cases our parents determined our religion, our schooling, our neighborhood, our friends, our activities, our gender, our dreams, our aspirations, and so on.

Children whose parents brought them to this country are no different except that their parents' decision created a status of illegal immigrant for many of them.   

Recently I was having dinner with some acquaintances. Over the hours we chatted about this and that.  Toward the end of the evening someone remarked about the various negative changes in California, and that they were looking to relocate.  

Another person commented about the browning of California.  And yet another supported Arizona's efforts to profile the people in its state.  Talk got a little snarkier: how "they" were taking over our Land of Milk and Honey, depleting the limited resources, not paying taxes, and sending what money they earned back home to families.

I asked if anyone had read about the multitudes of young men and women who crowded Chicago's Navy Pier with sheaves of documents in their arms, ready to prove to anyone who asked that they had the credentials necessary to apply for the new two-year deferral so they could go to school earn a living, contribute to the economy, be a real part of their adopted country.   No, they had not; but one person suggested that with so many of them assembled in one place someone should have rounded them up and sent them back to where they came from.

Everyone at that table had grandparents who came from somewhere else.  Our families tell stories about the losses and the gains when you leave home for another home.  I am reminded of my grandmother leaving her village in Poland at the age of 16, arriving in Chicopee, MA speaking only Polish but willing to work at whatever job she could find. 

Some days I cannot imagine moving to another state in these United States - never mind to another country with its language, geography, social structure, customs, rules, requirements, and so one.  It takes a certain courage. 

Click here to watch the slide show and read the stories of some of the first 1,500 people who were able to have their applications reviewed by volunteers.  Ask yourself, "Which story isn't like mine?"

What's Wrong With A Boy Who Wears A Dress?

I can hear it now.  The answers will embrace a range from "Absolutely nothing!" to "Absolutely everything!"

I am still digesting the stories of "gender fluid" boys and the parents who are raising them as reported by Ruth Padawer writing for the NYTimes in the Sunday Magazine, "What's So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?"

I can tell you that while I recognize biology's influence on who we are and that the expression of our own sexuality takes place across a broad spectrum, I am also uncomfortable with coming face-to-face with children who recognize that things are not so black and white as "girl" and "boy."  I think what I'm saying is that it takes a little personal growth to respect and support the notion of "live and let live" even though it collides with the "right and wrong" world in which I was raised, where adults were right and children were wrong.

Matthew Hutson seems to think there remains a strict moral underpinning to who we Americans are, as discussed in his article, "Still Puritan After All These Years".  A problem with moral uprightness is it can bring out the dark underbelly of bias, judgment, opinion, righteousness, and hatred.

It's often so difficult for us as adults to clearly articulate, "I want to be who I am!"  So, I say to the children and their parents "be of courage and confidence" for behaving in the way that is who you are.  They are not hurting anyone - let us not hurt them nor ourselves as they teach us that we all have a place here however fluid, however uncertain.

Perhaps this story and in-classroom exercise will be of use to those working with anti-bullying:

"Toward the end of the first week of kindergarten, Alex showed up in class wearing hot-pink socks — a mere inch of a forbidden color. A boy in his class taunted, “Are you a girl?” Alex told his parents his feelings were so hurt that he couldn’t even respond. In solidarity, his father bought a pair of pink Converse sneakers to wear when he dropped Alex off at school.

Alex’s teacher, Mrs. C., jumped in, too. During circle time, she mentioned male friends who wore nail polish and earrings. Mrs. C. told them that when she was younger, she liked wearing boys’ sneakers. Did that make her a boy? Did the children think she shouldn’t have been allowed to wear them? Did they think it would have been O.K. to laugh at her? They shook their heads no. Then she told them that long ago, girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, and a couple of the children went wide-eyed. “I said: ‘Can you imagine not being able to wear pants when you wanted to? If you really wanted to wear them and someone told you that you couldn’t do that just because you were a girl? That would be awful!’ ” After that, the comments in the classroom about Alex’s appearance pretty much stopped.

It took Alex several weeks to rouse his courage again. And then, about once a week, he would pull on his pink socks and sparkle kitten sneakers and head boldly off to kindergarten."

Women, Activism & The Vatican Don't Mix.

Until I read the public smack down by Cardinal William J. Levada, I was just a reader musing over the coincidence of two NYTimes articles about activist nuns published on the same day: one (Sister Megan Rice) who broke into the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation in Tennessee and the 900 nuns who met at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious this week in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Click here to read Sister Rice's story.  Excerpt:

"Now, Sister Megan Rice, 82, a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and two male accomplices have carried out what nuclear experts call the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex, making their way to the inner sanctum of the site where the United States keeps crucial nuclear bomb parts and fuel.

“Deadly force is authorized,” signs there read. “Halt!” Images of skulls emphasize the lethal danger.

With flashlights and bolt cutters, the three pacifists defied barbed wire as well as armed guards, video cameras and motion sensors at the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation in Tennessee early on July 28, a Saturday. They splashed blood on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility — a new windowless, half-billion-dollar plant encircled by enormous guard towers — and hung banners outside its walls."

Unable to locate any fact-neutral reports on the edict at the center of the conference meeting, click here to read a comprehensive albeit conservative view.  Click here to read the story of the conference of nuns' decision to use dialogue to resolve issues with the Vatican powers.  Excerpt.

"The decision to seek a dialogue came after more than 900 nuns spent four days doing what they call “listening to the Holy Spirit” inside a hotel ballroom. They represent about 80 percent of the 57,000 Catholic nuns in the United States. They were responding to an edict issued in April by Cardinal Levada’s office, which ordered three American bishops to rewrite the Leadership Conference’s statutes, evaluate its programs and publications, and revise its liturgies and rituals.

The Vatican accused the group of promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” and “corporate dissent” against church teachings, like those prohibiting the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex relationships and artificial birth control." [Emphasis added.]

Besides the tone of activism, having a voice, being visible, being heard, and the desire to use dialogue to resolve disputes, what unites these two stories with mine?  I am one of the kids who went to Catholic school where we were taught by nuns.  I'm also one of the kids who was taken to the church rectory and abused by the pastor.  No one believed me.  Years later I spoke publically to incest survivors about my experience and learned that they, too, were told to be quiet.

When it comes to the treatment and exclusion of women in the Catholic Church, Cardinal William J. Levada's dismissive retort says it all. He called the nuns’ approach a “dialogue of the deaf.”

Catholics and others are taking sides in the stand-off between the Vatican that wants to "reign in" the women religious and the nuns who want to be be “recognized as equal in the church,” to have their style of religious life “respected and affirmed,” and to help create a climate in which everyone in the church can talk about “issues that are very complicated.”

Why do they want this? The nuns expect that "open and honest dialogue may lead not only to increasing understanding between the church leadership and women religious but also to creating more possibilities for the laity, and particularly for women, to have a voice in the church.”

Who benefits?  How about society, for a start.

The Vatican certainly has its hands full if it believes that women will go away or turn a deaf ear to our common humanity.  If there is any "dialogue of the deaf," it's the Church that hasn't been listening.

It's way beyond the time that the Church fathers finally recognized "the times they are a-changing." 

 

Q&A Tuesday: Why Invest In Focus Group Research?

Q:   Why should I invest in focus group research?

A:    Reconnaissance.

I am often asked what is the worth of investing in focus group research.  The answers are as many and as varied as the lawsuit you have filed or are considering filing:

1. learn attitudes
2. learn opinions
3. learn biases
4. learn notions
5. get ideas for discovery
6. get ideas for strategy
7. test the legal story
8. test the experts
9. test the experts' opinions
10. test the other side's story(ies)
11. test the visuals, demonstratives
12. test your own platform skills
13. ferret out the landmines
14. learn all the ways you can (or might) lose your case
15. learn whether you should even file a lawsuit
16. value of the case
17. whether alternative dispute resolution is feasible
18. ideas for direct and cross examination
19. witness preparation
20. whether and how to go to battle
21. and so on.

Still, lawyers are not convinced that they should invest a reasonable amount of money to learn what is bad and worse about their cases, their clients, and their own strategy.

So I am forced to go to a movie to plead my case.  The other night I was watching Steven Spielberg's Academy Award nominated production, "War Horse" based on the novel of the same name.

Early on in the movie, British cavalry officers listen to a report from their scouts about the location of enemy German soldiers.  The Brits learn the number of German troops, number of mounts, artillary, best positions of attack, strategy for attack, risks of loss of men, and so on. 

As the Brits prepare to attack the German soldiers, the officer in charge tells the scout, "Time spent on reconnaissance is time well spent."   

And then they went to battle. 

Do You Have The Right ID To Vote?

According to a recent article in the July/August issue of Sierra magazine, "Can I See Your ID?" readers are informed about new state laws that disenfranchise Latinos, African Americans and young people.

Of course, Sierra is reporting from the point of view of three groups of people who have traditionally leaned toward environmental issues and might be disenfranchised as a result of the new laws.  Excerpt.

"Say you're a large U.S. corporation with an interest in defeating pro-environmental candidates for public office. Which voters would you most want to keep away from the voting booth? At the top of your list would be Latinos, African Americans, and young people.

According to polls, all three groups strongly and consistently support environmental issues. A Pew poll in March, for example, found that 82 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds support increased federal funding for alternative energy, compared with just 54 percent of those over age 66. And when asked whether climate change is a "very serious" problem, 59 percent of Caucasians agree, while 69 percent of African Americans and 74 percent of Latinos do."

What is of greater global concern are the ways in which the new laws rob populations of the right to vote on any issue under the guise of preventing "voter fraud" by requiring proof of citizenship  and specific forms of photo IDs.  Excerpt.

"Now, just in time for November's general election, comes a coordinated plan to disenfranchise those green voters. Acting from cookie-cutter legislative templates furnished by the corporate-financed American Legislative Exchange Council, 176 bills to restrict voting rights have been introduced in 41 states since the beginning of 2011, and bills have passed—or are on the verge of passing—in 14. The ostensible reason for the legislation is to eliminate the threat of voter fraud—in the words of Kansas governor Sam Brownback, to "ensure the sanctity of the vote.""

What kind of voter fraud do we have here?  We are all familiar with the "Tale of Hanging Chads." Is voter fraud so prevalent that the laws must have such a long-arm reach?  Maybe blue inked fingers?  Excerpt.

"Efforts to solve this phony problem vary from state to state. Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee require would-be voters to present proof of citizenship prior to registration. Florida makes voter registration so onerous that the League of Women Voters has ceased its registration efforts there. The most common suppression laws, however, require voters to show a specific form of photo ID at the polls. In Texas, licenses to carry concealed firearms are considered valid, while student IDs are not.

Twenty-one million American citizens, in fact, lack the kind of photo ID that would pass muster under these laws. Among that number are 18 percent of young eligible voters, nearly 11 percent of Latinos, and 25 percent of African Americans. Because of the laws' discriminatory effect, the Justice Department has been able to block voter ID laws in states with prior histories of discrimination—such as South Carolina and Texas—under the Voting Rights Act. Elsewhere, however, even though U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that making it harder for people to vote "goes against the arc of history," the feds have declined to take action."

You know me well enough by now.  I say bring it home with a story.  Here's one:

"In Pennsylvania, for example, the ACLU and the NAACP are suing to overturn that state's voter ID law. Their lead plaintiff is Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old woman who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Macomb, Georgia, and has voted regularly since casting her ballot for John F. Kennedy in 1960. She never learned to drive and lost her photo ID when her purse was stolen years ago. She's tried to obtain a new ID, but the state can't find her birth certificate and so won't issue one.

"I think it stinks," Applewhite says in an ACLU video. "It's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. I got in line and marched with [King]. There was so many rights we did not have. The way they take them away, we'll be right back where we were before.""

Click here to listen to Applewhite in her own words.

Q&A Tuesday: Why Should Lawyers Care About Marriage?

Q:    Why should lawyers care about the institution of marriage?

A:    As the institution itself seems to declining, the legal definition of marriage is up for grabs.

As reported by Aja Gabel in the current issue of The University of Virginia magazine, The Marriage Crisis, marriage has declined over the past 50 years and continues to decline.  Excerpt.

"Only about half of Americans are married now, down from 72 percent in 1960, according to census data. The age at which one first gets married has risen by six years since 1960, and now only 20 percent of Americans get married before the age of 30. The number of new marriages each year is declining at a slow but steady rate. Put simply, if you are an unmarried adult today, you face a lower chance of ever getting married, a longer wait and higher divorce rates if you do get married. The Pew Research Center recently found that about 40 percent of unmarried adults believe that marriage is becoming obsolete.

While marriage is in decline, unmarried cohabitation is on the rise. Fifteen times the number of couples today live together outside of marriage than in 1960. Almost half of cohabiting households include children.

Why should we care about what may be a failing institution? Brad Wilcox, U.Va. sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project, argues that the institution of marriage still symbolizes core values important to intimate relationships.

“Marriage conveys a sense of meaning, purpose, direction and stability that tends to benefit adults and especially children. People who get married have an expectation of sexual fidelity, and that fidelity tends to engender a sense of trust and security,” Wilcox says. “There is no kind of similar solemn ritual marking the beginning of cohabitation.”

Allison Pugh, also a U.Va. sociology professor, has a slightly different take on it. She says that it isn’t so much the institution of marriage that is important, but rather how well a family cares for children, regardless of its structure. Children need stability, nurturing and love, but both married and unmarried parents can provide those things, Pugh says.

Is America having a “marriage crisis?” Certainly, the institution of marriage is changing and it’s worth taking a look at why and where it might end up. It’s a question that a number of researchers at U.Va. are trying to answer by exploring the role of women in the workforce, emotional expectations for partnership and marriage’s benefits or costs to individuals and families."

In an nutshell, what has changed?  Women became "liberated."  We obtained college educations and entered the workforce.  While discrepances in equal pay and opportunity continue to exist, women have more choices available to them while society seems ready, albeit resigned, to let us have them.  Personal fulfillment is a goal rather than a tantalizing dream. Divorce is more acceptable than shameful.  Birth control translatesinto higher economic brackets for both partners as women take control of their fertility and their earnings.

Ultimately, marriage in America has changed because Americans have changed:

"Marriage has changed because America has changed. We can’t return to the model of marriage from the mid-20th century because we no longer live in the culture or the economy that created it. And some would argue that we wouldn’t want to return to it even if we could. Both men and women have greater choice than they did 50 years ago not only in regard to whom they marry, but also if they do and what kind of family they want to build. And, if the experts agree on one thing, it is that these choices are some of the most important we make for our own happiness."

Click here to read more about the changing legal definition of marriage. 

Which brings me to where things stand with the Prop (H)8 Trial.  No one was more surprised than I to learn that the good - albeit sometimes whacko - folks in my adopted state of California swigged, chugged and guzzled the Kool-aid before adopting Prop(H)8 banning same-sex marriage.  Surely, we are at least as liberal as Vermont, as smart as New York, as socially savvy as Massachusetts.  But no.

Do you want to know where things stand with the Prop 8 trial?  Click here to read an exceptionally nuanced 5-part series exploring the future of Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Prop 8 trial and marriage equality.

What is particularly broad-minded about the series is the author's willingness to step beyond the two cases (DOMA and Prop 8) to reflect upon the more global topic of the future of marriage equality in the United States.  Excerpt.

"A vision of the future of marriage equality in the United States

Yesterday, I argued that the DOMA case should be decided before Prop 8 because it fundamentally changes the arguments to be made against California’s marriage ban, and other bans like it across the nation.  Today, I want to take that a step farther and look past the two cases to the future of marriage equality in general.

Marriage equality currently stands at a tipping point in the United States, will polling beginning to shift to the majority in our favor, DOMA and Prop 8 at play before the Supreme Court, and marriage referenda in three states in November.  While the legislative and judicial tracks are currently moving in parallel and do effect each other, I believe that the legislative track will eventually (and within the next few years) be exhausted, and further victories will have to come through the courts.  A Supreme Court ruling on DOMA this year, rather than Prop 8, puts the marriage movement on more solid footing for the future."

Folks, the times they are a changin.

What was it that Aaron Sorkin said in his commencement address to the graduates of Syracuse University?

MR. SORKIN “You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance — and since you’re walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy.”

When Is It Okay To Say A Derogatory Word?

According to a recent ruling by an appellate court in Albany, New York, the word "gay" is no longer considered slanderous in the State of New York when used to falsely accuse someone of sexual orientation.

What happened?

Somewhere along the line the word "gay" has morphed into meaning "stupid."  And the court so ruled.

Gina Bellafante reporting for the NYTimes in "Gay or Stupid? One of These Is Still an Insult," gives us the background story on the global evolution of the word "gay" specifically into meaning "stupid."  Excerpt.

"In arriving at its decision, the court erased decades of rulings that treated inaccurate descriptions of sexual orientation as defamation. “These appellate division decisions are inconsistent with current public policy and should no longer be followed,” the unanimous decision, written by Justice Thomas Mercure, stated.

What took so long?

While the decision clearly reflects the ideas and opinions of an increasingly enlightened citizenry, it might also be said to speak to the evolving etymology of the term gay itself. During the past two decades, American adolescent vernacular has broadened the definition far beyond implications of sexual orientation. In a circle of 13-year-olds, “That’s so gay!” might translate to: “Only ding-dongs go to the movies on Saturday when anyone who is anyone goes to the movies on Wednesdays.” It might be gay to wear Pumas in a place where Converse high-tops are the rage, or gay of a teacher to assign a 10-page essay on “Buddenbrooks” three days before Christmas.

Ten years ago, on an e-mail list dedicated to issues of linguistics, an extensive conversation got going over whether the word gay had morphed specifically into meaning “stupid.” The cumulative answer was, yes, it seemed so, and this was happening around the world, including in the United States."

I disagree with the court. It's too close a bridge from something defamatory to customary.  Recall the kerfuffle about African Americans referring to each other using the "N" word.  They argued that among the black population it worked.  I blogged on this topic: "When Is A Slave Not a Nigger?"

It troubled me then and it troubles me now.  Are we a country so short on language that we have to rehash a word for another purpose and then excuse its former negative image merely because it has become so used in the vernacular?

A Plethora Of Story Influences.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Click here for Question #5.