April 23, 2008

Rockridge Institute

From the conception of the Rockridge Institute in Northern California, BuzzFlash has been proud to support its important work in applying linguistic and cognitive science to advancing the "framing" of progressive issues. In fact, we were proud to be chosen by Rockridge for an exclusive weekly Monday column that represented an example of how to discuss and position subjects related to enhancing the public good.

Rockridge is most associated with its co-founder and nationally known promoter of "framing," George Lakoff. But we came to know that it had a wonderful, committed, intelligent staff that tirelessly worked on helping to gain the high ground from right-wing think tanks by creating strategies for asserting progressive values in a manner that was cogent and persuasive.

Unfortunately, we learned on April 21 that Rockridge must cease its work due to lack of sufficient funding. It is a dilemma faced by many innovative efforts to counter the right-wing rhetoric and think tanks. There has been some growth in investment in long-term progressive infrastructure -- beyond the immediacy of the political races themselves -- but not nearly enough.

The staff at Rockridge is to be commended for undertaking a challenging task: to apply cognitive and linguistic science to bettering the nation through changing the language of our national discourse.

The Institute will cease operations on April 30. We will miss their work dearly -- for it is so essential to winning over the majority of Americans who support progressive values, but need a language and a metaphoric frame to bring them into the tent.

So we applaud the staff members of the Rockridge Institute for their vital work and present them with this week's BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award. They have done a valiant job with limited funds and deserve our deepest gratitude.

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