“The Audiology of Hope: Dogwhistle Economics 102″
By NoQuarter on February 3, 2008 at 12:56 AM in Barack Obama, Economy, Social Security
I’ve “known” RonK Seattle online since 2004. He’s very sharp. He suffers NO fools, including the O’Dramas. This is the first part of his short, pithy diary tonight on Daily Kos (and NO wonder the Republicans heart Obama so much!).
Susan’s Sunday Plea: Whatever else you do today — drink too much beer, yell in the streets, wish you hadn’t eaten so many ribs, hook up with someone whose name you can’t remember — send this on to everyone you know! Yes, it’s POLICY stuff. But it shows where Obama’s head is REALLY at.
The Audiology of Hope: Dogwhistle Economics 102
by RonK Seattle
Sat Feb 02, 2008 at 07:15:47 PM PST
Our first installment began the task of decoding Barack Obama’s curious appeal to our right-of-center friends and relatives. (His point man on domestic policy is also the DLC’s Senior Economist — a deregulatin’, free tradin’, globalizin’, sharp-shootin’ son-of-a-centrist-gun from Waco, Texas, Milton Academy, Yale’s Skull and Bones society and the Chicago school.)
The second member of Obama’s policy advisor triad is Harvard’s Jeffrey Liebman. Specialty: “pensions and poverty”, i.e., “entitlements”, i.e., “Social Security“.
Liebman’s reputation: centrist alarmist and moderate privatizer.
He has supported partial privatization of the government-run retirement system, an idea that’s anathema to many Democrats and bears a similarity to a proposal for personal investment accounts that Bush promoted, then dropped in 2005.
“Liebman has been to open to private accounts and most people in town would say he’s a moderate supporter of them,” said Michael Tanner, a Social Security expert at the Cato Institute
Read all of part two — it’s not long. But it’s devastating.
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AND, here’s the beginning of part one:
The Audiology of Hope: DLC Dogwhistle Economics
by RonK Seattle
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 02:23:55 PM PST
Something about Obama attracts New D’s, GOP’s, Broderites, Indies, Perotistas, Reagan D’s and Libertarians alike. Is it his big table? His promise to turn the page? His post-racial posture? Is it his cologne?
Or is it Austan Goolsbee?
Who??? Goolsbee. Economic wunderkind, forensics champ, MIT PhD, Yale Bonesman out of Waco via Milton Academy, Obama’s chief / top / senior economic spokesman and senior policy advisor.
Oh, and DLC senior economist. …
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I can’t find RonK’s e-mail to get his permission to reprint this in full. His e-mail address is on my old computer.
Little Obama mouthing words about how the Republican Party was the party of ideas for so many years. Then he had the nerve to tell us he wasn’t “complimenting” the Republicans, rather he was just commenting on certain facts. Now we see little-by-little who is operating behind the curtain, who is pulling little Puppet Obama’s political strings.
Puppet Obama’s political strings.
Sound of Music,The Lonely Goatherd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionette
susan
Thanks for the link. This explains much. The minute I saw Chicago School I knew it didn’t bode well. However the comment thread attached on Kos is scarier. Nobody except us silly rabbits seems to want Obama vetted. In too many ways it reminds me of the 2000 election. Nobody is going to realise what we’ve elected until we begin to see the legislation. The last debate was an opportunity to ask some substantive questions, but instead the candidates were asked whether the other would be his/her VP choice. Obama was given the opportunity to once more drone on at length about his 2002 opposition to Iraq. What we need to know is what he’s going to do. Hillary’s given us chapter and verse and in as much detail as we’re willing to listen to. Obama may say that he has advisors he doesn’t agree with for diversity, but I would like to know which are which.
Oh, I read a kos thread too, they want to be cool, they really, really want to be cool, like the other guys…
Obama is not saying and I for one don’t won’t to wait around to find out.
So few people “know” the truth because so few people want to know the truth. Obama supporters led by the media and most liberal blogs want to play by the “Obama Rules” http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/27/72417/8822
When you play by the “Obama Rules” then what he has done, said or proposes is safe from any real scrutiny and is accepted as one more message of “Hope” which is interchangable with “Change”.
You want change? I’ve got 43 cents in the bottom of my purse. You want ideas and plans and policies, vote for the smart person in the room. That would be Hillary Clinton.
Merit pay for teachers? Oh boy, how stupid.
The evaluation research on merit pay plans (schemes) is pretty deep at this point. Most striking findings:
1. When the plan pits teacher against teacher, professional collegiality goes down the toilet. Now, think about special needs students who NEED teams of teachers to cooperate. Hmmmmm….Now think about kids who don’t legally qualify as “special needs” but need a team approach to help their learning. Hmmmmm…
2. Furthermore, when the plan pits teacher against teacher, the STRONGEST predictor of which teacher gets merit pay is their PERSONAL relationship with the principal (who makes the decision). Yes, sucking up is far more important that good teaching.
Proponents of merit play plans fundamentally don’t understand how good teaching “happens.” Consequently, these plans tend to DESTROY the conditions which provide the soil in which for it to happen.
Obama is a fan of merit pay.
Enough said.
Susan-This looks great. I’ll be back to read it over again. Right now, I just want to let you know you have my full attention on Super Bowl Sunday.
Oh, Marjorie!
Republican ideas: Obama never said he thought they were good ideas, just that their idea-machine was captivating people’s imaginations & hoggin’ up all the ink, meaning they took control of the conversation. Obama sometimes speaks through nuance, as opposed to talking to us like we’re 10 yrs old. Maybe he assumes too much about the intelligence of the voter. Hillary thinks if she uses a bumper sticker phrase like “Universal Health Care” she can win the votes of Joe 6 pack who’s too busy to investigate & assumes he’ll get coverage, when in reality he’ll just get a fine. If Obama is frontin’ for the Republicans, how do explain a lefty like Kuchinich supporting him? Explain Claire McCaskill’s support.
Obama’s words say one thing, his actions dictate another, his spinners yet another, and still, no amount of paint can cover that ugliness.
You know?
I love me some nuance, the wordier and wonkier the better. However, the editorial office of a right wing newspaper while trying to gain an endorsement speaks more of pander to me. Hillary doesn’t speak in quips, sound bites, and slogans. She gives chapter and verse of what she’s going to do and when she expects to do it and asks to be held accountable. I don’t think Obama is a Republican, he just frequently talks like a Republican and I don’t know if he is deliberately pandering for votes or what. When I look at the reputations and writings of some of his advisors it makes me question how he will really make his decisions.
Explain Claire McCaskill’s support.
It is a mystery to me. 10k from Obama’s senate PAC?
Merit pay? What Republican idea.
I would love to see our educational system constructed around many magnet schools in each district-each offering a different learning experience and all having libraries for the particular educational experience. One per district on the arts with musical equipment, instruments, a stage. Learn how to write, play, present, etc. and the history of it. A school on science and technology. Students could build an energy efficient car. Think of the math, science, research, etc it would require. Take students on an archealogical dig-teach them the skills involved and on their return to school, have them research deeper into what they were digging for. There is no end to what can be learned hands on. And it can develop into life long learning. More emphasis on the fun of learning and doing and less on how much money you can make from a particular profession. I would love to attend a magnet school on science and the study of the genome.
Merit pay? Keep advocates of merit pay out of education!
I agree.
Another issue hurting education has to do with the affective underlying poverty many families face.
WHY have some schools failed, why do certain schools succeed?
Once we have a better understanding of the social factors in conjunction with the economic, we can better address the issue.
I believe you were speaking of health insurance earlier?
I have some contact with the ivy league grads who produce, or will produce, the policies we are speaking of. To a person, with few exceptions, they are completely unaware, removed, from the economic reality the rest of the country faces, ie the middle and working classes. Most come from families that have never had to struggle, and were never taught to really think, or empathize with others, our economic reality is simply non existent to them, they are wholly unaware it even exists. It’s reflected especially in current Washington, and in Obama’s specious economic reasoning.
Another poster was saying America has no business speaking for Iraqis, well, the affluent Ivy Leaguers, this group , anyway, have no business making economic policy for the rest of us, they really don’t understand our lives.
And this lack of understanding shows in the group that supports Obama: wine drinkers, kids, libertarians, those dazzled by charisma — in other words, OJ’s jury.
His plan will never work.
If the candidates cant get good advice, realistic advice, how can they even know how a problem should be addressed?
They don’t.
Clinton, I think, can see through that window, Obama and the others, can’t.
This article, as well as RonK’s, is a wonderful analysis of how Obama’s economics would affect the people who vote for him, the nation.
Most Americans understand Bush’s catastrophic policy, this would clarify much to them, about Obama, and not for the better.
But the right people have to stand up, and question Obama, really vet him.
If they again, don’t appear, I guess it’s meant to be, an act of God…
He is not to be trusted. I smelled a rat LONG AGO, but momentum and image and MEDIA are pushing him.
Short term gains for Obama, long term problems for the rest of us….
What fools Democrats have become….
There is no end to what can be learned hands on.
My 8th grade history teacher started an organic garden and I learned a great deal. We feed a lot of homeless people as well. Dam those tomatoes were great.
I have seen first hand how merit pay makes teachers “concerned”. “No George left behind” (read 1$ bill) mandated student assessments and the “software” used to do this can potential be used to assess the teacher as well.
And those tomatoes fit right in with Hillary’s health care plan. One part of her plan is preventative-eat right, exercise, etc. My daughter has a nursing degree and is now in a masters program. Her Masters Project is teaching a group of people how to eat healthy and techniques to control eating. While doing research for her project, she many elderly are in the AZ health care system and the elderly are a fast growing population. If their health can be managed through diet and exercise, it will provide financial relief to the health care system and health benefits to the elderly.
Hillary appears to understand this aspect of health care and supports it. All of these things can be accomplished-health care, better schools-they only require presidential leadership. Obama doesn’t think about health care and education that way, but Hillary does. Health care and education aren’t a burden; but rather they are interesting and exciting.
And health care and education fit together-part of a continuum.
Truly focusing on the family, helping us to connect with one another, healing the hate, which can only be good for us as a nation.
So who is really uniting, here, already?
I think this idea of doing something to help ourselves instead of just relying on someone else for everything will also appeal to many people.
I know that my little plot of herbs and home grown tomatoes means a lot to me on many fronts. For one thing, the taste is so far superior to anything in any supermarket it’s hard to believe they are the same product. I use the herbs to make my own teas and to season many dishes instead of using my well-loved but bad for me salt shaker. (Oregano and Basil are really easy to grow in a pot if you don’t have any other room and both the smell and the taste are incredible.)
Of course you also need to convince some people that in spite of the fact that your hair is now gray and gravity has played some nasty tricks on your anatomy you are still a functioning adult. With an intellect even.
Maybe that’s one of the things that enrages me so much about many of the Obama supporters and surrogates; their subtle message that all us old farts need to step aside because they have suddenly discovered that ,gasp, politics is something almost as important as American Idol.
This old bat ain’t going nowhere. And the first fool that tells me to pass the torch is gonna get hit over the head with one!
Sorry, a little off topic and am fast ruining any chance I had that anyone might think me a sweet little old lady.