Education Reform Without the Lipstick

Another in the MeanMesa "Lipstick" series. This time: President Obama's Plan for Education Reform. 85

A Little History:

Last week the President made a speech which officially places education reform in the role of a “leg” on his three legged stool for national recovery. That speech, nestled into a daily news cycle of speeches, any one of of which would have induced uncontrolled bleeding twenty four months ago, still arose filled with phrases not dissimilar from those which have filled traditional speeches about education reform at about the same early point in every Presidential term in recent history.

The implied consequences of not “educating better” have trailed along with the string of competitors our nation has faced through the years. There were the Soviets with their relentless, cast iron, collective system which seemed to crank out legions of nuclear physicists, chess players and spies. There were the ambitious Indians who seemed to be able to duplicate the results of even our most expensive efforts with their tin cans and strings. There were the Asian youngsters who seemed to be able to almost effortlessly become industrial manufacturing geniuses whether in the poverty of their ancient homelands or the worst schools the American system might offer their immigrant parents.

Defending our side were the unfaltering voices repeating the mantra, “If they are so good, why are we still richer?” Uh, right. The United States population apparently hit its highest literacy rate in the 1950’s, one of the very few constructive results of decades of US/Soviet MAD geopolitics (Mutually Assured Destruction).

Some commentators (Thom Hartmann) cite the beginning of public education during Freidrich’s Hohenzollern Prussia. The population of orphanages had grown so large that the King became interested in developing the boys there to become obedient soldiers, loyal subjects and profitable, respectful employees. It seems that, once all that had been figured out a few centuries ago, there hasn’t really been much cause to consider the matter any more since then.

Back to the Future: 2009

Perhaps the notable departure from past Presidential education reform speeches is not to be found in the words of Obama’s speech so much as in the incredible inertia of the man who spoke them. And, notably, wrote them. Such words become more credible when we realize that they were not simply handed to the President a few minutes before air time to make sure he could pronounce everything that was going to appear on his teleprompter.

President Obama has done his part. So, let’s set aside the “lipstick,” and do our part. Let’s take a shot at “boiling the thing down to its bones.” What conclusions can we make about the essential necessities required for education reform?

As with most political questions, we immediately encounter that apparently unavoidable human trait, “humiliation avoidance.” We seem to suffer an unreasonable fear of making decisions which will turn out to be less than optimal. Those would be decisions about the nature of a “good education,” about the actual amount of resources we will need to dedicate to the effort and about means and methods of testing our proposition as it goes along. We would very much prefer to know as early as possible -- or better yet, even beforehand! -- if the decisions we have made are really producing the results we seek. Otherwise, of course, we would not be “avoiding the humiliation” of having made such bad decisions.

By the way, this “bad decision” business has grown legs. One might think that our past efforts at education have been so ill conceived and misdirected, that is, so “humiliating,” that any reasonable person would be extremely “gun shy” about even so much as attempting to ever make such plans again. Our present situation, although neither particularly reassuring nor satisfying, is not yet a cataclysmic, world ending, “Death to America” disaster. However, given its tepid results, that historical approach is, most likely, at its end.

One result of this realization has been to discourage any public participation in redesigning the system at all. As with many modern quandaries, the electorate has been carefully groomed to passively accept the idea that the solution, if one exists at all, is far too complicated for “mere mortals” to comprehend. The entire matter must be turned over, along with a very big check, to the “education experts.” Only the hyper-qualified denizens of the educational world have the background to propose some painless improvement, at its best probably only a “little better” than what we have now. We have tried this one already. Several times. Too many times.

Another result is a cowardly and thoughtless appetite to “collapse to tradition.” This plan reverts education efforts to their earlier states. Those “early states of education” might be “the way things were when I was a boy,” or “when my dad went to school,” or “when the nation was young,” or even “back in the old country.” A loftier version might reflect positively on conditions young Alexander encountered while living with Aristotle, or Scian ‘jiou while living with his dark teacher from Abarabia, Mullah Edin. We will need to learn from the past, but there is little future in reliving it.

As a culture we seem to retain plenty of the demand that things should be simplified, our traditionally American, folksy, anti-intellectual tantrum. We have watched enough old movies to have been thoroughly convinced that “good old American common sense, saturated with naiveté and an innocent, ebullient, ‘can-do’ optimism made possible by not knowing our limits” has allowed us to overcome Nazi’s, alien invaders and hopeless, impending cometary collisions. We probably should not be quite so convinced that the same approach has delivered a polio vaccine, a man on the moon, the internet, the United Nations or Viagra. Education did that.

Finally, returning the the “humiliation avoidance” idea, we have grown gangrenously cynical. We have relegated the responsibilities for defining the measurement of our educational system to the most unlikely people. Dirty shirt preachers and southern speaking coaches have been left with the task of defining educational success as they mindlessly transform adolescent boys into leaders, unthinking generals and admirals, more pastors and coaches, national league athletes, Senatorial hillbillies and the like.

We have been listening to those who say that a good education can be measured by high school graduates who are well prepared to work in factories or join the military without rehabilitative training. An occasional “star” who invents something against all odds (even a rotten education), who makes billions of dollars in the stock market or who composes a brilliant symphony drives the “last nail to seal the lid” on this case.

Don’t Trust Anybody.

The “straw man” is comprised of several parts. The most appealing of them is the almost universal insistence to test the education system in any new design to see if it is accomplishing its mission. Closely behind those voices is an unending interest in determining whether or not its product is a “good deal for the money.”

The validation derived from a testing regime has generated significant traction. Because no current educational proposal package can reach media maturity without centering on “credible testing,” elaborate testing regimes have become as central as educational substance itself. The testing systems have risen in importance until they now validate the educational systems more strongly than what is actually being taught.

The missing piece, although conveniently hidden by the testing distraction, remains the definition of the educational goal. Coaches and pastors aside, what are we willing to agree on when it comes to over all objectives for our new educational effort? The “trained up” soldiers and factory workers concept doesn’t carry much water. The “states rights” bigots insisting on education promoting a six thousand year old planet aren’t really anything we are interested in spending federal dollars to sustain.

Where does this leave us? Who will tell us whether or not we are doing the right thing?

Oh dear.

Let’s ask the teacher. That’s right. Let’s ask the teacher if the students in his class are receiving a correct education. Surely the teacher would know something like that.

Wait a minute! We can’t “just ask the teacher” because we don’t trust the teacher. Those darn teachers will trick us! They will tell us that their students are getting a good education so they can have a chance at one of those merit raises. Maybe those teachers don’t really know if their students are getting a correct education or not.

What does this mean? It means that we have teachers we don't trust and who, we think, don’t really know whether or not they are providing a correct education in charge of educating our young ones. Does this mean that we should increase funding and inject merit pay into the mix or just spend lots more money devising testing regimes that these tricksters cannot manipulate?

After all, the prevailing religious mythology has continuously promoted the idea that men are evil opportunists who can’t be trusted. Why would we expect these teachers to be any different than the rest of humanity? They’re not saints, so we can’t trust them. Since we can’t trust them, we must try harder and harder to expose their trickery (or be humiliated by winding up with kids the army doesn’t want and who can’t work in factories). It isn’t our fault if we have to work so hard on exposing them that we simply haven’t got time to worry about what kind of education is being accomplished.

We can’t even agree on a few guiding principles which might define what kind of education we want to accomplish! When that question is placed on the table, every vested interest emerges from the culture swamp to enjoy a bite of lunch! There are speciously useless text books for a $100 per copy, the products of dithering committees of experts and consultants, contracts based on political favors and “certified” by someone as being precisely the books which are absolutely, critically essential to a “good education,” whatever that is.

There are confused college students marching through a numbing chaos of education classes which avoid any relevance to the essence of the teacher’s motivation beyond the capture of merit pay, tenure and union membership. There are bellowing, cracker politicians snapping worn out harangues about waste and frivolity in the schools, all imposed by some sinister parasites with no interest other than extracting tax money.

Ideologically, we see the vacuous hilarity of those bemoaning a lack of “critical thinking.” In dull moments we can always “tune in” to the latest spectacularly depressing news about sex education or school violence. We can find common cause with those who would like to blame parents, civilization itself, poverty, teen sex or video games.

What in the hell are we doing?

This rapacious maelstrom of default thinking is not anything that will benefit from more “education reform.” Its stench has grown far, far too strong for that generosity. This is both an unavoidable wake up call and an opportunity surfacing in the teeth of calamity.

The problems we face in education seem to be incomprehensible because the grotesque thing we have created under that name is, well, incomprehensible. (Doubtful? Try to envision a future history which explains how we reached this failure state. Does your history make sense?) It is a monster consuming huge tax resources, brazenly diverting all its assets to its own protection, producing terrifyingly dismal results and worst of all, denying American youth the opportunity of their birth right to have a chance to develop themselves into something they might actually want to be.

It is clearly the intention of Great Nature that parents assist their children in every possible way to reach the age of responsibility, self-sufficiency and individualism. No amount of persuasive details or comforting, mitigating expertise exonerates a failure to accomplish that parental obligation. Parental obsessions with the goal of perpetuating religion mythology, aging, unexamined ideas or the ambitions of somehow converting their children’s futures into ideological, social or political currency are criminal.

This is childhood’s end.

But not childhood’s end for the children. Their childhood has already been through the meat grinder. Literally hundred of millions of them have had their dreams permanently crushed already by this hideous thing.

This is childhood’s end for the parents. No more being the “half-cocked,” inch deep, gushing ninny at the PTA meeting. No more being the passive, long suffering stoic without any ideas to improve things. No more being too busy to get involved. No more bitching about the property taxes. No more simply refusing to think.

No more turning the young ones over to the television for four hours a night. No more credit-card problem solving. No more “too tired.” No more exhaustion -- there is no exhaustion permitted when it comes to the little people who are counting on you to help them dream.

The following link to You Tube contains a complete video (36 minutes) of President Obama's speech in Dayton, Ohio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGcr1UZpBfA

“How Far Must the Dow Plunge Before Confidence Is Restored?

Spending too much time "ducking" the old things? Spending not enough time dreaming about the new things?

These days hold only cold comfort for the timid.

The newspaper headline titling this post betrays what may be an unexamined paradox. The sensation of "confidence" is an allegedly rational one which may be insinuated by past history, but probably not the past history being cited in the discussions of this moment. Likewise, the "restore" idea is visiting every area of pain in the present economy. There are the dreamy desires of those who would like the declining value (market price?) of their real estate "restored" to the figures of a year or two ago. There are those who feel that economic recovery implies that the stocks they purchased in the past might be "restored" not only to their previous trading values, but also in their vivacity and mobility with respect to potential profits or losses demarcated in the "numbers and the systems of the past."

Folks who are entertaining this expectation for the "recovery" are not founding their ideas on circumstances which enjoy much of a chance to materialize in reality.

The less lofty have ambitions for a stable floor to the decline where, although the numerical "prices" of monetary assets would be defined by lower numerical values, the relative values would become, once more, as promising as they had been before. Perhaps even the wage earners are gradually becoming adjusted to the idea that their "restored" wages, although not bearing the same figures as on the old paychecks, might have a "restored" purchasing power or offer an investment opportunity equivalent to the ones on those old stubs.

The economic pedestrian has only a slightly more realistic view of the possibilities at hand. He, at least, has the common sense necessary to envision an economic solution which is not the "restoration" of his previous conditions, but something of a hybrid, located between full "recovery" or "restoration" and some intermediate state where his comfort level is comparable to what it was before.

Likewise, the critics and cynics (uh, that would be the hillbillies, Senate bigots and other free market criminals) seize on the predictable, codependent opportunity of establishing that true "recovery" or "restoration" can be nothing less than a sterile return to the artificial successes previously derived from the avarice of the recent past. They would, foolishly, like to establish that vision as the only possible outcome which might legitimatize Obama's desperate efforts ideologically. The public opinion attraction to that insistent approach is waning rapidly, most likely, as was the tragic case with "confidence," another victim of “common sense” on the main street.

My advice? Quit dreaming of the past. Quit trying to measure the possibilities and challenges of the near future by the currency of the past. All those “restorations” require more than a duplicated economic flow of factors and equations. Frankly, they all depend on more than a resurgence of familiar numbers on the Wall Street trading boards. They also, in a way as subtle as the “elephant in the living room,” also depend upon the resurrection of all sorts of imaginary asset values, labor rates, real estate ambitions and even international trade relations. There is no part of the economic stimulus plan which can re-materialize these old, opium dreams. They cannot be “restored,” because they were never material in the first place.

We can join the wailing of the Wall Streeters and the bankers and the quiet, arrogant ultra-rich with their effected accents if we like, but all the old deceptions of this crowd have evaporated just as concretely as the sale price of the duplex next door. All the illicit advantages they promoted as “sharp business practices” for the last dozen decades have been exposed now. Worse, their dreams of the precise value of such deceptions have also been smashed. They sold them to us once, and that worked out well for them. But now, those balloons have popped -- perhaps largely in the very faces of these “pretend Captains of Industry.”

No one can still reasonably hope that those “balloons” of theirs can be “restored.” Further, citizens of both the United States and the rest of the world where their extractive schemes have reached, seem to have a new, much more informed style of awareness of exactly what had been done before. The hordes of what had previously been “easy marks” have now entered a period of renewed understanding of what the responsibility of “self-interest” actually means. An understanding which excludes the necessity of supporting these parasites in the style and luxury of the past.

Obama gets this. One wonders how many familiars of the old White House have appeared once again with “offers he can’t refuse.” One wonders what was on their deflated faces when he did, in fact, refuse.

Without the hordes of the sleeping, the mistaken certainties of the past are beginning to rot on the vine. Mistaken certainties? The sanctity of the free market as the ultimate director of the economy. The acceptability of the well (and not so well) disguised, noncompetitive subterfuge, whether a no bid contract for billions or some doo-dad added to a House bill at the last minute making new profits an automatic reality for some crony.

But wait. No matter how refreshing it might be, a modern correction of these sorts of things amounts to little more than a tweeking to the system. Such a development might turn out to be the final result of this economic melt-down, but there are others -- developments which can hardly be defined as a “tweeking.” In any event, it looks constantly less likely to be a mere “restoration.”

The economy is not experiencing a little difficulty, it is evaporating before our very eyes. We have heard fifteen thousand reasons why this is happening, but what seems the most logical conclusion at this point is that no one has either any complete or rational explanation of precisely why this is happening or how far down it will go. All the old reasons are approaching a region of logical discontinuity far too similar to what might be encountered on a classic Riemann Equation’s first surface. We have probably left explanations or their possible comfort somewhere behind us.

The classical parameters which used to drive everything have ceased functioning. What was successful “tweeking” in the past system no longer produces any effect at all.

So, where does it go?

It “goes” through the discontinuity, and we go with it. The hilarious threats of creeping Socialism or nationalization or Fascism or vacant promises of capitalism or free marketism or a “restored” hegemony are all now parked in the "used car lot" history of the past, in our memories, in our dreams. That old currency fills the entire stage, constructs all the sets and writes all the play. We can make no new play which requires parts other than those old familiar ones. Our imagination has beached itself on the remnants of our fears.

The choices for the face of the future system will not be variations of the faces of the past. What has begun as an economic aberration has become an ideological meat grinder, and its product may well arrive without so much as a reasoned hint or even a wild speculation from the past.

The “new thing” approaches.

It won’t be all bad, either, but these last few months before its arrival will be terrifying -- especially for those who were able to prosper in the false world of the false values of the past. Still, we must prepare ourselves for a new system. It arrives just as the widower's new wife. The recipes and the bedroom, although quite satisfying, can never "restore" what has passed before. We have no firm ideas about what the new system will require of us or what new opportunities it may present, of course, but we do know one thing. We prepare ourselves by watching for its arrival with hope, not dread.

Adjusting our ideas of “necessity” and “comfort” might help a little. Experimenting with values which have evolved beyond imposed scarcity and insatiable greed and impossible security is probably a good idea, even if such a discipline hasn’t ever been reasonable in the past. We must clear our road weary slate of ancient false priorities, thrash out the cobwebs and steel ourselves for a new day.

As humans, we are now stranded with the frightening necessity of charting our way forward. We find the press of events has cast us not as survivors, but as designers.

The “new thing” approaches.

Obama's "Frightening" Nominations

First, a recap of recent market gains in fear futures... 71

Reflecting, not on the passing government, but on ourselves and our own part in the dismal events of the Bush years, we arrive at some unavoidable conclusions. As citizens we had become so softened by years of prosperous security before his terms that we were vulnerable to manipulation by most of his shallow, fabricated new fears.

We were officially frightened by Osama bin Laden after 911, and his imaginary accomplice, Sadam Hussein shortly after that. We were not frightened by Indian and Pakistani H-bomb tests. Perhaps that fright was reserved for later, that is, for some inevitable future moment when it could be exploited with greater results.

We were frightened by North Korea’s H-bomb test. It enjoyed the serendipity of being at just the right moment, maybe a moment when our fear was subsiding to levels no longer blindly supporting some scheme made politically possible only by our manipulation.

We responded well to Iran’s understandable ambition to arm itself. At any time that fear faltered, we increased our not so subtle threats, making some fiery response a virtual certainty, a reaffirmed asset for domestic consumption here and, of course, a good investment of hate.

We weren’t particularly frightened by Katrina, a deadly but largely unusable source of fear due to its lack of a “bomb-able” adversary. The Russians presented a reliable threat, but they apparently frightened our government in return. They were somewhat less usable, perhaps because they could actually “bite back.”

The point? We, unaccustomed to being threatened after such a long hegemony -- real or imagined, were gradually groomed to be frightened on demand. The neo-cons accurately and successfully managed to convince us that leadership required a threat. In the more rational examination of such leadership, that is, when it was examined without the convenient hysteria of the latest calamity, its appearance might become dangerously lack luster.

The "new frighteners."

Now, these weary “old frighteners” are on their way out of town. Troubling "new frighteners” have arrived with the ambition of taking over the franchise. These "new frighteners” are not neo-cons at all. This new batch is from the other end of the spectrum. We seem to be entering into a period of being frightened by the left.

What are the threats being employed? After all, the left has demonstrated an irritable kind of allergic avoidance to the use of foreign machinations to frighten us. The newest, post election tool is, instead, an interesting innuendo indicting the “progressive purity” of Obama's nominations for places of power in the new government.

There was the momentary mention of the “testing” of the new President, but that was no more than a sickening remnant of the old scheme of threats, one based on the same tired ideology of being hopelessly terrified by foreign adversaries, that is, a tiresome repeat of the one used before. These more contemporary “frighteners” are intent on revealing threats to us about cabinet appointments and the possibilities that our accomplishments in the last election would be undercut with a result of reverting the government back to the numbing failure of its predecessor. They seem to have developed an appetite for questioning the new President’s character even after supporting him only a few weeks or months ago.

The threat they endeavor to manufacture now is one of deception and conspiracy. They imply that the changes we sought have not turned out to be changes at all. These folks would like to take up the mantle of being the "new threateners" with their endless assertion that we, as voters, have been deceived. Again.

Clearly, they consider any fear and fright of this sort that they can incite in us to be a valuable asset to prop up their languishing authority as critics and pundits. They believe that these unexamined doubts they might cause will become very useful foundations for later tirades and tantrums which might have, otherwise, been too obviously shallow to provide the impact they crave. Their future dream is to say, credibly, of course, “I told you so.” “I was the one who cried out the early warning, so believe me now!”

If you’re waiting for the next form of being scared, you may be disappointed. You may have to learn a new trick. The world as previously presented as one of endless, hopeless, despair is going to become one of challenges and opportunities. Instead of groveling and trying to simply survive, we will be required to stand up with our eyes forward. Rather than cowering in a sterile ideological wasteland, lamenting on how things should have been, we will now be required to begin all our thoughts with where things are and where we intend to go.

Domestically, Senatorial bigots and military throwbacks have invested heavily in sponsoring our hatred and fear of each other. Their practiced incompetence was the real conspiracy as they trotted out fabricated alternatives with every choice equally depressing and unpalatable. Their old paradigm of no choices other than dominating or surviving the world is becoming the new, brighter question of successfully living in it.

These aging knee jerkers are now exposed much like the new thought-limiting left. Neither group has earned the right to express their foolish purity. Neither group has ever been willing to pay the honest wage of embracing leadership. The wage? To follow, of course. To trust a little. To think of the country beyond one’s immediate personal ambitions.

These "new frighteners” from the left would like for us to faint before the “hodge podge” of conflicting influences in the new government. They would prefer that we were, well, more hopelessly stoic given the rather raw abilities of these nominations by Obama. These "new frighteners” would prefer that we be pessimists about whether or not he can lead with all these conflicting influences. “Who will be in charge?” they wonder.

I predict that none of us will wonder about this for long.

We have elected a leader with, I suspect, a lethal, pragmatic competence coupled with more idealism that most of us think we can afford right now. Of course we are a bit uncomfortable with what we’ve done, but we can certainly claim that we were at our bravest and our best when we did it, inebriated with new hope.

By the way, that hope isn’t all in him. The important part of that hope is in us.

Leadership, after the wasteland we’ve endured, may seem to be measured by astounding solutions to intractable problems. It isn’t. It’s much more like paint, permanently changing the hue of everything it touches.

Get used to it.

No more being directed by fear. The leader we’ve found won’t amount to much without Americans to follow him.

For a very unusual point of view, sample this link:
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/lust-in-paradise/200811/obamas-ancient-leadership-style

Melt-Down?

The Non-Economic Analysis of What Just Happened.

The endless story of the primary and secondary models? 59

If you are George Bush, you have presented the primary model which argues that the national economy is going to meltdown any moment. You have also produced a secondary model which should propel the primary model to your desired results. The secondary model was the first dismal failure. Its increasing odor has now drawn the primary model into the swamp with it.

I have watched this unfold with the other politics wonks on my favorite web site. Comments and posts which had previously only infrequently amounted to more than a few paragraphs now present multipage quotations about who did what, when they did it and what the results were. The least interesting but probably the most educational are accounts of past legislation, particularly Senator McCain’s endless penchant for deregulation following his rehabilitation to the neo-cons after the Keating Five problem.

Rest easy, dear visitor. This post is all about models not history. Those energized web posters mentioned above can either establish a compelling argument for the culprit in this mess, or at least, wall paper the entire affair with their too-easily-copied-and-pasted quotations. (If you still have an appetite for more of that stuff, visit my favorite after you finish here.

http://www.thomhartmann.com

and on to the forums “Domestic Politics” and “Economics.” It’s all there waiting there for you.)

Now to the models. A quick description might be in order. The primary model of any communication defines the essence of it, the question, the answer etc. The secondary model defines the mechanism of its transmission. In a sense, the primary model is the message; the secondary model is the massage.

Primary models have the foundational quality of being about something. Secondary models, on the other hand, deal entirely with the business of communicating the primary model. Both are critically important aspects of communication’s effectivity as one of the pillars of human affairs.

Concerning the proposition of Mr. Bush’s inflammatory warning about the economy, no one I’ve encountered can confidently say whether or not the threat he describes is real. That state of affairs, for example, decries his track record of secondary models in rather harsh terms. Yes, we know what his initial proposition contains, however, the secondary model he employed to manipulate us into action is, frankly, insulting. As such, it is nothing new.

So, what exactly is this secondary model we are looking at here? That is, of course, the secondary model as we see it, not the “lipstick” version rolling around the House Committee Hearings.

It’s suspiciously intriguing that, like the last one, this one began on 9/11.

The Secondary Model:

The President approaches the nation breathlessly communicating an immense threat. No one has any particular way of knowing any more about the threat than they did the last time he did this Once more, we only seem to know what he and his cabinet appointees are telling us about it. Now come the questions.

Do we trust this man? Has he told us the truth before? Has he always acted sincerely in our interests? Does it turn out that our idea about his judgment could bear the facts that came out later? Like last time?

Did he tell us the truth about the threat? Did he know about it earlier than when he told us about it? Is he telling us everything he knows now? Is he telling us enough so we can make a reasonably good decision about what to do? Or, is it like last time?

The “when” became a rather “pregnant” issue with the last threat he told us about. Did this new threat of his just “pop up out of the blue” without warning? Like last time?

The President has told us that we must act fast, and by “act” he means that we should do what he suggests we do, fast. Like the Patriot Act. Like the Military Force Authorization. Like the pharmaceutical bill. Right away, please! We have to do everything right away or face the dire consequences? Of course. It’s urgent. If we are foolish enough to wait, to think about it, all will be lost!

We can think about it later. This is a lot of our money. We’ll have time to think about it while we are paying it back.

Do we trust this man with even more of our money? Has he done a good job with the money we have given over to him in the past? Has he told us what he bought with it? Who got it? Where it is now?

Then, of course, there are the experts. They are the ones who know all abut this. Why it is urgent. Why it is worth so much. What happens if they don’t get it. Have we had good results with his experts in the past? With Donald Rumsfeld? With Carl Rove? With House Speaker DeLay? Does this President show us his good judgment in picking his experts? Do we think that, somehow, he has started to do better? Did we trust those people? Should we have trusted them? Like last time?

The expert here is Treasury Secretary Paulson. The company that is getting discussed as the next corporate fatality of this mess is called Goldman Sachs. Treasury Secretary Paulson used to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs. He apparently has $630 million dollars worth of Goldman Sachs stock in his personal fortune.

Should we trust him? Has he always done a “good job” in the past? Was he as surprised as the President when this just suddenly happened? Would he have come up with the same plan if Goldman Sachs weren’t tanking with the other investment banks?

All of this is the secondary model. These unfortunate men have started this sales effort with utterly derelict credibility. The taxpayers they are trying to convince are already exhausted, injured and, deservedly, suspicious. They are afraid. The first issue of this secondary model was to frighten them further. Like last time?

Does anybody else worry that this might not be what it is presented to be? I guess we are pretty much done with George Bush’s judgment. That leaves us stranded in an unpleasant place where we have been before, stranded with only our judgment -- our intuition. Since we have no facts, we can only try to do better than we did last time.

Mean and Tasteless Poetry: Welcoming Sara

The milk man said good morning 52

Morning, ma'am,

Your two per cent is less today than gas is by the gallon.
And, your neighbors are excited about the big election.
That cagey fighter pilot's called out missus Palin,
sweet Alaskan butt, to remind him of his last erection.

Victory! Senator McCain's found special, secret polls,
big news showing Obama's crew sliding into disrepair -
under attack by strong, yet compassionate, Christian souls
and a vampy veep who cleans her rifle while she skins her bear.

Oh my! Who could compete? He's just certain her wave will last!
She's quick, delightful, the governor and, quite the mama!
Abortions, gays and those Russians! When the final vote is cast,
her interviews will have elected Barack Obama!

Will you be wanting cream tomorrow?

Obama Can "Bore Through" "Drill Now"

The Strategy of Chaotic Misinformation:
Manipulating Energy Problem Definitions with Contradictory Reporting

Summary:
This article describes a new policy proposal made within the Obama Campaign in response to the McCain “Drill Now” attack strategy. This proposal calls for the creation of a new, Congressionally sponsored bureaucracy to independently provide and communicate reliable information to voters on current energy, environmental and economic issues. The purpose of this new entity, proposed here as a GSE, is to eliminate contradictory or motivated assessments of problem definition; to introduce a reliable source of information and research to factually define problems; and, to make policy debates center on problem solution rather than contentious views of problem definition.

(A more complete presentation of this proposal can be seen in a larger discussion titled “Managing Global Warming Solutions.” June, 2008. This blog. )

I. Capitalizing on McCain’s “Drill Now” Attack
Converting Its Negatives to an Obama Opportunity

The McCain campaign has fabricated a dominant position by extracting all details from Obama’s willingness to compromise. Absent the conditional arguments of the bipartisan energy bill, that is, when events are expressed exclusively as a change in policy on the part of Obama, McCain has insinuated a superior “trustability,” “common sense” and “experience” position with this presentation. McCain’s advantage relies on his simplistic version. His representation of only highly edited parts of the larger matter has been accepted as highly credible.

McCain Strategy:
Separate the drilling issue from the energy legislation issue.
Characterize Obama willingness to go bipartisan as flip flop.
Suppress logical details which differentiate McCain’s position from Obama’s.

It is further energized by the complicated nature of the counter argument. Obama cannot introduce a compelling explanation to limit the McCain attack without introducing complex political and “oil” technical specifics beyond the interest/reception level of the voters influenced by the McCain strategy.

The material liability to the Obama position is a reinforcement of latent mistrust. He is trapped in a manipulated policy response cycle exaggerated by the negative connotation of “flip-flop.” There is no tactical advantage possible for Obama from this position in the response cycle.

II. McCain Exploits Existing Voter Uncertainty
He Drives Home His Advantage with an Overly Simple Proposition

The public fears being exploited, misled or humiliated by some aspect of the energy crisis. Consequently, contradictory inflammatory argument structures can mobilize opinion while constantly keeping the same opinion off balance and fearful (never confidently materialized). The result is more akin to a ping pong game than an educational effort. This is the optimum environment for those seeking to advance unexamined solutions which will sustain or improve their advantage for profits and low regulation of their activities -- or establishing negatives for Obama.

McCain Strategy:
Voters have no access to reliable information countering McCain’s “drill now.”
Voters are not prepared to take chances based on their own technical information.
Intentional effort to make new technical information consistently risky, contradictory.

One important foundation of the McCain position is to deny the public access to any credible information. Every proposition regarding the “drill now” position’s validity is presented by less than credible sources in contradiction to other less than credible sources. Media presentation of factual data is sabotaged by a preconceived (implied) suggestion that it is too complicated to understand. McCain considers this a stable (logical) asset given that voter interest or confidence in opposing views is low.

McCain’s position has been simplified to present a compelling emotional confidence. To the electorate it is understandable, even if the details remain undefined. When no one can be trusted, the simplest argument may as well be adopted. McCain correctly targeted this. The voter has no immediate incentive to attempt a more complex (accurate) understanding if none of the foundational arguments introduced to support it evoke any more confidence than the one it replaces.

McCain Strategy:
Invite voters to accept oversimplified “drill now” proposal.
Expect voters to resist the effort to investigate factual strength of “drill now” proposal.

Conflicted assertions have been groomed and perfected by the administration to create this tactical opportunity. This has succeeded. McCain anticipates no possible penetration of any factual argument into the working model hosted by a majority of voters. The inertial stability of the McCain argument is, clearly, well entrenched. It was not expected to diminish on its own. It hasn’t.

III. A Shocking Proposal to Defeat the McCain Advantage
The Obama Response Strategy:

The new fact: Public information about energy topics has been so intentionally confusing and misdirected that it is difficult to see the weakness of McCain’s “drill now” argument. The new fact is not about drilling, it is about having reliable information available for voter decisions.

The first issue is to neutralize the McCain advantage gained by simplistic presentation. The strategy to accomplish this is to embrace the argument (artificial phenomenon) put forth by the McCain Campaign. Directly address the complexity and the resulting misdirection of the McCain argument’s structure. Move away from the immediate necessity of oil drilling to the conditions which made McCain’s tactic temporarily successful. The new topic will no longer be oil drilling, it will be the lack of good information about matters such as oil drilling.

Obama Strategy:
Acknowledge that the McCain argument seems reasonable.
Embrace voter uncertainty about whether or not “drill now” is a right answer.
Explain that such decisions are too important to be made without good information.
Portray McCain’s position as exploiting the information vacuum.
Propose a new system which will provide reliable information to voters.
Walk away from “drill now” toward “Let’s learn the facts.”

The drilling issue will be overwhelmed by the new issue. Obama drives it home. “We are flying blind.” There is no credible source of information concerning such topics because all present sources are willing to manipulate factual or scientific data to their own interests. For the voter it is reasonable to doubt almost any proposition concerning this issue. The possible financial benefits to those who have schemed to place themselves in positions to speak to this matter have entirely overshadowed any interest in presenting facts useful for accurate public opinions (Profit, not education, reliability or honesty.).

Obama Strategy:
The profits made possible by this deception are immense.
The deception is made possible by a constant, intentional flood of misinformation.
The U.S. consumers are being exploited by suspect information management.
Voters are not informed enough to make a choice in their own interests.

Obama’s new idea: Establish a GSE organization, removed from government or corporate influence, which is responsible to provide voters with credible research on all energy and environmental matters.

We are getting ready to spend a huge amount of American consumer money and American taxpayer money to confront this challenge. We still have no reliable source for information. In fact, the most reliable information we presently have is that the available information is not reliable. This is the situation which made McCain’s strategy success possible. McCain’s move is directly opposed to Obama’s Respect, Empower, Include principle. Obama’s idea relies on open, reliable and credible information empowering voters able to express their informed self-interest.

Obama’s Strategy:
This proposal will provide a coherent information platform for policy.
Voters agree on the facts of the challenge.
No one gets to inject spurious facts to gain an advantage.

Obama’s proposal will allow policy debates (like “drill now”) to center on active response solutions rather than on contradictory problem definitions.

Obama’s Proposal for a New GSE:
10 preliminary concepts

1. Call the GSE the Environment Institute (or something more appealing).
2. Problem definitions will be presented to the public based on scientific and economic facts.
3. Proposed solutions can be scientifically evaluated.
4. Evaluations can be communicated to the public to increase public confidence.
5. Scientific findings from energy, environmental and economic sources can be centralized.
6. Research can become coordinated and coherent, no longer motivated by:

• desire to manipulate public opinion;
• efforts to impose incorrect solutions;
• opportunism, players seeking public authority or notoriety;
• ambitions to inject unreasonable solutions based on possible profit;
• legislation passed with dishonest motives or lack of transparency.

7. Inflammatory political tactics (like “drill now”) will become much less effective or attractive.
8. Voters will become more confident:

• that the nature of a problem is really known; or,
• that the problem is being scientifically studied, credibly researched.

9. The Institute may gain authority about international energy, environment and economy issues.
10. The Institute’s first responsibility will be to provide factual information to U.S. voters.

Everything about this proposal is well suited for the Obama Campaign. It provides an opportunity to expose the information manipulation the other side obviously considers valuable. It offers a material example of Obama’s alternative to the Republican strategy of extracting simplistic information to drive attack missions. It denies the Republicans the benefit of making inflammatory or fearful conclusions based on misinformation.

It is “high road” but, at the same time, it is more aggressive. Resistance or criticism to it can be immediately countered with “Do you fear public access to factual information?”

The criticism that it represents another “big government” or “Democratic party spending” proposal can be countered with a comparison of relative expense:

• the expense of making huge policy errors concerning energy or environment issues ($)
• vs.
• the expense required to perform reliable research and investigation to make good decisions ($)

This policy proposal need not materialize prior to the November election. If it is proposed as an Obama Campaign “talking point,” its appeal to the voters may well prove quite advantageous and spontaneous. The voters are already suspicious that they are being manipulated by intentional management of confusing or contradictory information reaching them through the media.

It enjoys the additional value of not being in the campaign “response cycle.” It is innovative, courageous and consistent with the “change” concept.

The energy situation has been carefully steered away from issues of environmental concern. McCain’s “drill now” strategy has overshadowed the memory of the Santa Barbara spill to place policy priorities on oil production, no matter the risk. Consumer fear about gasoline has become entirely focused on supply issues. This proposal will reenergize the environmental component of Obama supporters after their issue has been by “side lined” by McCain’s inflammatory oil positions.

All Rightee! President Time!

Making Tough Decisions: Electing a President in a Media Blackout
or is it, Electing a President in an Electorate Blackout?

Here it is again. November. The wife is poundin’ on me -- “You get out there and vote! If you don’t have one of them ‘I Voted’ stickers, you better not plan on gettin’ your favorite meatloaf for the rest of the year!” She don’t care if it’s colder than a brass bra out here. Oh no. “You get out there and vote!” Women are like that. My mom always told me to vote, too.

So, here we are at Cataclysm Junior High. There’s the ‘Vote Here’ sign. All these people, jeez, there’s no parking. I guess there’s nothin’ to do but go on in there and get it over with.

This is just like last time. Every four years it’s the same. I’m walkin' in to vote and I have no idea who I’m supposed to vote for. At least all the names are listed on the ballots. That makes it easier to remember who is running.

At least, this year, I did my homework. I watched the news a couple of times so I’d, like, know, the questions. The wife says you have to do that to be an educated voter. One thing I do know for sure, and that is whoever gets picked is gonna’ be the guy who runs the country until the next time, you know, the next election. I say guy, but, darn, that woman is running this time. If I vote for the woman, the wife will probably like it.

Still, I promised her that I’d vote my own mind. So, I guess it’s time to boil all these facts down so I know what I’m doin’. Mom always said to pay attention to the church goin’ while you size up each pick. McCain’s preacher thinks that the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon. That don’t mean much to me, ‘cause I ain’t Catholic. O’Bama’s preacher is a black man who doesn’t act like he’s white, but O’Bama dumped him anyway, whatever that means. Hillary’s little prayer bunch is full of fire-breathin’ neo-cons. She says she ain’t no neo-con, but she never said that the rest of ‘em weren’t.

So, that helps.

And, there’s the screw-ups. McCain said he didn’t know much about the economy but he wanted the war to go on for a hundred years. That’s weird all right, but I don’t rally know anything about the economy, either. O’Bama said that bitter people cling to religion and guns, but I ain’t bitter and I don’t even own a gun. The wife hates guns, but she don’t think he’s no Moslem. Hillary said she got shot at somewhere, but the movie didn’t show it. Sometimes I think I got shot at, but I don’t remember any of the details very well, either.

Stuff like that really does help narrow down the decision.

Yup, I’m registered, thanks to the wife, and now I’m walking up to the little curtain thing. Mom told me to never tell a pollster that I was undecided ‘cause they’d call me on the phone everyday after that. I tried to watch all them numbers the news kept comin’ up with. I’m under fifty, but I’m over twenty-five. I’m pretty sure I’m mostly white, whatever that means. The wife and I go to church every Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and them other two days. I earn less than $250,000 and more than $45,000, right? And, I am the proud father of two kids of “mixed sex” like 39% of the rest of the country.

All that stuff says I’m supposed to vote for somebody, but I can’t remember which one. Still, it’s a clue.

I guess I’m just going to do it like last time. So long as everyone thinks I thought about it, I’ll be all right. Plus, I learned something from last time. I ain’t tellin’ nobody who I voted for until I can figure out if it makes me look stupid. If it does make me look stupid, I’ll just lie and say I voted for someone else.

All right, last time I used the alphabet idea. Since “B” came before “K,” I voted for the guy who’s in there now. To keep things democratic, this time I’m going to pick the last guy. Than means that “O” comes after “M,” even though it’s just barely. Huh. I wonder if I should count the “O” part or the “B” part. That would change everything.

Here goes. It’s gonna be “O.” That leaves all these other people to vote for. At least no one’s has ever heard of any of ‘em. For them, I can just use the old “flip the coin” approach. Anyway, no one ever asks whether or not you voted for them, or, you know, which one.

Now, I take this paper back over to the old lady and she gives me my “I Voted” sticker, then it’s home for meatloaf and sex. What a country!