Privatization of Public Housing Shelved — For Now

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Wednesday June 02, 2010 · 6:29 PM PDT

2010/06/02 · 18:29

HUD’s attempt to privatize all of America’s public housing has been put on hold — for now. You played an important role. Thousands of you signed the petition and spread the word, so that those at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on May 25 understood what the stakes were.

Barney Frank and Maxine Waters asked the right questions, and HUD’s answers revealed what was hidden in the language of the bill, namely, that all public housing in America would be subject to privatization.

George Lakoff

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Friday May 28, 2010 · 1:02 AM PDT

2010/05/28 · 01:02

Barack Obama may be one of the best communicators of this generation, but he is not living up to his own talents. In a year of disasters, communication failure doubles the disasters.

George Lakoff

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Friday May 21, 2010 · 1:43 AM PDT

2010/05/21 · 01:43

The Obama Administration’s move to the right is about to give conservatives a victory they could not have anticipated, even under Bush. HUD, under Obama, submitted legislation called PETRA to Congress that would result in the privatization of all public housing in America.

George Lakoff

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Monday February 22, 2010 · 4:49 PM PST

2010/02/22 · 16:49

Life and Freedom are moral issues. It is time for Democrats to talk about health in those terms, beyond just policy terms like health insurance reform, bending the cost curve, types of exchanges, etc.

George Lakoff

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Sunday February 21, 2010 · 1:05 AM PST

2010/02/21 · 01:05

Over the past couple of weeks, the NY Times has been reporting on results from the cognitive and brain sciences that confirm past research in those fields partly by me and partly by my community of colleagues. What makes this of general, not personal, interest is that the scientific results are especially important for understanding what has been going wrong for the Obama administration and for liberals generally, and what has been going right for conservatives. I’m going to start out with some science, and get on to the politics after brief discussions of three important NY Times articles and what they mean scientifically.

George Lakoff

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Sunday January 24, 2010 · 11:48 PM PST

2010/01/24 · 23:48

In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn’t worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.

We begin with this week’s triple whammy.

George Lakoff

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Wednesday August 19, 2009 · 10:25 PM PDT

2009/08/19 · 22:25

Barack Obama ran the best-organized and best-framed presidential campaign in history. How is it possible that the same people who did so well in the campaign have done so badly on health care?

And bad it is: The public option may well be gone. Neither Obama himself nor Senior Advisor David Axelrod even mentioned the public option in their pleas to the nation last Sunday (August 16, 2009). Secretary Sibelius even said it was “not essential.” Cass Sunstein’s co-author, Richard Thaler, in the Sunday NY Times (August 16, 2009, p. BU 4) called it “neither necessary nor sufficient.” There has been a major drop in support for the president throughout the country, with angry mobs disrupting town halls and the right wing airing its views with vehemence nonstop on radio and tv all day every day. As the NY Times reports, Organizing for America (the old Obama campaign network) can’t even get its own troops out to work for the President’s proposal.

What has been going wrong?

George Lakoff

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Saturday May 30, 2009 · 1:25 PM PDT

2009/05/30 · 13:25

The Sotomayor nomination has given radical conservatives new life. They have launched an attack that is nominally aimed at Judge Sotomayor. But it is really a coordinated stealth attack — on President Obama’s central vision, on progressive thought itself, and on Republicans who might stray from the conservative hard line.

There are several fronts: Empathy, feelings, racism, activist judges. Each one has a hidden dimension. And if progressives think conservative attacks are just about Sotomayor, they may wind up helping conservatives regroup.

Conservatives believe that Sotomayor will be confirmed, and so their attacks may seem irrational to Democrats, a last gasp, a grasping at straws, a sign that the party is breaking up.

Actually, something sneakier and possibly dangerous is going on.

George Lakoff

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Wednesday May 20, 2009 · 1:14 AM PDT

2009/05/20 · 01:14

Hooray! The outrageous propositions 1 A-E have been crushed by voters who just can’t take any more.

California voters have rejected the nonfunctional minority-rule government that has bankrupted the state, along with the governor who led the state into bankruptcy.

The voters want a functional democracy, and that means majority rule. No more blackmail by a 1/3 plus 1 Republican minority.

In short, the voters have given the Democrats a new freedom – if they will only take it.

George Lakoff

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Tuesday May 19, 2009 · 12:57 PM PDT

2009/05/19 · 12:57

EcoAmerica is soon to make public a report on the framing of the environment called “Climate and Energy Truths: Our Common Future.” The NY Times, on May 1, 2009, ran a front-page story on the report by John M. Broder called “Seeking to save the Planet, with a Thesaurus.” It amounted to a belittlement of the report.

Broder quoted Drexel University Professor Robert J. Brulle as saying that “ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. ‘The form is the same; the message is just flipped,’ he said. ‘You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.’

The story missed most of the main issues, but at least it was on the front page. Broder, a fine environmental policy reporter, did his best with a very limited understanding of framing. I am glad that Broder and the Times saw that the issue is significant enough for the front page.

This is an attempt to make better sense of that story.

George Lakoff

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Tuesday February 24, 2009 · 12:01 AM PST

2009/02/24 · 00:01

Berkeley, CA. February 24, 2009.

As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?
The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America—a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.
What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious.” Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. ” The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.
For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans—both conservatives and progressives—don’t yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.

George Lakoff

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Friday September 26, 2008 · 3:11 PM PDT

2008/09/26 · 15:11

By George Lakoff and Kathleen Frumkin

John McCain knew that there would be no bailout agreement before he announced that he would go to Washington, supposedly to help promote such an agreement in the spirit of bipartisanship. We smell a trap.

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Privatization of Public Housing Shelved — For Now

Obama’s Missing Moral Narrative

Below the Radar: HUD is Trying to Privatize and Mortgage Off All of America’s Public Housing

Health Means Life; Health Means Freedom

A Good Week for Science — and Insight into Politics

Where's The Movement?

The PolicySpeak Disaster for Health Care

Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy:

California Voters Set the Democrats Free: Will They Act?

On Framing the Environment: The EcoAmerica Report

The Obama Code

The McCain Trap and The Obama Debate Challenge