[lbo-talk] "challenging allies"

[Alan Rudy]

I'm teaching Intro Soc at the moment and we did culture, socialization and
family over the last three weeks. After the culture chapter in the book I
had students watch the episode on Motown, Stax and Mussel Shoals from PBS's
1994 History of Rock 'n' Roll (that I've mentioned before).  After the
socialization chapter, I had the students read Michael Messner's article on
socialization, gender and sport, Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters and after the
family chapter I had them read the Chapter titled Leave it to Beaver and
Ozzie and Harriet from Stephanie Coontz' The Way We Never Were.
I noticed this Thursday, going over Coontz, that I had - three weeks in a
row - pointed out the ways that Obama could be seen to represent or tha this
campaign and policies had appropriated historically Republican arguments
about cultural integration, traditional standards, individual
responsibility, conventional family and so on.
Echoing the reports that he's buddies with David Brooks, it looks and sounds
like Obama's cultural and political assumptions are that the US is a
center-right nation... under these conditions he's, perhaps tragically,
nevertheless still likely to win in 2010 because the Republicans seem bound
and determined to run insanely far right candidates since - no matter how
much he steals their agenda - they see Obama as a Black Democrat, and
therefore far left, socialist.
Oy.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:54 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:


> what? does he want to lose in 2012 or what?
>
>
> At 11:01 AM 9/25/2009, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> [Anything but challenge Wall Street! Also from The Note...]
>>
>> Unions Criticize Obama's School Proposals as 'Bush III':
>>
>> "To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change
>> in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school
>> reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that
>> make unions gag," reports the Washington Post.
>>
>> "It looks like the only strategies they have are charter schools and
>> measurement," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American
>> Federation of Teachers. "That's Bush III."
>>
>> During his Wednesday appearance on "Charlie Rose," White House chief
>> of staff Rahm Emanuel pointed to President Obama's clash with teachers
>> unions as a sign that he is willing to "challenge allies when it comes
>> to America's interests."
>>
>> "He's taking on 'the teachers' union' in his pursuit of charter
>> schools and teacher testing and student testing and accountability,"
>> said Emanuel.
>>
>>
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