“Fire All the Teachers” Demagogue Becomes Good Cop on NCLB: “The new proposals would require states to use annual tests, along with other indicators, to divide the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools into three groups: some 10,000 to 15,000 high-performing schools that would receive rewards or recognition, some 5,000 chronically failing schools requiring vigorous state intervention, and 80,000 or so schools in the middle that would be encouraged to figure out on their own how to improve.”
AFT Welcomes Common National Standards (ya cannot make this stuff up): “The new standards released on March 10 by the Common Core State Standards Initiative represent the best effort so far to transform today’s patchwork quilt of 50 sets of state standards into one set of strong, consistent expectations for what all students should know and learn, AFT president Randi Weingarten says.”
WashPost: National Regimented Curricula Require Racist Tests: “We will need tests—they will likely evolve into national tests—that are aligned with the new standards. That means changing the annual tests already used in some states, and overcoming the still widespread view that national testing undercuts states rights.”
On March 12th the Detroit Federation of Teachers leadership announced on their web site that they would join the lawsuit against Broad’s Bobb while the community began to respond to the Skillman plan to abolish the Detroit School Board. “Union and community activists at a school board meeting Thursday night said they were outraged by the plan to get rid of the board, while many parents were divided, and Mayor Dave Bing said he’d only take on the responsibility if voters agreed.”
Financial Manager Bobb Throws DPS into Deepest Debt Ever: “• Instead of a $17 million surplus Bobb projected for this fiscal year, spending has increased so much Bobb is projecting a $98 million deficit for the budget year that ends June 30…(and proves concessions don’t save jobs)…The financial situation will be managed, Bobb said, if a number of measures take place for the fiscal year that begins this summer. Among them: eliminating 2,100 positions to save $128.8 million; reducing health care costs by $47 million; saving $8 million through outsourcing transportation; and closing an estimated 41 schools.”
Detroit News Editorial: Back the Tyrant; Fire the Teachers and Let the Union Help! “Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson says his leadership team will hold a review today to decide whether to eject Conn and other such teachers from the union for their actions. That seems appropriate. It’s not up to individual teachers to decide what policies they’ll abide by. The union has agreed to some of the changes the dissidents are trying to block. Bobb should fire educators who are actively working to undermine district policies during school hours.
Bobb, Skillman, Broad, et al, Plan to Seize Detroit Schools–Close 40: “A coalition of education leaders and foundations will unveil today a sweeping academic reform agenda that targets failing schools, calls for 70 new programs and launches a national effort to recruit principals. The $200 million plan also aims to build community support this year to eliminate the Detroit Board of Education and make the mayor accountable for Detroit Public Schools….Other initiatives include the effort from the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which did not sign off on the plan but was engaged in the talks to develop it, to open its own school,”
Who is Michigan Future Inc?http://www.michiganfuture.org/about-michigan-future/leadership-council/
Could it Be A Pattern? KC to Close Half of its Schools: “The Kansas City Board of Education voted Wednesday night to close almost half of the city’s public schools, accepting a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink the system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit.In a 5-to-4 vote, the members endorsed the Right-Size plan, proposed by the schools superintendent, John Covington, to close 28 of the city’s 61 schools and cut 700 of 3,000 jobs, including those of 285 teachers.”
Texas Loves Them Textbooks: Tx, Fla, and California set the social studies standards in textbooks because they make huge, state-wide, purchases.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig”In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ””Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”) “The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.”
The They Say Cut Back; We Say Fight Back Front:
New York City March 4th Action (with short video):
Greece Rising: ATHENS (Dow Jones)–Greek police fired tear gas and percussion grenades Thursday as violence marred a protest by an estimated 50,000 people who joined in the latest nationwide general strike against the government’s austerity program. In a clash involving 200 to 300 anarchists and riot police, the police pushed back the group, which responded by throwing projectiles. There were also separate clashes reported outside of the Greek parliament, Agence France Presse reported. Meanwhile, near the city’s main university further street battles broke out between police and anarchist protesters. “http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100311-705838.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope
And Video History of Rebellions in Greece:
Bob Koehler: The Image in My Mind: Schools in Orange Jump Suits:
And Tomgram on the US Ponzi Schemes: “The wave of financial crime may have peaked in 2005 or 2006, but the detritus of such collapsed schemes has left regulators and investigators ever busier. Almost four times as many Ponzi schemes broke down in 2009 — 150 — as in 2008 — 40. According to the Associated Press, the FBI began more than 2,100 securities fraud cases last year, an increase from 1,750 the year before.”
There is Nothing Wrong With the Air at Ground Zero, Nothing Wrong, Nothin…. “A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached in the cases of thousands of rescue and cleanup workers at ground zero who sued the city over damage to their health, according to city officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/science/earth/12zero.html?hp
Tidbit One: If you would like an invitation to the black-tie optional Charter 2010 gala to celebrate the University of California’s 142 anniversary, all you have to do is email Susan Ohanian and get her invitation, then get ten friends with $250 dollars each and mail your total in. It is at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Valet Parking available of course. Diane Feinstein will be there.
Tidbit Two: March 14 is Albert Einstein’s Birthday (1879) and, in 1883, Karl Marx died.
Classics and Poems:
For this week, an excerpt from Einstein on “Why Socialism?” The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals….http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php
Songs: The Internationale, in Greek:
Thanks to Faith, Ofira, Amber, Wayne, Adam and Gina, Mr J and Z, Donna, Sherry, Marc and Bonnie, Carl, Peter M, Steve R, Kay T, Sandy H, Sally, the Susans, Lauren, Jovani, Marisol, Arturo, Jesus, Terry, Toby, Rona, Matt, Ken and Barb, Gil, and Bob.
“…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…”
Remember! Call For Proposals–Rouge Forum Conference August 2-5, 2010:
March 4th Actions, Analysis and Video:
WashPost Lead on March 4th Actions: “The University of California at Santa Cruz, expecting disruptions, had advised employees and others not to come to campus Thursday. Dozens of students blocked roads, prohibiting drivers from entering the campus at its main and west entrances. There were also reports of students intimidating employees. At Berkeley, the Academic Senate urged protesters to “stay on your feet” and offered helpful hints for those who chose arrest. Organizers hoped to spur events in 30 other states.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030401307.html?hpid=topnews#
Powerful Message From Europe: “All appeals to so called democratic institutions to save the public university will suffice for nothing. No condition of the past is worth romantically looking back to. The time has come not to save the university, but to decompose it, to dissolve
its institutional patterns, to destroy its ritualized reality, as well as the rest of this
society, and to build something new on the ruins.”
England Action vs Cuts: “ SUSSEX STUDENTS OCCUPY VICE CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE AGAINST CUTS Students have barricaded themselves inside the management offices at Sussex University. They are protesting against the Vice Chancellor’s plans to make 115 staff redundant. The job cuts would eradicate the environmental sciences degree programme, and significantly reduce the size of the English, history, and life science departments. The student advice service, the crèche, security services and catering staff also face savage cuts.The students’ action is part of a national day of action against education cuts”
Joburg, S. Africa, Students Fight Cops for Education: “South African police on Thursday used water cannons to disperse groups of protesting Johannesburg university students demanding the government provide free tertiary education for the poor.” http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6230F4.htm
On the Little Rouge School Front:
Obamagogue: “And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests — 7 percent. When a school board wasn’t able to deliver change by other means, they voted to lay off the faculty and the staff. As my Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, says, our kids get only one chance at an education, and we need to get it right. ”
We await the profound self-critiques of those who helped lead others into putting the demagogue into office.
George Schmidt: Time to Inflate the Rat! “we should never forget that the slavish subservience of the current leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, which joined Arne Duncan in policies that are now metasticizing across the USA under “Race To The Top”, helped make the current national attack on the teachers and principals who serve the poor possible.” http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1223§ion=Article
Ratt Winners and Losers–Who Can Make Sense of This Behind the Wall of Secrecy? “In the competition for $4 billion in Race to the Top grants, states have made their best pitches, a secret jury has debated and scored their applications…many of them are Southern, right-to-work states. New York is a surprise because many argue its student-teacher data law is weak, and its attempt to loosen restrictions on charters failed. Kentucky made the list, but has no charter law. Also, Colorado is the only Western state to make the cut.”
Detroit and the Question of the Day: Community or Barbarism?
Detroit Activist Teacher Steve Conn is suing to prevent Bob Bobb, owned by the Broad Foundation, from demolishing what is left of schooling in Detroit while Bobb picks up a nice raise, after gutting the DFT contract, $10,000 cut from every educator:
Bob Bobb, Detroit Schools Boss, Gets $81,000 Raise (From Broad)After Union Takes Massive Concessions:
Skillman et al to Replace All Detroit Schools with..Whatever: “”Making the old ones better doesn’t work,” Ross said. “They need to be closed and new schools created by people with track records.”Otis Mathis, president of the DPS board, said he had not heard about the plan until contacted by the Free Press late Friday, but said he was not surprised. The attention to DPS’s woes has drawn plenty of plans and ideas. But as in too many of those plans, the DPS board once again had been left out of those discussions, he said.”
Art? Schmart! Detroit and Suburban Schools Finish it Off: Only 40 percent, or 69, of the 172 DPS schools have an art teacher, down from 80 percent 10 years ago. And just 30 percent of Detroit schools — the engines that powered Motown — offer music instruction…suburban schools may not be far behind. In October, all public schools suffered a $165 per pupil cut in state aid — some suburbs lost even more..”The pressure to improve math and reading scores is so great that the fear response has been to get rid of everything else,”..For DPS’ Pruitt, the worst part of his job is dealing with all the violins, trumpets and drums now gathering dust at schools without music programs.”I’ll have the instruments lined up in the hall waiting for the truck, and kids walk by with wide eyes,” Pruitt said.”At first they think I’m their new band director. And I have to tell them, ‘No. I’m here to take your instruments away.’ ”
On the Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front: March 20=7 Years Since Iraq
McChrystal to Troops, “Sorry ‘bout that.” “ McChrystal’s decision to maintain the outpost at Barg-e Matal prompted the top American commanders in eastern Afghanistan to delay plans to close a second remote U.S. outpost, Combat Outpost Keating, where insurgents killed eight U.S. troops in an assault Oct. 3, a McClatchy investigation has found. Keeping Barg-e-Matal open also deprived a third isolated base of the officer who would have been its acting commander and left its command to lower-ranking officers whose “ineffective actions” led “directly” to the deaths of five American and eight Afghan soldiers in an ambush Sept. 8, according to a high-level military investigation. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/02/20/86824/probes-overlook-top-us-generals.html
McChrystal to His Puppet Karzai: Tell the Folks, “Sorry ‘bout That.”
“Sunday’s airstrike was the second in a week to kill Afghan civilians. A week earlier, U.S. Marines killed 12 Afghans during the ongoing offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in southern Afghanistan.Sunday’s strike hit a three-vehicle convoy of civilians in a remote part of the country. There were conflicting estimates of the death toll. The Afghan Council of Ministers said that 27 civilians — including four women and a child — had been killed, while the local police chief said 21 had died. Two others were missing, he said.” The attack came a day after Karzai used a speech before the Afghan parliament to prod McChrystal and NATO to step up their efforts to reduce civilian deaths.”
NY Times Oped–Exterminate the Brutes–Get Those Bombs Flying! Author Obscure:
“So in a modern refashioning of the obvious — that war is harmful to civilian populations — the United States military has begun basing doctrine on the premise that dead civilians are harmful to the conduct of war. The trouble is, no past war has ever supplied compelling proof of that claim.”
The Core Issue of Our Time is the Real Promise of Perpetual War and Booming Inequality Met by the Potential of Mass Class Conscious Resistance Front:
Personal Bankruptcies Rise Again: “Personal bankruptcy filings were back on the upswing in February after dipping the prior month. There were 111,693 consumer bankruptcy filings last month, up 9% from January, the American Bankruptcy Institute said Tuesday based on data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. The increase comes after filings fell 10% in January. The report offered little indication that the flood of consumer bankruptcies is easing. The number of filings was 14% above year-ago levels. Compared to the same period two years ago – when the unemployment rate was just 4.8% — filings were up 47%.”
Review of Stiglitz, the Keynesian, Freefall: “Stiglitz argues that “the failures in our financial system are emblematic of broader failures in our economic system, and the failures of our economic system reflect deeper problems in our society” — including growing inequities of wealth, a lack of accountability on the part of business and political leaders, and an emphasis on short-term gains as opposed to long-term benefits.” “we will emerge from the crisis with a much larger legacy of debt, with a financial system that is less competitive, less efficient and more vulnerable to another crisis.”
The New Yorker on Stiglitz: “In Stiglitz’s anguished, withering assessment, the bailouts approved by the Bush and Obama Administrations amount to a colossal transfer of public wealth into private hands, a transfer he compares to Russia’s giveaways to the oligarchs. As steep as the monetary costs have been, the political costs may be greater still: in attempting to restore confidence to financial markets, Washington gambled away the people’s confidence in government.” http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/brieflynoted/2010/03/08/100308crbn_brieflynoted1#ixzz0hNccplf8
Classic of the Week : The New Poverty by John Berger (b.1926): The poeverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied, but written off as trash. The 20th century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.
Almost Song of the Week: Everything is Ok, For Sure!
Thanks to Bill T, Lloyd, Perry, Ofira, Mr J and Mr Z, Wayne, Katy, Greg, Faith, Nancy P, Adam and Gina, Wayne S, Bob, Sharon A and Sherry, Dede, Pete, Steve, Dana, Kelly, Bart, Donna, Evan and Ethel, Amber, George L, Ricky, Dennis B, Marisol, Crystal, Isabel, Dannym Sharon A, Sherry W, Marc and Bonnie, Bill, and Gene. Good luck to us, every one.
The Education Agenda Is A War Agenda
An Imperialist War Agenda
A Class War Agenda
This is capitalism. It is not the highest or last stage of human development.
There is a connection between capitalism and imperialism, exploitation and war. One begets the other.
The key reasons for the attacks on working people and schools are rooted in those twins.
In the U.S. capitalism rapidly decays. The government is an executive committee and armed weapon of the ruling classes. There they work out their differences, allowing us to choose which one of them will oppress us best.
Capitalist education was never truly public, but always segregated by class and race. Beyond the call to Defend Public Education, we need to Transform Education to Serve the People.
The overwhelming majority of union mis-leaders choose the other side in what is surely a class struggle. They gain from the wars and capital by supporting those wars, winning their own high pay and benefits, and betraying workers— they’re a quisling force, organizing decay.
We can build a social movement that rejects the barriers US unionism creates, from job category to industry to race and sex and beyond.
People are more united throughout the world by systems of technology, transportation, communication, than ever before, but we are divided by class, race, nation, and sex-gender.
Why? Capitalism is necessarily a war of all on all.
Everything negative is in place for a revolutionary transformation of society:
*distrust of leaders, collapse of moral suasion from the top down,
*lost wars, the real promise of endless war,
*financial crises, massive unemployment, booming inequality,
*imprisonment of only the poor, growing reliance on sheer force to rule,
*eradication of civil liberties,
*corruption and gridlock of government at every level, etc.)
What is missing is the passion, class consciousness, organization, and guiding ethic to make that change. Our answer–an ethic of equality forged in a class conscious organization.
The core issue of our time is the reality of endless war and rising inequality met by the potential of mass, active class conscious resistance.
We can fight to rescue education from the ruling classes.
February 21, 1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto. In a letter dated London, 12 and 13 June 1883, Friedrich Engels enclosed a present for Eduard Bernstein. It is a handwritten page of the Communist Manifesto from 1848. “Enclosed is a part of the original draft of the concluding chapter from the Communist Manifesto that you may have as a souvenir. The first two lines were dictated and written by Mrs. Marx.” This only remaining page of the Communist Manifesto are part of the Marx-Engels papers.
They Say Get Back! We Say Fight Back!
Educate! Occupy! Walkout! March 4th to Transform Public Education ! Defend Education from the Ruling Classes!
On the Little Rouge School Front:
Most Calif. Schools Bow out of $700M RATT: Less than half of California school districts and only about a quarter of teacher unions have promised to make key education reforms required for the state to win $700 million in competitive federal grants, officials said Wednesday.
Son of NCLB to Rise and Spread the Bad Seed? “Senior House Republicans and Democrats plan to announce Thursday that they will team up to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, a rare show of bipartisanship in the polarized Congress.”
NYTimes on the (RightWing) Politics of Curriculum and Textbooks: “Public education has always been a battleground between cultural forces; one reason that Texas’ school-board members find themselves at the very center of the battlefield is, not surprisingly, money. The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State. California is the largest textbook market, but besides being bankrupt, it tends to be so specific about what kinds of information its students should learn that few other states follow its lead. Texas, on the other hand, was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guideline” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em
NYTimes–Public Says College-as-Business Sucks: “Most Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students, according to a new study. And the proportion of people who hold that view has increased to 60 percent, from 52 percent in 2007….nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that colleges should use federal stimulus money to hold down tuition, even if it means less money for operations and programs.”
Houston (with San Diego’s Terry Grier at the top) Imposes Firing-for-Test-Score Project:
“At a contentious meeting pitting parents against teachers, the Houston school board gave final approval on Thursday to a policy allowing the firing of instructors whose students fall short on standardized tests. Dozens of parents spoke in favor of the decision, while more than 750 teachers packed the school district’s headquarters to protest the policy, considered among the most aggressive efforts in the nation to improve teacher quality.
Dual Tyranny In Detroit: Administrative and Union–Detroit Federation of Teachers Uses Cops Vs Members: The DFT leadership had police greeting members coming to the February 11 meeting where rank and file dissidents hoped to present, again, a petition to remove DFT president Keith Johnson who, in December, foisted the worst teacher contract in US history on Detroit School workers. Police removed several members from the meeting in handcuffs. Below are quotes from the DFT web page (http://mi.aft.org/dft231/) demonstrating how the AFT around the country is more and more turning to force in order to whip educators into line. Force alone will never win. Meanwhile, DFT members watch as $250 vanishes from each paycheck, their insurance co-pays go from $5 to $40. In some schools, the testing schedule of preparation and bubbling-in will take up 49 of the next 100 school days. An injury to one just goes before an injury to all. Union bosses are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers’ enemies-harsh measures. Video (3) http://www.youtube.com/user/DFTmembers
NPR coverage:”…I don’t have any more doubts that that was a corrupt and false vote.” http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1611414/Top.Stories/DFT.Meeting.Breaks.Down.Amid.Accusations.of.Vote-Rigging Detroit Metro-Times: “ Johnson has called Detroit police, though no arrests have been made, and the union’s privately contracted security staff has escorted his opponents from the meeting. At the January meeting, a teacher who left the meeting asked the security guard, “Why did you threaten Heather Miller that you would fuck her up?” The guard replied, “I’ll say whatever the fuck I want.”http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14810
Got a Nominee for the “Defense of (whatever is left of) Academic Freedom Award?
Ya’ Cannot Make This Stuff Up: Philly Embeds Cameras to Spy on Students at Home: “ A suburban Philadelphia school district used the webcams in school-issued laptops to spy on students at home, potentially catching them and their families in compromising situations, a family claims in a federal lawsuit.” http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9160
Racism Doing Just Fine at UCSD Where Student Racists are Protected By Racist Administrators:
“The university at first said the party was off-campus and therefore would not present any problems with a student Code of Conduct.”
“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/19/tv-show-incenses-black-students-ucsd/
UCSD Lap Dog Calls Campus With 2% Black Students “Diverse.” : “UC San Diego is a jewel in your back yard and we are eager to have a university community that truly represents the demographics of our region and state.
Washington Teachers Suspended, Again, For Refusing to Proctor Bogus Test: “We did our own research and found that parents do have a right to refuse state assessments. Since the parents had expressed their opinions to us, we thought this was all that was needed. So we didn’t give the test.”
On the Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front: 368 Days Since the Stimulus. Are You Stimmed Yet?
Ravi Kumar Investigates Elections in India and the Left Response: “ The point that is important here is not the way election results have shown how identity politics is weakening but that even if the identity politics had triumphed in electoral results, it would have been nothing more than the victory of the neoliberal consensus. Identity politics that bases itself on the rhetoric of social justice has failed to represent its own constituency or, in fact, it cannot represent that constituency because of its inherent political understanding that rejects class and does not see the dialectic of the capitalism and repressions of Dalits etc. Results of such an understanding have been obvious — capital escapes our attention as the perpetrator, and the enemy is constructed through the obvious and apparent “other,” which is no doubt the perpetrator but which needs to be seen as an embodiment of its social identity as well as the economic location. Because the current forms and stage of identity politics is not based on such an analysis and is more cultural and social (as autonomous categories) the ultimate resort will be to side with capital, rather than work towards its abolition. And that is very well happening.”
You Go Ahead, Troops, I’ll be Along Soon: “The base commander was on leave, his deputy was deployed elsewhere and the response to the ambush by the officers who manned the tactical operations center in their absence was “inadequate and ineffective, contributing directly to the loss of life,” the report said.Two majors, the senior officers there, “were not continually present” in the operations center. They left a captain who’d been on the overnight shift in charge of the center for more than four hours after the fighting began.
Hey! The Afghans Don’t Seem to Want to Fight Afghans! “..the day when the Afghan Army will be well led and able to perform complex operations independently, rather than merely assist American missions, remains far off.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/world/asia/21afghan.html?hp
Boot Camp Marines Do Not Shout “Be Nice! Be Nice! Be Nice!” They Shout, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Brits Had the Same Problem in 1777: “Karzai, addressing parliament as it opened its winter session, held up a picture of an 8-year-old girl he said was the only surviving member of a family of 12 killed when NATO rockets hit a home on the second day of the offensive.”
Puppet Elections In Iraq on the Ropes: “The Sunni political party whose two most prominent leaders were disqualified from next month’s parliamentary elections in Iraq because of supposed ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party called Saturday for a boycott of the vote, raising fears of worsening sectarian tensions in an already volatile campaign.”
The Core Issue of Our Time is the Real Promise of Perpetual War and Booming Inequality Met by the Potential of Mass Class Conscious Resistance: “The 400 wealthiest Americans have seen their annual incomes skyrocket over the last two decades while their tax rates have decreased dramatically, according to newly released data from the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, between 1992 to 2007, the annual incomes of this tiny club of über-rich increased seven-fold to a whopping $345 million on average, while their effective tax rate dropped by more than one-third from a 1995 peak of nearly 30%, the data shows.”
Brother Can You Spare A Job? “Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.”
Classic Lit of the Week :
“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age – the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night – are not solved; as long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”Victor Hugo, preface to Les Misérables (Hauteville House, 1862)
Song of the Week: Mike Stout Sings Hard Times are Fighting Times:
Thanks to John P, Kim B, Kelly, Jen, Peter, Steve, Mr J, James S, Joel S, Mr K, Jtop, Shelly, Ken and Barb, Amber, Tom and Bob, James, Dr Bob, Cole, Kelly, Sherry, Marisol, Arturo, Alejandro, Ravi, Glenn, Dave, Bonnie Mc, Nancy S, Mary Lou, Wayne, Adam and Gina, and Doug.
Detroit Federation of Teachers Uses Cops Vs Members: The DFT leadership had police greeting members coming to the February 11 meeting where rank and file dissidents hoped to present, again, a petition to remove DFT president Keith Johnson who, in December, foisted the worst teacher contract in US history on Detroit School workers. Police removed several members from the meeting in handcuffs. Below are quotes from the DFT web page (http://mi.aft.org/dft231/) demonstrating how the AFT around the country is more and more turning to force in order to whip educators into line. Force alone will never win. Meanwhile, DFT members watch as $250 vanishes from each paycheck, their insurance co-pays go from $5 to $40. In some schools, the testing schedule of preparation and bubbling-in will take up 49 of the next 100 school days. An injury to one just goes before an injury to all. Union bosses are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers’ enemies–harsh measures.
“ Cameras NOT ALLOWED at Membership Meeting [2.5.10]
The Feb. 11 General Membership meeting, like all DFT meetings, is a closed and private meeting. No personal video or still cameras will be allowed. No videotaping by cellphone cameras will be allowed. Some members have formally complained to the union that their photo was taken and posted on the internet without their approval. Any person videotaping meetings will be told to cease and desist or will be ejected from the meeting…Any member who continues to disrupt the meeting will be removed by the police.”
Walmart Takes Over Four Detroit Schools: “Students will get 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the school day and 10 high school credits for the class and work experience. Sean Vann, principal at Douglass, said 30 students at that school will get jobs at Walmart. He said the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures – since all of the stores are in the suburbs.” http://www.freep.com/article/20100211/NEWS01/100211049/1319/-Walmart-offers-job-training-via-DPS
Remember when the Detroit Federation of Teachers Dealt Out the Worst Teacher Contract in US History When Last December, Promising Concessions Would Save Jobs? Looky Here: “the scheduled layoff of Marc W. Haas, Orchestra Conductor and Music teacher at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School:“More than 25 music and art teachers are threatened with Feb. 28 or March 7, 2010 layoffs. In my view, the arts programs in Detroit are one of the things that have been working for decades within the Detroit Public School system despite its troubles in other areas. Losing arts teachers and programs would only serve to put Detroit’s youth in further peril.“Quite simply, I believe the arts matter. The arts provide access to success in all areas. Our nation’s arts programs not only produce talented and successful artists, but also talented and successful surgeons, lawyers, scientists, politicians, business executives, etc….leaders period. Let us not lose what has proven to contribute to greatness time and time again.”http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2010/02/orchestra-conductor-at-detroits-cass.html
Michigan Leads the Way (Backwards) in Call For National Standards: “Schmidt said he believes Michigan is heading in the right direction by being part of the process of developing common national standards. If more students fail the MEAP as a result, Schmidt said, that will put pressure on teachers to produce better results.In addition, Flanagan said, recent legislation that will make student growth a significant part of teacher evaluations also may spur teachers to ensure the standards are being taught. If too many kids fail, a teacher is likely to be downgraded in his evaluation. The idea is to remove ineffective teachers.”
How To Become A Great Michigan School? Pay $25 Grand to the Ad Company: “The banner ad across the Lincoln school district’s website proudly proclaims it has been recognized as one of the best school districts in Michigan.The criteria for Lincoln and eight other districts being selected? A $25,000 check.:
Bob Bobb Honored By Detroit Business Mag: “There are better days ahead for Detroit Public Schools,” Bobb said, adding, he thinks DPS should be under mayoral control.
Southwestern College Fights Cuts, Boss, Arrests: The blunt and confrontational Chopra has a long history of turning around troubled districts and educational systems — and of igniting brutal labor clashes. And he’s drawn more scrutiny here for accepting a pay increase while laying off long-time employees, cutting classes and for apparently boosting a paragraph from Southwest Airlines’ CEO in his Thanksgiving letter to employees. Hundreds of college employees have united against Chopra and are taking out their frustrations on three members of the Southwestern board. In the crosshairs are trustees Jean Roesch, Terry Valladolid and Yolanda Salcido.
Krashen Letter Cracks NYTimes on NCLB: “ Every minute spent testing that is not necessary bleeds time from learning, and every dollar spent on testing that is not necessary is stolen from investments that really need to be made in schools…Any new education law should result in less testing, not more.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/opinion/l11educ.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Beverly Hills: Kick Out the Kids!: “The district is changing the way it funds schools, declining state money based on student attendance and instead using property-tax revenue. Board members argued that Beverly Hills taxpayers should not subsidize education for nonresidents.”
Resistance News: Feb 9: Building Occupation in Progress, University of Sussex: Students at the University of Sussex are occupying their university’s conference center to protest cuts to classes and employee layoffs:
Greeks Strike Against Austerity Plan: “Thousands of Greeks have rallied against deficit-cutting measures during a national public sector strike.Flights have been grounded, many schools are closed and hospitals are operating an emergency-only service.”
On the Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front:
Greece: They Say Cutback, Workers Say Fightback! “Greece wants to cut the pay of hundreds of thousands of civil servants on its overstuffed payroll as part of a tough new public-spending regimen. But Maggelis and his fellow workers are fighting back with a massive walkout planned for Wednesday and the promise of more strikes to come.”It can’t be that civil servants pay for the mistakes of past governments,” Maggelis said. “The only result of this policy is that they’ll add more poor people to the number of poor already out there.”
Obamagogue Glossolalia: “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had written a letter asking Obama to boycott the event, saying its sponsor, the Fellowship Foundation, is a “shadowy religious association” that preaches “an unconventional brand of Christianity.”
Obamagogue is All For Bankster Bonuses: “President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay…“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKGZkktzkAlA
Brother Can You Spare A Job? According to the US census bureau, in the year 2008, approximately 154.3 million people made up the civilian labor force and 66% participated.That means 101.838 million people participated in 2008. That means that 52 million people did not participate in the work force or 33% of the total labor force was not working in 2008. See the graph below found at: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0575.pdf
“The Hell With The Missionaries, Where Did You Say That Petroleum Is?”
The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Stim Me! Stim Me! Make Me! Beat Me! Write Bad Checks! A WPA Construction Program—for Afghanistan: ““Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,” says Colonel Wilson, “and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we’ll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].” By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.”
Poem of the Week :
Life travels upward in spirals.
Those who take pains to search the shadows
of the past below us, then, can better judge the
tiny arc up which they climb,
more surely guess the dim
curves of the future above them.
Thanks to Erin, Bob A, Della, Marisol, Sharon, Stephanie, Amber, Tom, Victoria (bon voyage and good luck in law school!), Wayne, Adam and Gina, Edgar and Ruben, Pete, Stephen, Ricky, Cheryl, Ken and Barb, Nicky, Tally, Bonnie, Elvira, Happy Birthday Tony, Mr Z, Mr J, Joel S, Bill, Greg and K, Isabella, Gina, and Donna.
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing. John Berger
Call for Manuscripts: A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Education: “This current series will focus on the articulation of race, schools, and segregation, and will analyze the extent to which schooling may or may not be returning to a state of educational apartheid.”
Harvard Initiates Educational Leadership-Business Partnership (this is new?): “ The Harvard doctorate broadens the reach of traditional programs by collaborating with the Harvard Business School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, he said. The first year of studies is devoted to a rigorous core curriculum. The next year, students chose from a slate of courses at the three schools–such as “Managing Human Capital” at the business school or “Marketing for Non-Profits and Public Agencies” at the Kennedy school.”
LA Times Exams the Explosion of Charters in the Second Largest School District: “Los Angeles is home to more than 160 charter schools, far more than any other U.S. city. Charter enrollment is up nearly 19% this year from last, while enrollment in traditional L.A. public schools is down.”
On the Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front:
Davos Banksters to Obamagogue, “*!*&#* You:” The more contentious discussions were around Mr. Obama’s plan to restrict proprietary trading. One hedge fund manager described the proposed rule by using more four-letter words in one sentence — as nouns and verbs — than I thought possible…“I can find a way to say that virtually any trade we make is somehow related to serving one of our clients. They can go ahead and impose the rule on Friday, and I can assure you that by Monday, we’ll find a way around it. Nothing will change unless the definition is ironclad.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/business/02sorkin.html
Underwater Homeowners To Banksters, “@#!#! You!”: The number of Americans who owed more than their homes were worth was virtually nil when the real estate collapse began in mid-2006, but by the third quarter of 2009, an estimated 4.5 million homeowners had reached the critical threshold, with their home’s value dropping below 75 percent of the mortgage balance.
Suggestions that people would be wise to renege on their home loans are at least a couple of years old, but they are turning into a full-throated barrage.
Can the Afghan Puppet Cut His Strings? “ a long-simmering conflict between Karzai and key officials of the Barack Obama administration over that issue came to a head at last week’s London Conference, when the Afghan president refused to heed U.S. signals to back off his proposal to invite the Taliban leaders to participate in a nationwide peace conference.” http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50196
Mineworkers Strike vs Concessions in Kern County CA: “”I think the company had the impression we were going to roll over and let them feed us the poison.”"After hours of analyzing and evaluating the contract, every one of the 500 workers at the meeting voted no,” said union spokesman Craig Merrilees. “The contract would allow the right to discriminate and practice cronyism when it comes to deciding who gets a raise, who gets overtime and who gets training opportunities.” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boron1-2010feb01,0,362036.story
AIG To Dole Out $100 Million in Bonuses: “The Obama administration has been outmaneuvered. And the closed-door negotiations just add to the skepticism that the taxpayers will ever get the upper hand.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/business/03aig.html?hp
Nobel Peacenik Wants Biggest War Budget Ever: “ The budget calls for a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon’s base budget to $549 billion plus $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama’s spending freeze on other parts of the budget, to try to rein in the deficit, did not apply to the military.
There Goes the Passport Kevlar: US Can Kill It’s Scary Citizens When Overseas: “Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are “taking action that threatens Americans.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020303968_pf.html
There Goes the Dow: “In the final minutes of trading, the blue-chip gauge was briefly below 10,000, falling as low as 9,998.71.”
There are NO US Troops in Pakistan, No US Troops in Pakistan, No US Troops In Pakist…“Mr. Aziz said it was odd that American soldiers would go to such a volatile area where Taliban militants were known to be prevalent even though the Pakistani security forces insisted that they had been flushed out.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04pstan.html?th&emc=th
Global Research on the Istanbul War Confab: “That the same conference discussed the bloc’s 21st century new global military doctrine – former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright delivered an address on the topic – raises the question of how many of the 35 partner states’ military chiefs may have joined their 28 NATO colleagues for that phase of discussions. That such a high percentage of the world’s leading military commanders attended a two-day affair which deliberated on both the war in South Asia and the expansion of the world’s only military bloc’s activities even further outside the Euro-Atlantic area (when it has already conducted operations in four continents) confirms that the Afghan war serves more than one purpose for the West. It is the laboratory for strengthening military ties with nations on every inhabited continent and for building the nucleus of and foundation for a potential future world army.”
Poem of the Week :
Lord Byron
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
Weirdness of the Week: Baptists Stealing Children: “They Knew it Was Wrong!” One nine-year-old girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or… something like that [when she was taken],” he said.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-baptists-knew-taking-children-out-of-haiti-was-wrong-1886357.html
Thanks to Pana, Paul, Amber, Wayne, Doug, Sandy, Cheri, Candace, Tony, Elvira, Marisol, Perry, Kathryn, Adam, Gina, Faith, Greg and Katie, Isabella, Grace, Peter, Stephen, Rick, Dirty Edd, Jill, Sorry We Missed You Karen, Dina, Bill, SSg Lloyd, Kay T, Elaine, Sharon A, Mary, the Susans (as always), Joe, and Will.
“All morons hate it when you call them a moron.” In Memoriam: Holden Caulfield
On the Little Rouge School Front This Week:
Outline of California Budget Cuts From NYTimes: Some public school classes in Los Angeles are so crowded that students perch on file cabinets, or sit on the floor, while teachers struggle to maintain quality and grade hundreds of papers. http://projects.nytimes.com/california-budget?ref=us
Pat Washington Writes On San Diego State’s Entrenched Racism (and look for nepotism, cowardice, and sheer ignorance too): Deafening Silence around African American Student Enrollment Quotas at San Diego State University SDSU never admits more than 25% of its qualified first-time African American student applicants and—furthermore—never allows the total campus population of African American students to rise above 5%? … Clearly, SDSU does not have an African American student application problem. Rather, SDSU has an African American student rejection problem… The peril is magnified by SDSU’s elimination of the local student guaranteed admissions policy… African American Student Enrollment Quotas
A Video Demonstrating the Potential of Student/Worker Campus Strike Action:
UCLA IDEA Report on California School/Society Crises: “More than half of the principals reported a sharp increase in student needs for health, psychological, or social services; many reported extremely high social needs — “an epidemic of hunger” — with children receiving no food when they go home for the night or weekend. Educators have responded by connecting students and families with social service providers or by contributing food and clothing, but budget cuts to social welfare programs and school services have left the system with less capacity to respond to these growing needs.” http://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/educational-opportunity-report
NY City–another Bellwether in the School Closings Movement: “Since 2002, the city has closed or is in the process of closing 91 schools, replacing them with smaller schools and charter schools, often several in the same building, with new leadership and teachers. This year, the city has proposed phasing out 20 schools, the most in any year…Because the new schools, at first, accepted relatively few special education and non-English-speaking students, those students began enrolling in greater numbers in the remaining large high schools. Overall enrollment increased at many large high schools, and attendance fell. “While a few schools were successful in absorbing such students, most were not,” the report said…In Chicago, school officials closed 44 schools between 2001 and 2006 more abruptly than New York did: instead of phasing out schools by grade, the entire student body was dispersed at once. When the schools reopened the next year, there were new administrators, teachers and students. But the displaced students often went into other weak schools, adding little benefit for those students and sending those schools into tailspins.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/nyregion/26closings.html?hpw
Alan Singer in Huff Post: What if Capital’s Schools are Working? “In a society where education is organized to achieve capitalist goals, mass public education has two primary purposes. It sorts people out, determining who will be recruited to the elite, learn and succeed, who will receive enough basic training to make an acceptable living, and who will be pushed to the margins of society. It does this through an elaborate system that includes racially and economically segregated school districts that receive different levels of funding, magnet, private and charter schools that sift-off the highest performing or most cooperative students, and rigorous testing and tracking within schools.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/what-if-our-schools-are-w_b_438733.html
Romeo and Juliet Meet the Battle in the Detroit Federation of Teachers (one of the more creative reads yet):
“We do not approve your plan.
Now listen up, you purchased man.
Your views have sold us down and out
Hear us now or we’ll just shout.
We move to stop our paychecks taken,
We move to make the presidency vacant,
We move to count our vote recall,
We move to remove you, once and for all.”
John Yoo’s Class Goes Into Hiding: “ Yoo was scheduled to begin his first class of the semester Tuesday night of this week and is the only professor in the law school whose class location is not listed on its class schedule.” http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/
CalSters on the Ropes: “The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which lost a quarter of the value of its investment portfolio in the spending year that ended June 30, currently faces a $43-billion shortfall in the money it needs to pay future pensions. What’s worse, warns Chief Executive Jack Ehnes, the $134-billion fund could be broke in 35 years – the length of a typical teaching career – if the state Legislature doesn’t raise the employer contributions paid by school districts in the next few years.”
Arne Duncan, “Atta Girl Hurricane Katrina:” Education Secretary Arne Duncan called Hurricane Katrina “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans” because it forced the community to take steps to improve low-performing public schools, according to excerpts from the transcript of a television interview made public Friday afternoon.”
Berkeley Rising on March 4th: “The UC Berkeley General Assembly yesterday voted to organize for militant action on the nationwide March 4 Strike and Day of Action: a campus strike 7am to noon, noon rally at Bancroft and Telegraph, followed by a mass march to join the Oakland March 4 rally at Ogawa Plaza.” (From Jack G)
A San Diego Educator Warns Against SDEA Concessions: “Why should SDEA leadership continue to prosper with their non-reduced salaries and non-reduced operating budget when all the rest of us have to “do our fair share”??”
Paul Moore on Bloomberg, Klein, and More: “The new danger appears in the rise of the seamless melding of the corporation and the state in the US. The corporate-state was certified as constitutional by the US Supreme Court in its recent decision on corporate campaign financing. The new reality is reflected in the unprecedented amount of money Secretary of Education Arne Duncan suddenly has at his disposal to undermine the public schools.”http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nyceducationnews/message/19412
Mug Shots Of Billionaire School “Reformers”:http://www.indypendent.org/2010/01/29/faces-of-school-reform/
The Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front:
Seeking National Security Secrecy Status for AIG Bailout Scam: “The request to keep the details secret were made by the New York Federal Reserve — a regulator that helped orchestrate the bailout — and by the giant insurer itself, according to the emails.”
Those Who Scored Well on High Stakes Exams Muck Up Military: “The red tape isn’t just on the battlefield. Combat commanders are required to submit reports in PowerPoint with proper fonts, line widths and colors so that the filing system is not derailed. Small aid projects lag because of multimonth authorization procedures. A United States-financed health clinic in Khost Province was built last year, but its opening was delayed for more than eight months while paperwork for erecting its protective fence waited in the approval queue.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/opinion/08vaccaro.html?_r=2
The Yes Men Strike Again (click on the Interviews) at the World Economic Forum:
A Pot For Every California Garage: “Supporters of legalized marijuana announced today that they have gathered about 700,000 signatures for their initiative, virtually guaranteeing voters will see it on the November ballot.”
Obama is Bush Too on Bogus Terror Surveillance: “ yet another sign that the Obama administration can be just as assertive as Bush’s in claiming sweeping and controversial anti-terrorism powers.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/336/story/82879.html
Stiglitz on the Obamagogue/Bush Bankster Scams: “the failures in our financial system are emblematic of broader failures in our economic system, and the failures of our economic system reflect deeper problems in our society” — including growing inequities of wealth, a lack of accountability on the part of business and political leaders, and an emphasis on short-term gains as opposed to long-term benefits… we will emerge from the crisis with a much larger legacy of debt, with a financial system that is less competitive, less efficient and more vulnerable to another crisis.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/books/19book.html?pagewanted=2
The Supremes Sing: Dollars are Here and Now You’re Gone: “The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place….
There is no national institution left that can accurately be described as democratic. Citizens, rather than participate in power, are allowed to have virtual opinions to preordained questions, a kind of participatory fascism as meaningless as voting on “American Idol.” Mass emotions are directed toward the raging culture wars. This allows us to take emotional stands on issues that are inconsequential to the power elite. ”
Hey! Just Who is the Enemy Anyway? “Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan – Western forces killed four Afghan troops Saturday in an airstrike, and military officials disclosed that an Afghan interpreter had shot dead two U.S. service members a day earlier, in a rare concentration of deaths at the hands of allies…relations between the two sides are sometimes marked by
mistrust. ”
Staughton Lynd on the Death of His Friend, Howard Zinn: “I came to feel that historians practicing “history from below” and “history from the bottom up,” of whom I was one, had a tendency to romanticize the poor and oppressed persons whom they studied and, especially, to believe that such folks were motivated by ideology to a greater degree than was in fact the case.”
In Memory, Howard Zinn: “There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible…
What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability.
An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Thanks to Yvonne, Joe B, Amber, Paul, Elvira, Sandy, Sally, Lloyd, Emily, Mr Z and J, Ken and Barb (no kidding), Doug, Adam, Gina, Perry, Penny and Sue, Ruth, Jenna, Crystal, Donna, Candace, Lila, Ann S, Vicko, Tony, Kino, Tommie and Bob, Della, Judy Sanden, Dennis, Melissa, Marisol, Luis, Edgar, Michael, Georgie, Mr J and Z, Sneaky Pete and Dirty Edd.
If I Boost Your Grade, Will You Please CARE About the Tests? “They’re bribing them with grades,” said Linman, an educator who helps professors improve their instruction at San Diego State University. “If we can’t make the ethical decision about what’s best for students, we have no choice but to say we’re not going to be involved….”reputations are at stake. Valhalla High Assistant Principal Sam Lund said that education has become a competitive marketplace where schools need good facilities and booming scores to draw families. Like it or not, Lund said, test scores matter. But critics argue they matter for the wrong reasons. “Raising our grades is much too drastic,” said Mitchell Winkie, a junior at Valhalla. “It seems like the point of all this is to make the school look better.”http://voiceofsandiego.org/education/article_4628d152-0645-11df-9ea5-001cc4c03286.html
Detroit Federation of Teachers Reacts to Recall Petition vs DFT President: “In interpreting its governing documents the Executive Board was doing exactly what AFT locals around the country and virtually all other unions regularly do. The membership does not have the authority to reject or overrule the decision of the Executive Board on constitutional questions. If the membership could overrule the Executive Board then the Constitution would have no fixed meaning. Rather it would mean nothing more than what a majority at any membership meeting, however large or small, would decide. The membership has the authority to amend the Constitution in accordance with the terms of that document. It does not have the authority to reject the Executive Board’s interpretation and application of that document.” http://mi.aft.org/dft231/ January 15 2010
Inequality Booms In California Schools: * High-poverty schools were more than four times as likely (65.6% to 15%) as low-poverty schools to experience teacher layoffs.* 70% of principals reported that summer school had been cut back severely or eliminated. High-poverty schools were almost three times as likely (48.7% to 16.7%) as low-poverty schools to eliminate summer school. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools21-2010jan21,0,4957693.story
NYTimes on the End of Higher Ed (Class Struggle) in California: “In 1960, he added, the state created “the gold standard in high-quality, low-cost public higher education. This year, the California legislature abandoned the gold standard.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/education/24sfstudent.html?pagewanted=2&hp
Haiti Background from NLR, 2004: “Haitians have thus had to pay for their original oppression three times over–through the slaves initial labor, through compensation to the French for the loss of this (slave) labor, and then the interest on the payment.” http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/555.html
Pakistan to Gates: If You Want ‘Em, You Chase ‘Em,” : “The Pakistani army said Thursday during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that it can’t launch any new offensives against militants for six months to a year to give it time to stabilize existing gains.The announcement probably comes as a disappointment to the U.S. President Obama’s comments in December that the U.S. would begin to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan in mid-2011 have raised questions among many Pakistani officials about Washington’s commitment. Analysts say such concerns only reinforce the Pakistani government’s reluctance to target the Afghan Taliban http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122804452
Herbert on Black People Under Attack in USA: “The election of a black president may have been important to African-Americans for myriad reasons, but it hasn’t done much for their bottom line, which continues to deteriorate. For example, without a dramatic new intervention by the federal government, the poverty rate for African-American children could eventually approach a heart-stopping 50 percent, according to analysts at the Economic Policy Institute. Already more than a third of black children are living in poverty. Present trends are not good. Communities of color are being crushed economically and the national news media have not fully focused on the carnage. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/opinion/19herbert.html?hp
Mass Constant Unemployment: “In December 2008, 22.9 percent of the unemployed had been out of work for at least 27 weeks. A year later, that portion rose to 39.8 percent. That translates to having about 4 percent of the total civilian work force categorized as long-term unemployed.”http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/a-growing-underclass/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+creditwritedownsnews
WSJ: The Unemployment Catastrophe: “ What about the future? The problem in the job market going forward is not so much layoffs in the private sector, which are abating, but a lack of hiring. The federal stimulus program is offset by a 2010 budget shortfall for state, city, county and school districts, which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently estimated will be in the range of an astonishing $200 billion nationally. Since virtually all states and cities have to run balanced budgets, the result will be reduced services, layoffs and tax hikes.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013592466508822.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Bureau of Labor Stats–Private Sector Unionism Collapsing (meaning the corrupt and sold out AFL-CIO is more broke than ever—the reason they want NEA to affiliate so bad): “The overall unionization rate edged lower, to 12.3 percent last year from 12.4 percent in 2008.”
Thanks to MrJ, Amber, Joe C and B, MrZ, Lloyd, JT, Joel, Steve, Sandy, Sally, Elvira, Bob, Ruthie, Jen, MT, Adam and Gina (on to a new adventure), Nancy, Vera, Irene, Doug (hey were is that book?), Wayne, Colin, Sandra, Shelley, Betty, Don, and Bill A.
Educate! Agitate! Organize Freedom Schools on March 4th’s School Strike!
“If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.” Kipling
On the Little Rouge School Front This Week:
DPS Teachers Sue Union and Boss: “Washington claims the loan violates Michigan’s Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act, which forbids an employer from demanding a gift from an employee as a condition of employment. “Bobb does not have the right to extort loans from district employees, and the DFT does not have the right to authorize Bobb to waive the minimum protections of the law,” Washington said.
The Rouge Forum News Latest Edition is Now Available At: http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com
The Call For Papers for the Next Edition of the Rouge Forum News:
Chicago Trib Discovers What Substance News Reported for Years: The Duncan Miracle was a Fraud: “ Scores from the elementary schools created under Renaissance 2010 are nearly identical to the city average, and scores at the remade high schools are below the already abysmal city average, the analysis found. The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010 — that displaced students ended up mostly in other low-performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn’t lived up to its promise by this, its target year.” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/chi-renaissance-2010-17-jan17,0,3877012.story
Stephen Krashen on the LEARN Act: “I do not support the LEARN Act. As described in the Senate Bill, the LEARN Act is Reading First expanded to all levels. It is Reading First on steroids.” http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=325
Alfie, “Have They Lost Their Minds?” : “ If you read the FAQ page on the common core standards website, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”
If these bright new digitally enhanced national standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century façade on a hoary, dreary model of school as employee training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should be doing everything possible to resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it.
AFL-CIO Goons Open a College: “the online college would charge about $200 a credit, competitive with community colleges and far cheaper than most four-year colleges and for-profit schools.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/us/15labor.html?ref=education
The Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front:
On the Ruinous Debt: “When a nation’s debt exceeds 60 percent of its GDP, its growth rate slows precipitously, the study found. When that ratio exceeds 90 percent, nations’ economies barely grow, and can even contract.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/81969.html
(“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Wilkins Micawber). The U.S. national debt is at roughly 84 percent of the country’s GDP, and it’s projected to cross the authors’ 90-percent threshold late this year or early next year.
The implication is stark: The authors don’t say that the U.S. economy can’t grow briskly despite even higher debt, but if it does, it would be an outlier in roughly 200 years of economic statistics.
Brother Can You Spare a Job? CSMonitor on Endless Unemployment: “in the December unemployment report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the number of people out of work for 27 weeks or more hit 6.1 million Americans, or 40 percent of all 15.3 million jobless. This is the most since 1948, when the data was first recorded, according to the Department of Labor. On average, it now takes 20.5 weeks to find a new job – double the amount of time in the 1982-83 recession.”http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0108/Number-of-long-term-unemployed-hits-highest-rate-since-1948
Honest Graft, Per George Washington Plunkett: “Obama Received $20 Million from Healthcare Industry in 2008 Campaign. Almost three times the amount given to McCain” http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/12-9
Union Bosses Sell-Out on Health Care Tax: “While politically powerful labor leaders support the plan — which Obama considers crucial to controlling healthcare costs — rank-and-file workers now must be convinced that it is not a betrayal of Obama’s campaign promise to oppose any new taxes on their health benefits.”http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-naw-health-congress15-2010jan15,0,7559784.story
Wall Street Bonuses to Exceed $145 Billion (compare to the meager $100 million in Haiti aid from the entire USA): “Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their people about $145 billion for 2009, a record sum that indicates how compensation is climbing despite fury over Wall Street’s pay culture.An analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows that executives, traders, investment bankers, money managers and others at 38 top financial companies can expect to earn nearly 18% more than they did in 2008—and slightly more than in the record year of 2007. The conclusions are based on an examination of securities filings for the first nine months of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end.”
Come Play on My Yemen Web Says OBL: “”Any association with the (Yemeni) regime will only confirm al Qaida’s narrative, which is that America is only interested in maintaining corrupt and despotic rulers and is not interested in the fate of Arabs and Muslims,” warned Bernard Haykel, a Princeton University professor.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/82399.html
Cost of War Update: “These new appropriations bring total war-related spending for Iraq to $747.3 billion and for Afghanistan to $299 billion, with total war costs of $1.05 trillion.”
California Credit Rating Collapses: “often translate into higher borrowing costs. The latest downgrade leaves California two notches below Illinois, the next lowest among the 50 states, said S&P analyst Gabriel Petek.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/82323.html
The US Produced Tragedy of Haiti, Again: “ It may startle news-hungry Americans to learn that these conditions the American media correctly attributes to magnifying the impact of this tremendous disaster were largely the product of American policies and an American-led development model.” http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-2
Escobar on Yeman: “The Strait of Bab el-Mandab between Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea is a key strategic oil chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, linking the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, through which flows at least 3.5 million barrels of oil a day towards the US, Europe and Asia.” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA13Ak04.html
Thanks to Joel S., AMG, EWR, Nancye, Shelly, Peter, Doug, Connie, Kathy and Kathie, Sarah and Bill, MM, Bob, TLS, Gerry, Sharon A, Dave, Arturo, Dan, Jackie, Marisol, Sandy, Geno, Pat, Candace, Ruth, Lisa, Sherry, Marc, the Susans and Jack.
“When everyone is dead, The Great Game is finished, not before.” Kim, speaking for Kipling.
On the Little Rouge School Front This Week: The Rouge Forum News Latest Edition is Now Available At: http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com
The Call For Papers for the Next Edition of the Rouge Forum News:
Louisville Education Dean To Plead Guilty; Those of us who have followed this case wish the dean every bad year he deserves. “…Bryant Stamford, a former faculty member who worked at U of L for more than 30 years and who has joined other former education faculty in criticizing the university for its handling of Felner, said Monday he had “mixed feelings” about news of a plea agreement.… It was good that he was finally caught and held accountable for his actions, but I think all of us still sort of default back to: How is it possible that this man was allowed to operate in such a manner for years? He wasn’t operating in a vacuum.” http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100104/NEWS01/1040344/Attorney-Robert-Felner-to-plead-guilty-to-siphoning-millions-from-Louisville-Rhode-Island-universities
The Detroit Federation of Teachers’ Contract–the Worst Ever? “The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded social and economic inequality and the promise of perpetual war, challenged by the potential of mass, class-conscious, resistance. Will we win? The best news is: we do not know. We might if we form trusting communities of care and resistance. If we do not, we can wind up alone disappearing like Johnnie Redding. It is a choice. Community or barbarism.” http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1063§ion=Article
Detroit Reading Corps Gears Up (Old South African Saying, “Before the missionaries arrived, we had land but no bibles; now we have bibles and no land”): “Soon the Detroit Public Schools could be overrun with thousands of retirees, former teachers, grandparents, stay-at-home moms, corporate employees and even a student from Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills.”
Charters Blossom in LA: “ Even now, there are those who believe that charter schools are private (they aren’t), that they are run by for-profit companies (rarely in California), that they primarily serve affluent communities (the opposite is true) and that they are better than traditional public schools…Nearly 9% of Los Angeles public school students now attend charters, which offer great variety. Ocean Charter, a predominantly white, middle-class school on the Westside, emphasizes “experiential learning” based on the Waldorf model. The Alliance for College Ready Schools, whose 16 schools south and east of downtown mostly serve low-income black and Latino students, use a strict and structured adherence to state curriculum standards.” http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charters10-2010jan10,0,5522248.story
No Charges Filed in Attack on UC Boss’ House: “Eight people arrested after protesters vandalized the campus home of the UC Berkeley chancellor have not been charged with any crime and may never be, according to the Alameda County district attorney’s office.
There is insufficient evidence…”
Dan Perstein on Attack on UC Boss’ House: “I believe that the university administration not only set the stage for a violent turn in protests by acts which have repeatedly raised tensions and undermined belief in its good will, but actually engaged in most of the violence that has occurred… “ http://www.reclamationsjournal.org/issue01_dan_perlstein.html
Walton’s, Broad, Fund Top Brass in LA United: “Private money is paying for key senior staff positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District — providing needed expertise at a bargain rate, but also raising questions about transparency and the direction of reforms in the nation’s second-largest school system.”
Michigan Signs Up For Ratt: “Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday signed into law a sweeping series of education bills that give the state new power to close failing schools, dump bad teachers and administrators and measure if students are moving ahead… legislation also expects more from students, requiring them to stay in school until age 18, starting with the class of 2016. Students now can leave school at age 16. It allows up to 32 more charter schools to open each year but gives the state the power to close poorly performing charter schools. It also gives professionals from areas other than education an alternative way to become teachers and allows merit pay for excellent teachers and cyber-schools for students who have dropped out.”
Logistics: More Powerful Than the Silly UFPJ “Peace Movement” : Senior White House advisers are frustrated by what they say is the Pentagon’s slow pace in deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and its inability to live up to an initial promise to have all of the forces in the country by next summer, senior administration officials said Friday.
Obamagogues Backers Betrayed Again on Health Care: “now labor leaders are fuming that President Obama has endorsed a tax on high-priced, employer-sponsored health insurance policies as a way to help cover the cost of health care reform.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/09union.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Bloomberg: Geithner’s Scam With AIG: “ The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show. AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public…”
Seven CIA Agents/Mercs Blown Up:” One former senior intelligence official said the bomber was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting the purpose was to gain intelligence…”
Blackwater Mercenary Shooters Skate: “Urbina’s ruling does not say whether the shooting was proper, only that the government improperly used evidence to build the case. After the shooting, the State Department ordered the guards to explain what happened…unclear what the ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard who turned on his former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-blackwater1-2010jan01,0,3833151.story
Estate Tax Vanishes For A Year, Not Long Enough For the Rich To Die Off: “THE RICH and ailing might want to post guards outside their hospital doors this year. Thanks to a provision of the Bush tax cuts, the tax on inherited estates will phase out completely in 2010 before springing back to life in 2011 at its old, higher levels. This means that the rich could save their families millions or more by dying in 2010.” http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/01/as_estate_tax_drops_to_zero_congress_should_take_action/
The End of the Coalition of the Willing: “There’s no difference, even if they change the name,” said Mohammed Abdul Jabar, 40, a furniture salesman in Baghdad. “The main enemy, the ones who destroyed the country, who disbanded our military, it’s the Americans. If I see a fighter jet loaded with missiles, do I wonder whose it is? No, it’s always been the Americans.”
Financial Times on Unfreeing the Free Market: “We made a mistake in the closing decades of the 20th century. We removed restrictions that had imposed functional separation on financial institutions. This led to businesses riddled with conflicts of interest and culture, controlled by warring groups of their own senior employees. The scale of resources such businesses commanded enabled them to wield influence to create a – for them – virtuous circle of growing economic and political power. That mistake will not be easily remedied, and that is why I view the new decade with great apprehension. In the name of free markets, we created a monster that threatens to destroy the very free markets we extol.” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1959f72c-fa2f-11de-beed-00144feab49a.html
NATO’s Top Intel Officer on US Intel: “’These analysts are starved for information from the field — so starved, in fact, that many say their jobs feel more like fortune telling than serious detective work,” said the report. ”It is little wonder then that many decision makers rely more on newspapers than military intelligence to obtain `ground truth.”’
On the History is Not Just The Propaganda of the Victors Pedagogy Front:
The Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871: This site contains links to over 1200 digitized photographs and images recorded during the Siege and Commune of Paris cir.1871. In addition to the images in this set, the Library’s Siege & Commune Collection contains 1500 caricatures, 68 newspapers in hard-copy and film, hundreds of books and pamphlets and about 1000 posters.
The Economist Map of Global Tinder-boxes: “poverty alone does not spark unrest—exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.” http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15098974&source=most_commented The Rouser Front: Wayne Ross’ Fave Hits of the Music Year: http://blogs.ubc.ca/ross/
From the Can’t Make This Stuff Up Desk:http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100105/FREE/100109977#
A human skull that once apparently belonged to Yale’s mysterious Skull and Bones society is now for sale. Christie’s auction house believes the skull was used as a ballot box around 1872. It has a hinge on top and is surrounded by crossbones.
and the best line of the year so far...
“While we’ve been running around playing whack-a-mole with the Taliban and “investing” billions each year in the corrupt Karzai government,” China has been investing in things that might actually be of some value, like a big copper mine. ”
Thanks to MrJ, Amber, MrZ, Lloyd, JT, Joel, Steve, Sandy, Sally, Elvira, Bob, Ruthie, Jen, MT, Adam and Gina (on to a new adventure), Nancy, Vera, Irene, Doug (hey were is that book?), Wayne, Colin, Sandra, Shelley, Betty, Don, and Bill A.
These good-for-the-rest-of-your life posters are available online.
Hate is not the Opposite of Love. Indifference is. 
OPPORTUNISM
We’ll Strike March 4th!
On to The Twenty Tens!