Put Down Your Middle Finger

"Many Trump supporters believe that Obama has changed the country in destructive ways – which I believe is true."

The Tea Party, remember them ?  The Tea Party was organized and bankrolled by rich Republicans as a counter to the evil Obama Stimulus package that saved us from a depression and later the ACA, that saves thousands of lives a year.  But it was "destroying America".  Many of my Republican friends  who give way to hate, say that even today.  Fox News, whose boss helped start the Tea Party, stokes that hatred everyday!

Look, these are policy differences.  Democratic systems exist so these "mistakes" can be rolled back.  Its the Tea Party that gave birth to Trump, a former Democrat and a master salesman who knows an opportunity when he sees it.  This was done on purpose by rich conservatives who, blind wih white supremacy hatred, wanted a non-Party way to weaken the black President.

The statement, "We are giving the middle finger to Washington" is not very far from raising your right arm extending it and ranting Heil  Hitler....once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back!

It's Fascism pure and simple, attacking democratic government for the ineptmess that the Republican  party caused.  The obstructionism that recently was demonstrated by the Republican vow to now even consider a Supreme Court appointee is at the core of the public's anger with Washington.

That is EXACTLY what the National Socialists did over a ten year period in Germany.  They went from a small, insignificant portion of the Weimar Republic by using a simple technique; divide and conquer, lie, scheme and get rich corporatiions to bankroll you.  Sound familar?

And now conservatives who let the genie out of the bottle are trying to stuff it back in, while Trump and Cruz take the ball and run with it; using Fascism to gain more and more power.

The perfect storm is that the Democrats are considering nominating a aging socialist as their candidate, creating the perfect storm of radicals opposing each other; winner take all.  And this reminds us of the Weimar Republic, that included a strong socialist/Communist component that made the perfect foil for Hitler.  All the ingredients are present in our nation that existed in Germany in 1933.

That's right winner take all.  If you think for one minute the radical right will play nice if they win the election you are crazy.  Because this movement is based on two things; money and fear.  The money was put up to start the fire, to discredit Obams and stop the black guy, the fear is the tool that once unleashed just grows and grows with widespread repression and violence the result.

And Trump is no mad man, neither was Hitler (his depiction as a madman were propaganda).  Both know exactly what they are doing, both rode the tiger of fear anger and scapegoating, but once in power had to deliver else they fall victim.  Hitler used the power to kill 55 million people!

So Trumpism is not just a threat to conservatism,  his political expedient fascism is a threat to us all.

And everytime, everyday I Iook at Jan's father's picture in our living room, in his Army uniform, as a Jew having just defeated fascism in World War II; I wonder what did we fight WWII for if;  we are going to elect a fascist?

Stop raising your middle finger and start realizing you are feeding a beast that will kill us all.

Another Kid With A Gun

Another example of the proliferation of guns and kids...These were children and another tragedy of a kid, admittedly a gang member whose school records indicate a messed up soul.

After a career dealing with "at risk" youth (I coached and taught at the Jr. High right next to Grant), I know what the "mean streets are". I also know that the perpetrator of this act was lost, shuffled from home to home, and a mess.  He was crying out for help and the system didn't or couldn't listen.  

Everyday we throw away young people in a system that puts materialism first and people way last. Everyday we read about yet another tragedy in a gun culture out of control.

And eveyday we hear about the sancity the   2nd Amendment which must be preserved ; which originated as a tool to put down slave rebellions. That's right a little known fact...the 2nd Amendment was intended to allow states to raise armed militias to put down people.

It is being used for that again!

Actually, in a sense, that is what happened in the Grant area; one more African American was gunned down by a deranged person; the gun culture represses African Americans again. You see the more violence African American demonstrate,  the more the white supremacists can say, "Look, they are animals, keep the guns coming". I remember kids talking about "popping people", of the willingness to use violence, "whoopings", to solve everything. And of course violence just leads to more violence in a cycle of revenge and lunacy.

The gangs rule the streets and their primary tool is violence. And the enforcer is the gun.  

I always was depressed by the place; by the hopelessness of it; of the violence. That is why we left; a young man mad at the Vice Principal barged into the press booth at Grant High's stadium and fired blanks at the Vice Principal as a warning that next time it would be the real thing. My wife was in the booth (three months pregnant) , I was coaching, and we decided that more peaceful grounds were best for our family.

So we left after two years; and we left a lot of good friends, including Mike Albergeni.

We ran home and wound up at a school that was every bit as socio-economically repressed, but White , poor and Native American. But the violence was not so centered on guns (barely).

Montgomery Creek was one area that saw senseless shootings all the time. And I took a couple guns off kids who were showing them off to friends.

Always guns, always damn guns and kids who are too immature or too screwed up to have them.

And this is not a public health issue? And the damned 2nd Amendment, that was absolutely passed by slave owners as a method to put down slave revolts, continues as some kind of god head....sacred?

And it is used by politicians to continue the system of white supremacy that is destroying this country.

Originalist?

Not to speak badly of the dead: but Scalia was a bigot plain and simple. Conservative thought does not include bigotry. But, by pleading arguments of the past, especially when the segregationist and racist traditions lurk there, conservatives often resemble the bigots that wrote the Constitution.

Fact is this article is spot on. The Constitution had a fatal flaw in it from its inception: slavery. Slavery was, in 1890, not the behemoth it became by 1860. But in that time frame, slavery made the United States a world economic power house.

Why? Well two things: 1. Labor that was not free to the slaveholder, but was free after paying for the chattel. And, labor that was separate from any labor complications; labor relations, recruitment; etc. 2. Endless land acquisition through genocide to the land owners. 

If you just look at the Cherokee for example. They went to the Supreme Court and won rights to their land and the case was simply ignored by President Jackson. So vital agricultural farmland that became the heart of the cotton producing south was basically stolen at little cost. This was going on in 1860 when the nation erupted in war over the expansion of slavery into the west. Again, a huge economic advantage other world competitors did not have. 

So a strict Constructionist like Scalia and other conservatives, by interpreting the Constitution in 1890 terms is supporting a brand of racism that cost America 600,000 lives and millions of African American and Native American lives and culture.

It was in short a human tragedy of incalculable proportions.

And Republicans want to go back to it!

The Reckoning is on us. We shall not go back, war will happen first....another Civil War!

A Rich Man's Sport?

A rich man’s sport:  I have an inferiority complex about golf which is hard to believe since I LIVE on a golf course, marshall there, belong to the Men’s Club and have played golf all over the world (at least western world).  

But I still tense up when I go into a pro shop and see my fellow golfers buy thousand dollar sets of clubs, or buy $150 wind shirts.

My father decided to take up golf when I was about eleven.  He bought a beginners set from Spiegel.  He got Dick Reese to give us some discarded clubs from Sequoia School, many with wood shafts (vintage 1940 something).

And the first time we played was at Lake Redding, a nine hole course in Redding.  We teed off on a Easter Weekend at 6:00 am.  Dad told us he wanted to get an early start.  Truth was he was avoiding the crowd because they could play; we couldn’t.

Ironically we met  Rod Curl on the tee, and played with him.  Rod was a Native American who also decided to take up golf, being a baseball player for the gambling of it.  He admitted golf was more fun than pool, which was a source of income for him.   Rod Curl went on to start in the PGA!

 Ironically that same day my future football coaches teed off in front of us.  They belonged to the Country Club, but came to Lake Redding because it was a holiday weekend and couldn’t get a tee time.

And they hit the ball so far!  I remember marveling how they did that; as it turned out on a short 225 Par Four; Lake Redding is a nine hole almost executive course.

And from that day on, even though my love for golf grew to the point of addiction, the inferiority stayed for two reasons:  1.  golf is naturally humbling.  2.  golf is a rich man’s game.

Of course it isn’t a rich man’s game!  But tell those kids at Hiram Johnson that.  I remember when I was recruited at Stanford for football, not golf for sure, and how in awe I was of the Stanford Golf Course.  I must have shot 120, whiffing many times, and I was a much better golfer than that.

Golf should not be a rich man’s game, and since Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer it has morphed into a middle class game.   Yet, poor kids from disadvantage areas do not get anywhere near the access to courses that rich kids fo.

 But still we see Hiram Johnson, a poverty plagued area, having a team that can’t break 50 for nine holes.  They compete, they learn to love the game, but the wall of privilege and wealth is very clear.

But somewhere in me, and in them, lies the desire to “show them”, to compete and beat them by working and practicing and winning.  

Or am I just rich now and don’t know the difference?  

Recovery on Cobb Mountain

The stark reality of global warming:  In America we tend to believe strongly, that our technology can overcome everything.  The "winning of the west" included gold mining with water cannons, coal mining open pit, and clear cutting.  The result was pouring CO2 into the air in unbelievable volumes.  And the next result was nature reacting in an ecological way, proving the delicate inter relationship of the atmosphere.  

The atmosphere that is barely 100 miles high in total.  The atmosphere that reacts like a greenhouse.  Every time in world history CO2 has flowed into the atmosphere the ice has melted and the seas have risen; while the temperature has exploded.

We look on the world as our plaything.  We always think the poor and ignorant "overseas" or in "Latin America" deserve what they get as the ocean rises and swamps their home.  

But nature doesn't play favorites.  Hiding inside our air conditioned cars and homes from 80 degree days in February and the drought just continues as the high from hell fed by pollution won't go away, is NOT working.  Get out of your cars get into nature and you will see it everywhere:  the dead trees the 1/2 die off of every living thing in the world, the oceans fouled with plastic.

And the citizens on Cobb Mountain are in the bulls eye.  And yesterday they found Judge Scalia dead, changing the makeup of a Supreme Court that just delayed the President's action to more control the coal industry's wanton destruction of earth, we get another chance to stop the destroyers.  

Another chance to save our planet.  Another chance to cool our planet.  Another chance to be protectors and not destroyers as was so beautifully depicted in the movie "Avatar".

We all rooted for the indigenous peoples in that movie as they fought against the brutal destroyers of climate.  We cheered as nature won.

Nature is winning now.  The Great Mystery is reckoning the sins of our wanton destruction of environment and yes culture.  The ruins on Cobb Mountain are its evidence and yet another scream at us to WAKE UP!

Recovery on Cobb Mountain?  It depends on more than just the inhabitants of Cobb Mountain....

The Perfect Storm

Ok, everyone celebrate...the outsiders won!  And the Republicans voted for a racist and xenophobic narcissistic billionaire who is the very opposite of income equity.  (By the way please stop using income equality, there is no way that is ever going to happen...equity maybe, equality no).  And the Democrats voted for a socialist who promises everything.

Both are living in a dream world.  And both could potentially wreck their party's chances to win the Presidency. And if both are really nominated the prospects for a Civil War explode.  

As America tries to at least discuss the worst income inequity in our history, caused by the Global economy, the two parties fly to opposite poles.  

So this means it will be winner takes all in November.  If Trump wins he promises to end immigration reform with walls, attack mercilessly in the Middle East, and believe me he will not increase taxes on the rich or corporations.  HE IS CORPORATE AMERICA!

And Bernie...well...he promises everything will be free.  He does at least promise to increase taxes on the rich, but his grasp of corporate power is limited at best.  In short, Bernie's heart sounds like it is in the right place, but he won't be able to deliver.  If you thought the grid lock was bad with Obama's idealism running into conservative roadblocks, just wait for Bernie.

So by stupidly voting the way we are, we are only increasing the chances of ineffectual government to the point of violence in 2016.

It is time adults take command of the ship.  We need to elect a moderate who can forge some kind of new coalition with the other side.  We have a majority of Red States in this country people, who thanks to gerrymandering are not going to change.  We have a minority of populated Blue states who, take California for example, are not going to change due to demographics. The majority of people in the country are Blue.  But the electoral college does NOT work that way, witness 2000!  

How on earth by electing more extreme candidates will this work?  I have often warned about fascism on Facebook (an oxymoron).  But the threat is real.  In a clash of corporate power, with the way our government is organized, the potential for a right wing take over of government is huge, with disastrous consequences.

Elect Trump and Bernie and you have the perfect storm......

The Public Education Fix We Don't Talk About

We politicize our teachers and education. That is one of the first things I was taught in graduate school. And boy was the Professor right. For some reason we long ago decided to make education not a profession but an area of political disagreement. So we continue to kick it around like a football, depending on what political philosophy wins at the ballot box.

The conservative revolution of Reagan and others brought us accountability and a "crackdown" on education. What it really meant was an underfunding of public education and efforts to use private sector analysis to "fix" the system. Prop 13 was passed because of the inflation post Vietnam and gutted public education. It also thrust it upon the state to support. And the state legislature took over without a clue how to run school districts. 

And the teachers organized a union to finally attempt to protect themselves from this madness. Right now the Supreme Court stands poised to strike a blow at unions, not allowing agency fees to be charged for reasonable costs of negotiating for non-union teachers. If they rule as expected, this will strike a blow to the power of teacher unions to function and weaken protections for teachers.

Oh, I just spoke the phrase that this article is all about. Tenure has been depicted by conservatives and minority groups as the REASON for education's failures. It is the teacher's fault is a common refrain.

And the state has a drastic teacher shortage. Young teachers are dwindling in number. People don't want to go into teaching because it is too hard work for too little pay. 

And we continue to politicize it, leave it to local school boards, and buy every snake oil politician's "solution", never listening to the professional educators who actually know.

A simple template to begin to fix this:

1. Depoliticize it. Eliminate ALL local school boards. Regionalize school administration and localize the running of schools as much as possible to local SCHOOLS and districts. Consolidate schools into larger districts, 10,000 students maximum. Continue the Superintendent on down administration, but add at EACH school an administrator of instruction, using master teachers who become administrators to supervise instructional improvement. These administrators would have the power to recommend permanency, or fire as need be. Streamline the due process for teacher removal, but the instructional administrator would be an integral part of it. 

2. Pay teachers a beginning salary nationwide of $100,000 going up to $150,000 in steps over 35 years. Allow bonus still for advanced degrees, of at least $20,000. In short, pay teachers for what they do.

3. Site based management with parent site councils would be the rule. The federal government would run the whole thing, with an expansion of the Education Department to allow regional school administration in all areas. The federal authority would be supreme in all areas under the 14th Amendment. 

Ending school segregation and instructional improvement in poverty areas would be top priority. Abolish county departments of education. Consolidate the fiscal administration of school regionally using an economy of scale model. Modern data collection and communication make local control of finances obsolete and opens the door for segregation and racial discrimination. 

4. Why centralize you probably ask? Well, site based instructional leadership has been proven to be the most effective way to improve instruction. Sound contradictory? Actually it is not. Federal authority with regional fiscal management, leaving the day to day operation of the school to the site.

Note, INSTRUCTION is the point, not a new "fix it" play every few years. A common core of curriculum can only be done by federal authority. And local school board and state control only leads to more segregation and unequal opportunities. And finally, abolish Charter Schools...put magnet schools into all districts to afford the school choice that will drive instructional improvement. Call them Charter Schools if you like, but they would be administered by the District they were in. Too often Charter Schools have been a haven for the unscrupulous. 

Sounds like a typical liberal solution.. Not really, it just approximates the approach most every other governmental system in the world has long since adopted. Our local, provincial approach, heavily politicized on all levels, is the problem.....NOT the solution...