Educators Rant or Right

It is amazing how consistent editorial writers are in their total ignorance of public education. In today’s editorial “It’s Not Just About Money” the scene is set that California has chronically underfunded its schools. Information as usual, is divulged explaining how inflation is not even being matched, and California’s position in the nation is deteriorating. Schools quite simply are being told increasingly to do more with nothing.

Then, predictably, the editorial asserts that Prop 98 is to blame, because it has “hamstrung” how to allocate scarce resources. Moreover, it’s lousy teachers’ faults, so test scores should be tied to teacher evaluations.

There you have it, abandon Prop 98 and make it easier to fire teachers and education will improve. Of course nothing is said about teachers who deal with students from socioeconomic and family backgrounds who need more help than our public system can give.

Nonsense…nonsense…nonsense!

Lousy teachers are to blame for billions of dollars in underfunding? This feeds the public’s wrong headedness that public education is full of lousy, good for nothing, rotten teachers. Nonsense!! California is the most diverse state in the nation. Every day teachers enter classrooms with abused children, illiterate children, angry children; etc. Everyday, these same teachers somehow survive and teach children who simply DARE them to teach them. Yes, some do fail, but in circumstances that even master teachers would struggle with. Now, thanks to chronic underfunding, the odds of success are reduced dramatically. The latest budget will make bad schools worse, mediocre schools bad, and good schools suspect.

So, we’ll fix it, suspend Prop 98 and underfund education even more?? Set up a system that rewards those who teach high achieving students? So, who would then be stupid enough to take on the low achieving students if you are punished when they don’t succeed on arbitrary standardized tests.

Because of the nonsense you propagate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get anyone to become a teacher. If you are so naïve, get ready to be blamed for every societal ill, plummeted by politicians eager to destroy equal opportunity, and maligned by a governor who can’t begin to comprehend what ordinary people do.

Here is the way to fix education in California. Value your teacher corps, reward with good salaries, benefits and prestige those who toil in our overcrowded and underfunded classrooms. Forget about tinkering constantly with a system you don’t understand.

“Fixing education” means investment and public responsibility, which are evidently not part of the California political landscape anymore.

Note: I am a retired school teacher/administrator of 35 years, and know more about education than every one of your editorial writers put together. You hurt teachers again today with your foolishness.

Crystal Ball

The election in Massachusetts and the “strict constructionist” (sic) Supreme Court pro-corporation decision, predict that the following.

1. Expect Health Insurance premiums to increase 30 to 40 percent in the next three years and continue climbing. Insurance companies need to pay for all that advertising they did to fool us. Buy gold!
2. Expect deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare. That is the only way to balance the budget and cut taxes; i.e., the California Dream-no safety net. Buy more gold!
3. Expect little regulation on the banking industry whose insane schemes cost many of you your jobs and future; one financial melt down after another. Buy even more gold!
4. Expect double digit unemployment for many years. Tough to buy gold!
5. There will be no regulation of Wall Street practices that killed the economy. They are untouchable now and they know it. Hide your gold!
6. Expect gasoline at $5.00 or more a gallon. And, no public transportation as an alternative. Green projects are dead. Trade gold for a gas!
7. Plan for privatization of education and if you are poor, forget it..Study gold!
8. Look up “oligarchy” because that is what we have now and more of it in the future. Buy corporate gold!

The amazing thing is the American Dream wasn’t killed by the rich, it was killed by the Fox News indoctrinated middle class who are fooled, mad and “won’t take it anymore”. And there isn’t enough gold to go around.

Sowell Rants Again

Thomas Sowell was at it again in his diatribe “Pols solve only their own problems” . He endlessly lists examples of politicians, remarkably Democrats, who are either solving made up problems, or striving to get elected. His premise is again, that government is stupid, oh yes; Democrat Government is stupid, disingenuous and does not care about common people’s problems.

This guy is supposed to be a scholar. He is supposed to study problems and give some kind of scholarly opinion. All he does is slam one party, one philosophy.

He never mentions: 1. The Republicans in the past eight years opened up the Congress to lobbyists more than in our history, the government quite simply has been sold out. 2. Under Conservative leadership, there has been the largest shift of wealth to the top 1% than ever before in our history. 3. The middle class has deteriorated in the past twenty years and stands at the lowest level, adjusted for inflation, than in 1933. 4. Manufacturing jobs have been exported overseas at a level that have made the United States purely an importing nation with negligible exports. This means a tremendous loss of jobs that are not coming back. 5. The Health Care system is so broken that 50 million have no insurance at all; thousands are dying (mostly children). 5. The conservative “philosophy” of government has led California to spending on prisons at a higher level than higher education, leading to the destruction of the best public higher education system in the world. This was for “law and order”, meanwhile crime statistics increase because prisons have become higher education for criminals (no training, no rehibilitation).

I could go on, but some of you, those not blinded by the lying propaganda of the right, get it. Sowell is a con, yes a con. He lies to get his point across. When will we wise up?

The Rugged Individualist

It is interesting how myths have such a hold on Americans. Ken Murray’s recent opinion piece contains many myths, but since he writes for a nice conservative paper, who limits rebuttals; I will list but a few in my restricted space:

1. “Universal Health Insurance infringes on personal responsibility.” The United States is the ONLY industrialized nation in the world to not have a universal health care system. This has lead to a “system” that rations care between the rich and the poor; destroying families through bankrupcies and ruining lives. Rich people benefit, the rest of us are left to hope nothing happens. We are free to have our lives ruined by illness or injury. That is responsibility?

2. “The Constitution set up limited government, families took care of fellow rugged individualists.” Let’s not forget a brutal slavery system that built an economy that dramatically helped the new nation develop. Let’s not forget an Army who “civilized” the West, by killing Native American families so “rugged individuals” could have free farms. Without the U.S. Government, no gold rush, no Manifest Destiny. Rugged individualists had a big ally: the U.S. Cavalry.

3. “Self-reliance and limited government caused America to flourish.” Has anyone read the Articles of Confederation and how this “experiment” in “limited” government almost got the U.S. back into the British Empire? The truth is government and cooperation have always assisted Americans (except people of color) to realize the American Dream. How could someone declare themselves solely responsible for success when they acquired their land from the Government, developed it with Government aid, and were protected by government troops who stole it?

4. “Rugged individualism is why the nation prospered and represents a sane relationship with the government.” We live in a nation of over 300 million people. We depend on highways, the internet, electricity, email; etc., to acquire our prosperity (which is narrowing to an aristocratic few). Cooperation and collaberation are how we prosper, and how we prospered in the past. The truth is when individualist GREED dominiates our economy, it has led to slavery, and later recession and depression (witness recent history). Teamwork and cooperation lead to success, not selfishness. Greed is not good.

Mr. Murray and other conservatives repeat the above myths incessantly. The problem is they have no foundation in American history or present reality. They are myths propagated by people who really do not trust a diverse democracy but who hope for a day when the “fittest” can again “take their country back”, and we know who they are talking about.

Shasta County Doom and Gloom Number One

This morning, true to form, your paper hit us with the usual 2^nd or 3^rd page Associated Press article “Consumer Confidence Sinks”, to make sure it sinks so conservatives can win in 2010. Then, on the opinion page the usual Sowell blather.

And the Letters to the Editor proclaim that Shasta County really isn’t unhappy, unhealthy or broke.

But we are. And we are because of the right wing philosophy that has dominated California since Reagan. We were sold a bill of goods that the New Deal was wrong, that government was bad, and that tax cuts to stimulate the economy were the ONLY WAY to prosperity. More competition, unleash the free market while giving more to the rich and everything will be better. It did not work!

1. The middle class has been devastated. Before 1980 a single income in a family could provide. Now, if you can get them, multiple low paying jobs for both marriage partners are the norm.
2. Our health care system ranks below ALL the developed nations on earth. If you are rich (a common theme today) you get the best, if you aren’t, forget it.
3. Income disparity is the worst since the 20s. Tax cuts have greatly benefited the top 1%, the rest of us are getting poorer. The Middle Class is disappearing.
4. The prisons in California have become a monster, gobbling up resources and not rehabilitating. We incarcerate more than Russia! We produce criminals now, not products.
5. Our schools, from K-16 have been reduced to second class status. Prop 13 (anyone ever wonder about the luck in this?) by shifting funding from more stable sources, has tied educational funding to the mercurial state budget that tax cuts, not spending, has destroyed. The 2/3 rule of Prop 13 tied state government in knots. (Another conservative brainstorm).
6. And now, some radical, treasonous americans (they don’t deserve capital letters) even one congressman condone a terrorist who flew his plane into a building to protest government. Some of these same people erected flags to memorialize thousands who were killed in a similar terrorist attack; what teasonous hypocracy! That’s right, to advocate the violent overthrow of the government in the United States is TREASON; check any loyalty oath we all signed over the past sixty years. The next time some idiot talks about violently destroying our government, remind them they are committing treason.

It didn’t work. It doesn’t work. It won’t work. Sowell and others are lying to you. Turn off the right wing talk, shake your head, and look at the history of the past fifty years. You are getting screwed, and many of you are advocating the very philosophy that causes your pain, has stolen your jobs, and ruined your futures.

Finally, Sowell tries to “con” us into believing that Wall Street isn’t any more greedy than anyone else. What? How about the Enron debacle? How about the bankers of Wall Street whose bonuses rose 17% in 2009! How about Blue Cross, who right now are trying to foist a 39% rate increase on us while reaping record profits?

United We Stand..Divided we...

What a sad time for America when a political party and the conservative movement so hate and disrespect the President they: 1. Encourage schoolchildren to boycott a Presidential address advocating doing your homework. 2. Cheer when the United States fails to get the Olympics. 3. Constantly criticize Health Care Reform when we desperately need it. 4. Stand ready to attack needed changes in foreign policy after squandering trillions in Iraq. 5. Accuse the President of being Hitler and a Socialist at the same time (historically impossible). 6. Attack every move the President makes regarding the economy, accusing him of causing a recession that started in 2008. 7. Rant at deficits, which hit record levels during the previous administration’s folly of fighting two wars while cutting taxes. 8. Acting in disloyal ways, screaming they are patriots, claiming political dissent condones refusing to serve in Iraq because the President was allegedly not born in the United States (a charge that is ridiculous). 9. The Republican Party has been captured by the radical right, whose motto is “the ends justify the means”, moderates are no longer welcome.

At the nine month mark of President Bush’s first term the country had just endured the horror of 9-11. My truck carried a decal promoting unity in our struggle with terrorism. I am a long-time Democrat, and no fan of Bush’s policies. And this was a President remember, who had just been elected with a MINORITY of the popular vote. However, when the nation is in trouble it doesn’t make any difference, we stand together. This does not mean we stifle democratic debate. But starting a campaign in January 2009 to destroy the brand new landside elected administration using any means necessary is NOT patriotism.

Shasta County is in economic trouble. As usual, the recession is hitting harder here. And what do they do? They scream, they demonstrate. They carry flags urging another “tea party”, chant about nonexistent lying, and shout down honest citizens who ask innocent questions. And, they praise comments advocating political terrorism, as if democratic argument is a blood sport.

The facts are we have a long way to go to get out of this mess. No matter what party is in control, we are in trouble in this country. We have allowed our economy to develop generic weaknesses that have resulted in what may well be chronic long-term underemployment. We have ignored a fatal addiction to foreign oil, designing our society with a total disregard of dwindling oil supplies. We have allowed our health care system to become a disaster, dragging down our economy. Finally, our educational system has been ignored, criticized, manipulated for political gain by all sides, to the point where it is faltering.

Meanwhile, California, who has been seen as a trend-setter for the nation, is committing economic suicide because of the rages of a conservative minority who clings to tax cutting as the cure for all the ills of our society, while our schools starve to death, our firemen and police are laid off, and we flat don’t have enough revenue to repair roads that now rank 49^th as worst in the nation. The right has run our state into the ditch.

And they do this for the sake of an obsessive goal to win back the White House and the Congress at all costs? They rail they “want our county back”. And if they get their country back, what about the rest of us; are convenient internment camps next?

The radical right did exactly that in Germany in 1933. The first internees in the concentration camps were the “socialists” and those who believed in democracy. Most were never seen or heard from again. The ends of political hegemony justified the means of killing the political opposition. Is this an unfair comparison? History teaches us that it is not. When people scream we want “our” country back it means they are claiming somehow an exclusive ownership, which implies the “others” don’t belong. This directly leads to either sending the “others” out, or eliminating them.

After WWII, our schools taught this basic principle of how political systems go wrong. As a baby-boomer I remember the films and the lectures about what the radical right can do to freedom. The horror of the concentration camps was a lesson about how wrong an ideology can become.

The right wing tendency to somehow “own” or have an ordained right to “our” country, in contrast to everyone else, is a sociological fact that has destroyed democracies throughout history. All that is needed is a scapegoat, illegal immigrants, or “socialists” and the inevitable self-righteous political violence begins. This has and will lead to the fall of democracy.

President Obama’s difficulty in getting a Health Care Bill is because compromise and cooperation are the ONLY way to get bills passed under our Constitution. Without basic cooperation our government ceases to function. This is exactly what the radical right thrives on, discrediting democracy (the end) with the means of obstructionism and criticism of government.

Thanks to the Conservative Right, we are divided and we are falling. The inherent threat they pose to our democracy continues and will intensify unless we stand up and bring rational debate back into our political discussions.

If Not Racism What

I almost did it. A few weeks ago, after one of my letters was published, I was called and invited to a Tea Party Meeting. At the time, knowing I would be outnumbered, I declined. However, as time wore on, and as I thought about our common citizenship and love for this country, I really was considering going to a meeting and at least hearing them out.

Tonight, watching the nightly news, I watched with disgust the report of the first speech of the first national tea party convention. This was the first impression this organization was leaving on the country as it strives for national recognition.

What we saw was a former congressman, who even ran in the presidential primary, use Klu Klux Klan verbiage to talk about the president’s election.

This so called “spokesman” brought up “literacy tests” that were used by racist Jim Crowe election officials in the south to keep American Citizens from voting for nearly 100 years. He sneered that those responsible for electing our President could not read nor could they spell. Then, of course, he spit out the president’s name as a socialist ideologue.

And the crowd cheered! It has been forty-six years since the Civil Rights Act was passed in this country, the Voting Rights Act as well. Both of these laws were bought and paid for with the blood and sweat of many, including Martin Luther King. People died so that an American citizen could simply vote and democracy could live. And the crowd sneered and the crowd cheered.

Enough said, I have heard and seen enough. Regardless of what our patronizing editor writes, the Teaparty is a cover for racism and bigotry. When they say they “want their country back”, they mean the white racists want back in control.

Not me, not this time. We cannot allow this great country to once again slip into bigotry and hate. Too many sacrificed and too many suffered so that people could simply vote. If they vote for someone you don’t like, then you can wait and try to vote in who you like better next time. Why the hate, why the fear?

Fascism grows from hate, fear and scapegoating. Democracy dies when people are afraid and angry and lose faith and trust in the dignity of us all. The Teaparty needs to re- consider their leaders and their message, because they really got off to a bad start!