Right-wing Columnist Berates Middle School Magazine

She hates all things left of Barry Goldwater and hangs out with the Townhall Club, that pool of festering hate-mongers who adore Dick Cheney. Now she is attacking a social studies magazine that is widely used by middle school teachers and students to gain insight into national and international issues.

This most recent attack, not surprisingly, has a pro-Israel bent: she is angry with the magazine because they do not denounce the Iranian president's remarks on Israel while suggesting that the bush Administration is warmongering: “Some members of the Bush Administration want to take military action against Iran.” But nary a word on Ahmadinejad’s threat to annihilate Israel or to see a world “without the United States.” She writes for the e-zine Jewish World Review.


It would be interesting to see if the editors of Junior Scholastic Magazine would allow her to write an article: I bet it would be dripping with praise and admiration 'for this wonderful administration we currently have serving our nation.'

Ms Charen rarely criticizes the Bush Administration but is the author of two anti-Democrat, anti-liberal books: Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003) and Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help — and the Rest of Us (2005). No wonder she is so outraged at criticism of her most-favored president.

Coincidentally, as I was reading this article in The Blade, I was listening to C-Span and a caller from Florida who was berating C-Span for becoming so 'liberal' and so pro-Democrat. The upshot, I think, is that there are fewer and fewer folks in America who cling to the worship of Bush and Cheney and those that still do find themselves increasingly in the minority. They are shouts of despair, cries of loneliness. I think of the horseshoe makers in their last throes, scolding the automobile.

The last throes....where have I heard that phrase used?

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps Thanks to Bush/Cheney

Naomi Wolf's The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot lists the 10 steps that a fascist government needs to take to attain full-fascism. She says that the Bush Administration has taken all ten.

The publisher says this about the book:

"In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century’s worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile."

Wolf says:

“Recent history has profound lessons for us in the U.S. today about how fascist, totalitarian, and other repressive leaders seize and maintain power, especially in what were once democracies. The secret is that these leaders all tend to take very similar, parallel steps. The Founders of this nation were so deeply familiar with tyranny and the habits and practices of tyrants that they set up our checks and balances precisely out of fear of what is unfolding today. We are seeing these same kinds of tactics now closing down freedoms in America, turning our nation into something that in the near future could be quite other than the open society in which we grew up and learned to love liberty.”

The frozen Dems in Congress are paralyzed to act against Bush and Cheney, declaring impeachment off the table. Curious or collusion?

I Hope Connecticut's Recall of Senator Lieberman is Moving Along

Senator Lieberman of Connecticut surely must be an embarrassment to the folks of that state. The Dem turned Independent and talks and acts like a Republican sure pulled the wool over the eyes of the citizens of that state.

Last week, in a speech before the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, he castigated Democrats as if he were a right-wing Republican. Karl Rove could not have written a nastier partisan speech. In it he accused the Democrats of "betraying the tradition of presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy." Imagine that, a former Dem pouncing on his friends. Did he say anything about his buddy George W. "betraying the Republican Party?"

What a warmongering hypocrite you have for a senator, dear Connecticut. Take him down.

The Last 7 Presidents Promised Energy Independence

...but foreign imports increased every year of their terms in office. What a farce. And we Americans just nod and ask where the clicker is. Gas is $3.19 in Toledo, yet there are no protests, no letters to the editor about it. We just go on filling our tanks like mindless robots.

A company called, Recycled Energy Development, has been attempting to sell and install a product called Turbosteam. Turbosteam is a retro-fitted devise attached to the smokestacks [heat releaser] of factories and businesses 'to profitably reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by converting waste energy into electric power. Turbosteam achieves this mission by designing, building and installing on-site power plants in industrial and institutional facilities around the world.'

The concept is fairly obvious: the 'waste' heat produced by business and industry is used to drive electric generators that sit atop the heat stacks and thus produce 'free' electricity for that establishment or which can be sold back to the electric company.

The company touts three benefits:

• Manufacturers—reduce energy costs, increase power reliability, and obtain additional revenue from emission credits.

• Investors—enjoy above-market returns, with the diversity and liquidity of conventional private equity.

•Society—benefits from reduced manufacturing costs, fossil-fuel usage, grid vulnerability, and greenhouse-gas emissions.

The question arises: so why did I not know about this back in 1987 when this company began its production of this product?

I suspect the American Petroleum Institute along with their co-conspirator the American Coal Association has been working very hard to suppress this information. After all, think of the profits they would lose were this product in use across America.

Profit above the common good.

Profit above the environment.

Profit above national safety.

No doubt, these profits are being tabulated by good standing members of the GOP.

National security- the hallmark of Bush, Cheney and Rice- all former executives of the oil industry.

I get it. Just another ruse, another smoke and mirror magic trick played on the unsuspecting American citizen.

The Happy Idiot's Guide to Education: Part 1

This post [in two parts] is a corollary to a post yesterday on my blog, TPS Performance, by team blogger UptheFlag.

Already there is a comment on his posting about the fate of another urban public school system is a suggestion to beat the children: that will 'teach' them! There are plenty of lunatics like this out there such as this person who lives in the past. Folks like these cannot accept the fact that what was done 20-30 years ago in schools may never have been the right thing to do in the first place, let alone today. Just beat them into submission satiates their anger, but offers no solution.

At first you might think that the comment came from a person who spent their school days in a Catholic school where the maxim was to rap them on the knuckles with the ruler! Rather, she is quite an anti-Catholic fundamentalist. As a fundamentalist, then, it becomes quite clear why she holds these extreme and idiotic views about public education: she is living in the past and wishes to return to those 'good old days.'

Not only the fundamentalists, but so many other Americans wish to return to the 'good old days' of education when teachers could 'handle' the children in the classroom. Terrify them, more exactly.

Of course, at the root of the education dilemma is the so-called factory schools that were set up in America; we still have them today. Factory schools were envisioned to be miniature factories, assembly lines for the children, to learn in a piece-meal fashion as well to be brainwashed into thinking like a factory worker. Behave for the teacher and behave for the line-boss; don't think too much and do what you are told. Be nice little workers and don't ask questions.

Interestingly right here in Toledo that very idea came to a violent head. The unionization of the auto workers, a bitter bloody battle, gave more humanity to the linemen working in those noisy, dirty, contaminated factories. Henry Ford and other wealthy industrialists, naturally, fought such worker-rights because these were anathema to having complete control over the lives of his workers. The deadly Auto-Lite strike of 1934 right here in Toledo stands as an ugly witness to the attempts of big business to intimidate its workers and to literally beat them back into submission. Beat the workers! Naturally, the strikers were labeled 'socialists' and 'communists' in an attempt to de-humanize their efforts. Fortunately, after the blood was washed from Toledo's streets, workers were granted the power to unionize and to have a voice in their own destiny.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, especially before an election on a school issue, "Them schools was good enough for me, and I ain't vot'n them no more money." Right-wing Republicans love folks like these; they are easy targets for their anti-public school propaganda. In fact, platform committee of the 2000 Republican National Convention had language calling for the abolition of the Department of Education. The right-wing of the GOP hates free, public schools and prefer to have dumbed-down masses of people as workers in their non-union factories. Today, of course, these CEO's have found their dumbed-down workers in China, by-passing the American workers who were educated to exactly perform in these non-existent factories.

Right-wing Republicans and their religious compatriots, Fundamentalist Christians, keep their guns focused on public education, propagandizing the masses with their usual array of smoke and mirror delusions. Actually, fundamentalists want their Christian schools to get the public money for their schools. Toledo' s own Sally Perz was able to manipulate the Ohio State Legislature to fund so-called 'community schools.' These schools legally take local and state tax revenues and use them in private schools of their own creation.

Right-wing ditto heads continue to absorb and spew the anti-tax message against public school funding. Apparently they do not believe that a highly-educated public is good for our republic.

Racism too lifts its ugly head in all of this. Of course, the upper middle class whites have mostly moved to the suburbs, taking their children out of urban schools. Note further that the more well-off blacks most often send their children to private schools or move to the suburbs. What is left is a pool of poorer whites and black students who come to school ill-prepared for such a situation and who do not receive the at-home support for education during their school days.

Rather than addressing all of these issues facing today's schools, black-and-white thinking by these right-wing groups offer no new insights into solving this problem other than hitting the children over the head or stamping out public schools...

[end of Part 1]

The Bush Fool-Factor [Again]

He's our fool, at least. A Texan to boot! What more could one ask: homegrown fool, par excellence. This time its Musharraf who plays him for the fool and he dances right in step.

Who else laughed at the fool who touted that Musharraf promised to step down from his army position? Who laughed even harder when the same fool told us that Musharraf promised to hold elections?

Apparently Bush's good friend and 'ally on terror' must be doin' a heckofa job over there. Maybe Bush can give him one of those tin medals he likes to hang around the necks of 'heroes' like Rumsfeld.

But he's OUR fool.

TPS Performance

This post comes from a previous post this past Tuesday.
There was a phrase in that post, "freedom of learning."
I ask, freedom of learning in Toledo Public Schools today?
Maybe, "freedom of learning" is one of the problems for
the low proficiency rates for children in our public schools.
If this country and local school districts are going to continue
educating children in brick and mortar central buildings, it
may be time to forget about "freedom of learning" and instill
a core curriculum of reading, english, spelling, writing, math,
science, and civics. Bring on the memorizing, re-instill strict
discipline, get rid of school counselors. I don't seem to recall
counselors in all of my primary and secondary education. None.
And, some how most of us survived, flourished, went on to
college, graduate degrees, and successful careers. There was
less time in Toledo public schools in the pre-1970s than today and
test scores were higher. Prior to the implementation of school
lunches in the late 1960s, TPS sent all the students home for lunch.
The schools were empty for an hour and a half. Yet, there was
time to fully educate the children. TPS was shut down for 90
minutes, imagine that today. From the information that I have
been able to retrieve there is hardly a school in TPS reaching the
requirements of "No Child Left Behind". Here is a sampling of
data for 2007: Listing school, reading proficency, math prof:
Cherry Elem 28.9% 30.0%
Chase Elem 41.1 39.4
Byrnedale 76.4 56.6
Deveaux 67.5 47.4
Elmhurst 80.3 86.8
Eastside 59.9 50.7
Fulton 52.1 64.7
Grve Patrsn 85.4 80.3
Jones 33.2 26.0
Lagrange 33.3 20.0
Larchmont 73.2 48.3
Libbey 73.0 48.3
McKinley 50.5 42.9
Pickett 36.3 26.8
Rogers 76.3 60.2
Scott 75.4 49.1
Start 88.6 77.6
Waite 81.3 64.9
Woodward 72.3 51.6

Most TPS are not meeting the proficiency goals. Neither
is the nation at large. Yet, TPS spending per child is
probably $10,000+ For what? Failure? So, if we didn't
have national performance goals and testing, all this could
be hidden? Why are like teachers at say Pickett and Start
receiving roughly the same pay? Or Jones and Grove Patterson?
The Union tells me so? How can schools like Pickett, Lagrange,
Chase, even be called a place of learning? Apparently, even
teaching to the tests in TPS has not made successful learning.
How many children is TPS leaving behind?

100% of House GOP Votes AGAINST Tax Relief

Apparently the GOP doesn't care much for middle-class Americans [as if we didn't know.] They also lie [as if we didn't know]. They tout 'tax relief' which is, in fact a GOP initiated word. But only if it is relief for the upper classes.

On Friday the House passed a bill that would relieve an estimated 23 million taxpayers from being subject to the alternative minimum tax for a year. All Republicans voted against it.

Why would the 'party of tax relief' vote against tax relief? Because it was tax relief for the wrong Americans. There were many who object to provisions that would raise tax rates on private equity managers, venture capitalists and some real estate investors to income tax rates as high as 35% instead of capital gains tax rates of 15%.

Now it becomes crystal clear which party stands for the average American citizen. Clearly.

The Hinges of History: America's Obsession With Killing

Historian and author Thomas Cahill was featured on Bill Moyer's Journal last evening. He was speaking of his latest book, the Hinges of History, and made this remarkable statement:

"All societies have a dream and a nightmare. And our nightmare has been, I think, our racism. We practically committed genocide on the people who were here, the Native Americans. We enslaved another race of people, the Africans. And then we dropped the atom bomb on Asians. We would have never dropped that bomb in Europe in my view. And I think that's what proves the racism of it. That's the nightmare of America."

Although his book is titled, How the Irish Saved Civilization, this remark about America stuck in my brain as did another about how Texas loves to execute people:

"I think throughout the country but especially in the state of Texas, there is a kind of collusion among lawyers whether they're prosecutors or defenders, and judges, and an awful lot of horrible things happen in order to get as many people as possible executed."

Enter the former governor of that state. The governor who has killed at least a half-million Arabs. A governor whose compassion has been overshadowed by his penchant for killing. A majority of Americans cheered the man, hooting and hollering: in shock and awe.

Civilization. The Roman Colosseum is the number one tourist attraction in the world. A place of killing. Why? asked Cahill. Apparently we have something inside of us as humans that has some sort of attraction to killing.

Attraction to killing.

America.

Profits From Iraqi Oil a No-Show

I can't recall which lying neocon conned the American people into believing that Iraqi oil would somehow pay us for 'the war.' Was it Wolfowitz, Cheney or Rummy? Doesn't matter who told the lie.

CNN reports today that Iraqi oil production today is lower than March 20, 2003, the date of Shock n' Awe. The article, Still waiting to cash in on Iraqi oil, says, "Iraq is currently lucky to pump 2 million barrels a day. Decades of war and neglect have nearly halved production from a high of 3.5 million barrels in the late 1970s. Output is now below where it was when the United States first invaded in 2003, and some experts say that Iraq could see production fall by 200,000 barrels a day per year under present conditions."

I suppose that is why Bush wants another $50 billion for his war. What addle brains actually believed this guy back in 2003? If you did, would you please offer a confession?