Meanderings on today's political game.

I can't help but wonder when I constantly see letters to the editor in our local newspaper from individuals who seem to have very short memories or...worse yet, have been brainwashed by the machine that seems to be taking over so many unthinking minds in our nation.
October 23 saw a Kelly Sloan, not even an American citizen, who frequently writes (I am told) material for our State Senator King,who had the gall to make the decision that Proposition 103 will "do more harm than good." Interestingly, his follower King agrees but disagrees on the issue concerning our School District #51. I am not sure just why the paper even publishes his ideas.
That aside, there have been letters blaming the present administration for everything that has accumulated from the past two terms under Mr. Bush, Cheney, Runsfeld and Rove, eight years of handing out candy to their corporate friends in the guise of subsidies to oil and gas who make outrageous profits.  Of course, these are breaks a-many to corporations, who of course, contribute to their campaigns, deregulate everything possible to put more money in their friends' pockets at the risk of the rest of America, our air, our water, our land, the cost of our health care.
I cannot understand how the Republican machine actually gets the ordinary voter to vote against himself, but it does.
Remember when Gov. Ritter wanted to help higher education? Well, he simply wanted to take the bundle of money that has been given to the oil and gas companies, and move it, move it to higher education, no tax increase, no loss, just a different placement of the funds.
Well the Republicans hollered "tax increase, tax increase" and the little guys listened and were scared. The oil and gas industries reached into their deep pockets and spent millions on TV and other media ads  which convinced the workers and common people to vote aggainst education through their fear mongering "you'll lose jobs if we lose our subsidies" and it worked.
The voters who don't think past their noses voted against themselves, giving money to oil and gas, who definitely don't need more money (note the huge, huge profits they make as they, many of them rape mother earth, and kept money away from education, education, the foundation of Democracy....Do we not want to keep Democracy strong? Do we want to live under an Oligarcy of corporations?
This is but one example of corporate manipulation of the masses...fear, misinformation, outright lies.
The Koch Brothers do not have the interest of Democracy in mind as they fund any group that will do their bidding, as they manipulate their businesses in such ways as to escape paying their fair share. The ALEC corporation picks out greedy legislators to attend their special meetings where they promise support if that senator or rep will but take bills they have written and get them passes in Congress as law.  Did you know it is most unethical for legislators to attend ALEC meetings? Well even our state reps have been invited and happily went ....
I did have the percentages of how many Governors now in office, are connected to ALEC and how many legislators have carried bills written by ALEC. These bills are not in the interest of most Americans, just the One Percent. One can find this data on the Web if  one looks hard enough.
The Party of NO has to be admired for sticking to the game plan of their contributors. They have denied any help for working America, jobs, getting their businesses to loosen up the funds needed to get jobs opened.  They will do anything, no matter how hurtful for America to fulfill Bohnar's brag to get Obama out after one term. Wow, such dedication to America!
Health care has gotten out of reach for many, again thanks to lobbists and campaign funds and Health Industries being owned by that one percent. And this is what the common man votes for?
Lack of support for schools, does this mean we want a "dumb" worker ant colony as our pattern for the future? Let's see, was it Nero who said "Give them cake...they will do as we want." (or something to that idea?)
The Republican House and the greedy Republican Senators are killing America as I used to know it.
I grew up Republican, went Democratic and now am Independent...because, in Colorado one must declare a party to vote in the primaries
So, before you,  who seem to follow blindly the present Republican machine, think about what you are doing to yourself and to your family. Learn to read primary sources, follow other news casts besides Fox, which is only another mouthpiece for the one percent. Investigate exactly what kind of organization is claiming to know it all. There are credentials out there which sound good, but are not. Investigate the truth, don't just swallow fear and lies.

Who really elected Tipton

At a time in America’s history, a time when we read headlines and view television news which talk about the proposed cuts to student loans, which results in limiting who can afford a college education,

At a time when those in power are aiming to cut or do away with Medicare, Medicade and Social Security, on which far too many of our elderly depend on for any type of health care, for food on their tables

At a time when each of us knows there must be a way to reduce out country’s debt, spending, we find in the news that the five major oil companies have broken all records with their phenomenal profits…and yet, as an example, we Colorado tax payers are paying $25 million every year to these big oil companies as subsidies, as charity.

Last week this played out again as the Senate, all its Republicans and 4 Democrats (from oil states) voted down a bill that would have cut those subsidies, that charity…

Those votes only serve to make it harder to cut government spending…these votes force the cuts onto Americans who can’t pay campaign contributions, our kids, our elderly, our veterans, the working class.

Take for example the fact that America, once on the top of the list, is now placed at 17 and 25 in education for our youth in science and math. Where will America’s innovation and leadership in those fields now be found?  Who said “Education is the foundation of Democracy” a quote our superintendent of schools recently used.

Congress seems to rather want to feed our money, our taxes to those very prosperous oil companies rather than feed the little ‘ole lady down the street, or the parents, or single parent who is out of work, who worries how they will feed their families, how to keep a place to live. Congress would rather give charity to big oil than fund programs to help our veterans who sacrificed all, their physical and mental well being for their country, as they seek to cut medical and other benefits for these veterans.

The list of cuts that effect the poor and the working class is long, while the list of those who do not need the tax loopholes, the subsidies, continues with relatively few cuts  because it is these entities who give that big money to campaigns and to lobbists….

Think about this…The top five big Oil earned nearly a Trillion dollars in 2010. Already this year, the number is up.

Having taken part in Scott Tipton’s phone conferences and having asked him questions about these subsidies and what he intends to do to help the everyday American, I received only the “canned” responses that evidently are written in the R playbook ,

With 44 Billion in profits so far this year, cutting subsidies which amount to 4 billion won’t hurt these companies one bit.

They will still have 42 billion with which to saturate media and they convince non-thinking citizens to actually vote against themselves.  (Example Ritter trying to boost funding higher ed tried to take Colo subsidies from oil and simply put the money over into higher ed fund…Oil saturated Colorado TV and other media with fear mongering ads about losing jobs, hurting business, and Rep. shouted the usual “tax increase, tax increase.” And what did voters do…voted to continue the charity for oil)

So there it is, cut ed. Cut programs that actually prevent crime, cut programs that keep people more healthy thus keeping emergency room costs down, help workers who then help productivity in business.

Who elected Tiption?  Who does he really serve, campaign contributors, the R party or the people of his district?

Just closing the loopholes for these 5 big oil co would result in a saving of 77 billion between 2011 to 2021.

This quarter’s Oil profits are up 38% over  2010’s quarter.

Gas prices have increased 28% compared to 2010….The result of Exxon and Conoco Phillips Oil using 53% portion of profits to spend as they repurchased stock to drive up their company share values in the first quarter of 2011….Remember, something which we don’t think about, it is the commodity market that increases the cost of gas…NOT oil industry regulations….

Then note this comparison…

Effective tax rates for Exxon paid 17.6% as average effective federal corporate tax rate in 2008 to 2010

YET

Average American individual paid federal tax rate of 20.4%  according to last available data in 2007.

Oil has the clout in money to fund campaigns which helps them influence Congress to keep their  “charity” loopholes. Just in the first quarter of 2011, they paid $273,500 to republican and $7000 to the Democrats from oil states.

And you saw how well this worked….The Senate voted to continue subsidies to the big oil.

When polled, the public…66% say gas prices effect their personal finances…

74% favor eliminating tax credits for oil and gas industry…

and  big surprise…. By a margin of 2 to 1, Republican voters supported ending those subsidies as well….that’s the little guy who happens to be a R.

Cutting those subsidies could have reduced the deficit by 21 B this year,  it could have reduced the deficit over the next 10 years by 77 Billion…

Think about the fact that the money could have gone to paying back Medicare fund from which the government borrowed big money to the tune of 30 billion…and now won’t pay back. 

Then add the fact that It could have paid for 18,000 teachers for a year….

Plus 251,000 pell grants essential to average and poor American students…worth $3,900 each.

b

Tipton said “Our country cannot afford the debt we now have…”

But, while he touts cuts, he continues to support billions in charity…known as subsidies, for Big Oil…Why this corporate welfare?

Tipton also said “everything is on the table for cuts…” What he forgot to add was “everything but cuts for Big Oil….remember how the Republicans voted NO on the bills which would have helped SMALL business? Go figure!

Tax Payers for common Sense is a non partisan organization having worked for over 10 years to get government to assume fiscal responsibility.

We the tax payers foot the bills   Definitely, the oil Companies should be paying their fiar share, which they are not doing….

We the tax payers foot bills for our military abroad, for protection of shipping lanes, for the very salaries and huge benefits our Congressmen are given, and so much more…

JUST WHY DOES CONGRESS CONTINUE TO USE OUR DOLLARS AS CHARITY, AS A HAND OUT, TO BIG OIL?

Come on, Tipton and other Republican and some Dems…stop using ALEC and the KOCH brothers playbooks,….start representing we the people….

ALEC is smart for corporations and business NOT for America's working class

Smart ALEC: Dragging the Secretive Organization Out of the Shadows

3/31/2011

For nearly forty years the American Legislative Exchange Council has been providing conservative legislators with the tools to undo the New Deal piece by piece. Now, in the Year of the Cold-Blooded Republican Governor, ALEC is achieving an unprecedented level of success.

by BILL BERKOWITZ

As puzzle master Will Shortz might say, what is a four-letter acronym for a virtually unknown, but politically powerful conservative organization? If you guessed ALEC, you won't be receiving an NPR lapel pin, but rest assured, you are in very elite company.

Most people are unaware of the existence or reach of this shadowy organization. The members of ALEC would rather you remain ignorant of their purposes. In fact, these folks are so uncomfortable with anyone knowing about them that a University of Wisconsin history professor is being hammered by the Republican Party of that state for suggesting in an entry on his blog that in order to better understand the actions in various states with new Republican governors whose radical legislative proposals are remarkably similar, it might be worthwhile paying attention to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Hardly a day goes by without a conservative governor proposing some draconian anti-labor, anti-middle class law aimed at - dare I say it -- destroying democracy in this country. And, while the Washington, D.C.-based ALEC (http://www.alec.org/) may not be responsible for all of the mayhem going on in such states as Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Florida, and Michigan (with more states certain to follow), it has historically played an extraordinary role in shaping pro-corporate legislation in a number of states.

Interestingly, as of May 2010, Wisconsin's long-serving Republican Sen. Scott L. Fitzgerald, now the state's Senate Majority Leader, the man who has led the charge in the Wisconsin state senate against the state's workers on behalf of Governor Scott Walker, was listed as an ALEC State Chairman. This year, ALEC lists Assembly Rep. Robin J. Vos as its Wisconsin State Chairman. Vos is the co-chair of the Wisconsin budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.

A little ALEC history is in order: In 1973, the organization was established by the late Paul Weyrich (who co-founded the Heritage Foundation and is widely considered to be one of the Godfathers of the New Right), former Illinois Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, and conservative activist Lou Barnett. According to Source Watch, a project of the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy, ALEC is a "semi-secretive" organization that "has been highly influential, has operated quietly in the United States for decades, and received remarkably little scrutiny from journalists, media or members of the public during that time."

ALEC denies that it is a lobbying group and it is registered with the IRS as a 501(c)3 charitable organization that has tax exempt status.

Although thousands of state and local lawmakers pay a "nominal membership fee to attend ALEC's retreats and receive model legislation," the bulk of the organization's financial support - over 80 percent of its income - comes from corporations. ALEC provides state legislators with model legislation in support of limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty.

In a report titled "ALEC: Ghostwriting the Law for Corporate America" (http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xbcr/justice/ALEC_Report.pdf) and issued last May, the American Association for Justice described ALEC as "the ultimate smoke filled back room." In 2009 alone, according to the report, "826 bills were introduced in the states in 2009 and 115 were enacted into law."

This year, it is unclear whether the number of ALEC-inspired bills will exceed 2009's numbers, but it is clear that the scope of this year's frontal attack on working people appears to be the broadest in ALEC's nearly forty-year history.

"Behind the scenes at ALEC," the report pointed out, "the nuts and bolts of lobbying and crafting legislation is done by l[the] large corporate defense firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon." This "law firm with strong ties to the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries, ... has long used ALEC's ability to get a wide swath of state laws enacted to further the interests of its corporate clients."

Over the years, the report noted, "the organization has promoted the interests of:

•           Oil companies to undermine climate change proponents;

•           Pharmaceutical manufacturers, arguing that states should be banned from importing prescription drugs;

•           Telecom firms to block local authorities from offering cheap or free municipally-owned broadband;

•           Insurance companies to prevent state insurance commissioners from requiring insurers to meet strengthened accounting and auditing rules;

•           Big banks, recommending that seniors be forced to give up their homes via reverse mortgages in order to receive Medicaid;

•           The asbestos industry, trying to shut the courthouse door to Americans suffering from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases; and,

•           Enron to deregulate the utility industries, which eventually caused the U.S. to lose what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) estimated as $5 trillion in market value.

As of last year, ALEC was organized into 10 separate issue task forces to produce model legislation, research, and reports. These task forces include Civil Justice, Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development, Education, Health and Human Services, International Relations, Natural Resources, Public Safety and Elections, Tax and Fiscal Policy, and Telecommunications and Information Technology. In each task force, according to ALEC's website, "legislators welcome their private sector counterparts to the table as equals, working in unison to solve the challenges facing our nation."

The organization convenes three legislative Task Force meetings each year, an Annual Meeting each summer, and a State & National Policy Summit toward the end of year. ALEC is apparently known for holding these meetings at delightful retreat sites and they offer "'scholarships' to defray the cost of attendance for public sector members."

Interestingly enough, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, widely known as a major initiator of welfare reform - also known as the wholesale privatization of welfare services -- was a "major force in ALEC's rebirth as a corporate front." In a 2002 piece for The American Prospect, Nick Penniman noted that Thompson once said that, "I always found new ideas and then I'd take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that it's mine."

Although Wisconsin is a state that has a long history of progressive politics - think the early twentieth century's Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette and, more recently, Senator Russ Feingold - it has also given America the scourge of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and it currently is the national headquarters of the John Birch Society.

Which brings us back to the case of William Cronon, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin. Last week, the Wisconsin Republican Party made an Open Records Request seeking access to Professor Cronin's e-mails. The request came after Cronon wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times that criticized Wisconsin's Governor Walker and his attempts to destroy the state's public sector unions. On March 15, Cronon used his blog ("Scholar as Citizen" -- http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/) "to examine the role of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council in drafting that legislation," Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos, wrote recently in The Hill.

According to Moulitsas, "... Republicans have filed an open records request demanding access to Cronon's email, in particular any email with the words 'Republican,' 'collective bargaining,' 'union' and the names of several specific unions like AFSCME as well as the eight Republicans currently threatened by the recall effort."

In his blog post titled "Who's Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere? (Hint: It Didn't Start Here)," Cronon provided a condensed "Study Guide" for those wanting to know more about the genesis of Walker's legislative initiatives as well as a short history of the modern conservative movement.

Cronon pointed out that despite the enormous contributions - financial and ideological - the Koch brothers have made to the conservative movement, he didn't "find it plausible that two brothers from Wichita, Kansas, no matter how wealthy, can be responsible for this explosion of radical conservative legislation."

He went on to note that he is "pretty sure" that "the most important group" behind the current spate of anti-labor legislation is ALEC. "If you're as impressed by [its legislative successes] as I am, I'm hoping you'll agree with me that it may be time to start paying more attention to ALEC and the bills its seeks to promote."

Soon after the blog entry, the state Republican Party launched its attack.

It remains unclear as to what direct role ALEC has played in the current spate of activities aimed at dismantling workers rights and ultimately destroying the middle class.

For years an assortment of enterprising journalists and progressive organizations have taken a go at ALEC. The headlines and titles of some of the stories and/or reports that have been written -- "Ghostwriting the Law for Corporate America," "Corporate America's Trojan Horse in the States: The Untold Story Behind the American Legislative Exchange Council," a report by the Defenders of Wildlife and Natural Resources Defense Council -- serve as examples of how difficult it has been to expose ALEC's activities. It's more than past time to drag ALEC out of the shadows.

__._,_.___

Poltical meandering by a friend

April 16, 2011, 9:08 am

Civility is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels

At the beginning of last week, the commentariat was in raptures over the Serious, Courageous, Game-Changing Ryan plan. But now that the plan has been exposed as the cruel nonsense it is, what we’re hearing a lot about is the need for more civility in the discourse. President Obama did a bad thing by calling cruel nonsense cruel nonsense; he hurt Republican feelings, and how can we have a deal when the GOP is feeling insulted? What we need is personal outreach; let’s do lunch!
The easy, and perfectly fair, shot is to talk about the hypocrisy here; where were all the demands for civility when Republicans were denouncing Obama as a socialist, accusing him of creating death panels, etc..? Why is it OK for Republicans to accuse Obama of stealing from Medicare, but not OK for Obama to declare, with complete truthfulness, that those same Republicans are trying to dismantle the whole program?
Beyond that, are we dealing with children here? Is one of our two major political parties run by people so immature that they will refuse to do what the country needs because the president hasn’t been nice to them?
But the main point is, what are we supposed to have a civil discussion about? The truth is that the two parties have both utterly different goals and utterly different views about how the world works.
It’s not nice to say this (but the truth is rarely nice): whatever they may say, Republicans are not concerned, above all, about the deficit. In fact, it’s not clear that they care about the deficit at all; they’re trying to use deficit concerns to push through their goal of dismantling the Great Society and if possible the New Deal; they have stated explicitly that they want to reduce taxes on high incomes to pre-New-Deal levels. And it’s an article of faith on their part that low taxes have magical effects on the economy.
Obama believes that the major social insurance programs are a good thing, and has extended them with health reform. Some of the best-known research by his chief economist is his work debunking claims that tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves. Click on  here and here (both pdfs) for more information.
So what is there to talk about?

John

Response to President's Speech, April 13.

I thought David summed up present politics very well and in short terms. Now, after hearing the President say he could not support tax cuts for people like himself to the tune of $200,000 , the amount for which it would take 30 retired seniors to pay for by having their health care cut. Now, do you think the average American who now bashes Obama because of the lies from FOX, and the other media controlled by ALEC, MURDOCK and the KOCH Brothers, will understand just what is going on...the taking of America by Corporate Business?  My relatives in Kansas have bought in to the lies and actually vote against themselves. Go figure!

Dear Mr. President...

The battle lines now have been clearly defined and drawn. Each one of us and all of us will decide if we will envision a society that is based upon benevolence, tolerance, and empathy or a society that is based upon arrogance, ignorance, and greed. (Eric Cantor, John Boehnar and cronies)

We will certainly realize the difference when we see it.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

David A. Argenta

Fruita, CO 81521

Look around Congress and look again after you read the following.

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410/

Posted on Apr 10, 2011

By Chris Hedges
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.
Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.
“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy and Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.”
Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside. 
“It is extremely dispiriting to realize that you are in effect lying to these kids by insinuating that this diet of corporate reading programs and standardized tests are preparing them for anything,” said this teacher, who feared he would suffer reprisals from school administrators if they knew he was speaking out. “It is even more dispiriting to know that your livelihood depends increasingly on maintaining this lie. You have to ask yourself why are hedge fund managers suddenly so interested in the education of the urban poor? The main purpose of the testing craze is not to grade the students but to grade the teacher.”
“I cannot say for certain—not with the certainty of a Bill Gates or a Mike Bloomberg who pontificate with utter certainty over a field in which they know absolutely nothing—but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect,” he added. “In less than a decade we been stripped of autonomy and are increasingly micromanaged. Students have been given the power to fire us by failing their tests. Teachers have been likened to pigs at a trough and blamed for the economic collapse of the United States. In New York, principals have been given every incentive, both financial and in terms of control, to replace experienced teachers with 22-year-old untenured rookies. They cost less. They know nothing. They are malleable and they are vulnerable to termination.”
The demonizing of teachers is another public relations feint, a way for corporations to deflect attention from the theft of some $17 billion in wages, savings and earnings among American workers and a landscape where one in six workers is without employment. The speculators on Wall Street looted the U.S. Treasury. They stymied any kind of regulation. They have avoided criminal charges. They are stripping basic social services. And now they are demanding to run our schools and universities.
“Not only have the reformers removed poverty as a factor, they’ve removed students’ aptitude and motivation as factors,” said this teacher, who is in a teachers union. “They seem to believe that students are something like plants where you just add water and place them in the sun of your teaching and everything blooms. This is a fantasy that insults both student and teacher. The reformers have come up with a variety of insidious schemes pushed as steps to professionalize the profession of teaching. As they are all businessmen who know nothing of the field, it goes without saying that you do not do this by giving teachers autonomy and respect. They use merit pay in which teachers whose students do well on bubble tests will receive more money and teachers whose students do not do so well on bubble tests will receive less money. Of course, the only way this could conceivably be fair is to have an identical group of students in each class—an impossibility. The real purposes of merit pay are to divide teachers against themselves as they scramble for the brighter and more motivated students and to further institutionalize the idiot notion of standardized tests. There is a certain diabolical intelligence at work in both of these.”
“If the Bloomberg administration can be said to have succeeded in anything,” he said, “they have succeeded in turning schools into stress factories where teachers are running around wondering if it’s possible to please their principals and if their school will be open a year from now, if their union will still be there to offer some kind of protection, if they will still have jobs next year. This is not how you run a school system. It’s how you destroy one. The reformers and their friends in the media have created a Manichean world of bad teachers and effective teachers. In this alternative universe there are no other factors. Or, all other factors—poverty, depraved parents, mental illness and malnutrition—are all excuses of the Bad Teacher that can be overcome by hard work and the Effective Teacher.”
The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. They do not throw 6 million families from their homes as the cost of doing business. Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked. They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves.
“It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself,” Socrates said.
Those who can ask the right questions are armed with the capacity to make a moral choice, to defend the good in the face of outside pressure. And this is why the philosopher Immanuel Kant puts the duties we have to ourselves before the duties we have to others. The standard for Kant is not the biblical idea of self-love—love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—but self-respect. What brings us meaning and worth as human beings is our ability to stand up and pit ourselves against injustice and the vast, moral indifference of the universe. Once justice perishes, as Kant knew, life loses all meaning. Those who meekly obey laws and rules imposed from the outside—including religious laws—are not moral human beings. The fulfillment of an imposed law is morally neutral. The truly educated make their own wills serve the higher call of justice, empathy and reason. Socrates made the same argument when he said it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
“The greatest evil perpetrated,” Hannah Arendt wrote, “is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.”
As Arendt pointed out, we must trust only those who have this self-awareness. This self-awareness comes only through consciousness. It comes with the ability to look at a crime being committed and say “I can’t.” We must fear, Arendt warned, those whose moral system is built around the flimsy structure of blind obedience. We must fear those who cannot think. Unconscious civilizations become totalitarian wastelands.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,” Arendt writes. “For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in the dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur—the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.”

Our Education system needs change as we see the US slip.

Reiterating what many already know about education does nothing to help in the improvement thereof. Steve Schultz’s commentary in last Sunday’s Sentinel was well written as he a good job of telling readers what has already been in place.

What he did not cover is the fact with the scare tactics of legislators, who now blindly are touting cut this, cut that, and especially cut education and all that is involved with such, are out do away with the department of education. A Colorado legislator and those who approved his measure went as far as to take away breakfast from the little guys in public schools, a move similar to one made in the past by a legislator who blamed unwed pregnant girls for all the ills in society. (Immaculate conceptions!)

Regardless, the public is too busy trying to survive, to understand the repercussions of more cuts to colleges and to sort out what is hype and what is real. They are so busy trying not to become the next homeless, that they have no time to sort out the truth from the lies people like the Kochs and Murdocks smoothly shout from the airways.

So, in our time, we elect officials who want to get reelected and thus go along with the movement of cuts from the very foundations of Democracy.

In Schultz’s commentary the importance of education came clear when he wrote,

“Public education is a foundation of democracy in the United States. Given the challenges of the future, it is more critical then ever that we invest in our children…Now is the time to invest in our children.”

Nowhere do I see cutting the subsidies from the oil and gas industry who again are making known their outrageous profits for their billionaire shareholders. Nowhere do I see Wall Street Dudes going without huge bonuses. Nowhere do I see tax loop holes closed for those who do not need them anyway.  In fact, didn’t the Republicans staunchly defend the Bush era cuts for the very wealthy and vote to carry these cuts on at the expense of billions to an already sinking economy?

The movie,” Waiting for Superman” is a great commentary on how education needs to change. Finding more about the gal who, through severe gleaning of ineffective administrators as well as ineffective teachers back east, was able to get student scores to hike up quickly. Think about reform, real reform, not token gobble-de-gook spun with slick political jargon.

This is about the country

Our valley is religiously Republican as evidenced when it sent an uneffective, partisan, individual to the State Senate instead of a bypartisan, intelligent person who would have made a difference. Steve King has already started recycling ideas (his or his advisor's) through the Senate as witnesses by the "take old laws off the books" of which versions already exist.
Then, today, one of the legislators targeted on Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" map was shot in Tusan, Arizona, this the very state where two other politicians were also listed as targets, the state that followed ALEC corporate heads and one senator to pass a law which makes the bail bonds men and jail industry even richer on the backs of illegals, the very state where the Governor Brewer denied life-crucial transplants to two individuals so far. The two persons are now dead, thanks to Brewer's Death panel, all because she felt this action would "save money" since the two were on medicare. (Watch out anyone who is down on your luck or you are poor!) This underscores the facts that enable corporations and powerful individuals to focus on their own success and money as they risk lives of their workers. Note: Eleven workers die on BP oil rig. How many coal miners lost their lives in Kentucky, Virginia because the company had to make obscene profits...
Also note, the now Republican controlled House of representatives, held fundraisers on the very first day of their take over, many hired lobbists as their staff members, re-wrote the rules of the house to make sure they would have an easy path to doing their will, NOT the will of ethical, honest, transparent dealings.
So, in my ramblings, I am afraid for the future in this country. The image of Republican congressmen holding up signs from the steps of the Congress building to encourage the hate speech and the anger of the misinformed Tea Party groups, will remain in my mind as images of those who seek office for their own self-serving reasons as they pretend to be patriotic.
I am keeping notes from news, from reading, from many news sources, as to what is happening in our legislations, from and to whom, why and how.
I would hope others do the same, with bipartisan reasons, sifting through the lies, propaganda and misleading  half truths.  Then I would hope more individuals write their findings to share with more voters.