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Oh, George, what is US politics other than slogans? Heck, I can give you two: "yes, we can" and "change you can believe in". Still makes me chuckle. As for schools, I know that union busting and calling it reform is still union busting. But, I tell you what, George, I'll keep my eyes open for Obama's progressive agenda. Have you seen any sign of it yourself, or is the Big O still trying to outflank Palin on the right hoping to win over all them Tea Baggers by jettisonning all those lefty elites slaving away at Wal-Mart as elites so often do? What is Obama's base now? Fourteen democrat-right-or-wrong pundits, thirty-five insiders, and an outdated email list of people too pissed off to bother voting? Obama is yesterday's man. The Corpocracy is already interviewing potential successors.
Obama's base disengaged
I think you can add to that unions and especially teachers.
Whatever in your slogan-filled existence ever gave you the idea that I'm defending an ideal? It's just that there must be some islands of rationality in a hate-filled world where people can discuss paths to a reasonable world. Unless you get down to an understanding of the takeover of the American mind, you're only dealing in hate-filled cliches, FM. There's gotta be something more than that. But perhaps you've already worked out an explanation, a Gestalt psychology encompassing all the little wierdnesses.
It's just that that depth is not obvious in your reliance on google.
You're the one enthralled to the slogans, George. Certainly Obama has given you nothing more than slogans. And a rational person would have long ago recognized there is no hope, audacious or otherwise, in the Democratic Party. The islands of rationality are there, George, constantly speaking, constantly appealing, and it is you who chooses to ignore them out of loyalty (to the false hope of Obama) or fear (of Palin). I'm not reallu sure which. But there are very brave Americans fighting the madness everyday and they include Obama and the Democrats among the mad.
Trouble is, FM, you've lost sight of the enemy that's gonna rise up and kick us all in the teeth. As H.G.Wells put it, history is a race between education and the collapse of civilization (fitting on the eve of World War 2).
Here's how Bageant described the American situation is his latest missive from Mexico, Moon Over Gringo Gulch:
"Every American, every man woman and child lives by the fruit of the empire's sword, fully expecting the lights to come on each evening, fresh coffee to gurgle in the morning and the car to start right up. The Internet connection to work and for Australian wine to be on the supermarket shelves. Those who do understand where it all comes from -- which is to say from an unsustainable commodity economy propped up by phony money at gunpoint -- seldom object publicly, if there is the slightest risk. The relative few who grasp the inevitable cruelties of empire, especially of empires in decline, are inwardly resigned to their own insignificance in the larger scheme of things. A slim minority of youth still have the energy and idealistic anger to protest, as in Seattle's WTO fracas a decade ago. But for every one of them there are hundreds of thousands of citizens who say, "Well there's not much I can do about it." Both sides are right of course. But one swamps the other, reducing it to entertainment value on the evening news.
We find ourselves trapped on a dark and nasty merry-go-round. One that keeps going faster and faster to the point where everyone is too terrified to jump off. So we hang in there. And the state's one voice to the many says, "Don't pay attention to the wreckage on either side of the tracks. Because this train is bound for glory, this train. Ask any televangelist or Pentagon general. Ask any of the economist eunuchs inside the president's high sanctum, engineering "the recovery" in the name of God, cheap oil and the new jobless populist republic. Yessiree, there's light at the end of the tunnel, just around a few more bends. Don't let the fact that the track keeps descending downward bother you. And besides, if there is a buck to be made in hell, we will triumph. Because after all, we are The Americans."
Somehow, those folks have to be made to face up to what they have helped shape by their becoming completely dependent on sword and the market. Everything else is kind of a shallow rant.
But George, even Bageant would agree (Elsewhere I've linked to another article where he essentially says so) that Obama is kneeling on the floor, fitting the boots.
But never mind, just keep repeating the Obama mantra:
Hope and change, change and hope
Krishna Krishna hopey changey
Hopey changey, Krishna Rama
Rama Rama changey hopey
ommmmmmmmmmm bama.
Chaps, in the absence of anything more sustaining for the political economy we inherited than that, and despite your telling critical analysis disguised as witticisms, I'll have to go with preservation of what's left of a system until more useful remedies are forthcoming.
And yes, aQ, Joe is not taken in by Obama, but he is also critical of the commodity fetishism that calls the tune in America, not just the ruling elite. For instance his observations from "burning tortillas at midnight":
"It can now be honestly stated that mere goods and services express the citizenry and the American culture in its entirety. Citizenship in a consumer society is consumership. Consumer culture consumes all rival cultures, replacing them with "pop culture," which is simply deeming the marketplace as culture. Hip Hop is a good example. So is the modern cinema, and all of the music and book publishing industry. Corporate industry and its products are not culture, despite all the new definitions of culture bourgeois academia and the marketplace come up with on behalf of the corporations that fund both of them.
Your iPod shall set you free!
Freedom and personal identity exists as freedom to choose identity from among the commodities, and particularly the entertainments, offered. The Mac person as opposed to the Windows person. The Mariah Carey or Rihanna Fenty fan as opposed to the Eric Clapton fan. Each is convinced he or she is different because of their chosen commodity. Yet at the root of this, they all purchased a computer or a CD from a faceless corporation grounded in the toxic wastelands and sweatshops of Asia and elsewhere."
Obama didn't bring about that pathetic and pathological condition, and one suspects that if he demonstrated the slightest revulsion for it, he would be judged unfit for the presidency of the United States of Commodified America. Haven't the foggiest idea what kind of Ghandian ascetic that you would put in the oval office yourself, in the meantime....and just how you'd go about it.
I wonder if it might be helpful to petition the mods into creating a new forum and call it, I dunno, Joe Bageant Central. As prominent as his insight has figured on the board for what seems like ages, one handy point of reference might better serve, instead of having him sprinkled here and there all over the place.
Bageant is a good release from the stern judicial voice found hereabouts, the curled lip, the sagacious-sounding product of the latest MSM handout on google. He shows us an America that some seem afraid to contemplate, and most importantly, does it with humour:
"Ajijic is one of those sunny roosting places south of the horse latitudes preferred by aging Americans who've put away a few bucks, and Canadians whose government still stands behind its national retirement plan, for the time being at least. They come here in winter, from Buffalo, Scranton and Calgary, Ontario and Ohio, to roast aching bones, drink among others who can remember Sonny and Cher's first hit record, and, as is the case particularly with the Canadians, to smoke pot. An American never quite gets over the sight of half a dozen retired middle class seventy year olds in puffy white velcro strap tennis shoes, nonchalantly passing a fat bomber."
Arriving late to the party, again, but this needs to be said: George, your post at #80 is unacceptable. You can't characterize another poster's words as "fucking game playing. Stop it, you know better.
I guess. We should all give it a try.
When one tries to communicate from the heart and finds himself played with...? Any time someone does that they should expect the same, Maysie. Look over the several postings. I'm sure you'll understand and find some more chastisement to go around.
Bless you, you found the last paragraph.
As a (supply) teacher, I do see how well or poorly students learn. One of the biggest indicators of success or failure is a student's socio-economic status. In the board where I teach, most teachers use similar teaching methods. Most schools receive funding based on student enrollment. There are some minor variations for students with exceptional needs. The school board does provide a little extra funding for schools that require extra assistance. These schools may have a high concentration of low SES students or English language learners. That extra money may go toward hiring an extra half-time teacher or educational assistant and providing healthy breakfasts or snacks to students. One good thing in my board is that the best teachers can teach at challenging schools. Yes, teachers do get evaluated. They get evaluated on their teaching ability and methods--not on their students' test scores.
When I look at Obama's initiatives, I can see that he means well and wants the best for America's children. I do see some problems with Obama's initiatives:
Obama wants to extend the school day. He wants teachers teaching more and helping students before and after school. I will let everyone know that for every hour in a classroom a teacher needs to prepare about an hour outside the classroom. By extending the day for teachers, the quality of the lessons will suffer.
Obama wants charter schools to take over in poorly performing areas. Some charter schools may be great; others are no better than slave factories for the teachers. The teachers work long hours for low pay; they burn out after a year or two. If these charter schools were implemented, then the poor students would be taught by first and second year teachers just out of teachers' college. This situation is similar to some Canadian native reserve schools where students are taught by new teacher graduates. The students do not have continuity in the teaching staff. A stable learning community cannot develop.
If I were a teacher in the United States, I would be looking for work in a middle or upper class neighbourhood. If I am going to be evaluated on my students' standardized test scores, I would want to teach in a well-off neighbourhood where the scores are likely to be higher. If other teachers think the same way, then poor students will end up being taught by new graduates and not by experienced teachers. There may possibly be a shortage of teachers serving poor students.
....And ..... closing for length.