Monday, September 12, 2011

New York Times Subscription to Mount Misery: Cancelled

On September 12, 2011 former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that he's cancelled his subscription to the New York Times. "After reading Krugman’s repugnant piece on 9/11, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times this AM."  That's right, there will be no more subscriptions to Mount Misery.  Rumsfeld purchased his home on the infamous Mount Misery when he was in office.  Mount Misery is a former African-American slave whipping station.  With the cancellation, Rumsfeld will no longer read columns of the New York Times in the peace and quiet of his home, relaxing in pajamas, on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon, nor over breakfast with his serene view of the yard where slaves including Fredrick Douglas suffered tremendous torture.  The Krugman piece Rumsfeld calls repugnant was posted on September 11, 2011 at 8:51 AM:

"The Years of Shame

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons."


Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Right's Ongoing Attack On Public Education

Earlier this year Matt Damon defended teachers in an interview with right-wing Libertarian's "Reason T.V."  He became frustrated with a cameraman's attack on teachers and in other footage Damon expressed that he's fed up with the ongoing war on teachers.  


The right-wing's attack on teachers and public education is nothing new. Graduate of Stanford University and Professor at ASU, David C. Berliner's research published in 1997 entitled: "Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right: different views of children, schooling, teaching, and learning" tells of the extremist churches with a right-wing agenda handing out kits, which explain ways to dismantle the public education system.  The article also revealed ties between extremist church leaders and right-wing politicians.  The kit teaches how to cancel book orders at the last minute - leaving teachers and students without textbooks, how to become elected to school boards, and how to take a number of other actions to cripple the system.  One could only wonder of the extent this contribution has made to the public's view of the organization level and integrity of public education.  


The late Fredrick Von Hayek, good friend of the billionaire Koch brothers' father promoted the privatization of public education through the voucher system and the Koch brothers have invested millions in their own right-wing agenda for privatization through their group called Americans For Prosperity. Americans For Prosperity has funded and helped their own to become elected to the school board of Wake County, North Carolina. Wake County community members, parents, and students became outraged when they discovered the members funded by Americans For Prosperity were resegregating schools. The NAACP filed a civil rights complaint, a complaint with the accreditation agency, and many protested the Kochs' policies.  


At a Koch brother's seminar Republican Governor Chris Christie declared his next mission will be to dismantle the teachers' union.  Other seminar attendees included Republican Governor and current Presidential candidate Rick Perry, and Republican Governor Rick Scott. 

UNITED STATES
Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell explains the history of education very well in his book A History of Western Philosophy.  Periods in Western history when most people could not afford an education point out a relationship between money and learning. Education was for the very few in the ruling class who could afford private tutors.  The rest didn't have the means to pay for an education. 




Professor Berliner's 2005 research entitled: Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform compares statistical data between industrialized nations with an emphasis on economic systems.  His data show the American public education system has been misrepresented - and why else than for political and economic gains.  The worse the system is made out to be, the more support for an agenda to privatize.  The research finds that data on those who live in poor neighborhoods - people living in poverty - clearly skew the nation's data as drastically lower performing than if the data were looked at with the poorest demographical data excluded.  With it excluded, the US is among the top few highest performing in every graph variation.  The data also compares US poverty with the poverty of other industrialized nations and finds that it's much more difficult for individuals to escape poverty in the US than in other countries, this helps explain the skewed data.  A solution to solve the problem of poverty has been ignored, while attacks on public education continue.   


Drill exams that force teachers to "teach to the test" such as those built into the No Child Left Behind Act, instead of helping public-education, Berliner points out, provide a map of where the failing schools are with the demographics of who attends.  Information, he writes, we've already known for a half a century.  


Funding and appropriations for public education have decreased over the years.  Americans For Prosperity's Michele Bachmann would like to further decrease funding for public education if elected to the presidency. In 2011, the school board in the city of Memphis, Tennessee said they would not be opening their public-schools on time this year due to problems with funding.  Roughly six-thousand teachers have been laid-off in San Diego, California alone. The arts, physical education, and music have been cut.  Money for supplies such as paper and ink has decreased.  Teachers are constantly unaware whether they'll be able to continue teaching, pay off school loans, and use the graduate degree they studied for.  Many teachers spend their summers searching for work unaware when and if they'll receive the call or email notifying them that they'll be able to teach again for another year or semester. 

Monday, September 5, 2011

San Diego Labor Day Rally

On Labor Day, September 5, 2011 in San Diego, California roughly 150 people attended the Labor Day Parade Labor Day Rally. Protestors chanted for "Jobs, Not Cuts" and sang a remix version of John Lennon's, Give Peace a Chance: "all we are saying, is give jobs a chance."  The Rally was on Broadway just outside of the Horton Plaza Mall.  Speakers included Union leader Lorena Gonzalez, Democrat Rep. Susan Davis, Democrat Rep. Bob Filner, upcoming Congressional candidate Lori Saldana (Democrat), and others. 






Democrat, Rep. Susan Davis

Democrat, Rep. Bob Filner
Upcoming Congressional Candidate Lori Saldana (Democrat) and FOX 5 News
Protestor interview with NBC


US UNCUT




Saturday, September 3, 2011

Attempts to Use Portions of War Contract Monies for Domestic Needs

"Trickle down economics, ladies and
gentlemen, does not work; it has not 
tricked down, and in fact it has closed 
off to where all of the money stays up 
top, it never trickles down to the 
bottom. We've got to change that." 


- Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson  
On July 7, 2011 Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx spoke in the House on the 14.3 trillion dollar debt and said that an uncertainty in spending is what stops job growth.  She left out the cuts made by her and her Republican constituents to vital projects and programs in America, which translate to slashed paychecks, job loss, hunger, the downsizing of the education system, less innovation, a barely existent middle-class, and less job training for the youth.  A look at the US, at Britain and other countries' experiences with austerity show that cuts to social safety-nets have made economies worse.  She also left out the last thirty-year usurp-up economics.  Yes what you have learned in physics has been reversed.  


On July 7 Democrat Rep. Paul Tonko offered an Amendment to the defense spending budget that would limit the yearly salaries of private contractor executives to no more than 200,000 dollars, no more than the salary of the United States Secretary of Defense.  He pointed out that some contractors make a starting salary, of 700,000 dollars with yearly increases.  Private contract companies that send civilians overseas make additional hundreds of thousands for each individual, 100-percent payed for with tax-payer dollars.  Army Privates make a starting salary of 20,000 dollars, a General who has served for thirty-seven years makes 180,000 and the president makes 400,000.  The Amendment did not pass, in fact it was not voted on after Republican Rep. Bill Young stated the Amendment was an attempt to change existing law.


An Amendment by Democrat Rep. Christopher Murphy asked that noncombat vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan be purchased from US companies rather than European and Asian companies.  The Buy American Act says that when buying items for the US military, they should be purchased at home.  There is a loophole to the Act.  When buying items for use outside of the United States, they need not be from the United States.  Since 2003, the DOD reports that they have spent 1.3 billion in purchases of noncombat vehicles from foreign manufacturers and thirty-six billion in other foreign purchases last year. They used approximately 38,000 waivers to the Buy America Act last year and approximately 161,000 waivers in the last four years.  Murphy's Amendment would create jobs in the US.  His Amendment would fix the loophole to the Buy American Act. Rep. Bill Young, again, explained that this Amendment too proposes to change existing law and the Amendment was also not voted on.

Democrat Rep. Jared Polis' Amendment would reduce the number of troops in Europe from 80,000 to 30,000.  Polis noted that they can easily and quickly return to Europe with the quick travel of today and that there isn't a real current threat to Europe that requires their presence.  He explains that re-stationing the troops to United States bases would be ten to twenty-percent less expensive.  This would also close some of the bases in Europe, which are unpopular among many Europeans.  He explains that European countries are some of the richest and they can afford to protect themselves, with their current defense spending at two-percent of their GDP.  Young opposed the Amendment and advised a "no" vote.  

An Amendment offered by Democrat Rep. John Lewis would have required that the DOD post information on their website showing the cost of war to each individual American. He explained that there seems to be a bottomless pit of money and blank checks for war, but for education, the elderly, and money for medicine, there isn't enough. Young stated that Lewis' Amendment proposes to change existing law and a vote wasn't taken.  When the House was then asked if anyone had any comments, Lewis stated that he had made his point and did not have another point to make.  

Half a trillion dollars have been spent over the last ten years in Afghanistan.  Twelve-billion dollars is the amount recently appropriated to Afghanistan's security forces and it's in "borrowed money." Afghanistan's yearly GDP is twelve to fourteen billion dollars, nearly the same amount.  Twelve-billion have been spent on private contractors in Afghanistan since 2005 and 112 billion on private contractors in Iraq since 2005.  Democrat Rep. Hansen Clarke recently had an Amendment to keep 236 million to be used instead for an infrastructure fund to repair roads and bridges, secure ports, and fund rapid transit systems, which would enable the United States to be less dependent on foreign oil.  Republican Rep. Bill Young said that Clarke's Amendment would change existing law and the House was not able to vote on it.

Steve Cohen's Amendment requested that four billion of the twelve-billion eight-hundred million in monies going to the Afghan security forces fund be used to pay for some of the deficit.  The Amendment was also denied by House Republicans and not voted on.





Thursday, September 1, 2011

Infrastructure: Republicans Block Construction of High-Speed Rails

On July 14, 2011 House Republicans pulled funds for a high-speed rail system to be constructed across the United States.  This will affect future and current jobs, as construction has already begun in some areas. Future jobs associated with the system include short-term construction jobs, jobs in urban planning and architecture, and long-term jobs in maintenance and operations (450,000 in CA alone).   


President Obama and Democrats had planned to connect eighty-percent of America by 2025, but House Republicans voted to move the money to an emergency floods fund.  When House Democrats suggested that the money come from other areas, such as taxes to the super-wealthy, Republicans answered by disregarding the suggestion and instead repeatedly described what floods are and what they do, ending with enough information on floods for a "Floods For Dummies" manuel. Republicans continue to support the forty-billion dollar yearly tax subsidies to oil companies and eight-billion in giveaways to multinational corporations that take jobs overseas. 


A high-speed rail system would make America less reliant on foreign oil, and less reliant on oil in general.  Americans would buy less gasoline.  The system would also contribute to cleaner air as the trains use one-third less energy than airplanes and one-fifth less energy than cars. 






and Eric and Irene