Daily Howler on Mitt Romney and Betsy DeVos

Proponents of "education reform" also tend to control the narratives, and the supply of facts. The things you're allowed to read in mainstream newspapers will tend to align with their views.
Romney's op-ed column offers some strong examples of this unfortunate state of affairs. ....

Romney's claim is crazily wrong...
Persistently, the Romneys make gloomy claims of this type. The liberal world sits and stares.
Everyone, of the right and the left, has agreed to this rolling deception. The right pushes this claim for various reasons, financial gain among them. The left says nothing about this deception because manifestly the left doesn't care.

The Daily Howler

I love the Daily Howler's often long commentaries about the failures of our liberal tribe. Bob Somerby spent years teaching in an inner city school so when it comes to education he is especially sharp. While he doesn't take an absolute anti ed deform position he always makes point that no one else does. Here it today's post:

http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2017/01/romney-calls-bay-state-schools-number.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyHowler+%28the+daily+howler%29

Romney calls Bay State schools number one!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2017

Fails to list one basic reason: In Sunday's Washington Post, Mitt Romney offered a ringing endorsement of Betsy DeVos, Donald J. Trump's multi-billionaire nominee for secretary of education.

DeVos is a strong proponent of those policies which have long been described as "education reform." Just for the record, people who gain control of the language will often find success in the political wars.

Proponents of "education reform" also tend to control the narratives, and the supply of facts. The things you're allowed to read in mainstream newspapers will tend to align with their views.

Romney's op-ed column offers some strong examples of this unfortunate state of affairs. Consider this passage, in which Romney makes a claim which is virtually required by law within the mainstream press:

ROMNEY (1/8/17): It's important to have someone who will challenge the conventional wisdom and the status quo. In 1970, it cost $56,903 to educate a child from K-12. By 2010, adjusting for inflation, we had raised that spending to $164,426—almost three times as much. Further, the number of people employed in our schools had nearly doubled. But despite the enormous investment, the performance of our kids has shown virtually no improvement.

"The performance of our kids has shown virtually no improvement?" In major newspapers like the Post, the constant promulgation of such claims is virtually required by Hard Pundit Law.

Everyone has heard these claims a million times by now. That said, Romney's claim is crazily wrong, as we've endlessly noted.
For all major demographic groups, scores have soared since 1970 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the Naep), the federal testing program which Romney specifically cites in his column. That said, it's virtually impossible to learn that fact in the pages of major newspapers like the Post and the New York Times.

Globalism vs Nationalism: We Are Not the World - WSJ

The new nationalist surge has startled establishment parties in part because they don’t see globalism as an ideology. How could it be, when it is shared across the traditional Left-Right spectrum by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, George W. Bush and David Cameron?

....thanks for sharing this excellent analysis [from the WSJ Saturday Essay]! It puts the whole "globalism" vs "nationalism" conflict in a helpful historical and international context.... comment from a listserve after I shared the article below.

This insightful piece on the growing nationalism around the world in response to globalism sparked my earlier sci-fi piece, FEXIT Vote Roils United Federation of Planets, which was making a point about the dangers of extreme nationalism. This is tricky ground but Author, Greg Ip, does a lot of good splainin'.

The link is http://www.wsj.com/articles/we-arent-the-world-1483728161 if you can't read it there try this link

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/selfstyled-patriots-v-globalists/news-story/ede228a05e5e735877f9471badddf23d

.

We Are Not the World

• Greg Ip
• The Wall Street Journal
• 9:24PM January 7, 2017

Late on a Sunday evening a little more than a year ago, Marine Le Pen took the stage in a depressed working-class town in northern France. She had just lost an election for the region’s top office, but the leader of France’s anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front did not deliver a concession speech.

Instead, Le Pen proclaimed a new ideological struggle.

“Now, the dividing line is not between Left and Right but globalists and patriots,” she declared, with a gigantic French flag draped behind her.

Globalists, she charged, want France to be subsumed in a vast, world-encircling “magma”. She and other patriots, by contrast, were determined to retain the nation-state as the “protective space” for French citizens.

Le Pen’s remarks foreshadowed the tectonic forces that would shake the world in 2016. The British vote to leave the European Union in June and the election of Donald Trump as US president in November were not about whether government should be smaller but whether the nation-state still mattered. Le Pen now has a shot at winning France’s presidential elections this spring, which could imperil the already reeling EU and its common currency.

Supporters of these disparate movements are protesting not just globalisation — the process whereby goods, capital and people move ever more freely across borders — but globalism, the mindset that globalisation is natural and good, that global governance should expand as national sovereignty contracts.

The new nationalist surge has startled establishment parties in part because they don’t see globalism as an ideology. How could it be, when it is shared across the traditional Left-Right spectrum by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, George W. Bush and David Cameron?

But globalism is an ideology, and its struggle with nationalism will shape the coming era much as the struggle between conservatives and liberals has shaped the last.

FEXIT Vote Roils United Federation of Planets

Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam, Klingon for "Today is a good day to

die."

by Norm Scott reporting from Risa

Reports have reached our news desk here on beautiful Risa where the suns always shine of a threat to the entire galaxy.

A referendum on Planet Earth has led to a shocking outcome as over 4 billion people voted to FEXIT from the United Federation of Planets (UFP, commonly referred to as the Federation). The future of the UFP is now in danger, as other planets are also experiencing a rebirth of planetarianism, which may lead to the end of 100 years of peace in this quadrant of the galaxy. Some pro-Federation advocates are claiming the election was hacked on order of the Rutin, the Romulan leader who has been trying to destabilize the alliance from within.

Klingon delegate

At a recent UFP meeting, one of the Klingon delegates, particularly upset and threatening economic sanctions, told the Romulan delegate, "vavlI’ quv Say’moHmeH nuj bIQ vIlo’chugh, nuj bIQ vIlammoH," (If I use spit (mouth water) to clean your father’s honor, I only dirty the spit) causing the Romulan to slap her .

Founded in 2161, the United Federation of Planets  is was an interstellar alliance of more than 150 planetary governments, spread out over 8,000 light-years. It is was composed of planetary governments that agreed to exist semi-autonomously under a single central government based on the principles of universal liberty, rights, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in peaceful cooperation, scientific development, space exploration and defensive purposes. 

Members of the Federation are were united in various endeavors involving trade, exploration, science and defense. The Federation is was overseen by the Federation Council, which is comprised of representatives from member planets. The Council meets met on Earth and is was led by the Federation president, based in Paris. - (See more at: http://www.startrek.com/database_article/united-federation-of-planets#sthash.qshLNtUq.dpuf).

Before the UFP, the various nations of earth had to come together to see themselves as one planet, instead of the rampant nationalism that had been the cause of so many wars throughout history. To become Earthers.

In the early 21st century after the election of a demagogue who put an end to 231 years of democracy in the United States, one of the most powerful nations on earth, earth was roiled by decades of a massive economic worldwide depression and the equally massive impact of rising sea levels and changes due to global warming that ended in the deaths of a third of earth's population. Things began to deteriorate soon after most the USA was turned from a 2 party to a 1 party system, similar to the other leading powers, Russia and China. Worldwide chaos ensued after the use of nuclear and cyber weapons, leading to failures in electrical grids, pandemics and the fragmentation of nations. 

It was only after the threat of an alien invasion from planet UNOS after extraterrestrial life was discovered in the year 2090 that the fragments of remaining nations saw that uniting into one planetary system could save the planet. But the UNOS turned out to peaceful and were looking for new markets and were so advanced that they helped save earth from continuing chaos and in fact helped impose a planetary system on earth. The opening of space and the influx of aliens from many other planets invigorated earth's economy and the population began to rise again.

The Federation's founding was a remarkable achievement, given the wide variety of life forms from humans to Vulcans to Klingons, formally a bitter enemy of the UFP that joined the UFP after the peace treaty of 2199 after 30 years of war, thus bringing the galaxy closer to unity, though the Romulans remained a bitter enemy until 2217 when a new peace treaty brought them into the Federation, thus bringing peace to the entire galaxy and leading to an unprecedented period of prosperity, especially after the common currency, the Feuro was implemented.  But Romulan planetarianism was never dampened and they worked as enemies within the Federation.

Rising economic tensions and the growth of the age old nationalism that had ruled earth for over 600 years through 2100, have arisen once again on earth which itself is fragmenting into various geographical and political blocks.

Stay tuned.

Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice - Norm in The WAVE

Published Jan. 6, 2017

http://www.rockawave.com/news/2017-01-06/School_News/Aim_Of_School_Choice_Is_To_Limit_Choice.html

Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice

School Scope

By Norm Scott

I’m continuing my series of columns on the voucher/school choice issue which will come to the fore under the Trump administration especially with his educational secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, a fierce opponent of public schools. The very concept of a public school system is under attack which connects to the general anti-government movement. Over this series I am attempting to point out the fallacies.

One of the major talking points we hear from “choicers” is that the public schools are a government monopoly. David S. D'amato, policy advisor at the libertarian Heartland Institute, wrote Americans have forgotten the destructive philosophy upon which the government education apparatus was built. The centerpiece of that philosophy is the fallacy that centralization and monopolization equate to quality and results.

Centralized? We have one of the most decentralized school systems in the world with each city, town or county in theoretical control of their own schools and budgets – not always a good thing in some places – but stay with me. Here in NYC the system is so big it could use some decentralization down to neighborhoods, but not the total balkanization where each school is an island and competes with the other nearby schools for the best performing students and the same funding. Ironically, it has been state and federal governments that have tried to use the choice movement to override local controls by force feeding charter schools and common core into communities. Thus we saw as a counter reaction, the growth of the optout movement that led to 20 percent - 225,000 students – whose parents refused to let their kids take the state tests last year.

Let’s talk about the “monopoly” charge that we often heard from the very people who ran the NYC schools for 12 years under Bloomberg – Joel Klein and Dennis Walcott, both of whom lined up a 100 percent with the choicers. There is much irony in Walcott’s appointment as chief of the Queens libraries, also a government monopoly, in essence, unless we want to count those little library boxes some people in the community have installed in front of their houses. I wonder how Walcott would react if we called for more choice in libraries – maybe give away some of his funding to any charter library operator who would get funding based on how many people came in to take out books. There just wouldn’t be enough money to be made so backers of the choice movement are not interested.

How about the government transit monopoly. Should we offer charter subway operators as an alternative? Take away some of the MTA budget to allow some competitor to build their own tracks? Maybe someone can get that right of way that so many people are enamored with to compete with the A train. Now we do have some private options but they cost more, unless subsidized by the hated government. What next? Will Uber ask for tax money because they offer people a choice?

Libraries, transit, police, fire, sanitation, schools are public services that are to be protected, not attacked and demolished. Sure, government has its problems and inefficiencies but it is subject to some degree of public accountability, though not nearly enough as there are too many slimy politicians who try to take advantage of their positions. Once we turn things over to private hands with a profit making motive, things tend to deteriorate over time. In fact, in the earliest days, the subways were built by private entities and they couldn’t maintain the system.

Rather than taking President Reagan’s dictum that government is the problem not the solution, we need to think about how to monitor and improve the concepts of democratically elected and managed government, which in the age of Trump won’t be all that easy.

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.com where you have a choice to read it or not.
 

UFT Chapter Leader workshop on changes to ADVANCE - UPDATED

UPDATED - additions in blue.

A CL on the MORE listserve went to the Manhattan training on Tuesday. Here is what he reported- also see powerpoint links, only available until Feb. 2. A lot of this is gibberish to me - acronym city. I think I saw The Matrix Trilogy. Is this a sequel?

Chapter Leader workshop at 52 Broadway for the changes to ADVANCE.

First off, we were running about 20 minutes behind so while we were waiting we had a COPE presentation stressing the importance of generating awareness around the November 7th vote for the Constitutional Convention-clearly this is weighing heavy and is a major concern. The information presented was the same information shared at the December Delegate Assembly meeting, so nothing new here. Don Wright commented that Governor Cuomo is our friend and why he is so convinced to Cuomo’s new found respect for public school teachers and a partnership is in the best interest for Cuomo. Well, more to follow I am sure on this topic.

On to the workshop.

Amy Arundel and Jackie Bennett presented and the workshop was well organized and informative with the last 30 minutes for question and answer. I have attached their powerpoint packet that was issued and here are the highlights in the order of the presentation:

* two major points in regards to this Evaluation Agreement
- simplification of the teacher evaluation process
- increased fairness

*the 1st big change, the most important that affects us in the immediate is the “MATRIX’— the calculating and totaling of scores is gone and the grid is in place. There is no math involved find where you fall in the grid and voila-your score. Page 3 of the PowerPoint packet.

The key point regarding the MATRIX is that it defers to the higher of the two teacher scores MOTP/MOSL or MOSL/MOTP— the benefit of the doubt will go to the teacher. Takes care of teachers who are rated HE in their MOTP but their MOSL score was dragging them down to Effective or Developing.

* the 2nd big change is the adoption of the Single Measure. No longer a State measure 20%, and Local measure 20%. Just one score that is not weighted, period. Reduces the stakes of testing, less complicated, school MOSL selects the Single Measure.

* MOSL Committee at the school level will select and recommend to the principal the Single Measure. At this point it was noted that teachers [high school and some 8th grade science & math] who teach a regents class that ends in a regents exam their Single Measure is the regents. *** MOSL Committee can only use the choices of measure that are available for this year, no new measures for this school year. Next year, introduction of new Single Measure assessment/options.

* this will be a phase-in over the next several years through 2021, for 2017-2018 the development of Project-Based Learning, Student Learning Inventories [portfolios], Performance-Based Assessments [already in use in the DOE] , Progress Monitoring Asssessments. Page 6 of the PowerPoint

* last, a Central MOSL Committee with a 50/50 split between UFT and DOE will provide oversight in review school developed assessments, etc. An entire protocol is in place up to mediation with an outside arbitrator if things cannot be resolved between the upper structures of management.

Overall, a lot of information is forthcoming in MOSL guide, emails, etc. Page 4 of the PowerPoint is worth the review as Amy stressed that there are very very few changes ahead for the MOTP. Any changes will assist and support teachers on a TIP and relate to outside 3rd party reviewers.

- The matrix is in state law. (not in negotiations or regs) It would take another law to override it. 

- Currently, under state law, teachers are only required to be observed twice. However, the UFT opted to have several observations for city teachers citing the statistical Bell Curve phenomena, where the more variables you have, the more likely it is that they will converge their distribution towards the normal. In other words, you have a better chance of improving your overall score if you have several observations as opposed to just two. 

- Facilitators encouraged Chapter Leaders to remind teachers that they are being rated by an average of the scores they receive on each Danielson Framework component. Therefore, it would most likely benefit teachers if they are indeed rated on ALL observable Danielson components. If teachers are not rated on the classroom management component, for example, and they know it was observable and executed well, then they should request a rating. This will help their overall score. If this oversight is not rectified, teachers should file an APPR complaint. 

- This year, observation options remain the same. Next year, however, highly effective teachers will be able to choose between new option versions of numbers 3 and 4. Please refer to the Teacher Guide on the Evaluation System that Mulgrew sent members for specific details. (Page 5)

- There is a page 7 to the PowerPoint Presentation document that was handed out at yesterday’s meeting. I scanned the entire document which includes page 7 into a PDF file. It has been attached to this e-mail.

PowerPoints Available until Feb 2, 2017

Click to Download

PAGE1MOSLPACKET.pdf

15.7 MB

Click to Download

PAGE2MOSLPACKET.pdf

16.1 MB

Click to Download

PAGE3MOSLPACKET.pdf

16.1 MB

Click to Download

PAGE4MOSLPACKET.pdf

16.6 MB

Click to Download

PAGE5MOSLPACKET.pdf

16.3 MB

Click to Download

PAGE6MOSLPACKET.pdf

16 MB

Bill Ayers on "Let's Talk Fascism" - and a Happy New Year to You

Anyone want to do a pool on guessing the date when we can declare we have entered a state of fascism? The winner gets an exit visa to Canada.

fascism is not necessarily the result of a coup or a military putsch, and in fact the most notorious fascist regime in history came to power through a legal and democratic process. It’s long been said that if fascism ever came to America it would come with a familiar face wrapped in an American flag... William Ayers on FB

We need to keep in mind the early warning signs of encroaching fascism because it doesn't all hit in one felt swoop.

I was involved in the debate on Diane Ravitch's blog over Putin and fascism  - there are over 60 comments -- https://dianeravitch.net/2016/12/31/trump-loves-putin/. I was accused of defending Putin when in fact I was trying to explain him and put his actions in context of the kinds of things we have been doing to interfere since the Mexican-American war - actually back to the Monroe Doctrine almost 200 years ago. I get that people want to condemn Putin and ignore the Obama drones - and maybe we are going to live in a world of spheres of influence. Are we still going to police the world under Trump, a policy in existence by both parties since 1945? Both Bernie and Trump touched in this though I expect the Rep Party will reign him in and his natural aggressiveness personally won't let him back down or try to find a more nuanced policy like Obama attempted to do. Among the biggest attacks on Obama by the right was that he was a wimp. I'll get back to the Putin/Trump story another time but do read the recently posted -

Matt Taibbi -- Something About This Russia Story Stinks - Rolling Stone

But I digress - back to fascism by Bill Ayers -- yes that Bill Ayers. Not the similarities to what is going on at this time. And we need to explore at some point the role unions played  in the past - state sponsored unions - and does anyone think our own beloved national union won't play along?

Let’s talk about fascism.
Seriously.
I know, I know: the word has become an electrifying political pejorative, stripped of substance, and further, it’s so historically freighted and so overused and misused that the word can seem wildly inappropriate if one hopes to speak plainly. But “fascism” does have a precise meaning beyond the optics of swastikas and jack-booted SS men. Fascism is not consigned to a particular place or a specific moment—Europe in the mid-Twentieth Century, for example; fascism is not necessarily the result of a coup or a military putsch, and in fact the most notorious fascist regime in history came to power through a legal and democratic process. It’s long been said that if fascism ever came to America it would come with a familiar face wrapped in an American flag. YIPES!

So, yes, let’s talk about fascism.
Simply put, fascism is a right-wing form of government that opposes liberal democracy, Marxism, socialism, and anarchism, and attempts to forge national unity under an autocratic leader with a totalitarian program advocating stability, law and order, and more and more centralized power, claiming all of this is necessary in order to defend the homeland, and to respond effectively to economic instability. Fascist states attempt to mobilize a mass base through deliberately constructed fear and hatred as they prepare for armed conflict and permanent war by appealing to patriotic nationalism and militarizing all aspects of society.

Fascists agitate “popular” movements in the streets, apparently spontaneous but in reality well funded and highly organized, based on bigotry, intolerance, and the threat of violence, all of it fueled by the demonization of targeted, distinct racial, religious, or gendered vulnerable populations and the creation of convenient sacrificial scapegoats who are repeatedly blamed for every social or economic problem people experience. Fascist regimes promote disdain for the arts, for intellectual life, for reason and evidence, as well as deep contempt for the necessary back and forth of serious argument or discussion. And fascist states favor protectionist and interventionist economic policies as they entangle corporations with the state.
That’s fascism.

Matt Taibbi -- Something About This Russia Story Stinks - Rolling Stone

On one end of the spectrum, America could have just been the victim of a virtual coup d'etat engineered by a combination of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which would be among the most serious things to ever happen to our democracy.

But this could also just be a cynical ass-covering campaign, by a Democratic Party that has seemed keen to deflect attention from its own electoral failures.... Taibbi

Hell, I'm suspicious of the Russian hacking story the way Obama has been presenting it.  Just look at recent history:

Nearly a decade and a half after the Iraq-WMD faceplant, the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment.... an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies. This number is nearly as disturbing as the 62 percent of Trump voters who believe the preposterous, un-sourced Trump/Alex Jones contention that "millions" of undocumented immigrants voted in the election.

-----Something About This Russia Story Stinks - Rolling Stone

Taibbi has no qualms in believing Putin was capable of doing it.

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.

I have no problem believing that Vladimir Putin tried to influence the American election. He's gangster-spook-scum of the lowest order and capable of anything. And Donald Trump, too, was swine enough during the campaign to publicly hope the Russians would disclose Hillary Clinton's emails. So a lot of this is very believable.

I posted this comment on FB on Trump and Putin:

...there are elements in his position that make sense. Is it better to go to war on Russia which has outflanked Obama continuously? I am more comfortable at this point with his position than Obama's -- they hacked us in the election while our history is assassinating to interfere in elections? Annexing Crimea given the political realities of that area and the history - remember the Crimean War? The key will be weather Putin is emboldened to go after former states like Latvia, Estonia etc -- that is where the test will be - and both parties will line up to push back against Trump - which is interesting given the left will push back against both the Dems and Rep. This is what makes politics right now better than sports.

Michael Fiorillo posted the Taibbi story with this comment:
Go on Dems, keep harping about how Pooty-Poo "hacked" the election: after all. there are a few governorships and state legislatures the Republicans don't control yet...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/something-about-this-russia-story-stinks-w458439

Arendt on totalitarianism Tells an Apt story for Current Times

[In the 1930s] Large numbers of people felt dispossessed, disenfranchised, disconnected from dominant social institutions. The political party system, and parliamentary government more generally, were regarded as corrupt and oligarchic. Such an environment was fertile ground for a “mob mentality,” in which outsiders — Jews, Roma, Slavs, gays, “cosmopolitan intellectuals” — could be scapegoated and a savior could be craved:  ---- How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America

An interesting piece on Hannah Arendt and the roots of totalitarianism. [Read about her life on wiki]. I've enjoyed reading some of the Washington Post Monkey Cage pieces. I've been tracking issues related to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe between the wars since many people think we are on the verge, not only here in the US, but around the world, especially in Europe. It doesn't all happen at once - look at Germany around 1928 and what happens 5 years later.

The day after the election my wife and I started looking at safe places to stash some money. Call it hysteria but as a student of history you look for early warning signs. Read these excerpts and then go read the entire piece and tell me there are no signs right here, right now. And truly, is there really going to be a safe place?
I'm binge watching "The Man in the High Castle" on Amazon - a perfect piece for the paranoid.

Author: Jeffrey C. Isaac December 17

Alienation and political extremism
A subtheme of “Origins” is that by the 1930s, there was throughout Europe a generalized crisis of legitimacy. Large numbers of people felt dispossessed, disenfranchised, disconnected from dominant social institutions. The political party system, and parliamentary government more generally, were regarded as corrupt and oligarchic. Such an environment was fertile ground for a “mob mentality,” in which outsiders — Jews, Roma, Slavs, gays, “cosmopolitan intellectuals” — could be scapegoated and a savior could be craved: “The mob always will shout for ‘the strong man,’ the ‘great leader.’ For the mob hates the society from which it is excluded, as well as Parliament where it is not represented.”

And a society suffused with resentment, according to Arendt, is ripe for manipulation by the propaganda of sensationalist demagogues: “What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part . . . Totalitarian propaganda thrives on this escape from reality into fiction . . . [and] can outrageously insult common sense only where common sense has lost its validity.” Cynicism. Contempt for truth. Appeal to the craving of the masses for simple stories of malevolent conspiracy. Stephen K. Bannon of Breitbart News may not have read “Origins,” but it is clear he has taken a page from the movements Arendt analyzes.

A crisis of political representation
In modern mass democracies, political parties serve an essential role in structuring competitive elections and linking citizens to government. According to Arendt, a central condition of the rise of totalitarianism was a crisis in the functioning and the legitimacy of party politics and of parliamentary government:

“The success of totalitarian movements among the masses meant the end of two illusions of democratically ruled countries in general and of European nation-states and their party system in particular. The first was that the people in its majority had taken an active part in government, and that each individual was in sympathy with one’s own or somebody else’s party . . . The second . . . was that these politically indifferent masses did not matter, that they were truly neutral and constituted no more than the inarticulate backward setting for the political life of the nation.”

In short, voters freed from conventional partisan attachments were swayed by anti-system movements, parties and leaders, who promised something new and different and whose appeal lay mainly in the very fact that they were new and different. Such appeals can be politically energizing. But by propelling such anti-system movements to political power, these appeals to novelty for its own sake can justify a kind of dictatorial exercise of power unrestrained by legal precedents, parliamentary procedures, or constitutional limits.

“The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man”
One the most brilliant features of “Origins” is the way it charts the interconnection of “domestic” and “global” origins of totalitarianism, in particular the role of World War I in exposing the limits of national sovereignty, creating a refugee crisis of epic proportions and putting the lie to established norms of “the rights of man.”

“Before totalitarian politics consciously attacked and partially destroyed the very structure of European civilization, the explosion of 1914 and its severe consequences of instability had sufficiently shattered the facade of Europe’s political system to lay bare its hidden frame. Such visible exposures were the sufferings of more and more groups of people to whom suddenly the rules of the world around them had ceased to apply.”

Among these groups were not only “the dispossessed middle classes, the unemployed, the small rentiers, the pensioners,” but also stateless refugees (“displaced persons”) and ethnic minorities, who became isolated, scapegoated, and deprived of legal recognition except as “problems” to be regulated, interned or expelled.

The more powerless the individual nation-states were to deal with the challenges before them, the greater the temptation was to close ranks and to close borders. Peoples made superfluous by the consequences of the war were rendered superfluous in a legal and political sense; an atmosphere of suspicion and lawlessness spread; and “the very phrase ‘human rights’ became for all concerned — victims, persecutors, onlookers alike — the evidence of hopeless idealism or fumbling feebleminded hypocrisy.” Thus was laid the foundation for the concentration camps and death camps to follow.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/17/how-hannah-arendts-classic-work/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.e7d482dfe842

Cornel West and the Struggle Between Sanderistas and Clintonistas - Jacobin

There is a lot of depth to this Jacobin piece on the assaults on Bernie and the Jill Stein supporter Cornel West, once a darling of Dem Party apparatchiks for his daring to call out Obama and Clinton on their neo-liberalism.

The Obama years have been a boon to the salaried intellectual class of all races, but lean times for the working-class constituents whose needs, hopes, and desires the black intellectual class vies to interpret for white audiences. What is the role of the black public intellectual when the discourse of “race relations” is now perhaps the liberal class’s preferred way — some would say only way — of talking about our never-ending barrage of social injustices?....
Earlier in the primary season, during an interview on the Real News Network, West directly called out the black elite — whom he calls “the lumpenbourgeoisie” — for abandoning “the black prophetic tradition” for “individual upward mobility” and the “formation of the black professional class.” As he put it, “Black folk for the most part became just extensions of a milquetoast neoliberal Democratic Party.

Some more excerpts:

cultural studies jargon, meritocratic appeals, and subtle free-market apologetics.....
At the height of Sanders-mania, while Dyson, Walsh, and Capehart were delivering cringeworthy apologetics for Clinton, West was working with the Sanders campaign in the South, touring black churches and colleges in support of the social-democratic political revolution. In more than a few of these events, he sat alongside Adolph Reed, the man who had written a classic excoriation of both West and Dyson and their entire field of “black public intellectuals.”...
the brokerage model of politics that the Democratic Party has so heavily relied on for years to enact an agenda that is increasingly at odds with the material needs of most black voters....

And the full piece below the break and feel free to donate to Jacobin if you get there.

Marcella Sills' petition to get job back tossed by judge - NY Post

PS 106 was dubbed the “School of No” after the Post’s articles on its culture of student deprivation and administrative incompetence.
The campus had no Common Core textbooks, no physical-education or art classes, no proper nurse’s office and no special-education staffers. Instead of actual instruction, kids were herded into the school auditorium where they “watched more movies than Siskel and Ebert,” a whistleblower told The Post at the time... NY Post

Ed Notes did a number of pieces on Marcella Sills years before the Post ever touched the story. A few recent ones:

• Ed Notes Online: Marcella Sills Was a Humanitarian by Being ...
• Feb 23, 2014 ... Marcella Sills Was a Humanitarian by Being Absent and Late. The school ran so much better when she wasn't there. Maybe we can start a ...
• 
  

Ed Notes Online: PS 106 Update: Retired Teacher Writes to Farina Jan 17, 2014 ... PS 106 Update: Retired Teacher Writes to Farina About Principal Marcella Sills' Leadership. When will Farina end the misery? If this were ...

• DOE and SCI Coverup in Investigation of PS 106 Principal Marcella ...
• Feb 18, 2014 ... DOE and SCI Coverup in Investigation of PS 106 Principal Marcella Sills. Only for time cards??? What happened to a financial audit???

Of course the Post doesn't mention that Sills treated her staff like crap -- a friend of mine after a decade at the school took early retirement rather than work one more day under Sills. It was she who sent out this article with the comment: Finally.

Did I say that the local UFT structure did nothing to support the teachers?

http://nypost.com/2016/12/29/fired-school-of-no-principal-has-petition-to-get-job-back-tossed-by-judge/

Fired ‘School of No’ principal has petition to get job back tossed by judge

A judge has tossed out the reinstatement petition of a former Queens principal axed for being chronically tardy — because she filed it late.

Marcella Sills was removed from PS 106 in Far Rockaway by Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña in 2014, after a series of Post exposés.

While Sills’ students went without basic supplies or instruction, the administrator was cited for being late 178 times between September 2012 and January 2014.

Despite that, Sills sought to reverse her sacking, arguing in court papers that there was no established start and end time for city principals.

Lateness, she contended, was in the eye of the beholder.
But a Manhattan judge reminded her this week that timeliness is not negotiable when it comes to the court system.

Sills, who earned $128,000 a year, was officially fired from the Department of Education on Jan. 22 of this year, after an administrative hearing, and had 10 days to submit her petition. But, true to form, she took her time. “Petitioner commenced this proceeding on April 19, 2016, over two months after the 10-day limitations period had expired, and this proceeding is time-barred,” wrote Manhattan Judge Manuel Mendez in junking her petition.
After a recitation of her offenses, Mendez slammed the door on her DOE career.
“This proceeding is dismissed,” he wrote.

City finally fires 'School of No' principal

Sills worked for the DOE for roughly 16 years and was appointed principal at PS 106 in 2005.

But she was ultimately buried under a total of 15 charges for offenses committed during the 2013 and 2014 school years.
In addition to her perennially busted alarm clock, Sills was cited for hindering the investigation against her and for having “subjected the NYCDOE to widespread negative publicity, ridicule and notoriety” and misusing her position “for personal benefit,” according to Mendez’s ruling.

After a 22-day hearing, an arbitrator found her conduct “too extreme to support any penalty other than discharge.”
PS 106 was dubbed the “School of No” after the Post’s articles on its culture of student deprivation and administrative incompetence.
The campus had no Common Core textbooks, no physical-education or art classes, no proper nurse’s office and no special-education staffers.

Instead of actual instruction, kids were herded into the school auditorium where they “watched more movies than Siskel and Ebert,” a whistleblower told The Post at the time.

Fred Smith's Annual "Night Before Christmas"

Fred brightens up everyone with his good cheer


Christmas Eve 2016

This night before Christmas I have trouble rhyming.
What’s been flying around has thrown off my timing.

At this gay time of year, I much want to summon
A few lines of good cheer. They just aren’t comin’.

Tried scanning a few words ‘bout jolly old St. Nick.
But someone stole his sleigh and the ride made me sick.

A cheater seized the reins. He’s the Anti-Santa,
Bringing coal now, not joy. Let’s call him the Ranter.

And what he says and does have given me great pause.
From what I can see, he’s an insanity Claus:

“I’ll put MY NAME in Christmas, make it great again;
I will fly across the sky, Savior of rich men;

Change the colors of the day, removing the red,
Keep the green aflowing, and adding gold instead;

Each day will be White Christmas in my wonderland;
Everyone will bow to me and will understand:

How far better it is to receive and not give
In my grabby, take-all world, where the elite live.

The measure of a man is the reach of his wealth,
Not the size of his hands, but his cunning and stealth.”

With such values and views spewing forth from his mouth,
He polluted the globe from the North to the South.

He smiled when his jet sled alighted in Russia,
But scowled when the GPS couldn’t find Prussia.

Africa and Asia, too, he went shooting past,
For he knew his secret was to keep moving fast.

He frowned o’er Muslim lands all of whom love ISIS;
Remembered he had some plan to end that crisis.

Looked down on Latino friends, but then most of all,
Squinted over Mexico, wherefore to build the wall.

Immigrants were off his list on this Christmas Eve;
Much to do in the states, many left to deceive.

(But thank heavens, his travels were not being led
By a mule named Rudolph with a face ever red.)

Next, he tweeted his team of transitional elves,
Telling them to take back gifts from everyone’s shelves.

Reminding them the world exists to exploit and steal.
“And never forget the fact this is my New Deal.”

What he meant was contained in his strange gift sack—
Rich bundles for the few who have nothing they lack.

Each elf he chose had done things dubious at best.
But those very things it seems made them pass his test.

One or more had engaged boldly and without fear
Re fossil fuels, private schools, poisoning the air;

Unions, worker safety, predatory lending;
Capping minimum wages but not defense spending.

Anti-civil rights, voting rights and immigration;
All elves pledge fealty to deregulation.

Challenge this Santa’s wish list—it will come to naught.
Do you think you’ll get relief taking him to court?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But I have faith, Virginia, Santa will return.
You cannot highjack goodness, the Ranter will learn.

Though this imposter now appears to command the sky
His comeuppance will be swift in the by and by.

Scripture shows men fail building hubristic towers;
Falling to confusion wrought by higher powers.

Just as Midas’s golden dream turned into grief,
So, he’ll see the meek prevail to his disbelief.

Soon Dear Santa will be our north star in the night.
You can still hear him roar, though he’s not now in sight.
Yet his warmth and kindness shall always be our light.
“Merry Christmas to all! And don’t give up the fight!!”

~fred smith

WAPO: Here’s the real reason Rust Belt cities and towns voted for Trump

Another interesting piece from the WAPO Monkey Page which I am subscribing to.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/20/heres-the-real-reason-rust-belt-cities-and-towns-voted-for-trump/?tid=pm_politics_pop&utm_term=.68e1d352793e


Here’s the real reason Rust Belt cities and towns voted for Trump
By Josh Pacewicz December 20
 
Donald Trump won the 2016 election largely because he carried Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, doing especially well in small cities and towns.

That’s a surprise. Until this election, this group of voters had not followed other regions’ rural, uneducated whites in moving Republican.

In overwhelmingly white Iowa, for example, Barack Obama swept the industrial corridor in 2008, winning 53 of the state’s 99 counties and some factory towns by almost 2 to 1. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost all but six Iowa counties, getting more than 52 percent of the vote only in the county that is home to the state’s biggest college town.

Many commentators argue that Rust Belters responded to Trump’s populist message because industrial decline has left working-class voters angry about their diminished prospects — a narrative contradicted by polls, which suggest that Trump’s supporters were mostly middle-income earners.

My research suggests that Rust Belt populism is rooted in the region’s loss of locally owned industry — not simply because of economics but because of how that loss hollowed out the community structure that once connected people to politics, leaving residents alienated and resentful.

Here’s how Rust Belt politics used to function
Beginning in 2006, I spent several years studying two Rust Belt cities in Iowa, interviewing more than 100 voters during the 2008 and 2012 elections. Like many sociologists who study elections, I was especially interested in how voters’ environment shapes the pre-rational heuristics, intuitions and deep stories they use to reason about politics.

Before the 1980s, Rust Belt cities’ economies were anchored by large unionized industries. Two groups defined local politics: factory owners and labor union leaders. Business owners and labor leaders clashed over workplace relations, maintained competing charities and called on voters to support either “labor” or “chamber” politicians for city council. During federal elections, associations like the Chamber of Commerce and the Labor Council were key to, respectively, Republican and Democratic efforts to get out the vote.

The older Rust Belters I interviewed used this community cleavage to make sense of politics. They overwhelmingly identified as working-class Democrats or (less commonly) business-class Republicans. When talking politics, they saw partisanship in their occupations, ways of spending leisure time and even neighborhoods. Houses in floodplains were Democratic, whereas hilltop areas belonged to Republican “old families who tried to run this town.”

“I’m a lifelong Democrat. They look out for the working person first,” one elderly woman told me. “The rich got too much … all their own this and that [and] don’t need somebody looking out for them. When I grew up, the whole family would get together any time a holiday come up … go down to the lake, all eat together. The Democrats are more for that idea.”

Of course, older Rust Belters cared about many issues, but they viewed them though a cognitive filter that focused their attention on class, directing political frustrations at wealthy Republicans. In 2008 and 2012, this frame was reinforced by campaign rhetoric (recall John McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he owned, or Mitt Romney’s comments about the “47 percent“). I spoke with voters who initially expressed racism toward Obama but later backed him as a working-class champion.

Those local Rust Belt moderates disappeared, replaced by corporate interests and hardcore ideologues
But the Rust Belt of feuding Democratic unionists and Republican business owners is gone; those voters who remember it are dying.
In the 1980s, the Rust Belt was ravaged by the manufacturing crisis and the century’s largest merger movement, the latter a product of financial deregulation. These caused job losses and personal suffering, yes, but they also robbed cities of their locally owned industries and therefore their business and labor leaders.

[Why there’s a battle to lead the Democratic Party, and what it means for the Trump era] 
 

This shift also left communities vulnerable to the whims of corporate subsidiaries and state and nonprofit grant-making agencies, often communities’ only way to find discretionary funding after Congress rolled back generous urban policies during the Reagan era.

By the 2000s, the Rust Belt’s community leaders were entirely focused on economic development partnerships. They saw statecraft as a technical affair and focused on building coalitions to secure grants, woo corporate subsidiaries (frequently with public subsidies) and create cultural amenities — art walks, music festivals and farmers markets — that would attract young professionals and therefore corporate interest in their cities’ workforces.

This grass-roots shift toward post-partisan place marketing was important. For starters, it paradoxically fueled political extremism in national politics. As community leaders shifted from fighting one another to collaborating on economic development, they left grass-roots parties in the hands of ideological activists. The local GOP, for example, that had once been a Chamber of Commerce surrogate — and therefore a moderately pro-business party — became instead a vehicle for those championing issues such as abortion, guns and anti-immigrant views.

What’s more, community leaders’ embrace of economic development alienated many voters, sowing the seeds of populism. Many voters resented what they saw as a lack of recognition by local elites, who — unlike traditional labor or business leaders — seemed aloof, focused outward.

Instead of seeing politics as a contest between working people and the business class, many voters seethed with undirected populist resentment at a technocratic, corporate-friendly elite. Anticipating Trump, many felt culturally and politically invisible and hoped for a shake-up. As one man told me in 2008:

I think it’s crap. We got a lot more retail [and cultural amenities, but] these things don’t appeal to your average person. . . . We used to have factory jobs, but people had to settle for Walmart. We got businesses coming in with their money and saying, “Your city wants it!” That’s not democracy — that’s communism. [But our leaders] don’t give a s— about what happens. We need to tear things down and take them back to where they used to be.

After Trump’s Rust Belt victory, many Democrats have asked what policies can recapture disaffected working-class whites. But Rust Belt populism is partially rooted in community changes that do not necessarily matter to the economically destitute.

Democrats who hope to regain the Rust Belt might also consider policies that make a difference at the level of the local community: federal regulations that prevent corporations from playing cities against one another, or discretionary urban funding that allows small cities to chart their own courses to economic sustainability.

Josh Pacewicz is an assistant professor at Brown University and the author of “Partisans and Partners: the Politics of the Post-Keynesian Society.”

Must Read - NYTimes: How the Obama Coalition Crumbled, Leaving an Opening for Trump

The 2016 Race

How the Obama Coalition Crumbled, Leaving an Opening for Trump

New demographic estimates for the election, and a look at how the key alliance of Northern white voters and black voters shrank for Hillary Clinton.

It is entirely possible, as many have argued, that Hillary Clinton would be the president-elect of the United States if the F.B.I. director, James Comey, had not sent a letter to Congress about her emails in the last weeks of the campaign.

But the electoral trends that put Donald J. Trump within striking distance of victory were clear long before Mr. Comey sent his letter. They were clear before WikiLeaks published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. They were even clear back in early July, before Mr. Comey excoriated Mrs. Clinton for using a private email server.

It was clear from the start that Mrs. Clinton was struggling to reassemble the Obama coalition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

I loved this election analysis by Nate Cohn which differs from some of the earlier post-election data. It is a good corolarry to this recent post: Team Bernie: Hillary ‘F*cking Ignored’ Us in Swing...
 
It shows that there were so many Trump voters who had voted for Obama plus others who were Bernie people. But it also shows that despite winning 92% of the black people who voted, the loss of black votes, particularly from the young, was a crippling factor in the battle ground states. I'm including the entire article but without the interesting graphics - so check it out on the Times site.

At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did in 2012 — by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was also not matching Mr. Obama’s support among black voters.

This was the core of the Obama coalition: an alliance between black voters and Northern white voters, from Mr. Obama’s first win in the 2008 Iowa caucuses to his final sprint across the so-called Midwestern Firewall states where he staked his 2012 re-election bid.

In 2016, the Obama coalition crumbled and so did the Midwestern Firewall.

This spells bad news for the Democrats going forward. In the next session Nate Cohn shows how the Obama coalition didn't hold up - and really, how could it? Did we expect the same number of black people to vote for Hillary as voted for Obama?

The Obama Coalition Falters

Sure, Let's Keep Trusting the CIA

Mr. Nixon, the first C.I.A. officer to interrogate Hussein after his capture in December 2003, reveals gobsmacking facts about that deposed Iraqi leader that raise new questions about why the United States bothered to invade Iraq to oust him from power. These details will likely appall Americans who have watched their nation’s blood and treasure wasted in Iraq ever since.

More broadly, Mr. Nixon offers a stinging indictment of the C.I.A. and what he sees as the agency’s dysfunctional process for providing intelligence to the president and other policy makers. The agency, he writes, is so eager to please the president — any president — that it will almost always give him the answers he wants to hear.... NY Times review

This was a review of what seems to be a fascinating book by a former CIA agent, John Nixon (no relation as far as I can tell). Note that the CIA will tell presidents what they want to hear. Bush on wmd in Iraq - hell yes. Obama - Russia hacked - hell yes. In a few weeks - Trump - Russia didn't hack - hell yes.

And then there is their record of overthrowing and interfering in other nations to keep out the left -- I read an article - over 70 times in the past few decades alone -- how about that Allende assassination? People don't even mention the Reagan invasions of tiny Granada when they elected a guy the US didn't like.

Here are other links to reporting on the John Nixon book.

Review: 'Debriefing the President' Tears Into the C.I.A. - The New York ...

www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/.../review-debriefing-the-president-tears-into-the-cia.html

6 days ago - Mr. Nixon, the first C.I.A. officer to interrogate Hussein after his capture .... of the New York edition with the headline: Hussein, the C.I.A. and Me.

CIA agent who grilled Saddam Hussein says US was wrong about him ...

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../CIA-agent-grilled-Saddam-Hussein-says-thought-knew-man-W...

7 days ago - And my bosses at the CIA were grilling me, the expert. .... Debriefing The President: The Interrogation Of Saddam Hussein, by John Nixon, ...

Saddam Hussein should have been left to run Iraq, says CIA officer ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../saddam-hussein-should-have-been-left-to-run-iraq-s...

Dec 16, 2016 - Saddam Hussein should have been left to run Iraq, says CIA officer who ... When I interrogated Saddam, he told me: “You are going to fail.

Saddam Hussein's CIA Interrogator Admits Being Convinced He ...

www.zerohedge.com/.../saddam-husseins-cia-interrogator-admits-being-convinced-he...

5 days ago - Saddam Hussein's CIA Interrogator Admits Being Convinced He Should ... When I interrogated Saddam, he told me: “You are going to fail.

The CIA Agent Who ID'd Saddam Hussein Reveals Dictator's ...

ijr.com/.../758913-the-cia-agent-who-idd-saddam-hussein-reveals-dictators-shocking-...

4 days ago - The CIA Agent Who ID'd Saddam Hussein Reveals Dictator's Shocking Claims of What ... Mukhabarat [civilian intelligence]? Answer me.

Saddam Hussein's CIA Interrogator: He Should Have Been Left In ...

time.com/4603831/donald-trump-saddam-hussein/

Dec 16, 2016 - The first CIA analyst to brief Hussein after his capture explains what might ... When I interrogated Saddam, he told me: “You are going to fail.

CIA agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein says the agency is full of ...

www.salon.com/.../cia-agent-who-debriefed-saddam-hussein-says-the-agency-is-full-o...

4 days ago - John Nixon says the CIA is too eager to please the president — giving him answers he wants to hear.

Don Surber: The CIA got Saddam Hussein wrong, which is why Trump ...

donsurber.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-cia-got-saddam-hussein-wrong-which.html

6 days ago - The CIA got Saddam Hussein wrong, which is why Trump should listen to ... He told me he smoked four cigars every day and loved red meat.

CIA analyst: Saddam Hussein 'seemed clueless,' was 'inattentive ...

www.foxnews.com/.../cia-analyst-saddam-hussein-seemed-clueless-was-inattentive-leade...

6 days ago - Saddam Hussein was an inept dictator during his final years in charge, ... “Then he turned to me and sneered: 'But I did not make that decision ...