madfloridian
madfloridian's JournalIndoctrinate the youth, make their brownshirts appealing, let a nation ignore the obvious.
From the movie Cabaret.
I was just reading trof's post about WWII in the the General Discussion forum. I thought as I read it that my children and others their age had never heard of the Holocaust, knew little about the advance of Germany through Europe. I think it stunned me to realize that. I mostly taught primary grades, so I went unaware of the lack of teaching of that era in middle and high school.
Trof's post:
What do you know about WWII. Really?
He was speaking of how much ignorance there was about the causes of this war.
The song above from the movie Cabaret gave me shivers more so than any war movie I saw. It is called Tomorrow Belongs to Me. Others than the brownshirted Hitler youth sang along mindlessly. A few of the older Germans in the scene looked sadly on. Just a few though.
It reminded me of Milton Mayer's book, They Thought They Were Free.
And none ever thought Hitler would lead them into war.
Why not?
-- They had never traveled abroad.
-- They didn't talk to foreigners or read the foreign press.
-- Before Hitler, most had no jobs. Now they did.
-- The targets of their hatred had been stigmatized well in advance of any action against them.
-- They really weren't asked to “do” anything --- just not to interfere.
-- The men who burned synagogues did not live in the cities of the synagogues.
-- Hitler was a father figure, right to the end. (He was “betrayed” by his subordinates.)
The more you read, the more your jaw drops. How many people did it require to take over a country? “A few hundred at the top, to plan and direct.... a few thousand to supervise and control.... a few score thousand specialists, eager to serve...a million to do the dirty work....”
Stunning map of states refusing Medicaid expansion. 5 million hurt. TPM
The 5 Million People The GOP Cut Out Of Obamacare25 states expanded, 25 did not.
Starting Jan. 1, nearly five million people who were supposed to be covered under Obamacare won't be because their states have refused to expand Medicaid.
Ohio became the 25th state to join the expansion last month, and more states could still sign onto it. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has proposed an alternate form of expansion that would require federal approval, and Terry McAuliffe's election this week as Virginia's next governor increases the likelihood that his state will eventually expand the program. New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) has called a special legislative session this month to try to hammer out an expansion deal in her state.
But for now, according to the foundation, 4.8 million Americans won't be covered as the law intended in those non-expanding states. They don't qualify for Medicaid now, but would have under the expansion, and they don't make enough money to qualify for financial help to buy private coverage. They're Obamacare's other losers, while media coverage focuses on those people whose individual policies are being canceled under the law.
A quick reminder of how this happened: Obamacare was written with the intention that every state would expand Medicaid, the low-income public insurance program, to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The expansion would have accounted for about half of the people who would get covered under the law (17 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Many of the newly eligible people would have been childless adults who currently aren't eligible for the program in most states.
More explanation at the link.
Bob Braun. Hey, New Jersey: You people wanted him, you people got him.
Bob Braun retired from NJ's Star Ledger short of his 50 years there. I kept up with his columns on the harm being done to education in the name of reform. Now I follow his personal blog.
In a recent post he let fly on Chris Christie's win. He spares no one at all. He does not spare the Democrats who supported him. His reference to "you people" actually came from Christie's own mouth when he told a teacher he was "tired of you people."
Actually at least 50 Democrats supported Christie
From his blog on November 6.
Hey, New Jersey You people wanted him, you people got him.
Barbara Buono was treated by New Jersey’s Democratic leadership as if she suffered from a contagious disease. She had one—she was a woman unafraid of Chris Christie in a state where many men leading the Democratic Party hid behind the big man’s shadow.
Courage has got to be stamped out before it spreads—and Christie and his Democratic tail-waggers got a big start Tuesday night.
About 400 people, maybe half of them professionally indifferent media types, crammed into Novita’s in Metuchen Tuesday night to bear witness to the conclusion of, in its way, the biggest political sellout since the end of Reconstruction gave us Jim Crow laws. Sorry, that’s not an exaggeration— by betraying Barbara Buono, New Jersey’s Democrats have unleashed on the nation a right wingnut who will campaign as an oxymoron, a Republican moderate. And could become president.
If Chris Christie, someone who couldn’t be re-elected freeholder, whose brother bought him the US Attorney’s office, who used the machinery of federal prosecutions to eliminate his rivals, who incited hatred against teachers and other public employees, who presided over unemployment and property tax increases, who made the poor poorer and the rich richer, who made publicly abusing women a new professional sport in New Jersey—becomes president of the United States, we have one group to blame:
The leadership of New Jersey’s Democrats.
In October from his blog Braun also went after his former paper for endorsing Chris Christie.
Braun unleashes on Ledger
Bob Braun, legendary former columnist for the Star-Ledger, didn't appreciate his former employer's endorsement this past weekend of Gov. Chris Christie.
Braun, who left his job at The Ledger at the end of June, just short of the 50-year service mark, wrote a scathing reaction piece on his new blog to the editorial page's support for Christie...
"What is extraordinary about today’s Star-Ledger editorial endorsing Chris Christie is that it invites readers to follow an immoral—or, at least, amoral—path: To vote for a man its anonymous author points out is 'hostile to low income families' by raising their taxes and 'sabotaging' affordable housing. The writer asks us to vote for a man who is a 'catastrophe' for the environment and 'fraudulent' in his budget. The newspaper concedes he is destroying our independent judiciary. New Jersey’s largest daily further asks us to embrace someone who is at least borderline corrupt because he made sure a friend won a no-bid state contract.
The newspaper fails to mention other failures, including the loss of $400 million in federal education funds, the blunder of canceling the tunnel project, his opposition to Obamacare, and his support from the Koch brothers, men who are destroying democracy as we know it. Typically for this newspaper, it finds Christie’s uncivil and obnoxious behavior 'entertaining.' It’s not. It’s beneath the dignity of a great state. Anyone who suggests taking a bat to a woman or calls a critic a 'jerk' or 'numbnuts' does not deserve serious attention much less high office. He deserves to be sent back to Morris County for another try at the freeholder board.
It's nice to see someone lay the truth out so clearly, even if it is from a personal blog and no longer in his position with the newspaper.
Bob Braun's Twitter feed
Crossposting this at Twitter
Ybor City Stogie (FL blogger) analyzes Charlie Crist as a Democrat. Good summary.
I may differ with some of Stogie's points, but overall pretty thorough. For some it will be a tough choice, but I have no problem voting for him. The polls show him far ahead at this point of a long-time Democrat, and right now the biggest thing we must do is get rid of Rick Scott.
Crist's History of Leaning Left
"I would have left the GOP anyway; they're too extreme. We need open-mindedness in a Senator, not ideology. Problem solving requires consensus, and sometimes concession."
Vetoed bill requiring ultrasound exams before abortion
Supports Federal abortion funding and Judicial activism
Opposes overturning Roe vs. Wade
Said "Tea Party is too extreme on outlawing abortion (2010)"
Said "Abortion is a personal decision, but ban partial birth abortion."
Disagree with Charlie on the latter, but many Democrats have the same view.
Economics
Created the HOPE taskforce charged with making reccomendations to keep families from losing their homes.
Strongly opposes NAFTA, supports the World Trade Organization, supports tariffs on products imported from nations that maintain restrictive trade barriers, supports removal of "favored trade status" from nations with a history of human rights violations. Supported cutting all corporate welfare and foreign aid.
Wonder what his stance is on Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We know what President Obama's stance is and that of many Democrats, too many in fact.
Civil Rights
Wishy-washy on gay adoption rights, opposing it gay adoption initially, then praising the court's decision to overturn the ban.
Lifetime member of the NAACP; one black legislator called Crist "Florida's first black governor." Supports providing compensation to victims of racial discrimination. Opposes banning homosexuals in the military, but supports "Don't ask, don't tell."
Actually I believe he changed his position on DADT in 2010.
Here is Stogie's advice to Crist...not bad.
Be a Democrat, and be one ALL THE WAY. No moderate is going to get a single Republican vote here, so throw your lot in with the Blue Zone on the I-4 corridor and support whatever they want you to support.
Gay marriage -- accept it, embrace it. Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, and the Keys all have huge, active and vocal gay populations. ESPECIALLY Key West. Denounce the mistakes of your past, and embrace the people who will put you in office. Rethink your stance on gun ownership, or at least show some flexibility in your "absolutist" position regarding the Second Amendment. A lot of innocent people have died since that Amendment was passed, and more than a few have been in Florida. Forget about prayer in schools, or religion anywhere in government. The population you're targeting comes from up North, and they're not interested in mixing Jesus with public education.
Earlier this year Crist did come out in support of same sex marriage. He is not the only Democrat to have a mind change on that.
Ybor City Stogie
Also posted at my Twitter account
Deserves its own thread. Google search link of Democrats who supported Chris Christie. Stunning.
Does not bode well for the future of education since Christie takes pleasure in in yelling at teachers in public
Here is the google search link....amazing and shocking.
https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=democrats+endorse+christie
A few examples:
Democrats who endorsed Christie now appearing in mailers with the governor
Christie touts 50th Democratic endorsement
Chris Christie Reelection Backed Increasingly By Democrats
This is a crying shame.
My special unique students through the years would not have survived this test-crazed reform.
A retired teacher remembers the "special" kids. I get a little sentimental when I think about the years I taught before the "reforms" began under the Bush family. They are continuing under Obama's appointee, Arne Duncan.
These students may not have been in a special education program, they may not have had any "label" at all. For years there were no such programs or referrals. But they were special in their own way.
I wonder how they would fare now with all the one-size-fits-all testing. After all there are few exceptions, in some areas no exceptions, for students like them when it comes to the endless testing now in place.
I remember most of us teaching way back then did the best we could to provide them with needed help and assistance.
I often look at a lovely green and white vase on one of my shelves with a pointed matching lid...and I think of the mother who lovingly made it for me by hand. She was a lovely lady who had her hands full. Her husband was a Vietnam veteran with serious emotional problems. Her boys were among the best-behaved, most polite, I ever taught.
However they could not read a single word by 2nd grade. Not a word. They were whizzes in math, they could do the most complicated word problems once the examples were read to them. They did science experiments for the class that were brilliant.
I had them tested not just by a county school psychologist, but by a medical doctor as well. Their IQs were in the 180s. Today they would probably be called dyslexic or learning disabled. Back then the labeling had not really begun. There were no special classes. I had taken a course in which such students were covered. I knew that tactile and kinesthetic techniques were recommended. We did all that and more. I could never get them to read a single word. I would love to know how their lives turned out. I kept track of their teachers for years, and they were nurturing.
One of the most special students was a 2nd grade girl who was sweet and well-behaved. She was not a good student, barely got by with much help from an aide. She was at my desk near the start of school, and she told me she loved my new mushroom because it was so colorful. I had no idea what she meant so I asked her to show me. It was my new swirly colored pencil. Whenever she could not think of what to call an item, she called it a mushroom. It seemed perfectly fine to her, and I corrected her now and then, substituted the right name. It simply went over her head.
There was a child whose mother told me from the start of the year that he was mentally handicapped. I worked with him the best I could, had an aide give him special tutoring in reading. One day he walked up to my desk, sat down beside me and started to read a book on grade level. I handed him another one, he read it also. He was so proud.
A couple of years later I learned that he was determined to be in the low 70s and 60s ability wise. "Normal" is supposedly in the 90s. His reading continued but had reached a plateau about 4th grade level, still amazing.
I had a student in 4th grade whose parents were well educated, fairly well off. They admitted their son had problems they could not solve. They asked my help, were willing to work with doctors to determine how best to proceed. He was unable to be still, though he knew all the work and knew it well. He wandered, disrupted. I filled out daily behavior sheets for the parents' chosen doctor. He was learning in spite of his severe hyperactivity, but he could not be on task enough to produce.
This doctor was not one for ritalin or similar drugs, but he said in this case it might work. The difference was night and day after one dose. This student was very advanced in science because of his home environment and his father's scientific knowledge.
I tried letting him teach the class a lesson on a science topic with a promise of others to come if it were received well. He did amazingly well. The principal walked in during the lesson. The student continued unfazed. Later the principal shook his hand and commended him on a job well done.
Then there were the high achievers who fell apart when presented with bubbles to fill in on multiple choice items.
For years the only test we gave was the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). It was used in an entirely different way than today's high stakes tests. It was used as a tool for teachers and schools to measure their progress....not as a way to cause schools to fail so they could be replaced by corporately owned charter schools. One very bright girl in particular comes to mind. She was so mature and wise. Her mother really had problems, and she had to play along to survive. She wanted to please so badly that she would be unable to complete the test out of fear of failure.
Her mother was obviously pregnant, and she often came to help in class. I had known her for years and was seriously upset at what she was pretending about her pregnancy. She told everyone she had a watermelon in her tummy, and the big bump would go away when the watermelon disappeared. Her daughter had to pretend she was right.
One day that girl came to my desk and told me she hoped I understood. She said she knew her mother was going to have a baby, but if she didn't go along she would be punished. She often held her mother's hand in support of the pretense. She just wanted to be sure I understood she knew better.
Two of my brightest 4th graders decided to rebel when the FCAT reading test first began in the late 90s. At that time teachers were not yet being judged by the class scores, so I was thankful for that. They put their heads down the day of testing. They could not be persuaded by anyone to take part in the test.
When I retired I could see that the times were changing. Jeb was now governor, and we were not to speak a critical word about him at school. I saw the future when our new principal did nothing but blame teachers for everything.
Thank God I could retire, and I did.
Arne Duncan should have the grace to realize the harm he has done, and he should simply step down from his position. Ideally it should have been done a long time ago before so much damage was done to public schools, before the "reformers" got the upper hand.
It may be too late now.
Debbie W. insulted Dem candidate (against Adam Putnam). Refused to support him. 2008
The lack of support by the Florida party for progressives goes back a long way. We were supporting this guy against Adam "Opie" Putnam, and we mistakenly assumed Florida Democrats would also. But they didn't. Doug Tudor would have been a good thing for Florida Democrats, yet they shut him out.
Wasserman Schultz insults FL Dem candidate...says "don't pull that populist stuff on me."
In the words of a very capable Democratic candidate with a lot of support from the people....
One of the most satisfying aspects of my time in Denver was being able to see Democrats uniting together to help other Democrats. I received financial support from Congressman John Salazar (D-CO), Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL), future Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), as well as from convention attendees from Washington, Montana, North Carolina, and Florida. What I have not been able to do is to get Democrats from Florida’s congressional caucus to risk offending their good friend, Adam Putnam, by contributing from their personal wealth or campaign accounts, or by endorsing me.
I, of course, was most anxious to meet and speak with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (DINO-FL), who is chairing the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue program. I just knew that she would welcome the chance to defeat Adam Putnam, as that would allow her lay sole claim to the title of “Wonder Kid” in Florida’s politics. Adam, after all, isn’t her next door neighbor. Once she comes onboard, I assumed, the other members of the caucus would lose their timidity and also support me. I was dead wrong, and I should have known better.
It is well known that Wasserman-Schultz supports Republicans Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen over their Democratic opponents, although lately she has been pressured into giving belated and grudging support to Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez who are opposing the Diaz-Balarts. I always figured that she was just afraid of the Hispanic backlash in her own district. What I hadn’t considered is that she is just afraid of all incumbent Republicans in Florida. When I met her in Denver, she immediately told me that she couldn’t support me, saying I hadn’t raised enough money. I told her that I had raised $100K, that I was a military retiree, that my family is living on my wife’s Air Force E6 pay, and that I wasn’t able like other “viable” candidates to drop a quarter of a million dollars into my own campaign. I then told her, “Congresswoman, I am one of those working-class guys that our party claims to represent.” Her response was “Don’t pull that populist stuff with me.” I thanked her for her time.
Don't pull that populist stuff on her? Now that is just sad.
It wasn't just Doug, and it wasn't just Debbie W. who refused to support Democrats.
Two Florida Democratic congress folks prefer their Republican incumbents to their own party.
This time around, Wasserman Schultz and Meek say their relationships with the Republican incumbents, Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother Mario, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, leave them little choice but to sit out the three races.
''At the end of the day, we need a member who isn't going to pull any punches, who isn't going to be hesitant,'' Wasserman Schultz said.
The decision comes as Democrats believe they have their best shot in years to defeat at least one of the Cuban-American incumbents with a roster of Democrats that include former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, opposing Lincoln Diaz-Balart; outgoing Miami-Dade Democratic party chair Joe Garcia, opposing Mario Diaz-Balart; and businesswoman Annette Taddeo, opposing Ros-Lehtinen.
But Wasserman Schultz and Meek say their ties to the three Republicans are personal as well as professional: Both served in the state Legislature with Mario Diaz-Balart and say they work in concert with all three on South Florida issues.
I sort of mentally compare this attitude in Florida through the years to the apparent lack of opposition to Chris Christie in NJ. There's a price to pay for refusing to oppose Republicans.
We were told about doctors and torture in Iraq back in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009. Not new.
All over the news this last week or so there are a lot of articles about doctors and the use of torture on detainees during the war on terror.
The news that doctors were aware of or took part in torture in Iraq is nothing really new. Or at least not if we were paying attention. See the recent NBC News report. It is called "'Big, striking horror:' US military doctors allowed torture of detainees, new study claims"
Medical personnel watching as pain is inflicted....a Rumsfeld legacy?
LISA MILLAR: The Red Cross has slammed medical personnel who allegedly supervised interrogations and the torture of terror suspects by the CIA. Based on interviews with 14 terror suspects, the Red Cross has found medics monitored prisoners' vital signs to make sure they didn't drown during waterboarding. And it says that may amount to direct participation in torture.
EMILY BOURKE: The individual testimonies of 14 so-called 'high value' terror suspects detail a litany of torture techniques used during interrogations at secret locations and at Guantanamo Bay. They describe confinement in a box, exposure to extreme cold, sleep deprivation and waterboarding. But the Red Cross also found health professionals gave instructions to CIA interrogators to continue, adjust, or to stop particular methods.
That was from 2009.
This was from 2006. Time Magazine.
How Doctors Got Into the Torture Business
Soldiers are trained to kill and doctors to heal. At least that's how we usually understand those two professions. But wars can often distort reality, and the war on terrorism has turned into a test case. An inspiring example is that of Colonel Kelly Faucette, M.D. He recently wrote about caring for a new patient at the intensive-care unit of the 47th Combat Support Hospital in Mosul, Iraq. The patient was a terrorist insurgent, a man who planted hidden roadside bombs to murder civilians and Faucette's fellow soldiers. Faucette wrote in his local paper: "Something inside me wants to walk up to this guy ... and just clobber him." But Faucette didn't. Instead he healed him before sending him to a jail, and by that act of healing he helped heal Iraq.
That's the America I know and love. But it is not, alas, the only face of America in this war. One of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's first instructions for military interrogations outside the Geneva Conventions was that military doctors should be involved in monitoring torture. It was a fateful decision, and we learn much more about its consequences in a new book based on 35,000 pages of government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The book is called Oath Betrayed (to be published June 27) by medical ethicist Dr. Stephen Miles, and it is a harrowing documentation of how the military medical profession has been corrupted by the Bush-Rumsfeld interrogation rules.
From 2004. The New England Journal of Medicine
Doctors and Torture
There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal.
We know that medical personnel have failed to report to higher authorities wounds that were clearly caused by torture and that they have neglected to take steps to interrupt this torture. In addition, they have turned over prisoners' medical records to interrogators who could use them to exploit the prisoners' weaknesses or vulnerabilities. We have not yet learned the extent of medical involvement in delaying and possibly falsifying the death certificates of prisoners who have been killed by torturers.
A May 22 article on Abu Ghraib in the New York Times states that "much of the evidence of abuse at the prison came from medical documents" and that records and statements "showed doctors and medics reporting to the area of the prison where the abuse occurred several times to stitch wounds, tend to collapsed prisoners or see patients with bruised or reddened genitals."1 According to the article, two doctors who gave a painkiller to a prisoner for a dislocated shoulder and sent him to an outside hospital recognized that the injury was caused by his arms being handcuffed and held over his head for "a long period," but they did not report any suspicions of abuse. A staff sergeant's medic who had seen the prisoner in that position later told investigators that he had instructed a military policeman to free the man but that he did not do so. A nurse, when called to attend to a prisoner who was having a panic attack, saw naked Iraqis in a human pyramid with sandbags over their heads but did not report it until an investigation was held several months later.
And finally from 2003 there are the shocking pictures from a Norwegian newspaper of Iraqi detainees being walked naked through the streets at gunpoint. This report does not mention doctors, but it was most definitely a warning sign to keep our eyes wide open. It was so obvious that all involved had to have known. Taking away one's humanity is a sure sign that worse is on the way.
We saw pictures from Iraq from a paper in Norway in 2003. We knew we were tormenting them then.
It was a shock to see the picture from the Norwegian paper, Dagbladet. The article is still there today, and so are the pictures. I remember that day in April when I called Senator John Warren's office and sent them a link to the website while I was on the phone. They claimed ignorance of course. I called Senator Bill Nelson's office and did the same. They knew nothing either.
The articles from Amnesty International and Dagbladet. If you follow the links the pictures are still there at Dagbladet.
Amnesty International expressed concern today at the disturbing article and images portrayed in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet which show American soldiers escorting naked Iraqi men through a park in Baghdad. The pictures reveal that someone has written the words Ali Baba - Haram(i) (which means Ali Baba - thief) in Arabic on the prisoners' chests.
The article quotes a US military officer as saying that this treatment is an effective method of deterring thieves from entering the park and is a method which will be used again; another US military officer is quoted as saying that US soldiers are not allowed to treat prisoners inhumanely.
..."Whatever the reason for their detention, these men must at all times be treated humanely. The US authorities must investigate this incident and publicly release their findings."
Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states that "Protected persons are entitled in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manner and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity".
The NBC News report just out makes it sound like this is just now being discovered. Instead I would say eyes have simply been shut and facts ignored.
I am not sure if knowing all this for so long should be blamed on our pathetic corporate media system, or if it goes to the prevalent attitude of people not wanting to know...in a country in which many are in denial.
Chris Christie to teacher "I'm tired of you people" His wife looks on and smiles. Picture.
Christie's temper tantrum toward a teacherI went to listen to him speak. I stood in the front of the crowd that was standing towards the back. I know he caught sight of me. He stared at me a few times during his speech. I left right as his speech was over to position myself right at the door of the bus. He came out, shaking everyone's hands as he was getting on the bus. I asked him my question, expecting him to ignore me but he suddenly turned and went off.
I asked him: "Why do you portray our schools as failure factories?" His reply: "Because they are!" He said: "I am tired of you people. What do you want?"
I told him I want money for my students. He fought back with the amount that he has spent on education. My response was along the lines of the fact his amount was not actually an increase from the previous years, given the rate of inflation and other factors. ...
The crowd started arguing with me. He screamed at me to just do my job. The crowd cheered for him. I just looked at them and told them: "Hey, this is my life. I had to do this." I tried to follow him to Atlantic City to continue the conversation but the roads were blocked by police when I got there.
- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/11/exclusive-govchristie-to-teacher-i-am.html#sthash.e0C8vPa7.dpuf
Here is the sign the teacher was holding.
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