Smarmie Doofus
Smarmie Doofus's JournalThe old GOP was WAY to the left of where the RW of the DEM party is now.
Can you imagine Obama saying something like ( or even *quoting* ) what Eisenhower said in 1960 re. the "military-industrial-congressional ( "congressional" was in the original text; he should have left it in, obviously) complex"?
It's inconceivable. The reality is, he'd be describing himself.
As a party we DEMs still claim to champion labor. But where did that 1 billion dollars come from that just paid for the president's campaign ? It didn't come primarily from working people, I can assure you. And since it mostly came from corporate interests it's less "contribution" than "investment".
Money expects, and *gets* a return on its investments. That's how it got to be "money".
re. History: the under 50s think of "impeachment" as a circus having something to do w. a semen stained dress. Need I say more? It's a different mentality altogether.
At some point in time, the Nixon wing of the GOP was absorbed by the....
.... RW of our party and the attitude toward Manning among these neo-Dems is kind of a case in point.
There's also a generation-gap type thingie going on. People in their forties and younger missed VN-Watergate, etc etc etc and were brainwashed by the post VN revisionism with which the general public was swamped via gov't and ma$$ media in the 80's.
That revisionism is now their perception. ( I'm speaking in GENERAL terms. Not everyone under 50 was successfully brainwashed. But AS A GENERATION their brains are spic and span.)
I dislike all three terminologies.
Esp. 'queer' and 'faggot'. Word meanings *evolve*. They bring along some element of their earlier meaning as they do so.
Yet, the evidence suggests that , in real life, there is nothing "queer" ( weird, strange, unusual) about my sexuality. Nor am I in any sense like a "bundle" of kindling wood. Though a few ---- I hope *only* a few --- would doubtless like to put me to the torch.... as they did in the 'not so good' old days. Most of the remainder would be happy to see me merely socially marginalized, one suspects. I can live w. that; quite literally. ('Course it would be better if I didn't HAVE to).
I was around when "gay" was more-or-less adopted by the nascent lgbt movement; our predecessors as you put it. (No Ts or Bs in the early days. Not may Ls for that matter. At least not many that preferred to identify as such.) I never liked the presumption that the word implies that I have to 'feel" a particular way, or BE in particular mood. ( Yes, I understand it has a long and complex etymological pedigree that I have not completely accounted for here. But the presumption of mood and/or feeling is basic to the word. )
Fuck it. I wanna have the same emotional latitude that the society affords everyone else. "Gay" or not.
Plus which... I'm not so big on "reclaiming" things. Esp. nasty terminologies so that we.... the targets of their original coinage... can "own" it or "take the sting out of it."
That never really works. Hence the socio-cultural chaos attendant to the reclaiming by some African Americans of the "n word", and all of its myriad pronunciations and spellings. And if reclaiming "gay" was a successful move , why --- forty+ years later --- does it alone ( as in 'so gay') rival "faggot" as the epithet of choice among the , ummmm.... "non-gay".
It doesn't seem to me that we've won the war over that word. Social opprobrium has merely evolved to attach itself to "our" terminology. ( Sort of like a antibiotic-resistant bacteria.) Point: there's a lot more wrong here than we can fix by simply experimenting w. language.
But if I have to vote, "gay" is preferable to the other two. That's what we USE and , bottom line, it's about communication. "Homo", with its detached, objective neutral yet descriptive qualities is preferable to all three. Now THERE'S something to reclaim.
But I'm not holding my breath.
If ya got good admins... turnover is bad.
If they're corrupt ( or just clunkers) we want 'em turned over. Sooner the better.
I can see your point though. I'm from SpEd background, exclusively. Our parents don't fuss about a B+ or worry about getting into Harvard. Basically, they want to see their kids as independent as possible before they... i.e. the parent... dies.
We occasionally get an intractably hostile parent but it's usually because their circumstance... including the dysfunctional system set up to "help" them... has made them crazy.
Most of the SPED parents though, want what we want: they want the school to teach their kids what they need to know to survive in the world. They want that. We ( the teachers) want that. It's the admins that get in the way: they want to introduce "reform" dogma into an area to which it is ENTIRELY irrelevant. They want to teach kids algebra even if the kids can't count money or tell time because the common core curriculum says that's what ALL kids should be doing at age 15.
And the admins *evaluate* the teachers on the basis of how well they do THAT , i.e. teach common core and related school "reform" corporate orthodoxies that are totally out of place here. ( They're out of place *everywhere*, but they are mind-bogglingly out of place here.)
I realize the issues are not precisely the same in gen ed as far as teacher evals go. Also , it's been a real long time since I've had a supervisor who could knew how to "motivate and balance people's needs." Early on.... yes. But not in a long time. Now they're just soulless bureaucrats.
Also, i didn't mean to imply that ONE parent should have any kind of veto-power type influence.... even in gen ed. I'm just saying that the dynamic is such that ... correct me if I'm wrong.... in GENERAL terms, parents in gen ed will recognize and wish to see retained effective teachers. No?
Teachers: Why are you so pissed?
Here's why I am.
My reply to a poster in a "group" ( only the initiated see group postings; I want EVERYONE to see mine.)
Poster had asked why parents were unsympathetic to teachers. I said mine weren't and.........
Truth be told: they're not *enough* on our case. I'm in special ed so the dynamic may be different here than with most educators.
But I wish they'd insist on being MORE involved.
They want their kid to make progress and *I* want their kid to make progress. That's a powerful confluence of interests. We are... or should be.... natural allies.
What's the problem then?
The problem is as follows:
Mandates, rubrics, alternate assessment bureaucracy, redundant assessments of all varieties, crazy-ass mandated online curricula, crazy-ass scripted curricula, money paid under the table to ensure adoption of the foregoing, district administrators, school-based administrators, corporate $$$chool "reform", professional memo-writers, principals who fail to see that required services are delivered to handicapped students, contracts with elevator repair corporations who never quite manage to fix the elevator so that they keep getting called back to the tune of "mucho dinero", anti-unionism, half-baked teacher evaluation $cheme$, Arne Duncan, the idiotic insistence on micromanaging every aspect of classroom instruction ( including where one stands and where and when one moves) Bill Gates and predatory philanthropy, administrators who come to school late every day and leave early, economically comfy DEM politicians who enable all of the above but who can afford to send their kids to private schools where *none* of the foregoing goes on.
I could continue. You get the picture I hope. Boy.... that felt good.
Add to Journal Self-delete Edit
I do believe I'll add it to my journal. " 'Why'... I said to myself.... not' ". ( 10 point bonus for ID-ing that quote!)
Teachers /Parents/ Citizens: Link to online petition re. replacing Arne Duncan.
Let's keep this kicked for a while.... yes?
Seems as though "teachers are revolting." Well, I could have told you that. But so are parents, non-parents and everyone who cares about education. ( Shhheeeeezzz: even *school administrators*. Holy jumpin' catfish!)
'Bout time, sez I. *Past* time, really. Let's keep this kicked.
http://www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/arne-duncan-2/
Teachers Demand Arne Duncan’s Removal
January 29, 2012 By Mark Naison 8 Comments
Barack Obama, Arne Duncan
Educators Letter to President Obama Now Online and Ready For Signatures
Here is the link to the Educators Letter to President Obama that asks him to withdraw his support of policies which mandate high stakes testing, to include teachers and parents in all educational policy discussions in his administration and replace Sec of Ed Arne Duncan with an educator who has the confidence of the nation’s teachers. Please sign and circulate widely!http://dumpduncan.org/
Dear President Obama,
We, the undersigned, a cross section of the nation’s teachers and their supporters, wish to express our extreme displeasure with the policies implemented during your administration by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Although many of us campaigned enthusiastically for you in 2008, it is unlikely that you will receive continued support unless the following three dimensions of your administration’s education initiatives are changed:
The exclusion of teachers from policy discussions in the US Department of Education and from Education Summits called under your leadership.
The use of rhetoric which blames failing schools on “bad teachers” rather than poverty and neighborhood distress.
The use of federal funds to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores in the evaluation of teachers and as the basis for closing low performing schools. (more at link)
"But to avoid being labeled a 'tool of the foundation,' the document said the group should .......
"But to avoid being labeled a “tool of the foundation,” the document said the group should “maintain a low public profile.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Overlooked overview of how Gate$ corrupts politics , education, journalism and public discourse itself.
With apologies to Christopher Hitchens, it could be subtitled "How Gates Money Poisons Everything."
What a world.
Edit to add: STAY WITH this one, folks. I wouldn't undertake to read this either but I'm a p.s. teacher and see the human cost of Gates'..... ummmmm...... "philanthropy" everyday of my life. His corruption of EVERYTHING ELSE as a byproduct of of his PS jihad should concern *everybody*. Not just teachers.
Read. Consider.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 14,498
