The most powerful, replenishable weapon we have against ICE and HLS is the Subway sandwich. Be advised. Hitting an agent directly will be considered Assault and Battery. Missing is only Assault. To avoid both, loft the sandwiches high in an arch from the 2nd and 3rd ranks of the throngs. Those being “fed” will not see the thrower. And lacking a direct aim, I am not sure lettuce rain can be considered assault. I am not a lawyer, but I believe tossing nourishing food to ICE and HLS is not assault. Tomatoes, the really soft ones. Eggs. What else? Think healthy.
Long live Sean Charles Dunn! His Subway sandwich "assault" has been memorialized by DC artists that turned it into Banksy-style art. It has appeared on walls, posters, and shirts already.
It's a beautiful thing. The booing, shaming, and most importantly the filming is going to follow the masked gestapo everywhere. Let's make them hate the First Amendment most of all. Thanks for all that you are doing, Carl, and your fun little bit of snark this morning.
MAGA doesn't care that he is a rapist, a thief, ripping them off and is a pedophile. Would they care if he was caught sexually assaulting a young boy? And apparently neither do the young males, who see his machismo as a role model and salvation.
They don't care Daniel. You know that they don't, and apparently there are plenty of camp followers, especially among young males, sucked in by the pied pipers call to "victim masculinity"
The old playbook is history, it doesn't work anymore, the institutions have gone over to or captured by the dark side.
Defense is not a winning tactic. To win we must go on the offense, attack, attack and keep attacking.
Thanks, I'm flattered. Like I've been sayin' the people we need to persuade/impress are not Trump cultists. Cultists need an epiphany -- and if there is any justice they are doomed to hell given their own dogma.
We may never get to vote again.
Politicians are impressed when they can see the "handwriting on the wall." We need to take it to Congressional Republicans. Make them squeal. Educate them. Picket. Sit in. Support Trump at their peril. Support Trump and go to hell.
Speaking of a country twang. You should catch the Thom Hartmann show on TV, during the breaks they have songs by his wife Louise, and they are great
Listen to them free on https://www.iheart.com/artist/louise-thom-hartmann-45558421/songs/ also Spotify and Apple, just google songs by Thom and Louise Hartmann, these are not the mealy folk protest songs of the 1960's and 70's, but have a definite country twang, and they are excellent and pleasant to listen to.
Trump is going to be in no shape to run in 2028 but even were he to be fit as a fiddle, I see no reason why a man who violates his oath of office and betrays the Constitution on a daily basis would let a constitutional amendment get it the way of progress. after all, l'etat, c'est moi.
Yes yes criticizing with some gentle satire is the right amount of ‘snark’ to go with my morning coffee; it helps to lighten the pernicious satire I have read recently. All true but this comment will make me smile all day with your image in mind.
Thom, YES, YES, YES! Nothing is more important than what you are saying here. (And that's one of the reasons I am a paid subscriber). Our democracy has collapsed and has been replaced by an authoritarian regime, in good part because the Republicans knew how to get what they wanted. If there is going to be a restoration of our Democracy, and some semblance of equality among Americans, we will have to learn to fight. Hopefully folks like you, Gavin Newsom and others will figure out how to respond to the 1984 Doublespeak that has become the weapon that is destroying America.
Democrats already own the issues on an emotional level, but are reluctant to use class war language, for fear of sounding socialist. It hasn't held back Bernie Sanders, though, and he remains, arguably, the most popular politician in America. Democrats need to stop running away from the likes of Sanders, Mamdani, et. al. and start taking notes instead.
My attempt to forward this to the DNC may prove unsuccessful; with luck, someone there subscribes. This nails the subject perfectly, and, I think, explains why seemingly intelligent and decent people can be persuaded to vote against their interests AND their values.
The internet is ablaze with people creating memes and themes to answer in real time the crap that TRump and the Cult have put on their newly minted TikTok account.
The stuff in the comments is priceless. Worthy of any late night show writing and then some, because it is free from the restraint of lawyers. CBS is going to regret the loss of Colbert when he is gone. The new media he's forming is going to tell the truth. It is going to be a story alright, and it's going to be brutal.
Beat the crap out of them verbally. Put it in a comment. Put it on a sign. See you in the streets.
Thom, I've been saying this for about thirty years to no avail. Good to see it's sinking in to more of us. Visit my website at https://nopartyline.blogspot.com/ and my Youtube channel titled Proudscalawag.
Thank you, Professor Hartmann, for telling the truth. And for explaining exactly what democrats need to do to win again. What you say makes perfect sense. We should send your post to every democratic senator and governor. And representative too.
Thom I can't thank you enough.. I am listening to you just now on Freespeech TV, chanenl 269, Dish network.
I wanted to call in, your first hour, and ask you to print this in your newsletter.
I've been hammering for ages, that even beyond economics is that the battle is a culture war, and the right wing culture warriors have been winning and have won, because the left is too freakin cerebral.
You said long ago, that we need to be able to put our message on bumper stickers,like the right wing does, not treatises and long winded rants, that no body listens to or reads.
I will only add, that the culture war is designed to capture the amygdala, the lizard brain, and it has worked, while Democrat messaging is processed through the pre frontal cortex, which requires knowledge, critical thinking ability, and effort.
Finally, finally, one Democrat (Gavin Newsom) has got off his ass, and is using right wing tactics, excite the amygdala, get people emotional and involved.
Pritzker, and I agree with you, is probably the best Governor, better than Newsom, but he has to start acting and talking like Newsom,get off his butt, make noise, throw aside convention and the milquetoast tradition of the Democratic party and start trolling Trump and the Right.
We want, nay we need hell raisers, not gentlemen and gentlewomen, and not performance theater either, but real, out of the gut liberalism, fight, fight, fight and dirty as hell, no more Marquis of Queensbury rules, no more knife to a gunfight either.
Fight the culture war, head on, shove the tyranny of the right, their hypocrisy,up their ass.
By the way I loved the erudition of Antonio Gramsci, on politics is culture. As you said, the right which at first demonized Gramsci, because he is a Marxist, never the less adopted his ideas. Imitation is the highest form of flatttery.
There you have it. Culture is embedded where first? Answer: in the school. For 12 years. What is the elemental message of forced attendance? Citizens need an authority to compel them to learn, behave, and obey. Message: Children are ignorant and uncontrolled unless socialized and "educated" via institutionalized authority. Translated - indoctrinated with values borrowed from Christianity and fabricated by authority figures with arbitrary authority which substitutes for authentic, organic authority. Why do people respond more to bumper stickers, slogans, and simplistic concepts? Because they are homogenized, pasteurized, and dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Where? In school. Not just because all children are there, but because all MUST be there, by law as conscripts and inadequate dependents of inadequate parents, unless they are from a wealthy family. Thank you for making the point I have been trying to get across for decades.
"Republicans learned from Gramsci and weaponized culture. They turned it into dog whistles, slogans, and memes that bypass reason and lodge themselves in the national gut. Democrats can learn from the same source without resorting to the GOP’s lying, cruelty, and thinly coded racism."
Can Democrats learn the lesson? Can they change the "gut" lesson which defines children as "blank slates" and willful self-indulgent brats or sinners, instead of dignified and competent human beings anxious to live and learn? Or the perverted idea that culture itself is the real danger and must be controlled from the top? Can liberal progressives figure out that the first profound major error Americans made must be reversed, and that unless liberated, children and teachers will operate as submissive and passive recipients of whatever is dished out by state authorities? I do not have a lot of hope at this point.
One is bathed in culture from the time of birth on, and it can be argued prior to that as well. Enculturation does not take a snooze for a child's first years: Children do not enter school as tabula rasae. Schools only reinforce what is already in play; primary enculturation/socialization to a large part takes place prior to entering school. Children are bathed in culture pretty much 24/7. Humans are hard-wired to sponge up information, some of which is cultural in nature. Consider languagtion that enculturation e, which is a major vehicle of enculturation. Language already starts developing in utero and there is some indication that enculturation begins there to, most likely in the third trimester.
Children most definitely do not need an authority to compel them to learn. Indeed, there is an innate inquisitiveness, an eagerness, that drives the process of learning: children "want" to learn, they are natural mimics. And so on.
Always the school, Robert, Always mandatory education, you finally answered my question, but you have no solution for the illiteracy and child abuse, labor that follows by eliminating mandatory education.
The problem is not mandatory education but who controls the curriculum, administration, books and teachers.
The problem starts local, and that is a long, tough, slog. Rant all you wish about mandatory education, (you must have had a traumatic childhood experience), but your rant falls on deaf ears.
Without an educated electorate democracy is impossible. No wonder the right is working so passionately for education's extermination. With a little more effort I have no doubt the Inquisition will reemerge. Believe the Universe wasn't created in 6 Days? It's the dunking stool for you! Or. if necessary, an auto-da-fé to take the chill off those frosty winter evenings. After all, one must stamp out heresy at all cost.
You have just described Christian Reconstruction or Dominionism, the basis of 7 Mountains Mandate,New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, even Knights of Columbus and Evangelicals.
I believe we have been over this before. I think you may have missed or misunderstood my point. As Thom was pointing out, culture is of primary significance and is determinative of politics (as well as of education and intellectual attitudes and habits broadly within the culture to a large extent).
LBJ’s legislation, the Handicap Act, IDEA, and such, whether federal or local are remedial or compensatory measures or benefits in response to the enduring inimical, negative, or discriminatory consequences of power which has been abused and misused by administrators and officials for many generations. Those programs corrected to some degree (certainly not adequately) for what had been degradation and neglect because of bad thinking, pseudoscience, mythology, tradition, and ignorance on the part of people with influence and power over curriculum and policy.
The ability to control, manage, manipulate, and dictate culture via school curriculum, policy, staff selection, or school climate and political orientation should not be in the hands of anyone outside the profession and outside the family or community. Compulsory school attendance laws are the expression of a philosophy which does not respect or appreciate the dignity and integrity of children and young people. It derives from an anachronistic culture of distrust and paternalism. It perpetuates a culture based on a false and unscientific set of beliefs and ideas about human nature, on a vision of education which is unidimensional and purely materialistic or capitalistic, and on reactionary principles which were a direct reaction to enlightenment principles.
Wm. is a cynic and a pessimist, quite obviously. He has a very low opinion of children and human nature (disgustingly low, in my opinion). He is precisely the kind of person I would never trust with my progeny. He thinks kids who are not under the heel of authority will behave badly and remain illiterate and ignorant. He would do well in a prison but not a school. He will never, ever get it because his brain is hardwired for conservativism. People like you are at least capable of rational contemplation and debate. Thom Hartmann may be figuring it out but seems to need to cling to traditional thinking and excessive caution. Being the first person talking seriously about ending those horrible unconstitutional laws and giving children true autonomy on a national stage will require a great deal of courage and foresight.
The IEP is the key. In some states all kids are entitled. Diagnosis has come a long way in my lifetime.
I am a big believer that the parents are often the problem. Statistics show that 20% of parents are illiterate or can't take care of themselves, let alone a kid. Schools should know that infants eventually will reach school age, so they have a duty to make sure that homelife does not put the kids in jeopardy.
Educational deficits do not necessarily connote mental problems. Some kids have metal probales that affect learning. E.G. some have defiance, other personality problems that are correctible. Hypertensitivity disorders may be an ovelay on educational deficits. Classroom teachers can't prescribe medications. Cant perform many types of therapy.
I've told you about exceptional programs that we acquired via Chapter 1 {a/k/a Title I). There are many variations on the theme.
I don't think there is any magic to local school boards, and can testify that coirruption at the lower levels are greater than existed nationally, even when E.G. the Bush family had economic reasons to force adoption of their proprietary testing.
I oppose transfer of public money for private profit.
It looks like I sent my reply to the wrong post. I'll try it again, although I made several last-minute changes which I can't possibly remember.
Dear Mr. Solomon,
Let’s just hire private tutors for every kid and then they will all be splendid academics and scholars and all will live happily ever-after. IEP’s are just wonderful. But you seem to be missing the point.
1. Not every student aspires to delve into intellectual matters for six hours a day or to be the top student in the class in terms of grades, test scores, positive reports by neurotic teachers, etc. Some might tell you to shove your IEP.
2. If the curricula are garbage (they are) and tests are largely irrelevant (they are), or the kid is being programmed and conditioned in an untoward, unhealthy, or undemocratic way, your IEP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
3. The school culture and the cultural imprint made by conservative, rule-following, morality-obsessed (based on the Christian or other doctrine the teacher was immersed in for a lifetime) teachers and school administrations matter more than the content of material presented, or the specific methods utilized. Control over cultural factors should never be a matter off mass production and arbitrary imposition.
4. The state has child protection laws and services (at least in blue states) which are adequate when funded properly and staff are trained and competent. Society and communities have means of keeping tabs on errant or incompetent parents when not disrupted by malign forces and dangerous conditions. That’s where the monitoring must take place. Otherwise, the state has no goddamned business interfering with child-rearing via schools and judging which parents are okay and which are not. Teachers must report confirmed abuse. Beyond that they must stick to their roles as teachers. If parents are illiterate and irresponsible, non-coercive methods have a much higher frate of success.
You apparently would have been fine with the states taking children away from the Native American Indians or the indigenous people in Canada. Those were uncivilized savages, were they not according to your standards and cultural values. And, I guess you must be okay with Desantis and the other Neanderthals banning books from school libraries. Hey, somebody has to make the rules when the state has (takes) responsibility for education and he is the governor. I call BS on all of it.
The extraction of public money is not involved with eradicating the coercive elements from public schooling. Public money should not ever be used for the oppression of children or the imposition of an officially defined cultural model. If the public are to be free, their children must be free. If they decide to pay for IEP’s it is their choice when the law doesn’t prescribe and then dictate the objectives.
Ever been to an IEP? (Just wondering...) I took part in a few hundred. You most definitely do not want to have one for every child in your classroom, especially if you have 10-12 more students than you are supposed to have. Teaching will become a virtual and onerous impossibility, what interest the students might have had in learning will evaporate, and negative behaviors will increase.
How are schools, which are already overtaxed and underfunded, going to "...make sure that homelife does not put the kids in jeopardy"? This isn't the domain of the educational system in the first place, nor should it be. Were responsibility to be anywhere it would necessarily reside with CPS. But even that would prove to be an impossible task, nor do I think it should.
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting but the classroom is not, nor (once more) should it be, the venue for therapy.
Let’s just hire private tutors for every kid and then they will all become splendid academics and scholars, and all will live happily ever-after. IEP’s are just wonderful. But you seem to be missing the point.
1. Not every student aspires to delve into intellectual matters for six hours a day or to be the top student in the class in terms of grades, test scores, positive reports by neurotic teachers, etc. Some might tell you to shove your IEP.
2. If the curricula are garbage (they are) and tests are largely irrelevant (they are), or the kid is being programmed and conditioned in an untoward, unhealthy, or undemocratic way (they too often are), your IEP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
3. The school culture and the cultural imprint made by conservative, rule-following, morality-obsessed (based on the Christian or other doctrine the teacher was immersed in for a lifetime) teachers and school administrations matter more than the content of material presented, or the specific methods utilized. Control over cultural factors should never be a matter of mass production and arbitrary imposition.
4. The state has child protection laws and services (at least in blue states) which are adequate when funded properly and staff are trained and competent. Society and communities have means of keeping tabs on errant or incompetent parents when not disrupted by malign forces and dangerous conditions. That’s where the monitoring must take place. Otherwise, the state has no goddamned business interfering with child-rearing via schools and judging which parents are okay and which are not. Teachers must report confirmed abuse. Beyond that they must stick to their roles as teachers. If parents are illiterate and irresponsible, non-coercive methods have a much higher rate of success in promoting literacy and education.
You apparently would have been fine with the states taking children away from the Native American Indians or the indigenous people in Canada. Those were uncivilized savages, were they not, according to your standards and cultural values? And I guess you must be okay with Desantis and the other Neanderthals banning books from school libraries. Hey, somebody has to make the rules when the state has (takes) responsibility for education, and he is the governor in power. I call BS on all of it.
The extraction of public money is not involved with eradicating the coercive elements from public schooling. Public money should not ever be used for the oppression of children or the imposition of an officially defined cultural model. If the public are to be free, their children must be free. If they decide to pay for IEP’s it is their choice when the law doesn’t prescribe and then dictate the objectives and the means to achieve them.
A lesson from Reagan - "3" meaning only three things to focus on.
If there is one fatal disease of the D's is that they can't focus on a few things. That means that the Democratic message, no matter how sensible, starts to be just a bunch of noise.
How about using the idea of "FOR" the people - Fair, Open, and Responsive government?
Democrats would do well to study how the GOP constructed a Madison Avenue style of campaigning based on trigger words and innuendo. Check out, for instance, Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America;" also their infamous "Use" and "Don't Ever Use" word lists - still in use today, I believe. They conducted nationwide workshops for candidates and campaign workers to hone their skills in mastering these sales tactics; likely, they still do this. Dems could construct a masterful catch-up strategy: Simply employ Thom Hartmann to orchestrate their campaign promos and tactics!
This essay is absolutely great. For voters feelings matter so much more than policies, unfortunately. It’s the nature of the human animal. I think first Democrats have to reclaim the word Freedom; is there anything that screams America more than that? And Trump and his regime are the most ANTI-Freedom in history.
Brilliant. Now we just need to get every Dem to read this; and then follow it! Enuf with the policy papers (lookin' at you Elizabeth Warren), we need to hear some FDR.
So Thom, is this is all about branding? What's more important: an idea or how the idea is framed? Does it all come down to smoke and mirrors? What you point out here is the lack of critical thinking that makes people slurp up the hogwash. Critical thinking is what needs to be honed so that the concept can be discerned from the packaging....
The most powerful, replenishable weapon we have against ICE and HLS is the Subway sandwich. Be advised. Hitting an agent directly will be considered Assault and Battery. Missing is only Assault. To avoid both, loft the sandwiches high in an arch from the 2nd and 3rd ranks of the throngs. Those being “fed” will not see the thrower. And lacking a direct aim, I am not sure lettuce rain can be considered assault. I am not a lawyer, but I believe tossing nourishing food to ICE and HLS is not assault. Tomatoes, the really soft ones. Eggs. What else? Think healthy.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/sign-off-i-call-for-a-sign-off?r=3m1bs
Long live Sean Charles Dunn! His Subway sandwich "assault" has been memorialized by DC artists that turned it into Banksy-style art. It has appeared on walls, posters, and shirts already.
It's a beautiful thing. The booing, shaming, and most importantly the filming is going to follow the masked gestapo everywhere. Let's make them hate the First Amendment most of all. Thanks for all that you are doing, Carl, and your fun little bit of snark this morning.
Where are the "Trump hates dogs" and "Vote Trump and go to hell" signs?
MAGA doesn't care that he is a rapist, a thief, ripping them off and is a pedophile. Would they care if he was caught sexually assaulting a young boy? And apparently neither do the young males, who see his machismo as a role model and salvation.
There you go again.
Makes them choke on their beer.
They don't care Daniel. You know that they don't, and apparently there are plenty of camp followers, especially among young males, sucked in by the pied pipers call to "victim masculinity"
The old playbook is history, it doesn't work anymore, the institutions have gone over to or captured by the dark side.
Defense is not a winning tactic. To win we must go on the offense, attack, attack and keep attacking.
Were only we were so lucky.
Trump Hates … has 2 signs. Best I can do so far. Trump can’t run again. Just reposted your take on the Senate races. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/retired-judges-make-salient-points?r=3m1bs
Thanks, I'm flattered. Like I've been sayin' the people we need to persuade/impress are not Trump cultists. Cultists need an epiphany -- and if there is any justice they are doomed to hell given their own dogma.
We may never get to vote again.
Politicians are impressed when they can see the "handwriting on the wall." We need to take it to Congressional Republicans. Make them squeal. Educate them. Picket. Sit in. Support Trump at their peril. Support Trump and go to hell.
The culture of this country has a country twang. If there ever was a fortunate son, it's Der Fuhrer, Donald J. Trump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWijx_AgPiA
Have no sympathy for the Devil.
Speaking of a country twang. You should catch the Thom Hartmann show on TV, during the breaks they have songs by his wife Louise, and they are great
Listen to them free on https://www.iheart.com/artist/louise-thom-hartmann-45558421/songs/ also Spotify and Apple, just google songs by Thom and Louise Hartmann, these are not the mealy folk protest songs of the 1960's and 70's, but have a definite country twang, and they are excellent and pleasant to listen to.
Trump is going to be in no shape to run in 2028 but even were he to be fit as a fiddle, I see no reason why a man who violates his oath of office and betrays the Constitution on a daily basis would let a constitutional amendment get it the way of progress. after all, l'etat, c'est moi.
Yes yes criticizing with some gentle satire is the right amount of ‘snark’ to go with my morning coffee; it helps to lighten the pernicious satire I have read recently. All true but this comment will make me smile all day with your image in mind.
Thom, YES, YES, YES! Nothing is more important than what you are saying here. (And that's one of the reasons I am a paid subscriber). Our democracy has collapsed and has been replaced by an authoritarian regime, in good part because the Republicans knew how to get what they wanted. If there is going to be a restoration of our Democracy, and some semblance of equality among Americans, we will have to learn to fight. Hopefully folks like you, Gavin Newsom and others will figure out how to respond to the 1984 Doublespeak that has become the weapon that is destroying America.
Democrats already own the issues on an emotional level, but are reluctant to use class war language, for fear of sounding socialist. It hasn't held back Bernie Sanders, though, and he remains, arguably, the most popular politician in America. Democrats need to stop running away from the likes of Sanders, Mamdani, et. al. and start taking notes instead.
Screw Sanders, he turned people away from Clinton and gave the White House to Trump in 2016.
My attempt to forward this to the DNC may prove unsuccessful; with luck, someone there subscribes. This nails the subject perfectly, and, I think, explains why seemingly intelligent and decent people can be persuaded to vote against their interests AND their values.
And you just keep coming at them
The internet is ablaze with people creating memes and themes to answer in real time the crap that TRump and the Cult have put on their newly minted TikTok account.
The stuff in the comments is priceless. Worthy of any late night show writing and then some, because it is free from the restraint of lawyers. CBS is going to regret the loss of Colbert when he is gone. The new media he's forming is going to tell the truth. It is going to be a story alright, and it's going to be brutal.
Beat the crap out of them verbally. Put it in a comment. Put it on a sign. See you in the streets.
Thom, I've been saying this for about thirty years to no avail. Good to see it's sinking in to more of us. Visit my website at https://nopartyline.blogspot.com/ and my Youtube channel titled Proudscalawag.
Thank you, Professor Hartmann, for telling the truth. And for explaining exactly what democrats need to do to win again. What you say makes perfect sense. We should send your post to every democratic senator and governor. And representative too.
Thom I can't thank you enough.. I am listening to you just now on Freespeech TV, chanenl 269, Dish network.
I wanted to call in, your first hour, and ask you to print this in your newsletter.
I've been hammering for ages, that even beyond economics is that the battle is a culture war, and the right wing culture warriors have been winning and have won, because the left is too freakin cerebral.
You said long ago, that we need to be able to put our message on bumper stickers,like the right wing does, not treatises and long winded rants, that no body listens to or reads.
I will only add, that the culture war is designed to capture the amygdala, the lizard brain, and it has worked, while Democrat messaging is processed through the pre frontal cortex, which requires knowledge, critical thinking ability, and effort.
Finally, finally, one Democrat (Gavin Newsom) has got off his ass, and is using right wing tactics, excite the amygdala, get people emotional and involved.
Pritzker, and I agree with you, is probably the best Governor, better than Newsom, but he has to start acting and talking like Newsom,get off his butt, make noise, throw aside convention and the milquetoast tradition of the Democratic party and start trolling Trump and the Right.
We want, nay we need hell raisers, not gentlemen and gentlewomen, and not performance theater either, but real, out of the gut liberalism, fight, fight, fight and dirty as hell, no more Marquis of Queensbury rules, no more knife to a gunfight either.
Fight the culture war, head on, shove the tyranny of the right, their hypocrisy,up their ass.
By the way I loved the erudition of Antonio Gramsci, on politics is culture. As you said, the right which at first demonized Gramsci, because he is a Marxist, never the less adopted his ideas. Imitation is the highest form of flatttery.
And Gavin has great hair too! 😁🩷
Yeh and it isn't hair plugs and a comb over. did you see that photo of trump taken from the back with the wind blowing. He is bald.
There you have it. Culture is embedded where first? Answer: in the school. For 12 years. What is the elemental message of forced attendance? Citizens need an authority to compel them to learn, behave, and obey. Message: Children are ignorant and uncontrolled unless socialized and "educated" via institutionalized authority. Translated - indoctrinated with values borrowed from Christianity and fabricated by authority figures with arbitrary authority which substitutes for authentic, organic authority. Why do people respond more to bumper stickers, slogans, and simplistic concepts? Because they are homogenized, pasteurized, and dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Where? In school. Not just because all children are there, but because all MUST be there, by law as conscripts and inadequate dependents of inadequate parents, unless they are from a wealthy family. Thank you for making the point I have been trying to get across for decades.
"Republicans learned from Gramsci and weaponized culture. They turned it into dog whistles, slogans, and memes that bypass reason and lodge themselves in the national gut. Democrats can learn from the same source without resorting to the GOP’s lying, cruelty, and thinly coded racism."
Can Democrats learn the lesson? Can they change the "gut" lesson which defines children as "blank slates" and willful self-indulgent brats or sinners, instead of dignified and competent human beings anxious to live and learn? Or the perverted idea that culture itself is the real danger and must be controlled from the top? Can liberal progressives figure out that the first profound major error Americans made must be reversed, and that unless liberated, children and teachers will operate as submissive and passive recipients of whatever is dished out by state authorities? I do not have a lot of hope at this point.
One is bathed in culture from the time of birth on, and it can be argued prior to that as well. Enculturation does not take a snooze for a child's first years: Children do not enter school as tabula rasae. Schools only reinforce what is already in play; primary enculturation/socialization to a large part takes place prior to entering school. Children are bathed in culture pretty much 24/7. Humans are hard-wired to sponge up information, some of which is cultural in nature. Consider languagtion that enculturation e, which is a major vehicle of enculturation. Language already starts developing in utero and there is some indication that enculturation begins there to, most likely in the third trimester.
Children most definitely do not need an authority to compel them to learn. Indeed, there is an innate inquisitiveness, an eagerness, that drives the process of learning: children "want" to learn, they are natural mimics. And so on.
Always the school, Robert, Always mandatory education, you finally answered my question, but you have no solution for the illiteracy and child abuse, labor that follows by eliminating mandatory education.
The problem is not mandatory education but who controls the curriculum, administration, books and teachers.
The problem starts local, and that is a long, tough, slog. Rant all you wish about mandatory education, (you must have had a traumatic childhood experience), but your rant falls on deaf ears.
Without an educated electorate democracy is impossible. No wonder the right is working so passionately for education's extermination. With a little more effort I have no doubt the Inquisition will reemerge. Believe the Universe wasn't created in 6 Days? It's the dunking stool for you! Or. if necessary, an auto-da-fé to take the chill off those frosty winter evenings. After all, one must stamp out heresy at all cost.
You have just described Christian Reconstruction or Dominionism, the basis of 7 Mountains Mandate,New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, even Knights of Columbus and Evangelicals.
It's a good time to be old, William.
IMHO the greatest things that happened in education were LBJ's Education Act and the Handicap Act of 1973, which morphed into IDEA.
20% of all kids need special (i.e. remedial) treatment; all should be entitled to an IEP, an individulized educational prescription.
How did you learn the pledge of alliegance? National anthem? 23rd Psalm?
Mr. Solomon,
I believe we have been over this before. I think you may have missed or misunderstood my point. As Thom was pointing out, culture is of primary significance and is determinative of politics (as well as of education and intellectual attitudes and habits broadly within the culture to a large extent).
LBJ’s legislation, the Handicap Act, IDEA, and such, whether federal or local are remedial or compensatory measures or benefits in response to the enduring inimical, negative, or discriminatory consequences of power which has been abused and misused by administrators and officials for many generations. Those programs corrected to some degree (certainly not adequately) for what had been degradation and neglect because of bad thinking, pseudoscience, mythology, tradition, and ignorance on the part of people with influence and power over curriculum and policy.
The ability to control, manage, manipulate, and dictate culture via school curriculum, policy, staff selection, or school climate and political orientation should not be in the hands of anyone outside the profession and outside the family or community. Compulsory school attendance laws are the expression of a philosophy which does not respect or appreciate the dignity and integrity of children and young people. It derives from an anachronistic culture of distrust and paternalism. It perpetuates a culture based on a false and unscientific set of beliefs and ideas about human nature, on a vision of education which is unidimensional and purely materialistic or capitalistic, and on reactionary principles which were a direct reaction to enlightenment principles.
Wm. is a cynic and a pessimist, quite obviously. He has a very low opinion of children and human nature (disgustingly low, in my opinion). He is precisely the kind of person I would never trust with my progeny. He thinks kids who are not under the heel of authority will behave badly and remain illiterate and ignorant. He would do well in a prison but not a school. He will never, ever get it because his brain is hardwired for conservativism. People like you are at least capable of rational contemplation and debate. Thom Hartmann may be figuring it out but seems to need to cling to traditional thinking and excessive caution. Being the first person talking seriously about ending those horrible unconstitutional laws and giving children true autonomy on a national stage will require a great deal of courage and foresight.
The IEP is the key. In some states all kids are entitled. Diagnosis has come a long way in my lifetime.
I am a big believer that the parents are often the problem. Statistics show that 20% of parents are illiterate or can't take care of themselves, let alone a kid. Schools should know that infants eventually will reach school age, so they have a duty to make sure that homelife does not put the kids in jeopardy.
Educational deficits do not necessarily connote mental problems. Some kids have metal probales that affect learning. E.G. some have defiance, other personality problems that are correctible. Hypertensitivity disorders may be an ovelay on educational deficits. Classroom teachers can't prescribe medications. Cant perform many types of therapy.
I've told you about exceptional programs that we acquired via Chapter 1 {a/k/a Title I). There are many variations on the theme.
I don't think there is any magic to local school boards, and can testify that coirruption at the lower levels are greater than existed nationally, even when E.G. the Bush family had economic reasons to force adoption of their proprietary testing.
I oppose transfer of public money for private profit.
It looks like I sent my reply to the wrong post. I'll try it again, although I made several last-minute changes which I can't possibly remember.
Dear Mr. Solomon,
Let’s just hire private tutors for every kid and then they will all be splendid academics and scholars and all will live happily ever-after. IEP’s are just wonderful. But you seem to be missing the point.
1. Not every student aspires to delve into intellectual matters for six hours a day or to be the top student in the class in terms of grades, test scores, positive reports by neurotic teachers, etc. Some might tell you to shove your IEP.
2. If the curricula are garbage (they are) and tests are largely irrelevant (they are), or the kid is being programmed and conditioned in an untoward, unhealthy, or undemocratic way, your IEP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
3. The school culture and the cultural imprint made by conservative, rule-following, morality-obsessed (based on the Christian or other doctrine the teacher was immersed in for a lifetime) teachers and school administrations matter more than the content of material presented, or the specific methods utilized. Control over cultural factors should never be a matter off mass production and arbitrary imposition.
4. The state has child protection laws and services (at least in blue states) which are adequate when funded properly and staff are trained and competent. Society and communities have means of keeping tabs on errant or incompetent parents when not disrupted by malign forces and dangerous conditions. That’s where the monitoring must take place. Otherwise, the state has no goddamned business interfering with child-rearing via schools and judging which parents are okay and which are not. Teachers must report confirmed abuse. Beyond that they must stick to their roles as teachers. If parents are illiterate and irresponsible, non-coercive methods have a much higher frate of success.
You apparently would have been fine with the states taking children away from the Native American Indians or the indigenous people in Canada. Those were uncivilized savages, were they not according to your standards and cultural values. And, I guess you must be okay with Desantis and the other Neanderthals banning books from school libraries. Hey, somebody has to make the rules when the state has (takes) responsibility for education and he is the governor. I call BS on all of it.
The extraction of public money is not involved with eradicating the coercive elements from public schooling. Public money should not ever be used for the oppression of children or the imposition of an officially defined cultural model. If the public are to be free, their children must be free. If they decide to pay for IEP’s it is their choice when the law doesn’t prescribe and then dictate the objectives.
Ever been to an IEP? (Just wondering...) I took part in a few hundred. You most definitely do not want to have one for every child in your classroom, especially if you have 10-12 more students than you are supposed to have. Teaching will become a virtual and onerous impossibility, what interest the students might have had in learning will evaporate, and negative behaviors will increase.
How are schools, which are already overtaxed and underfunded, going to "...make sure that homelife does not put the kids in jeopardy"? This isn't the domain of the educational system in the first place, nor should it be. Were responsibility to be anywhere it would necessarily reside with CPS. But even that would prove to be an impossible task, nor do I think it should.
I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting but the classroom is not, nor (once more) should it be, the venue for therapy.
Dear Mr. Solomon,
Let’s just hire private tutors for every kid and then they will all become splendid academics and scholars, and all will live happily ever-after. IEP’s are just wonderful. But you seem to be missing the point.
1. Not every student aspires to delve into intellectual matters for six hours a day or to be the top student in the class in terms of grades, test scores, positive reports by neurotic teachers, etc. Some might tell you to shove your IEP.
2. If the curricula are garbage (they are) and tests are largely irrelevant (they are), or the kid is being programmed and conditioned in an untoward, unhealthy, or undemocratic way (they too often are), your IEP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
3. The school culture and the cultural imprint made by conservative, rule-following, morality-obsessed (based on the Christian or other doctrine the teacher was immersed in for a lifetime) teachers and school administrations matter more than the content of material presented, or the specific methods utilized. Control over cultural factors should never be a matter of mass production and arbitrary imposition.
4. The state has child protection laws and services (at least in blue states) which are adequate when funded properly and staff are trained and competent. Society and communities have means of keeping tabs on errant or incompetent parents when not disrupted by malign forces and dangerous conditions. That’s where the monitoring must take place. Otherwise, the state has no goddamned business interfering with child-rearing via schools and judging which parents are okay and which are not. Teachers must report confirmed abuse. Beyond that they must stick to their roles as teachers. If parents are illiterate and irresponsible, non-coercive methods have a much higher rate of success in promoting literacy and education.
You apparently would have been fine with the states taking children away from the Native American Indians or the indigenous people in Canada. Those were uncivilized savages, were they not, according to your standards and cultural values? And I guess you must be okay with Desantis and the other Neanderthals banning books from school libraries. Hey, somebody has to make the rules when the state has (takes) responsibility for education, and he is the governor in power. I call BS on all of it.
The extraction of public money is not involved with eradicating the coercive elements from public schooling. Public money should not ever be used for the oppression of children or the imposition of an officially defined cultural model. If the public are to be free, their children must be free. If they decide to pay for IEP’s it is their choice when the law doesn’t prescribe and then dictate the objectives and the means to achieve them.
A lesson from Reagan - "3" meaning only three things to focus on.
If there is one fatal disease of the D's is that they can't focus on a few things. That means that the Democratic message, no matter how sensible, starts to be just a bunch of noise.
How about using the idea of "FOR" the people - Fair, Open, and Responsive government?
Fantastic, Thom, we needed to read this straight up. It seems. I hope this article gets out to all Democrats- especially those in office.
Democrats would do well to study how the GOP constructed a Madison Avenue style of campaigning based on trigger words and innuendo. Check out, for instance, Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America;" also their infamous "Use" and "Don't Ever Use" word lists - still in use today, I believe. They conducted nationwide workshops for candidates and campaign workers to hone their skills in mastering these sales tactics; likely, they still do this. Dems could construct a masterful catch-up strategy: Simply employ Thom Hartmann to orchestrate their campaign promos and tactics!
Thom HAS taught that history and their tactics for years. So you are spot on, JB.
This essay is absolutely great. For voters feelings matter so much more than policies, unfortunately. It’s the nature of the human animal. I think first Democrats have to reclaim the word Freedom; is there anything that screams America more than that? And Trump and his regime are the most ANTI-Freedom in history.
Brilliant. Now we just need to get every Dem to read this; and then follow it! Enuf with the policy papers (lookin' at you Elizabeth Warren), we need to hear some FDR.
So Thom, is this is all about branding? What's more important: an idea or how the idea is framed? Does it all come down to smoke and mirrors? What you point out here is the lack of critical thinking that makes people slurp up the hogwash. Critical thinking is what needs to be honed so that the concept can be discerned from the packaging....
At the spot where common sense meets responsible government, that’s where Thom Hartmann brings you.