Thank you, Thom for the cogent piece on nationalizing the fossil fuel industry. We need more ideas like it. And thank you for the paragraph on the headlines, citing the Climate CRISIS. It's not just America, it's the entire world. I give us 5-7 years, tops. And by the way, that's what a lot of Climate scientists are saying, rather quietly, too. Greenland Ice Sheet? Gone by 2030; that's the latest estimate. And some ice geologists think that the massive ice sheets could implode and create a catastrophic rise in sea level, in one event. As for the others? Clarence Thomas is .... Oh, who cares? Nothing is changing on that front.
ExxonMobil's own scientists accurately predicted future global warming in reports dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the company publicly continuing for years to cast doubt on climate science and lobby against climate action, according to a new analysis.
Skeptics and cynics are labeled pessimists, especially by liberals, who need to see the world through rose colored glasses, but they are really realists, who see the future through past performance of humans, and a realistic as opposed to wishful thinking of human behavior. Such as they are not going to give up their luxuries, and conveniences, and they are avaricious, to the point of hoarding..never enough.
The person with a cluttered house which you can’t walk in, is no different than the plutocrat with 2 mansions, his own jet, and a super garage full of classic and expensive modern cars. There are people who collect Lamborghinis like they were postage stamps. Look at Jay Leno’s garage. He’s not called a hoarder because he is rich and famous.
They are having fun while the sun shines, but their need to accumulate, an addiction, their greedy acquisition of things and money start as a means to prove that they are an Alpha, and impress and warn their peers, that they too have status, and are able to defend what they have from others of their kind.
Just like male and female Alphas of a wolf pack, snip at the legs, threaten and intimidate others in their pack, to keep them in their place. Heck you see this behavior in all subcultures, be it chefs, sports, politics. Gordon Ramseys productions are an example. A team of Alphas, torture and berate betas, gammas, deltas who aspire to be an Alpha. Exception Hell’s Kitchen, he is the only Alpha.
Having fun when the sun shines, is all too human. Thus so many splurge excess income on chasing frivolities, never thinking of the day when they will no longer have exces income, and quite possibly be reduced to living off family and hopefully the government, but Social Security, if you qualify, only provides a subsistence level income, and that if you don’t live in a city like NY. At least there you can save money on transportation.
All this verbage because I am a pessimist (realist). I know quite a bit about the history of the species, how empires build and collapse, how human activity is driven by the need to acquire things, status, and the means to obtain enough wealth and power to advance and protect their own personal Empire, be it a single wide and a submissive spouse, or a nation.
A decade ago we watched as the warming earth was approaching 350 ppm of polluting gases, now it is at over 400 ppm, and Gaia’s temperature is feverish and has risen 1.5 degrees Celsius and we are headed pell mell towards the end of the short lived anthropocene.
Climate scientists are saying that it is actually too late to reverse the trend, even if we managed to halt the expansion, it is too late, the cycle has started. An ice free arctic, which because of the albido effect, is in itself contributing to global wasming, and the collapse of the glaciers on Greenland and elsewheres.
Even the antartic ice is melting and moving, and I am not mentioning the Antarctic ise that is sitting on the water, as it is already displacing the water which it will beome when it melts (like ice cubes in a glass)
In the past 30 years, scientists have observed an intensification of the waves, coinciding with increased global warming. More waviness in the jet stream means that rain and wind remain in a region longer than if the jet stream simply traveled due east with no detours.
Why did the jet stream change?
Climate change and the jet stream
Rising global temperatures from global warming are affecting the jet stream and, in turn, the weather. Because the Earth's polar regions are warming more quickly than the rest of the world, the temperature contrast that drives jet streams has decreased.
We can see the result with the heat dome, which right wing America ignores, because the fossil fuel industry is supporting candidates and a party, which when told to jump, asks only how high.
And there is the desalination of the Atlantic conveyor belt, and it’s gulf stream which used to warm Europe, England and the East coast of America The fresh water released by the Greenland glaciers is desalinating the current and disrupting it. Look for harsher and longer wintes.
Red states are pummeled with record breaking hurricanes in numbers and F force. Yet the ignorant press on, only concerned a bout “woke”
They are more concerned about something they call woke, than their own lives and future.
My pessimism says that nothing will change the vector of global warming, that it will not reverse, even if we went into full stop today, and devoted trillions into carbon sequestration (carbon is only part of the problem, methane is just as bad, and global warming is causing explosions in the arctic of Russia, Alaska and Canada ,as warming releases huge pockets of methane in the tundra, and underwater.
The only thing we can do is plan for our own future, if the entire world’s vehicle transportation was electrified, it still would not stop or impede the trend.
Gloom and doom, yes, but considering the history of mankind and the unchangeable human nature.
Nothing will change. The rest below is TL:DR
The executives, shareholders and boards of the corporations, not just the fossil fuel industry, but those dependent on it, live and continue to live in denial, accumulating enough wealth, they hope, that will insulate them from the dystopian future that is barreling towards them.
Having been to Jay Leno's garage (geek heaven), he is not a hoarder, and is a collector, because what he has is organized and cared for, which is the difference between a collector and a hoarder. Having dealt with the issue of hoarding with a person I loved, I really wish idiots like you who have no fucking clue what you're talking about would quit parading your ignorance on the topic. Ignorance by people like you is why the issue remains as hidden as it is and attempts to help those afflicted with the disorder are so unsuccessful. I really hate it when morons like you claim you're on my side, as the entire rest of your post clearly demonstrates you are - though I am certain you think of yourself as a genius. Which you're not.
Hello Thom, Your life plan based on the talented author John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee character made me laugh out loud. We have used Travis’ taking retirement a piece at a time as an underlying structure for our lives too. When we watched the MAGA Thumpkins weekenders begin to overrun our north FL coastal village with their golf carts and confederate flags, we decided it was time to leave old FL behind after thirty plus years of spending winters there. We sold and now stay in Massachusetts where MAGAs are rare but not extinct yet. We feel sorry for our Floridian friends who have become victims of retirees moving south and ruining the old Florida charm an Southern hospitality - if you were white and not poor that we enjoyed but pretended was not entrenched in racism.
I wish somebody could explain why neither party has introduced a law much less a constitutional amendment (better) that ends "Citizens United." Citizens United is a malignant cancer that is killing democracy. The fascists love it because it is disrupting government services like schools and regulation enforcement - not to mention the courts - just like Hitler did to enable him to seize power so quickly. The GOP is sabotaging America in order to impose oligarchic rule (aka fascist dictatorship).
Two of the most important things that Mr. Biden ran on was so-called "police reform" and student debt forgiveness. I am a single parent and my child just completed her undergraduate work at a prestigious private university. Luckily, we are not straddled with enormous debt, but it is still considerable. How a country penalizes education and learning is unfathomable as well as being despicable. No wonder that same country lets its citizens die due to privatized health care; an equally unfathomable and despicable act. The "Supremes" need their asses kicked. Sans Dianna Ross
As for "police reform" though it amounts to social origami because I can fold a piece of paper into a dog or a crane it remains a piece of paper. Policing in the United States must be re-invented, not reformed. Having said that reform would have, perhaps, been a stepping stone to reinvention. The fact that nothing, absolutely nothing substantive has been done on this front is pathetic; whoever is at fault.
Thom, I was watching Johnathan Capehart and a quote from Eli Crane of Arizona said. “ he now says Black people are Colored people Thom. Saying the quite part out loud, Thom. They want to take us back. Talking about Amendment about military spending. Thom.
I put in "Write an article about air activity in the Korean War in the voice of TCinLA" and ChatGPT knew less about the Korean War than the average American (which is close to Absolutely Nothing). I on the other hand have written three best-selling books on the topic.
Even Landscape printing isn't enough to print this post. Disappointed. The gist of the article is good and I agree with it. America could do a whole lot if the autocratic repubs could be set aside. They block anything that would help our country. It will take a lot of hard work to keep our democracy and get anything done. I haven't lost hope. Ruthie B
The hard right-wingers only learn when it lands on their doorstep, and it has. The writing on the wall is the high-water mark from the flood that just ruined their homes and businesses. The hair on fire moment is when the forest burns in Canada and the smoke from it chokes the people trying to breathe in New York and not just in the "Blue" city.
I watch C-Span and apparently the members of this Congress watch the news and the weather reports. Yesterday the right side of the aisle was saying "We all want clean air and water!". Swell, you got WOKE---the hard way!
Just a few years back the weather guy or gal would hedge and now you can usually depend on them telling the truth. Amen.
Limited time, limited choices, sketchy outcomes, but for future generations, we must keep trying. We help "fix" the failing car industry by a similar plan. When you know better, you should do better.
TCinLA, i could not agree more with your comments on Mr. Farrar.
He puts fingers to letters a dribble comes out. However if we based intelligence on word volume regardless of import then the man would certainly be a master of sorts!
I get your point, but by your own admission, a collector is a hoarder, up scale maybe, but the motivation is the same.
I'm a discarder, anything I haven't used in 6 months is only taking up space. My spouse is a constrained hoarder, but I'm changing her, she won't throw anything away that she thinks she might use Our garage is full of tools, like table saws, which she only used once (she is the handyman and proficient at almost everything from sewing and cooking, baking to carpentry, electricity, plumbing and drywall.
I have a different concept of hoarding than you, much broader obviously, and admittedly it is,by our different views a matter of semantics.
Why do people like this jackass Sabatini get traction and attract so much attention and so many followers? We need to know what we are up against. Attacking government has been a popular pastime and an easy sell for many reasons. Government often takes positions and actions which rub certain people the wrong way when that might cause them to lose something (such as money, income, property, status, etc.) or when they feel that they are threatened or their beliefs are impacted in a negative way. Laws and administrative decisions or acts often have winners and losers. Government IS a bureaucracy no matter who is in charge and there will ALWAYS be red tape, frustrating requirements, restrictions, rules, and, of course, a disturbing amount of waste, real or perceived.
There will always be critics and controversies. Fear of progress and novelty and reactions to modernism will always provoke claims that the innovators and administrators are running amok and changing the rules.
The same is true for schooling. Conservatives balked at the ending of official school prayers and they still sincerely believe that public schooling leads to liberal thinking, attitudes, and practices. In one sense they are correct in that good information, truth, knowledge, and science do clearly have a liberal bias. In a modern democratic republic, the rational consensus comes down on the side of tolerance, autonomy, compassion, and fairness, as opposed to dictatorial discipline, arbitrary authoritarian corporal punishment, and “my way or the highway” rigidity on the part of teachers.
The schools have also come under attack from BOTH the right and the left for not living up to their mandates or promises. The criticisms have unfortunately been valid in far too many instances. The reactionary crackpots have been handed the best ammo money cannot buy because the schools are indeed dysfunctional. It’s time to get real and admit what is staring us in the face. Defending institutions which are failing and refusing to acknowledge their chronic problems in knee-jerk fashion is foolhardy.
The time for a moment of truth has arrived. Hyperbole will not cut it. Anecdotes will not suffice. False claims of brash statements carry no scientific or logical weight. Your BS meter will need to be reactivated now for this discussion.
How far will we lower our standards? If a mere 35%, 45%, or even 65% of the students leaving a middle or high school level school are truly classifiable as literate, engaged, or competent, are we willing to make the stretch to say they have been “publicly educated”?
If our “public schools” are excellent or even just not too bad, and if they are worth saving from the Machiavellians who intend to bleed them dry and replace them with privatized schools, except in certain economically depressed and deprived areas, then please make your case with your best arguments backed up with hard facts, empirical evidence, and real science, post haste. THIS IS THE CHALLENGE. Religious fanatics claim that “God said it, and that is good enough” for them. Such an imperious and dismissive attitude is not acceptable where solid documented evidence is valued over blind faith, however.
Horatio Algiers ‘rags to riches’ stories, brash allegations that we have “the best schools in the world” or “we put men on the moon because of our superior AAA+ schools”, are unconvincing and wholly unscientific. Elevated test scores do not provide a meaningful measure of intellectual prowess, intelligence, education, critical thinking skills, or anything else of significance. Students, teachers, or parents bragging effusively or praising each other are of no value when it comes to how lives are lived and the useful capabilities and discretion graduates exhibit or fail to demonstrate in the outside world as adults.
Feel-good but empty promises, endless hype of projects or projected miraculous reforms, and happy talk blathering about how much we love our students and care about their potential for the future or how much they love us will not defeat fascism, authoritarianism, or oligarchy as those evils move to take over our society. It is impossible to escape the steady drumbeat of criticisms from all directions. Ignoring or denying them will not make them go away or resolve the chronic problems.
We do absolutely believe what it says over the school entrance. “Knowledge is power”. But talk is cheap and platitudes, as inspirational as they may be, do not often lead to great insights and accomplishments. Membership in a mutual admiration society does not automatically open the door to knowledge or education for anyone.
If you are certain that our schools merit an “AAA+” rating, please, please share the EVIDENCE with us asap. We need to see it. There should be peer reviewed journal articles published which document something much more substantial than reports of a few students who have a positive attitude, exhibit adequate comprehension, or get better grades in a highly skewed and subjective evaluation scheme (which reflects back the ostensible performance of the teacher/evaluator).
Grades indicate behavioral markers and “attitude” statements as much as they indicate academic achievement, and academic achievement proves very little relative to bona fide cognitive and other developmental indicators. Tests primarily measure memory of disconnected or abstract “facts and information” of questionable utility, and essays require intensive scrutiny and feedback which remains subjective.
Tangible, meaningful, observable results should not be too hard to locate which can be attributed directly to school influence and merit if indeed schools are making a significant difference and if they actually educate and benefit more than a minority of students, at least minimally. Likewise, that evidence should preclude any finding of a measurable degree of injury or negative effect on students. It would be nice if demoralized students would no longer be committing suicide. It is not enough to declare life is beautiful in school. We all know what careless or unfounded assumptions make of us. Where is the beef?
The constant stream of harsh critics over many decades and continuing daily deserve an answer if they have indeed erred in their blaming and fault finding (e.g., see, “The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform”, Sarason, S.B., 1990). If you fail to prove them wrong and fail to fix structural defects, and if what I have been saying for decades proves to be correct, you are assuring that the privatizers will have a smooth and easy path in their relentless quest to degrade and destroy public schooling.
It is decision time. Battening down the hatches and pretending that all is well when children are being miseducated will not save public schools. Am I being unreasonable to ask for something to hang my hat on here? Should I just take the word of the people making public statements and bolstering their own image?
Although I am obliged to question the conventional wisdom and to issue this challenge, I do not relish the idea of someone whose time is so precious and whose reputation for scrupulous research is so solid failing so completely to find anything of substance supporting the hypothesis of public schools as successful contributors to the public good, to public education, or to the equalization of social, economic, and ethnic groups. In over fifty years, I have yet to see persuasive or verifiable evidence, despite endless hoopla and positive PR. Can you show me what I am missing without wasting a massive amount of time?
Just like the Taliban, Christian preachers and priests consider education, unless it is religious, to be competition and thus failing attendance and failing revenues. It is all about fighting the competition.
You said: “Attacking government has been a popular pastime and an easy sell for many reasons”.
Government legalized slavery and when it failed to make it the status quo via Federal law, for the entire country, S.C. seceded and then so did other states, and the Cadets of the Citadel at the urging of an arch racist and planter fired on Ft Sumter. So people of color and other minorities have just cause not to trust the government, because the arc of history does not bend towards tolerance and justice, but the opposite. No example is need other than the current state of affairs.
Government created apartheid in America, with its red lining, institutional and often legal policies, at least turning a blind eye to racism (fear of the voting ex slave states and their religious allies in the Midwest.
As regards schools, timeshave changed. I entered High School in 1953, it was a huge four story building that covered more than a city block, including it’s athletic field. It had thousands of students and was in an upper middle class, lower upper class area. (I lived in a project, which at the time was all white, and built during FDRs administration in what was then the suburbs, but next door to Exide Battery, and obviously built there to house the workers.
The school tested IQ’s and was told that mine was 138, beaten only by Brenda Singer who was 141, yet I had the worst attendance and scholastic record in the school.
The teachers were boring addled, my American History, English and Algebra teachers were mentally unfit to teach. My only competent and motivating teacher was Mr Epstein who taught world history.
Because I was causing the administration problems, when I turned 17 they booted me, threatened me with being sent to school in the south of the city for juvenile delinquents (Daniel Boone, I attended Olney High in Phila).
I wound up in Bastrop, LA living with my grandparents in a shot gun cabin owned by my Uncle aSouthern Baptist preacher. I was enrolled in the HS, it then taught progressive education (except for the civil war, which was the war of Northern Aggression and a fight for states “rats”.
But the quality of education was much better, the teachers recognized by ability, challenged, motivated me and interested me, but by the time I became a motivated student, I found myself in classes with 10th graders, when I should have been in my senior year. I couldn’t take it and enlisted in the serviceThen from GED’s to an MBA They used to have a two year community college GED,
Today Philadelphia is all Charter schools, and I can’t but help wonder about the quality of education, has it improved from when I attended or has it degenerated to the crap that passes as education today.
I have no connection with Bastrop, but It is in Louisiana and I suspect it has devolved from progressive, to reactionary, radical anti woke, like the rest of the south.
Your personal story has a very familiar ring. The circumstances may be somewhat different and the names are different but the causes and dynamics follow a clear pattern. However, you make the same common mistake that so many others (including Thom) routinely make. You throw the word education around without being aware of when it is being used with any meaningful basis or when it is erroneously a marker for school or some sort of training or instruction which is often instead merely miseducation, badgering, memory and trivia exercises, indoctrination, or something else with no relationship to authentic education. I cannot define it for you, however of course, because education is an ineffable, private, personal, internal process wherein the individual adds to pre-existing knowledge through a creative process which is highly idiosyncratic and unique. School is designed to interrupt the process for many students.
Obviously, government has failed in myriad ways, such as in codifying slavery, Jim Crow, and compulsory school attendance. But blaming government is a bit of a cop out since the government in the US has for much of our history consisted of the people and with some accuracy has reflected the wishes of the people or the majority. I don’t think that there is any question that overall and for the majority, government has been a positive force and a “necessary evil”. Unlike other countries, we may still have the opportunity to make it work for more of the people and more of a positive force. Knocking it is hardly constructive except in finely targeted and purposeful, peaceful attacks.
The same goes for blaming teachers, teacher’s unions, parents, and students themselves. Schools are much like they were a century ago because of the Strait Jacket of compulsory attendance and the countless factors emanating from the arbitrary authority of officials and administrators, from the endless rules, restrictions, and prohibitions, and from the bureaucracy needed to keep the entire edifice from disintegrating into total mayhem. Effective change would require altering the relationships and respecting students and parents. In the current paradigm, those things are in direct conflict with the law and the authorities it requires.
Education is not a science. But we have all the amazing science we need to improve on creating opportunities. Someday the constraints will be removed so we can apply that science. We are the people who MUST demand the change and point the way. Law and education do not belong in close proximity and paternalism is anti-American.
I am not trying to rain on your parade, however there is a but coming.
It appears that, although I only mentioned education once: ex: “Just like the Taliban, Christian preachers and priests consider education, unless it is religious, to be competition and thus failing attendance and failing revenues. It is all about fighting the competition.” Thus you used my rant as a an opportunity to post your own rant. By inferring content and intent that was not there. And that is dishonest
You of course are entailed to you opinions as I am to mine. And I DID NOT toss the word education around, where in the hell did you get that from my post. I said that my experience in North and South were completely opposite.
If you want your own rant, be honorabler and stop using the posts of others as a springboard.
As regarcds my own education. I am an autodidact . I was reading vefore 1st grade. Self taught, parents too wrapped jup in their own woes. The first book I checked of a public library ata age 8, was Ulyesses,
I read the Bible cover to cover at agee 12, I read every word on cereal boxes, cans and jars,
I played hookey, for the first years in HS (90 days attendance in three years) instead of going to classes I wpi;d go to the public library, which was further away from my home than the H.S which was at least a mile from my home. The most valuable part of my education was on the streets, I learned how to read people, how to manuever iin a hostile environment
I never finished an algebra course in H.S. but with that as my tutor I aced courses in statics and econ, and even mastered calculus. Graduated with highest honors, and with honors from myMBA.
I learned jack squat from High school, I learned everything from the classics and books in the library.
I don’t disagree that education is geared to stifle rational thought and to keep you I n awe and worship of the system. Especially true of history. I’ve learned, through self education (and pursuing my hobby,. That what we are told on TV and through the mass media is filtered and distorted by the establishment that is designed to protect the establishment.
Thom touches on this as well. The rebellions of the Boston merchants and he Tea Party, was not about taxes, it was about the monopoly the crown gave the East India Company. A monopoly conferred by Royal Charter that drove the Boston Merchants into being criminals by smuggling, that is what was meant when Ben Franklin said we hang together or hang separately. Smuggling was an ofsense that was rewarded with a public hanging.
And the planters of Virginia, only joined the revolution because they thought that they would be the new nobility of the new country, the monopoly and prices didn’t bother them I’ haveseen the invoices of Washington’s estate, they were for fine china, silver ware, silk, linen and fine furniture imported from England via a company named Richard Farrar and Co. Not an ancestor, perhaps a very distant relative.
Those not in the planter class (tidewater aristocracy) were in no mood to exchange British overlords, for home grown overlords, so the Planters and politicians, set up a Committee of Public Safety, to monitor and punish what they called loyalists, often riding them out of town on a rail, covered in tar and feathers.
The hot tar alone must have killed quite a few.
Then they spent money buying pamphlets from Ben Franklin and the Rittenhouse press in Philadelphia, abut the Rights of Man and Common Sense, etc. That worked, all too well, because now the “rabble”, having learned about rights and equality (at least among whites) were ill disposed to the establishment of a pseudo monarcy and nobility, so they found a work around, setting up a government based on those ideas but having an appearance of a democracy, i.e. a populist government with a house of Commons and a House of Lords, and per Hamilton a President, his idea of Plato’s Republic. For life. G W stopped that nonsense by steeping down and retiring
I’ll wager you were not taught that in school, public or especially private. But to learn about that, you would have to read Albion’s Seed and an Intimate History of the American Revolution in Pennsylvania Co., VA, and you would only read that if you were a genealogist hobbyist
Also did you know that South Carolina was a traitor state, or rather refused to be traitor to the Crown and had the most loyalist militias of any state . In fact it was a loyalist militia that was wiped out by the “Over the Mountain boys” from the Watauga Republic on Kings Mountain.
South Carolina started the Civil War, when it seceded from the Union because Congress would not formally legalize slavery through out the country, it had not emancipated slaves, nor intended to, but SC planters were fearful; that am abolitionist congress would abolish slavery and seceded encouraging other slave states to follow, The richest of the SC cotton oligarchs, Pickens IIRC,, led the Cadets of the Citadel to fire on Ft Sumter and there you have. SC hasn ‘t changed a bit, but now has purchased a black man to run for and become a senator, and to run for president and the self serving bastard has to know that he is a Quisling,but at least he is prospering though his brothers and sisters are sill under the yoke.
Be warned I do not appreciate false attribution or using my rants as a spring board of your own agenda
Like when you typed that I made the same common mistake as others.. that my friend is bullshit.
My post or “rant” was a direct response to mentions on air Friday and in Thom’s post about the fanatic Sabatini’s open advocacy for the elimination of public schools and his hostility to government generally and to this administration’s policies as well as liberal/progressive values and philosophy. My central premise was, and is, that Sabatini and people of his ilk are aided and abetted in their efforts by the supporters and defenders of public schooling when they reflexively sweep under the rug the many chronic problems of traditional schooling under the current paradigm. To maintain somehow that our schools are wonderful and doing a great service in the face of hard evidence to the contrary opens those of us on the left to ridicule, charges of denial, weaknesses in all our positions, and sooner than anyone imagines, the acceptance by a naïve public of their deplorable and undemocratic ideology.
It should be known by now that I believe that school must be funded and supported by government but that it should not BE a government agency or controlled by the state except as a guarantor of rights and protections for students and a representative of democratic values. I drew a connection between the disdain and contempt of government by Sabatini with the hatred he and others have for public schooling. It IS government as it now exists.
You began with the idea that those on the right see education to be in competition with their anti-intellectual and reactionary or religious beliefs, as I read your remarks. However, you told your own story with several references to school, starting with beginning high school in 1953, being “booted” and moving to LA, where your experience with schooling was unsatisfactory. You mentioned several teachers by name and later spoke about the “quality of education” two or three times, and at one point illustrated your opinion of school by mentioning that you are an auto-didactic, intimating that your IQ is a factor in your negative experiences with schools, which all along you appear to equate with the concept of education but of an inferior quality.
You are obviously at a level of genius IQ and intellectual acumen far above me. I did not imagine that I would offend you or hurt your feelings by including you with millions of others who automatically and quite innocently equate or conflate school with education.
In view of your high intelligence, I’m confident now that you understand the points I make and will in the future be much more circumspect in your use of the word “education” and will disassociate school from a direct or causative connection with that institution. I actually do not believe that school is the best place for most education and see the auto-didactic approach as optimal. However, the problem is the inescapable coercion, arbitrary authority, and bureaucracy which come, as part and parcel, with compulsory attendance.
I hope also that Thom, being a profoundly important and influential thought leader will begin to take this issue seriously and recognize that without a major paradigm shift away from the incipient authoritarianism in schools, schools will easily be taken away from us and exploited for nefarious right-wing purposes as we have feared.
The way you started was to misattribute my comments, to use them as a springboard for your own rant. That pissed me off, You should have gone directly to your rant without referring to me, because you need a springboard to jump in the pool.
Public schools are preferable to private schools, because private schools are either elitist,or have an agenda like religion. Their curriculum and books are geared towards appeasing an element of society that prefers a theocratic or anti social society. These private schools don't teach history, or civics or anything that makes the parents of the kiddies uncomfortable.
The problem with public schooling is that it is funded locally via property taxes, and in poor neighborhoods with low property taxes the schools don't get enough to buy pencils, paper and crayons so the parents have to provide them, the teachers take up the slack and that isn't right. But it does create a permanent underclass. Which is what business needs to maximize its profits
What I see you espousing is the voucher program. I was introduced to the voucher idea, first brought to the table by Milton Friedman, who along with his Chicago boys, is responsible for the fascist regime of Pinochet, the assassination of Salavadore Allende, and the distruction of the Chilean and Peruvian economies, with they used as a proving ground.
Now they are the tool of the fascists, having the taxpayer fund religious schools and schools that have a fascist agenda.
Look at Florida, teachers are moving from the state in the thousands.
The public school curriculum and books are,or were, determined locally, with the exception of books. The Texas school board purchases all of the books used in Texas. And the vendor, whose goal is to maximize [profits, doesn't want a hundred different printings for text books, so it prints a one size fits all book. In that way the Texas school board, determines the curriculum and content, thus lesson plan, for virtually all schools in the nation.
Now with Florida, Texas and Oklahoma leading the charge, is anti woke (meaning white Christian nationalist bigotry), and you want my taxes to pay for that, with vouchers. No way.
Public schools are failing but that is because that portion of the population that should care, are asleep at the switch, caught up in their daily trials, tribulations and drama, they see school as a baby sitting service. People want kids, driven by biology, but they really don't want to raise them and hand them off to strangers for most of the day.
The ones that raise hell with the schools, state and county aren't really interested in their kids, but are motivated by religious fervor, racism and bigotry.
Do schools teach government and civics anymore?I heard not. What they teach and do not teach are determined by the local political powers and the Texas School Board.
Here is what we need to do. Fund education via the federal government, so that teachers don't have to have bake sales. Have a curriculum set by the government, but not the Secretary of Education as final approval or dictator. I remember Betsy DeVos, all too well.
My education was shit, but that was in the late 40's and the 50's, where there was a shortage of teachers because of the war, and the only teachers were senior citizens and women who were to old or unfit to work in the defense industry or serve in the Armed Forces.
You would never walk into a High School and see a teacher that was 5 or 6 years older than her class. (See how I used the female pronoun to categorize teachers, yes their are male teachers, my brother in a law, a Trump humping promise keeper, teaches math and god knows what else to 8th grades. My niece was home schooled, her Mother did well, because she won a scholarship and became a teacher, but not socialized with the"sinners", Mom protected her so well, that she was naive, and wound up in West Virginia teaching students that were almost her peers, making bad choices as she was unprepared to deal with the real world, and is now an opiod addict married to an abusive, lazy, do nothing opiod addict.
Quite the conundrum. private but government funded education, leads to my taxes paying for the theocratic, bigoted ignorant students who become the voters of the future.
Universal public education was the result of Thomas Mann, and Arkansas was an adopter, and in that way, my grandfather was the first in my line, since 1727, that could read and write, he got as far as 8th grade, before he had to work to help support the family. pig farmes and lumberjacks on land they once homesteaded, but sold to a carpet bagger from Iowa, for $1 and acre, and now the property of Georgia Pacific(Koch) cardboard manufacturing plant. AKA The Cancer Capitol of the U.S.
Point is that public education is a mixed bag,so it needs monitoring by sincere people who are not driven by ideology or beat into submission by white Christian Nationalists or die hard Marxists, but those are a dying breed, And I a progressive is an anti Marxist not because he is a socialist, but because he was a proto libertariian, not a socialist or commie as right wingers and even left wingers believe.
So find a solution, real substantial universal education, or tax payer funded, religious and fascist education.
By the way I didn't speak about the quality of education many times, in fact I only used the word once, at the beginning.
Now I kevetched, you kevetched. What is your solution, if it is vouchers or pure privately funded then we are at loggerheads.
To be honest now that the theocratic fascists have not only exposed their hand, but apparently are taking control over education. I am concerned and can't think of a solution, where with one election those in charge of education and spending funds could be a Betsy DeVoss or Rhonda Santis.
Fair warning, don't use my comments, with false attributions as a spring board for your own rant. If something I said stirs and inspiration, own it, but don't start out with an accusation, I don't tolerate that bullshit.
I often read a comment which I do not agree with, but I don't respond with a "you", that makes it personal and an accusation. I go for the subject and then make my own rant.
With you I am making it personal, but with an attempt to educate. Myself I am too verbose.
There are a couple of posters that I do accuse, because they strip themselves naked, publicly.
I do not claim to be anything other than what I am, and lay myself bare. I own who I am.
So tell me who you are and what your real agenda and motivation might be.
Okay, I got your message. I have never hinted in any way that I have the slightest interest in a voucher program and anyone who can imagine that has either not read or not understood anything whatsoever about where I stand. So be it. This is not an ego trip for me and I do not have time for any more back and forth. Please avoid my posts in the future.
Thank you, Thom for the cogent piece on nationalizing the fossil fuel industry. We need more ideas like it. And thank you for the paragraph on the headlines, citing the Climate CRISIS. It's not just America, it's the entire world. I give us 5-7 years, tops. And by the way, that's what a lot of Climate scientists are saying, rather quietly, too. Greenland Ice Sheet? Gone by 2030; that's the latest estimate. And some ice geologists think that the massive ice sheets could implode and create a catastrophic rise in sea level, in one event. As for the others? Clarence Thomas is .... Oh, who cares? Nothing is changing on that front.
ExxonMobil's own scientists accurately predicted future global warming in reports dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the company publicly continuing for years to cast doubt on climate science and lobby against climate action, according to a new analysis.
Skeptics and cynics are labeled pessimists, especially by liberals, who need to see the world through rose colored glasses, but they are really realists, who see the future through past performance of humans, and a realistic as opposed to wishful thinking of human behavior. Such as they are not going to give up their luxuries, and conveniences, and they are avaricious, to the point of hoarding..never enough.
The person with a cluttered house which you can’t walk in, is no different than the plutocrat with 2 mansions, his own jet, and a super garage full of classic and expensive modern cars. There are people who collect Lamborghinis like they were postage stamps. Look at Jay Leno’s garage. He’s not called a hoarder because he is rich and famous.
They are having fun while the sun shines, but their need to accumulate, an addiction, their greedy acquisition of things and money start as a means to prove that they are an Alpha, and impress and warn their peers, that they too have status, and are able to defend what they have from others of their kind.
Just like male and female Alphas of a wolf pack, snip at the legs, threaten and intimidate others in their pack, to keep them in their place. Heck you see this behavior in all subcultures, be it chefs, sports, politics. Gordon Ramseys productions are an example. A team of Alphas, torture and berate betas, gammas, deltas who aspire to be an Alpha. Exception Hell’s Kitchen, he is the only Alpha.
Having fun when the sun shines, is all too human. Thus so many splurge excess income on chasing frivolities, never thinking of the day when they will no longer have exces income, and quite possibly be reduced to living off family and hopefully the government, but Social Security, if you qualify, only provides a subsistence level income, and that if you don’t live in a city like NY. At least there you can save money on transportation.
All this verbage because I am a pessimist (realist). I know quite a bit about the history of the species, how empires build and collapse, how human activity is driven by the need to acquire things, status, and the means to obtain enough wealth and power to advance and protect their own personal Empire, be it a single wide and a submissive spouse, or a nation.
A decade ago we watched as the warming earth was approaching 350 ppm of polluting gases, now it is at over 400 ppm, and Gaia’s temperature is feverish and has risen 1.5 degrees Celsius and we are headed pell mell towards the end of the short lived anthropocene.
Climate scientists are saying that it is actually too late to reverse the trend, even if we managed to halt the expansion, it is too late, the cycle has started. An ice free arctic, which because of the albido effect, is in itself contributing to global wasming, and the collapse of the glaciers on Greenland and elsewheres.
Even the antartic ice is melting and moving, and I am not mentioning the Antarctic ise that is sitting on the water, as it is already displacing the water which it will beome when it melts (like ice cubes in a glass)
In the past 30 years, scientists have observed an intensification of the waves, coinciding with increased global warming. More waviness in the jet stream means that rain and wind remain in a region longer than if the jet stream simply traveled due east with no detours.
Why did the jet stream change?
Climate change and the jet stream
Rising global temperatures from global warming are affecting the jet stream and, in turn, the weather. Because the Earth's polar regions are warming more quickly than the rest of the world, the temperature contrast that drives jet streams has decreased.
We can see the result with the heat dome, which right wing America ignores, because the fossil fuel industry is supporting candidates and a party, which when told to jump, asks only how high.
And there is the desalination of the Atlantic conveyor belt, and it’s gulf stream which used to warm Europe, England and the East coast of America The fresh water released by the Greenland glaciers is desalinating the current and disrupting it. Look for harsher and longer wintes.
Red states are pummeled with record breaking hurricanes in numbers and F force. Yet the ignorant press on, only concerned a bout “woke”
They are more concerned about something they call woke, than their own lives and future.
My pessimism says that nothing will change the vector of global warming, that it will not reverse, even if we went into full stop today, and devoted trillions into carbon sequestration (carbon is only part of the problem, methane is just as bad, and global warming is causing explosions in the arctic of Russia, Alaska and Canada ,as warming releases huge pockets of methane in the tundra, and underwater.
The only thing we can do is plan for our own future, if the entire world’s vehicle transportation was electrified, it still would not stop or impede the trend.
Gloom and doom, yes, but considering the history of mankind and the unchangeable human nature.
Nothing will change. The rest below is TL:DR
The executives, shareholders and boards of the corporations, not just the fossil fuel industry, but those dependent on it, live and continue to live in denial, accumulating enough wealth, they hope, that will insulate them from the dystopian future that is barreling towards them.
Having been to Jay Leno's garage (geek heaven), he is not a hoarder, and is a collector, because what he has is organized and cared for, which is the difference between a collector and a hoarder. Having dealt with the issue of hoarding with a person I loved, I really wish idiots like you who have no fucking clue what you're talking about would quit parading your ignorance on the topic. Ignorance by people like you is why the issue remains as hidden as it is and attempts to help those afflicted with the disorder are so unsuccessful. I really hate it when morons like you claim you're on my side, as the entire rest of your post clearly demonstrates you are - though I am certain you think of yourself as a genius. Which you're not.
Sadly, the Big Sort will accelerate some already drastic trends.
Overall, red states rank lowest for the hood things and highest for the bad things.
Red state voters will get angrier and angrier and continue to blame blue states and their voters for red state problems.
One thing you don't hear....blue state citizens blaming red states or their citizens for their problems.
Hello Thom, Your life plan based on the talented author John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee character made me laugh out loud. We have used Travis’ taking retirement a piece at a time as an underlying structure for our lives too. When we watched the MAGA Thumpkins weekenders begin to overrun our north FL coastal village with their golf carts and confederate flags, we decided it was time to leave old FL behind after thirty plus years of spending winters there. We sold and now stay in Massachusetts where MAGAs are rare but not extinct yet. We feel sorry for our Floridian friends who have become victims of retirees moving south and ruining the old Florida charm an Southern hospitality - if you were white and not poor that we enjoyed but pretended was not entrenched in racism.
Great to meet a fellow JDM fan! He's one of the best writers of the 20th century, IMHO; our generation's Hemmingway, and gets far too little credit...
I wish somebody could explain why neither party has introduced a law much less a constitutional amendment (better) that ends "Citizens United." Citizens United is a malignant cancer that is killing democracy. The fascists love it because it is disrupting government services like schools and regulation enforcement - not to mention the courts - just like Hitler did to enable him to seize power so quickly. The GOP is sabotaging America in order to impose oligarchic rule (aka fascist dictatorship).
Two of the most important things that Mr. Biden ran on was so-called "police reform" and student debt forgiveness. I am a single parent and my child just completed her undergraduate work at a prestigious private university. Luckily, we are not straddled with enormous debt, but it is still considerable. How a country penalizes education and learning is unfathomable as well as being despicable. No wonder that same country lets its citizens die due to privatized health care; an equally unfathomable and despicable act. The "Supremes" need their asses kicked. Sans Dianna Ross
As for "police reform" though it amounts to social origami because I can fold a piece of paper into a dog or a crane it remains a piece of paper. Policing in the United States must be re-invented, not reformed. Having said that reform would have, perhaps, been a stepping stone to reinvention. The fact that nothing, absolutely nothing substantive has been done on this front is pathetic; whoever is at fault.
Thom, I was watching Johnathan Capehart and a quote from Eli Crane of Arizona said. “ he now says Black people are Colored people Thom. Saying the quite part out loud, Thom. They want to take us back. Talking about Amendment about military spending. Thom.
I put in "Write an article about air activity in the Korean War in the voice of TCinLA" and ChatGPT knew less about the Korean War than the average American (which is close to Absolutely Nothing). I on the other hand have written three best-selling books on the topic.
Even Landscape printing isn't enough to print this post. Disappointed. The gist of the article is good and I agree with it. America could do a whole lot if the autocratic repubs could be set aside. They block anything that would help our country. It will take a lot of hard work to keep our democracy and get anything done. I haven't lost hope. Ruthie B
The hard right-wingers only learn when it lands on their doorstep, and it has. The writing on the wall is the high-water mark from the flood that just ruined their homes and businesses. The hair on fire moment is when the forest burns in Canada and the smoke from it chokes the people trying to breathe in New York and not just in the "Blue" city.
I watch C-Span and apparently the members of this Congress watch the news and the weather reports. Yesterday the right side of the aisle was saying "We all want clean air and water!". Swell, you got WOKE---the hard way!
Just a few years back the weather guy or gal would hedge and now you can usually depend on them telling the truth. Amen.
Limited time, limited choices, sketchy outcomes, but for future generations, we must keep trying. We help "fix" the failing car industry by a similar plan. When you know better, you should do better.
Follow the money that fossil fuel billionaires give to Red State Senators who insist on denying global warming - AND - the real-time extreme weather conditions in their states. Who do these Republicans really represent - their voters or billionaire fossil fuel donors? https://thedemlabs.org/2023/07/15/climate-collusion-how-fossil-fuel-donations-manipulate-republican-stance-on-global-warming/
TCinLA, i could not agree more with your comments on Mr. Farrar.
He puts fingers to letters a dribble comes out. However if we based intelligence on word volume regardless of import then the man would certainly be a master of sorts!
Always find your work educational and entertaining Thom. I love the idea of nationalizing the fossil fuel industry!
I get your point, but by your own admission, a collector is a hoarder, up scale maybe, but the motivation is the same.
I'm a discarder, anything I haven't used in 6 months is only taking up space. My spouse is a constrained hoarder, but I'm changing her, she won't throw anything away that she thinks she might use Our garage is full of tools, like table saws, which she only used once (she is the handyman and proficient at almost everything from sewing and cooking, baking to carpentry, electricity, plumbing and drywall.
I have a different concept of hoarding than you, much broader obviously, and admittedly it is,by our different views a matter of semantics.
Very, interesting week Thom.
Why do people like this jackass Sabatini get traction and attract so much attention and so many followers? We need to know what we are up against. Attacking government has been a popular pastime and an easy sell for many reasons. Government often takes positions and actions which rub certain people the wrong way when that might cause them to lose something (such as money, income, property, status, etc.) or when they feel that they are threatened or their beliefs are impacted in a negative way. Laws and administrative decisions or acts often have winners and losers. Government IS a bureaucracy no matter who is in charge and there will ALWAYS be red tape, frustrating requirements, restrictions, rules, and, of course, a disturbing amount of waste, real or perceived.
There will always be critics and controversies. Fear of progress and novelty and reactions to modernism will always provoke claims that the innovators and administrators are running amok and changing the rules.
The same is true for schooling. Conservatives balked at the ending of official school prayers and they still sincerely believe that public schooling leads to liberal thinking, attitudes, and practices. In one sense they are correct in that good information, truth, knowledge, and science do clearly have a liberal bias. In a modern democratic republic, the rational consensus comes down on the side of tolerance, autonomy, compassion, and fairness, as opposed to dictatorial discipline, arbitrary authoritarian corporal punishment, and “my way or the highway” rigidity on the part of teachers.
The schools have also come under attack from BOTH the right and the left for not living up to their mandates or promises. The criticisms have unfortunately been valid in far too many instances. The reactionary crackpots have been handed the best ammo money cannot buy because the schools are indeed dysfunctional. It’s time to get real and admit what is staring us in the face. Defending institutions which are failing and refusing to acknowledge their chronic problems in knee-jerk fashion is foolhardy.
The time for a moment of truth has arrived. Hyperbole will not cut it. Anecdotes will not suffice. False claims of brash statements carry no scientific or logical weight. Your BS meter will need to be reactivated now for this discussion.
How far will we lower our standards? If a mere 35%, 45%, or even 65% of the students leaving a middle or high school level school are truly classifiable as literate, engaged, or competent, are we willing to make the stretch to say they have been “publicly educated”?
If our “public schools” are excellent or even just not too bad, and if they are worth saving from the Machiavellians who intend to bleed them dry and replace them with privatized schools, except in certain economically depressed and deprived areas, then please make your case with your best arguments backed up with hard facts, empirical evidence, and real science, post haste. THIS IS THE CHALLENGE. Religious fanatics claim that “God said it, and that is good enough” for them. Such an imperious and dismissive attitude is not acceptable where solid documented evidence is valued over blind faith, however.
Horatio Algiers ‘rags to riches’ stories, brash allegations that we have “the best schools in the world” or “we put men on the moon because of our superior AAA+ schools”, are unconvincing and wholly unscientific. Elevated test scores do not provide a meaningful measure of intellectual prowess, intelligence, education, critical thinking skills, or anything else of significance. Students, teachers, or parents bragging effusively or praising each other are of no value when it comes to how lives are lived and the useful capabilities and discretion graduates exhibit or fail to demonstrate in the outside world as adults.
Feel-good but empty promises, endless hype of projects or projected miraculous reforms, and happy talk blathering about how much we love our students and care about their potential for the future or how much they love us will not defeat fascism, authoritarianism, or oligarchy as those evils move to take over our society. It is impossible to escape the steady drumbeat of criticisms from all directions. Ignoring or denying them will not make them go away or resolve the chronic problems.
We do absolutely believe what it says over the school entrance. “Knowledge is power”. But talk is cheap and platitudes, as inspirational as they may be, do not often lead to great insights and accomplishments. Membership in a mutual admiration society does not automatically open the door to knowledge or education for anyone.
If you are certain that our schools merit an “AAA+” rating, please, please share the EVIDENCE with us asap. We need to see it. There should be peer reviewed journal articles published which document something much more substantial than reports of a few students who have a positive attitude, exhibit adequate comprehension, or get better grades in a highly skewed and subjective evaluation scheme (which reflects back the ostensible performance of the teacher/evaluator).
Grades indicate behavioral markers and “attitude” statements as much as they indicate academic achievement, and academic achievement proves very little relative to bona fide cognitive and other developmental indicators. Tests primarily measure memory of disconnected or abstract “facts and information” of questionable utility, and essays require intensive scrutiny and feedback which remains subjective.
Tangible, meaningful, observable results should not be too hard to locate which can be attributed directly to school influence and merit if indeed schools are making a significant difference and if they actually educate and benefit more than a minority of students, at least minimally. Likewise, that evidence should preclude any finding of a measurable degree of injury or negative effect on students. It would be nice if demoralized students would no longer be committing suicide. It is not enough to declare life is beautiful in school. We all know what careless or unfounded assumptions make of us. Where is the beef?
The constant stream of harsh critics over many decades and continuing daily deserve an answer if they have indeed erred in their blaming and fault finding (e.g., see, “The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform”, Sarason, S.B., 1990). If you fail to prove them wrong and fail to fix structural defects, and if what I have been saying for decades proves to be correct, you are assuring that the privatizers will have a smooth and easy path in their relentless quest to degrade and destroy public schooling.
It is decision time. Battening down the hatches and pretending that all is well when children are being miseducated will not save public schools. Am I being unreasonable to ask for something to hang my hat on here? Should I just take the word of the people making public statements and bolstering their own image?
Although I am obliged to question the conventional wisdom and to issue this challenge, I do not relish the idea of someone whose time is so precious and whose reputation for scrupulous research is so solid failing so completely to find anything of substance supporting the hypothesis of public schools as successful contributors to the public good, to public education, or to the equalization of social, economic, and ethnic groups. In over fifty years, I have yet to see persuasive or verifiable evidence, despite endless hoopla and positive PR. Can you show me what I am missing without wasting a massive amount of time?
Just like the Taliban, Christian preachers and priests consider education, unless it is religious, to be competition and thus failing attendance and failing revenues. It is all about fighting the competition.
You said: “Attacking government has been a popular pastime and an easy sell for many reasons”.
Government legalized slavery and when it failed to make it the status quo via Federal law, for the entire country, S.C. seceded and then so did other states, and the Cadets of the Citadel at the urging of an arch racist and planter fired on Ft Sumter. So people of color and other minorities have just cause not to trust the government, because the arc of history does not bend towards tolerance and justice, but the opposite. No example is need other than the current state of affairs.
Government created apartheid in America, with its red lining, institutional and often legal policies, at least turning a blind eye to racism (fear of the voting ex slave states and their religious allies in the Midwest.
As regards schools, timeshave changed. I entered High School in 1953, it was a huge four story building that covered more than a city block, including it’s athletic field. It had thousands of students and was in an upper middle class, lower upper class area. (I lived in a project, which at the time was all white, and built during FDRs administration in what was then the suburbs, but next door to Exide Battery, and obviously built there to house the workers.
The school tested IQ’s and was told that mine was 138, beaten only by Brenda Singer who was 141, yet I had the worst attendance and scholastic record in the school.
The teachers were boring addled, my American History, English and Algebra teachers were mentally unfit to teach. My only competent and motivating teacher was Mr Epstein who taught world history.
Because I was causing the administration problems, when I turned 17 they booted me, threatened me with being sent to school in the south of the city for juvenile delinquents (Daniel Boone, I attended Olney High in Phila).
I wound up in Bastrop, LA living with my grandparents in a shot gun cabin owned by my Uncle aSouthern Baptist preacher. I was enrolled in the HS, it then taught progressive education (except for the civil war, which was the war of Northern Aggression and a fight for states “rats”.
But the quality of education was much better, the teachers recognized by ability, challenged, motivated me and interested me, but by the time I became a motivated student, I found myself in classes with 10th graders, when I should have been in my senior year. I couldn’t take it and enlisted in the serviceThen from GED’s to an MBA They used to have a two year community college GED,
Today Philadelphia is all Charter schools, and I can’t but help wonder about the quality of education, has it improved from when I attended or has it degenerated to the crap that passes as education today.
I have no connection with Bastrop, but It is in Louisiana and I suspect it has devolved from progressive, to reactionary, radical anti woke, like the rest of the south.
William,
Your personal story has a very familiar ring. The circumstances may be somewhat different and the names are different but the causes and dynamics follow a clear pattern. However, you make the same common mistake that so many others (including Thom) routinely make. You throw the word education around without being aware of when it is being used with any meaningful basis or when it is erroneously a marker for school or some sort of training or instruction which is often instead merely miseducation, badgering, memory and trivia exercises, indoctrination, or something else with no relationship to authentic education. I cannot define it for you, however of course, because education is an ineffable, private, personal, internal process wherein the individual adds to pre-existing knowledge through a creative process which is highly idiosyncratic and unique. School is designed to interrupt the process for many students.
Obviously, government has failed in myriad ways, such as in codifying slavery, Jim Crow, and compulsory school attendance. But blaming government is a bit of a cop out since the government in the US has for much of our history consisted of the people and with some accuracy has reflected the wishes of the people or the majority. I don’t think that there is any question that overall and for the majority, government has been a positive force and a “necessary evil”. Unlike other countries, we may still have the opportunity to make it work for more of the people and more of a positive force. Knocking it is hardly constructive except in finely targeted and purposeful, peaceful attacks.
The same goes for blaming teachers, teacher’s unions, parents, and students themselves. Schools are much like they were a century ago because of the Strait Jacket of compulsory attendance and the countless factors emanating from the arbitrary authority of officials and administrators, from the endless rules, restrictions, and prohibitions, and from the bureaucracy needed to keep the entire edifice from disintegrating into total mayhem. Effective change would require altering the relationships and respecting students and parents. In the current paradigm, those things are in direct conflict with the law and the authorities it requires.
Education is not a science. But we have all the amazing science we need to improve on creating opportunities. Someday the constraints will be removed so we can apply that science. We are the people who MUST demand the change and point the way. Law and education do not belong in close proximity and paternalism is anti-American.
I am not trying to rain on your parade, however there is a but coming.
It appears that, although I only mentioned education once: ex: “Just like the Taliban, Christian preachers and priests consider education, unless it is religious, to be competition and thus failing attendance and failing revenues. It is all about fighting the competition.” Thus you used my rant as a an opportunity to post your own rant. By inferring content and intent that was not there. And that is dishonest
You of course are entailed to you opinions as I am to mine. And I DID NOT toss the word education around, where in the hell did you get that from my post. I said that my experience in North and South were completely opposite.
If you want your own rant, be honorabler and stop using the posts of others as a springboard.
As regarcds my own education. I am an autodidact . I was reading vefore 1st grade. Self taught, parents too wrapped jup in their own woes. The first book I checked of a public library ata age 8, was Ulyesses,
I read the Bible cover to cover at agee 12, I read every word on cereal boxes, cans and jars,
I played hookey, for the first years in HS (90 days attendance in three years) instead of going to classes I wpi;d go to the public library, which was further away from my home than the H.S which was at least a mile from my home. The most valuable part of my education was on the streets, I learned how to read people, how to manuever iin a hostile environment
I never finished an algebra course in H.S. but with that as my tutor I aced courses in statics and econ, and even mastered calculus. Graduated with highest honors, and with honors from myMBA.
I learned jack squat from High school, I learned everything from the classics and books in the library.
I don’t disagree that education is geared to stifle rational thought and to keep you I n awe and worship of the system. Especially true of history. I’ve learned, through self education (and pursuing my hobby,. That what we are told on TV and through the mass media is filtered and distorted by the establishment that is designed to protect the establishment.
Thom touches on this as well. The rebellions of the Boston merchants and he Tea Party, was not about taxes, it was about the monopoly the crown gave the East India Company. A monopoly conferred by Royal Charter that drove the Boston Merchants into being criminals by smuggling, that is what was meant when Ben Franklin said we hang together or hang separately. Smuggling was an ofsense that was rewarded with a public hanging.
And the planters of Virginia, only joined the revolution because they thought that they would be the new nobility of the new country, the monopoly and prices didn’t bother them I’ haveseen the invoices of Washington’s estate, they were for fine china, silver ware, silk, linen and fine furniture imported from England via a company named Richard Farrar and Co. Not an ancestor, perhaps a very distant relative.
Those not in the planter class (tidewater aristocracy) were in no mood to exchange British overlords, for home grown overlords, so the Planters and politicians, set up a Committee of Public Safety, to monitor and punish what they called loyalists, often riding them out of town on a rail, covered in tar and feathers.
The hot tar alone must have killed quite a few.
Then they spent money buying pamphlets from Ben Franklin and the Rittenhouse press in Philadelphia, abut the Rights of Man and Common Sense, etc. That worked, all too well, because now the “rabble”, having learned about rights and equality (at least among whites) were ill disposed to the establishment of a pseudo monarcy and nobility, so they found a work around, setting up a government based on those ideas but having an appearance of a democracy, i.e. a populist government with a house of Commons and a House of Lords, and per Hamilton a President, his idea of Plato’s Republic. For life. G W stopped that nonsense by steeping down and retiring
I’ll wager you were not taught that in school, public or especially private. But to learn about that, you would have to read Albion’s Seed and an Intimate History of the American Revolution in Pennsylvania Co., VA, and you would only read that if you were a genealogist hobbyist
Also did you know that South Carolina was a traitor state, or rather refused to be traitor to the Crown and had the most loyalist militias of any state . In fact it was a loyalist militia that was wiped out by the “Over the Mountain boys” from the Watauga Republic on Kings Mountain.
South Carolina started the Civil War, when it seceded from the Union because Congress would not formally legalize slavery through out the country, it had not emancipated slaves, nor intended to, but SC planters were fearful; that am abolitionist congress would abolish slavery and seceded encouraging other slave states to follow, The richest of the SC cotton oligarchs, Pickens IIRC,, led the Cadets of the Citadel to fire on Ft Sumter and there you have. SC hasn ‘t changed a bit, but now has purchased a black man to run for and become a senator, and to run for president and the self serving bastard has to know that he is a Quisling,but at least he is prospering though his brothers and sisters are sill under the yoke.
Be warned I do not appreciate false attribution or using my rants as a spring board of your own agenda
Like when you typed that I made the same common mistake as others.. that my friend is bullshit.
William,
My post or “rant” was a direct response to mentions on air Friday and in Thom’s post about the fanatic Sabatini’s open advocacy for the elimination of public schools and his hostility to government generally and to this administration’s policies as well as liberal/progressive values and philosophy. My central premise was, and is, that Sabatini and people of his ilk are aided and abetted in their efforts by the supporters and defenders of public schooling when they reflexively sweep under the rug the many chronic problems of traditional schooling under the current paradigm. To maintain somehow that our schools are wonderful and doing a great service in the face of hard evidence to the contrary opens those of us on the left to ridicule, charges of denial, weaknesses in all our positions, and sooner than anyone imagines, the acceptance by a naïve public of their deplorable and undemocratic ideology.
It should be known by now that I believe that school must be funded and supported by government but that it should not BE a government agency or controlled by the state except as a guarantor of rights and protections for students and a representative of democratic values. I drew a connection between the disdain and contempt of government by Sabatini with the hatred he and others have for public schooling. It IS government as it now exists.
You began with the idea that those on the right see education to be in competition with their anti-intellectual and reactionary or religious beliefs, as I read your remarks. However, you told your own story with several references to school, starting with beginning high school in 1953, being “booted” and moving to LA, where your experience with schooling was unsatisfactory. You mentioned several teachers by name and later spoke about the “quality of education” two or three times, and at one point illustrated your opinion of school by mentioning that you are an auto-didactic, intimating that your IQ is a factor in your negative experiences with schools, which all along you appear to equate with the concept of education but of an inferior quality.
You are obviously at a level of genius IQ and intellectual acumen far above me. I did not imagine that I would offend you or hurt your feelings by including you with millions of others who automatically and quite innocently equate or conflate school with education.
In view of your high intelligence, I’m confident now that you understand the points I make and will in the future be much more circumspect in your use of the word “education” and will disassociate school from a direct or causative connection with that institution. I actually do not believe that school is the best place for most education and see the auto-didactic approach as optimal. However, the problem is the inescapable coercion, arbitrary authority, and bureaucracy which come, as part and parcel, with compulsory attendance.
I hope also that Thom, being a profoundly important and influential thought leader will begin to take this issue seriously and recognize that without a major paradigm shift away from the incipient authoritarianism in schools, schools will easily be taken away from us and exploited for nefarious right-wing purposes as we have feared.
The way you started was to misattribute my comments, to use them as a springboard for your own rant. That pissed me off, You should have gone directly to your rant without referring to me, because you need a springboard to jump in the pool.
Public schools are preferable to private schools, because private schools are either elitist,or have an agenda like religion. Their curriculum and books are geared towards appeasing an element of society that prefers a theocratic or anti social society. These private schools don't teach history, or civics or anything that makes the parents of the kiddies uncomfortable.
The problem with public schooling is that it is funded locally via property taxes, and in poor neighborhoods with low property taxes the schools don't get enough to buy pencils, paper and crayons so the parents have to provide them, the teachers take up the slack and that isn't right. But it does create a permanent underclass. Which is what business needs to maximize its profits
What I see you espousing is the voucher program. I was introduced to the voucher idea, first brought to the table by Milton Friedman, who along with his Chicago boys, is responsible for the fascist regime of Pinochet, the assassination of Salavadore Allende, and the distruction of the Chilean and Peruvian economies, with they used as a proving ground.
Now they are the tool of the fascists, having the taxpayer fund religious schools and schools that have a fascist agenda.
Look at Florida, teachers are moving from the state in the thousands.
The public school curriculum and books are,or were, determined locally, with the exception of books. The Texas school board purchases all of the books used in Texas. And the vendor, whose goal is to maximize [profits, doesn't want a hundred different printings for text books, so it prints a one size fits all book. In that way the Texas school board, determines the curriculum and content, thus lesson plan, for virtually all schools in the nation.
Now with Florida, Texas and Oklahoma leading the charge, is anti woke (meaning white Christian nationalist bigotry), and you want my taxes to pay for that, with vouchers. No way.
Public schools are failing but that is because that portion of the population that should care, are asleep at the switch, caught up in their daily trials, tribulations and drama, they see school as a baby sitting service. People want kids, driven by biology, but they really don't want to raise them and hand them off to strangers for most of the day.
The ones that raise hell with the schools, state and county aren't really interested in their kids, but are motivated by religious fervor, racism and bigotry.
Do schools teach government and civics anymore?I heard not. What they teach and do not teach are determined by the local political powers and the Texas School Board.
Here is what we need to do. Fund education via the federal government, so that teachers don't have to have bake sales. Have a curriculum set by the government, but not the Secretary of Education as final approval or dictator. I remember Betsy DeVos, all too well.
My education was shit, but that was in the late 40's and the 50's, where there was a shortage of teachers because of the war, and the only teachers were senior citizens and women who were to old or unfit to work in the defense industry or serve in the Armed Forces.
You would never walk into a High School and see a teacher that was 5 or 6 years older than her class. (See how I used the female pronoun to categorize teachers, yes their are male teachers, my brother in a law, a Trump humping promise keeper, teaches math and god knows what else to 8th grades. My niece was home schooled, her Mother did well, because she won a scholarship and became a teacher, but not socialized with the"sinners", Mom protected her so well, that she was naive, and wound up in West Virginia teaching students that were almost her peers, making bad choices as she was unprepared to deal with the real world, and is now an opiod addict married to an abusive, lazy, do nothing opiod addict.
Quite the conundrum. private but government funded education, leads to my taxes paying for the theocratic, bigoted ignorant students who become the voters of the future.
Universal public education was the result of Thomas Mann, and Arkansas was an adopter, and in that way, my grandfather was the first in my line, since 1727, that could read and write, he got as far as 8th grade, before he had to work to help support the family. pig farmes and lumberjacks on land they once homesteaded, but sold to a carpet bagger from Iowa, for $1 and acre, and now the property of Georgia Pacific(Koch) cardboard manufacturing plant. AKA The Cancer Capitol of the U.S.
Point is that public education is a mixed bag,so it needs monitoring by sincere people who are not driven by ideology or beat into submission by white Christian Nationalists or die hard Marxists, but those are a dying breed, And I a progressive is an anti Marxist not because he is a socialist, but because he was a proto libertariian, not a socialist or commie as right wingers and even left wingers believe.
So find a solution, real substantial universal education, or tax payer funded, religious and fascist education.
By the way I didn't speak about the quality of education many times, in fact I only used the word once, at the beginning.
Now I kevetched, you kevetched. What is your solution, if it is vouchers or pure privately funded then we are at loggerheads.
To be honest now that the theocratic fascists have not only exposed their hand, but apparently are taking control over education. I am concerned and can't think of a solution, where with one election those in charge of education and spending funds could be a Betsy DeVoss or Rhonda Santis.
Fair warning, don't use my comments, with false attributions as a spring board for your own rant. If something I said stirs and inspiration, own it, but don't start out with an accusation, I don't tolerate that bullshit.
I often read a comment which I do not agree with, but I don't respond with a "you", that makes it personal and an accusation. I go for the subject and then make my own rant.
With you I am making it personal, but with an attempt to educate. Myself I am too verbose.
There are a couple of posters that I do accuse, because they strip themselves naked, publicly.
I do not claim to be anything other than what I am, and lay myself bare. I own who I am.
So tell me who you are and what your real agenda and motivation might be.
Okay, I got your message. I have never hinted in any way that I have the slightest interest in a voucher program and anyone who can imagine that has either not read or not understood anything whatsoever about where I stand. So be it. This is not an ego trip for me and I do not have time for any more back and forth. Please avoid my posts in the future.