So, yeah, let’s take seriously the existential threat a GOP president represents to our nation, the nations of the world, and all life on Earth. The stakes have literally never been higher...
Thank you Thom for continuing to relate the disaster that looms if we do not energize efforts to continually expose and oppose the Maga authoritarians.
Its says a lot about how far we’ve fallen from reality and peace of mind
when Trumps militant ignorants elevate his indictments to a form of approval.
Its at least massively disturbing, to see these fools in Congress, head fool , Kevin McCarthy attack Joe Biden and his son Hunter bypassing reality and calling for impeachment. Another radical move just designed to take the focus off of Trumps massive criminal agenda. . This is an example of the willingness of Maga republicans to take this Country to the hell of their lies without mercy for anyone but billionaires .
Those people have floated the despicable Maga in return for more leeway to destroy the world for money .
That is acceptable to them in their rotten corps of Maga fascists.
What has happened to the Constitution?
Well the six justices for Maga on the Supreme Court have totally bastardized the Constitution for the purpose of elevating Maga fascists.
The idea that people are created equally and have the same rights under the law has been burned to ashes by these justices. An aid to the Maga corps for sure.
The Heritage Society and like groups the Koch brothers , Leonard Leo and etc have destroyed democracy for their monetary benefit.
They too are fascists as is all of the Republican party . Even the more moderately positioned republicans don’t say a word against this perfidy. They are therefore complicit.
Thank you Thom again for nailing the root of this country’s barriers to effectively mitigate the looming crisis of climate change. I’m at the end of my lifespan but extremely worried about the “red lights “ flashing warnings of oncoming climate disasters for my grandchildren and great grandchildren. We’ve already had some of the highest temperatures on record this summer and recently extreme winter conditions that literally locked many of us in our mountain communities due to nonstop snowfall in S. Cal. People have died due to this this extreme weather, both hot and cold weather conditions. All people should be alarmed but unfortunately the naysayers, the Republican death cult and their donor fossil fuel conspirators, continue to willfully bury facts of causation from man made dirty energy sources. But of course the obstruction from Republicans and their selective policies to reward the rich is why the rest of us in America and (I’ll add around the globe) can’t have nice things. We all should be angry and demanding change to advance development and use of alternative energy programs but again, the science deniers, the willfully ignorants, the gaslighted Maggats somehow prevail.
If Trump gets back in the White House it will spark a civil war in this country, an event that will only hasten the advance of global warming, ensuring our demise as a nation and the end of Homo sapiens as a species. Another Trump presidency is suicidal, not only for ordinary Americans, but for the fascist Republican oligarchs and Putin-loving pimps of war that stage managed this whole political nightmare. The Uber rich and super powerful seem to harbor the illusion that they are exempt from the climate crisis, but that will be dissolved quickly when the temperature and humidity reach wet bulb 35 celsius, which is deadly to all living beings, including racist MAGA Republican dumb asses. One good outcome however, is that the only item on the menu at the parties celebrating Trump's election victory will be money and as these numbskulls will find out, you can't eat money!
Since Ronald Reagan, the GOP gave up trying to improve the life of Americans and instead focused on stealing as much loot while turning America into a third world failed nation. The natural progression would have been to oppose free trade and to support self-supporting prisons and poor farms. Instead of solving problems the GOP mostly with Mitch McConnell has focused on turning America into a dictatorship, where American citizens food and drugs can be poisoned for profit. Where the minimum wage can be repealed and where there is no social security and where enemies of the state can be tortured and have their organs harvested and killed. Unlimited greed, phony religions and the family unit have made this normal human behavior for thousands of years. The clock is ticking. I pity all the good people and could care less about the parasites.
The problem with the Nader elected W story and the Stein elected Trump story is that both ignore the third party vote totals for the Reform,Libertarian and Constitution Parties. Yes, Nader got enough votes to undercut Gore, but Buchanan, Browne and Phillips did the same for W. And Gary Johnson and Darrell Castle got more than three times as many votes as Stein in WI, ditto in MI and PA. Third Party candidates have usually taken far more votes from GOP presidential candidates than they have from Democratic candidates. And of course, there is Ross Perot in 1992 who knocked HW out of his re-election attempt.
Anyway, Nader did not cost Gore the presidency in 2000. Antonin Scalia did when he stopped the FL recount, which Gore would have narrowly won if the votes were counted honestly as ordered by the FL Supreme Court. And the primary reason the FL vote was as close as it was is due to the incompetence of the Democratic Party officials in Palm Beach County who approved the butterfly ballot which pushed thousands of votes to Buchanan that voters thought they had voted for Gore. And even that doesn't count the vast purge of eligible voters by Sec of State, Katherine Harris.
Tom, I have been worried about this since the last election. My worries have not gone away. That is what Trump has done, he has made sure I cannot even enjoy having the best president in my lifetime because Trump with his selfish ego has made everything so rotten.
The last several elections were lost to Democrats due to third party candidates. If the Democratic candidates needed those votes, why didn't they adopt progressive ideas to attract those voters. Like saying they would provide national healthcare, make marijuana legal at the federal level, and provide tuition free higher education to all.
The obvious reason they didn't was because they felt they didn't need those voters and wrote them off. Instead of demonizing third party candidates why don't we criticize the Democratic candidates themselves, including Joe Biden.
Again, the notorious trump and his republican cohorts are shown to be verrrrrry bad people.
Somehow this film seems familiar, like maybe we've seen it over and over again on the same screen this summer.
Let's not focus on what democrats did in response, which was to give the madman the largest surveillance and military budget, with associated powers, ever in history - with little oversight.
Let's not read the most important indictment ever in the history of the us, or talk about what's in it, or talk about the heros that put their careers, families and lives on the line for these cases.
Let's not talk about merrick garlands actual record, or how many cases have been brought successfully. Let's not even consider what doj policies are, or whether there is anny difference between a speeding ticket and a sprawling conspiracy case with hundreds of witnesses. Instead let's use that word that cnn (in its newly red-tinted perspective) uses to describe garland, and let's assume that hundreds of witnesses can be corralled up to willingly testify against their boss in just a few months.
"Dithering is such a good verb and can't be overused in Washington," cnn co-host Brianna Keilar said!
Moving away from red-tinted cnn, we find the guardian reporting yesterday that when the criminal referrals were made by the House, cases had already been opened and were already being worked on by doj. But why mention something that appears in the Guardian, which faithfully carries important news about climate change, and Trump and all his horrors every single day - when it contradicts a favored narrative and one can use the same dumbed down catch phrases that CNN uses?
Maybe, just maybe, with this critical indictment in place, it's thom Hartman that is "dithering" by failing to cover it, or even read it? In any event the readers here are getting Brianna Keiler-level analysis
on garland.
The only thing left to do is have mock trials, where serious people like thom Hartman and William Farrar, with their extensive knowledge of federal criminal prosecutions and what is involved in successfully prosecuting thousands of cases, can show us how simple and easy it is to bring criminal cases like the one in this indictment, or to win cases (say, last year) when numerous material witnesses about the case haven't cooperated or testified yet.
Is there No limit on these prepackaged pieces? Even today, when the most important criminal case (or any case) in the history of this country was filed yesterday? Just remember that jack smith encourages everyone to read the indictment in full, something you won't be encouraged to do by any mainstream media or (at least today) by this outlet.
Worse and worser every day. Amazing how stupid so many humans are. And I agree. I think the morbidly rich think they can protect themselves from climate catastrophe. They may last longer. But they too well go
THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS HERE IS THE CLIMATE CRISIS. I promise you, we will not be around if either Biden or Trump are re-elected as President. Biden, in response to the hottest Summer ever and a myriad of other climate turning points, threw a few million $ at some sort of better weather/heat/whatever tracking system. He's authorized drilling in AK and is best buds with that jerk Prime Minister in the UK who just authorized 100's of drilling licenses in the North Sea. These old farts don't care; they (and their minions) already know that the only way to guarantee that they will be alive 5 years from now is to have some billion $ bunker in New Zealand or Raven's Rock, et al. Do you have any idea how many Raven's Rocks exist? 100's if not more.
Well I should enjoy the time I've got left. I am in my 89th year with two daughters and four granddaughters. My beautiful wife Irene and I have one vote each. The next presidency should be very exciting at the least. I hope you scare the crap out of enough people to turn the tide you figure we got coming. Sounds like you figure all is lost. I am keeping my eye on you and your prognostications. Hope you and I can have a good laugh after the next election.
Indeed, the stakes have never been higher. We need to come together as humanity and work together to transition immediately from fossil fuels. Another Republican administration would be a disaster for the planet.
Gorsuch is an Episcopalian and when he was first nominated, I looked up his church on line. From their website, they appear to be pretty darn progressive. I wonder how he squares it all and how pleased his fellow parishioners are with some of his decisions.
Believe that all this can happen. We are well on our way. We have already been conditioned to accept the worst.
“…public schools will be replaced with vouchers for private, segregated, religious academies as has already happened under Republican administrations in Arizona and Florida.” It’s a done deal in Louisiana, too.
The threat of school privatization or the intention of reactionaries or libertarians to “destroy” education or public schools are recurrent themes, and for good reason. They are winning. This is their foot in the door. Plans for stopping them are vague and indirect. I keep asking the same kinds of questions, however. Did you know, e.g., that many prominent Democratic stars and philanthropists, such as Cory Booker, Obama, Bloomberg, and others have been big boosters for charter schools? (See Democrats for Education Reform). DEMOCRATS. Please explain.
As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us”.
To my utter amazement, I find it necessary to ask the astute and erudite readers here again if they believe that our traditional public schools are “as good as could be expected”, “doing an acceptable job”, or if they rate somewhere above a “D-“. Can I get a show of hands? Does anyone think that it is worth even asking?
Is there any more urgent or important issue? How do these questions relate to politics or to the preservation of democracy, which has now taken center stage?
If schools are to be saved, should we not solve some of their monumental problems to make them defensible and functional? Pick up a newspaper.
I am aware that it is terribly impolite to inquire. But I really need to know, for example, what educators truly and honestly think of the 20 – 30% or more of students who have never excelled at anything in their schools or who feel invisible, demoralized, or disposable there. What are their true feelings and opinions about their students who are often mercilessly chided or dinged for “work not completed”; about those who are punished repeatedly for unacceptable behavior; about those who flunk or simply disappear, or the many who quietly fake it and are sent away, many with a diploma, without ever having quite “gotten it”?
Perhaps just as significantly, can anyone tell me how those who were “A” students, the teachers’ pet, or the “average” children who were recognized and rewarded as good kids, social, and “not a problem” have felt toward those others in the lower ten or twenty-percent of the class who were a problem? Do you remember any of those troublesome kids? Did they ever matter? Are you nostalgic for the great school experiences YOU had, totally unaware of the misery others faced daily?
Oh, we all know that those kids who didn’t fare quite as well in that environment should not really be blamed, of course. Some had undiagnosed “learning disabilities”. Their parents “didn’t have books in the home”. “No one read bedtime stories to them”. “Parents were not involved in their schooling” or they had family disruptions and certain demographic issues.
We cannot expect the schools to compensate for poverty, social conditions, or those kinds of things, can we? Can we? We cannot hold educators responsible for not mitigating personal or family problems, can we? Or can we? School is not a social service agency after all, is it?
Does anyone other than me consider it rather peculiar that free services and facilities in or adjacent to school simply do not exist to address many of these gross deficiencies in this great and wonderful, rich country? Could that possibly be because schools have been sold as the end-all and be-all for curing society’s ills and because educators have co-opted that entire domain and hyped their incomparable value incessantly with fictitious or delusional claims? Is that why attendance there is still involuntary?
What has been only rarely understood is that, in an institutional setting, for a variety of reasons, authority that is assigned is nearly impossible to control. Teachers seldom control authority; authority frequently gets the upper hand. Authority is the dark matter contaminating school under compulsory attendance. The status quo is omnipotent as a result.
One more question: With the exception of the destructiveness of inequality and issues such as the ludicrous fear of CRT being imposed on unsuspecting white students, why have I never, ever heard one single word of empathy or sympathy for the victims of bad schooling in this space? Not one word.
How much longer will we pretend that such victims simply do not exist? What is it, if it is not denial, selective blindness, or willful ignorance to blow off the people who have been failed by these authoritarian bureaucracies? Incidentally, while the worst damage is typically done to poor children and minorities, NO individual or group is immune to the harm of programming and conditioning based on arbitrary authority and a misanthropic conception of education.
One might expect certain people to feel a need to overlook the chronic problems, controversies, and shortcomings of schools, or to attribute those all to stingy legislators, inattentive or uninvolved parents, ‘a few bad apples’ (i.e., poorly trained or incompetent teachers or unruly students), or predictable features of any comparable major social undertaking involving a diverse and dependent population. Teachers, for example, should not be expected to be completely objective on this score.
However, it takes a special kind of obfuscation to downplay a pathetic success rate (measuring by the accomplishment of the stated missions and goals, such as graduation, literacy, numeracy, employability, intellectual and academic acumen, social and psychological adjustment, civic engagement or at a minimum, awareness and voting record, etc.) which hovers around 50% if one is exceptionally generous. To quote, George Bush, the Lesser, “oops”.
Are those who appear to be obtuse and strongly or reflexively biased in favor of our schools just naïve? Are they school snobs who found school to be ‘a piece of cake’ and are therefore indifferent or oblivious to the millions of students who have struggled, endured anxiety and humiliation, and who felt lost, ignored, or confounded? Do they want to have their cake and eat it too? Are they school cultists? Do they have some deep psychological urge to deny the failures that are the subject of thousands of reports and empirical research studies? Are those studies somehow irrelevant or inaccurate? What am I missing?
I have asked before for anyone who believes that our schools rate highly (AAA+!!!), or that “we have the best schools in the world” (referring to traditional “public state mandated schools), or that putting men on the moon and achieving amazing scientific progress are attributable to the schools, to finally provide something much more substantial as solid empirical evidence to both validate and absolve them. Is that an unreasonable request given that statements are frequently made here that democracy depends wholly on a well-informed, educated, and engaged citizenry?
You tell me. This is the place where having a conscience and being consciously aware of all of the social and political factorials are taken seriously and discussed honestly and openly, is it not? Or have I struck upon the single exception and the taboo subject?
Capitalism always ends in a catastrophe. A few owning almost everything makes the poor ignorant and insane. The poor dream of they themselves being rich instead of ending human suffering for all. Their made up deity will do that.
While of course anyone who is reasonably well-informed would agree that Trump is a threat to the stability of our country, I find your assertion of his being a threat "to all life on Earth" a glaring blind spot in your ideology. The most immediate threats to life on earth are climate change, which Democrats are addressing in the most minimalist and inadequate fashion imaginable, and the real prospect of a nuclear confrontation as brought to us by the Biden administration. Not only in his escalation of purposefully obstructing diplomacy but in sending bottomless munitions to Ukraine (including cluster bombs so you and your cabal can get off your moral high horse), but his strategies with China (sending military aid) and North Korea (sending nuclear submarines). As recently as two days ago Medvedev again cautioned the US regarding the real possibility of the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine's latest offensive were to be successful. To think that we are essentially risking the obliteration of life on earth because liberals have to make Biden's warmongering and rejection of diplomacy in favor of his warhawk advisors working for Raytheon and the like is far more chilling to me than anything Trump could or would be able to do. Your insistence on diverting attention away from the disaster that is the Biden administration by obsessing almost exclusively about Trump and Republicans might be good for selling dog food but is doing a disservice to progressivism and truth.
The Biggest Issue for 2024: Can Humanity Survive Trump & the GOP?
Thank you Thom for continuing to relate the disaster that looms if we do not energize efforts to continually expose and oppose the Maga authoritarians.
Its says a lot about how far we’ve fallen from reality and peace of mind
when Trumps militant ignorants elevate his indictments to a form of approval.
Its at least massively disturbing, to see these fools in Congress, head fool , Kevin McCarthy attack Joe Biden and his son Hunter bypassing reality and calling for impeachment. Another radical move just designed to take the focus off of Trumps massive criminal agenda. . This is an example of the willingness of Maga republicans to take this Country to the hell of their lies without mercy for anyone but billionaires .
Those people have floated the despicable Maga in return for more leeway to destroy the world for money .
That is acceptable to them in their rotten corps of Maga fascists.
What has happened to the Constitution?
Well the six justices for Maga on the Supreme Court have totally bastardized the Constitution for the purpose of elevating Maga fascists.
The idea that people are created equally and have the same rights under the law has been burned to ashes by these justices. An aid to the Maga corps for sure.
The Heritage Society and like groups the Koch brothers , Leonard Leo and etc have destroyed democracy for their monetary benefit.
They too are fascists as is all of the Republican party . Even the more moderately positioned republicans don’t say a word against this perfidy. They are therefore complicit.
They too, live the lie.
Thank you Thom again for nailing the root of this country’s barriers to effectively mitigate the looming crisis of climate change. I’m at the end of my lifespan but extremely worried about the “red lights “ flashing warnings of oncoming climate disasters for my grandchildren and great grandchildren. We’ve already had some of the highest temperatures on record this summer and recently extreme winter conditions that literally locked many of us in our mountain communities due to nonstop snowfall in S. Cal. People have died due to this this extreme weather, both hot and cold weather conditions. All people should be alarmed but unfortunately the naysayers, the Republican death cult and their donor fossil fuel conspirators, continue to willfully bury facts of causation from man made dirty energy sources. But of course the obstruction from Republicans and their selective policies to reward the rich is why the rest of us in America and (I’ll add around the globe) can’t have nice things. We all should be angry and demanding change to advance development and use of alternative energy programs but again, the science deniers, the willfully ignorants, the gaslighted Maggats somehow prevail.
If Trump gets back in the White House it will spark a civil war in this country, an event that will only hasten the advance of global warming, ensuring our demise as a nation and the end of Homo sapiens as a species. Another Trump presidency is suicidal, not only for ordinary Americans, but for the fascist Republican oligarchs and Putin-loving pimps of war that stage managed this whole political nightmare. The Uber rich and super powerful seem to harbor the illusion that they are exempt from the climate crisis, but that will be dissolved quickly when the temperature and humidity reach wet bulb 35 celsius, which is deadly to all living beings, including racist MAGA Republican dumb asses. One good outcome however, is that the only item on the menu at the parties celebrating Trump's election victory will be money and as these numbskulls will find out, you can't eat money!
Since Ronald Reagan, the GOP gave up trying to improve the life of Americans and instead focused on stealing as much loot while turning America into a third world failed nation. The natural progression would have been to oppose free trade and to support self-supporting prisons and poor farms. Instead of solving problems the GOP mostly with Mitch McConnell has focused on turning America into a dictatorship, where American citizens food and drugs can be poisoned for profit. Where the minimum wage can be repealed and where there is no social security and where enemies of the state can be tortured and have their organs harvested and killed. Unlimited greed, phony religions and the family unit have made this normal human behavior for thousands of years. The clock is ticking. I pity all the good people and could care less about the parasites.
The problem with the Nader elected W story and the Stein elected Trump story is that both ignore the third party vote totals for the Reform,Libertarian and Constitution Parties. Yes, Nader got enough votes to undercut Gore, but Buchanan, Browne and Phillips did the same for W. And Gary Johnson and Darrell Castle got more than three times as many votes as Stein in WI, ditto in MI and PA. Third Party candidates have usually taken far more votes from GOP presidential candidates than they have from Democratic candidates. And of course, there is Ross Perot in 1992 who knocked HW out of his re-election attempt.
Anyway, Nader did not cost Gore the presidency in 2000. Antonin Scalia did when he stopped the FL recount, which Gore would have narrowly won if the votes were counted honestly as ordered by the FL Supreme Court. And the primary reason the FL vote was as close as it was is due to the incompetence of the Democratic Party officials in Palm Beach County who approved the butterfly ballot which pushed thousands of votes to Buchanan that voters thought they had voted for Gore. And even that doesn't count the vast purge of eligible voters by Sec of State, Katherine Harris.
Tom, I have been worried about this since the last election. My worries have not gone away. That is what Trump has done, he has made sure I cannot even enjoy having the best president in my lifetime because Trump with his selfish ego has made everything so rotten.
The last several elections were lost to Democrats due to third party candidates. If the Democratic candidates needed those votes, why didn't they adopt progressive ideas to attract those voters. Like saying they would provide national healthcare, make marijuana legal at the federal level, and provide tuition free higher education to all.
The obvious reason they didn't was because they felt they didn't need those voters and wrote them off. Instead of demonizing third party candidates why don't we criticize the Democratic candidates themselves, including Joe Biden.
Again, the notorious trump and his republican cohorts are shown to be verrrrrry bad people.
Somehow this film seems familiar, like maybe we've seen it over and over again on the same screen this summer.
Let's not focus on what democrats did in response, which was to give the madman the largest surveillance and military budget, with associated powers, ever in history - with little oversight.
Let's not read the most important indictment ever in the history of the us, or talk about what's in it, or talk about the heros that put their careers, families and lives on the line for these cases.
Let's not talk about merrick garlands actual record, or how many cases have been brought successfully. Let's not even consider what doj policies are, or whether there is anny difference between a speeding ticket and a sprawling conspiracy case with hundreds of witnesses. Instead let's use that word that cnn (in its newly red-tinted perspective) uses to describe garland, and let's assume that hundreds of witnesses can be corralled up to willingly testify against their boss in just a few months.
"Dithering is such a good verb and can't be overused in Washington," cnn co-host Brianna Keilar said!
Moving away from red-tinted cnn, we find the guardian reporting yesterday that when the criminal referrals were made by the House, cases had already been opened and were already being worked on by doj. But why mention something that appears in the Guardian, which faithfully carries important news about climate change, and Trump and all his horrors every single day - when it contradicts a favored narrative and one can use the same dumbed down catch phrases that CNN uses?
Maybe, just maybe, with this critical indictment in place, it's thom Hartman that is "dithering" by failing to cover it, or even read it? In any event the readers here are getting Brianna Keiler-level analysis
on garland.
The only thing left to do is have mock trials, where serious people like thom Hartman and William Farrar, with their extensive knowledge of federal criminal prosecutions and what is involved in successfully prosecuting thousands of cases, can show us how simple and easy it is to bring criminal cases like the one in this indictment, or to win cases (say, last year) when numerous material witnesses about the case haven't cooperated or testified yet.
Is there No limit on these prepackaged pieces? Even today, when the most important criminal case (or any case) in the history of this country was filed yesterday? Just remember that jack smith encourages everyone to read the indictment in full, something you won't be encouraged to do by any mainstream media or (at least today) by this outlet.
Worse and worser every day. Amazing how stupid so many humans are. And I agree. I think the morbidly rich think they can protect themselves from climate catastrophe. They may last longer. But they too well go
THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS HERE IS THE CLIMATE CRISIS. I promise you, we will not be around if either Biden or Trump are re-elected as President. Biden, in response to the hottest Summer ever and a myriad of other climate turning points, threw a few million $ at some sort of better weather/heat/whatever tracking system. He's authorized drilling in AK and is best buds with that jerk Prime Minister in the UK who just authorized 100's of drilling licenses in the North Sea. These old farts don't care; they (and their minions) already know that the only way to guarantee that they will be alive 5 years from now is to have some billion $ bunker in New Zealand or Raven's Rock, et al. Do you have any idea how many Raven's Rocks exist? 100's if not more.
Well I should enjoy the time I've got left. I am in my 89th year with two daughters and four granddaughters. My beautiful wife Irene and I have one vote each. The next presidency should be very exciting at the least. I hope you scare the crap out of enough people to turn the tide you figure we got coming. Sounds like you figure all is lost. I am keeping my eye on you and your prognostications. Hope you and I can have a good laugh after the next election.
Indeed, the stakes have never been higher. We need to come together as humanity and work together to transition immediately from fossil fuels. Another Republican administration would be a disaster for the planet.
Gorsuch is an Episcopalian and when he was first nominated, I looked up his church on line. From their website, they appear to be pretty darn progressive. I wonder how he squares it all and how pleased his fellow parishioners are with some of his decisions.
Believe that all this can happen. We are well on our way. We have already been conditioned to accept the worst.
“…public schools will be replaced with vouchers for private, segregated, religious academies as has already happened under Republican administrations in Arizona and Florida.” It’s a done deal in Louisiana, too.
The threat of school privatization or the intention of reactionaries or libertarians to “destroy” education or public schools are recurrent themes, and for good reason. They are winning. This is their foot in the door. Plans for stopping them are vague and indirect. I keep asking the same kinds of questions, however. Did you know, e.g., that many prominent Democratic stars and philanthropists, such as Cory Booker, Obama, Bloomberg, and others have been big boosters for charter schools? (See Democrats for Education Reform). DEMOCRATS. Please explain.
As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us”.
To my utter amazement, I find it necessary to ask the astute and erudite readers here again if they believe that our traditional public schools are “as good as could be expected”, “doing an acceptable job”, or if they rate somewhere above a “D-“. Can I get a show of hands? Does anyone think that it is worth even asking?
Is there any more urgent or important issue? How do these questions relate to politics or to the preservation of democracy, which has now taken center stage?
If schools are to be saved, should we not solve some of their monumental problems to make them defensible and functional? Pick up a newspaper.
I am aware that it is terribly impolite to inquire. But I really need to know, for example, what educators truly and honestly think of the 20 – 30% or more of students who have never excelled at anything in their schools or who feel invisible, demoralized, or disposable there. What are their true feelings and opinions about their students who are often mercilessly chided or dinged for “work not completed”; about those who are punished repeatedly for unacceptable behavior; about those who flunk or simply disappear, or the many who quietly fake it and are sent away, many with a diploma, without ever having quite “gotten it”?
Perhaps just as significantly, can anyone tell me how those who were “A” students, the teachers’ pet, or the “average” children who were recognized and rewarded as good kids, social, and “not a problem” have felt toward those others in the lower ten or twenty-percent of the class who were a problem? Do you remember any of those troublesome kids? Did they ever matter? Are you nostalgic for the great school experiences YOU had, totally unaware of the misery others faced daily?
Oh, we all know that those kids who didn’t fare quite as well in that environment should not really be blamed, of course. Some had undiagnosed “learning disabilities”. Their parents “didn’t have books in the home”. “No one read bedtime stories to them”. “Parents were not involved in their schooling” or they had family disruptions and certain demographic issues.
We cannot expect the schools to compensate for poverty, social conditions, or those kinds of things, can we? Can we? We cannot hold educators responsible for not mitigating personal or family problems, can we? Or can we? School is not a social service agency after all, is it?
Does anyone other than me consider it rather peculiar that free services and facilities in or adjacent to school simply do not exist to address many of these gross deficiencies in this great and wonderful, rich country? Could that possibly be because schools have been sold as the end-all and be-all for curing society’s ills and because educators have co-opted that entire domain and hyped their incomparable value incessantly with fictitious or delusional claims? Is that why attendance there is still involuntary?
What has been only rarely understood is that, in an institutional setting, for a variety of reasons, authority that is assigned is nearly impossible to control. Teachers seldom control authority; authority frequently gets the upper hand. Authority is the dark matter contaminating school under compulsory attendance. The status quo is omnipotent as a result.
One more question: With the exception of the destructiveness of inequality and issues such as the ludicrous fear of CRT being imposed on unsuspecting white students, why have I never, ever heard one single word of empathy or sympathy for the victims of bad schooling in this space? Not one word.
How much longer will we pretend that such victims simply do not exist? What is it, if it is not denial, selective blindness, or willful ignorance to blow off the people who have been failed by these authoritarian bureaucracies? Incidentally, while the worst damage is typically done to poor children and minorities, NO individual or group is immune to the harm of programming and conditioning based on arbitrary authority and a misanthropic conception of education.
One might expect certain people to feel a need to overlook the chronic problems, controversies, and shortcomings of schools, or to attribute those all to stingy legislators, inattentive or uninvolved parents, ‘a few bad apples’ (i.e., poorly trained or incompetent teachers or unruly students), or predictable features of any comparable major social undertaking involving a diverse and dependent population. Teachers, for example, should not be expected to be completely objective on this score.
However, it takes a special kind of obfuscation to downplay a pathetic success rate (measuring by the accomplishment of the stated missions and goals, such as graduation, literacy, numeracy, employability, intellectual and academic acumen, social and psychological adjustment, civic engagement or at a minimum, awareness and voting record, etc.) which hovers around 50% if one is exceptionally generous. To quote, George Bush, the Lesser, “oops”.
Are those who appear to be obtuse and strongly or reflexively biased in favor of our schools just naïve? Are they school snobs who found school to be ‘a piece of cake’ and are therefore indifferent or oblivious to the millions of students who have struggled, endured anxiety and humiliation, and who felt lost, ignored, or confounded? Do they want to have their cake and eat it too? Are they school cultists? Do they have some deep psychological urge to deny the failures that are the subject of thousands of reports and empirical research studies? Are those studies somehow irrelevant or inaccurate? What am I missing?
I have asked before for anyone who believes that our schools rate highly (AAA+!!!), or that “we have the best schools in the world” (referring to traditional “public state mandated schools), or that putting men on the moon and achieving amazing scientific progress are attributable to the schools, to finally provide something much more substantial as solid empirical evidence to both validate and absolve them. Is that an unreasonable request given that statements are frequently made here that democracy depends wholly on a well-informed, educated, and engaged citizenry?
You tell me. This is the place where having a conscience and being consciously aware of all of the social and political factorials are taken seriously and discussed honestly and openly, is it not? Or have I struck upon the single exception and the taboo subject?
Capitalism always ends in a catastrophe. A few owning almost everything makes the poor ignorant and insane. The poor dream of they themselves being rich instead of ending human suffering for all. Their made up deity will do that.
While of course anyone who is reasonably well-informed would agree that Trump is a threat to the stability of our country, I find your assertion of his being a threat "to all life on Earth" a glaring blind spot in your ideology. The most immediate threats to life on earth are climate change, which Democrats are addressing in the most minimalist and inadequate fashion imaginable, and the real prospect of a nuclear confrontation as brought to us by the Biden administration. Not only in his escalation of purposefully obstructing diplomacy but in sending bottomless munitions to Ukraine (including cluster bombs so you and your cabal can get off your moral high horse), but his strategies with China (sending military aid) and North Korea (sending nuclear submarines). As recently as two days ago Medvedev again cautioned the US regarding the real possibility of the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine's latest offensive were to be successful. To think that we are essentially risking the obliteration of life on earth because liberals have to make Biden's warmongering and rejection of diplomacy in favor of his warhawk advisors working for Raytheon and the like is far more chilling to me than anything Trump could or would be able to do. Your insistence on diverting attention away from the disaster that is the Biden administration by obsessing almost exclusively about Trump and Republicans might be good for selling dog food but is doing a disservice to progressivism and truth.