Bookshop.org is a network of independent booksellers that passes on much of the proceeds, even for online orders, to real independent brick-and-mortar stores.
Marion the Librarian will need to get the hell out of Little Rock. They cannot afford the brain-drain result of this stupid law. Good thing Dolly Parton lives in Tennessee!
The most valuable possession I've always owned is my library card.
More good-trouble from the folks at Thom Hartmann---I like it! See you in the streets.
I just purchased and am reading Orwell's "1984" which I have not read since about 1970. At that time I only skimmed it. At this reading I am amazed at his foresight into what could possibly occur in a democracy when people/voters do not pay attention.
I was recently in Portland, Oregon and went to the main Powell's downtown. I wish I had snapped a photo of the display of banned books, which included several I had taught: The Best We Could Do, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and others.
Institutional Corruption: Does Cheeto’s Immunity Cover Treason?
Cheeto is on the way that all dictators follow: take over judicial system, get rid of investigative journalists, pardon all the convicted felons, all to create institutional corruption, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains on MSNOW.
On July 24, 2024 the fascist Republican SCOTUS along party lines issued the infamous ruling in Trump v. United States in which the right wing Federalist Society appointed fascists gave what the Republicans since Reagan have wanted….the unitary executive with absolute immunity hence creating a dictator.
The ruling does not explicitly carve out an exception for treason. Instead, immunity depends on whether the act is an official core constitutional power or an unofficial private action. If a president commits an act using official core powers, the immunity is absolute, regardless of the crime.
If a treasonous act falls entirely outside official duties as a private, unofficial action, it carries no immunity and remains fully prosecutable and impeachable as an act of treason. There is so much brazen corruption by Cheeto and his fascist allies that perhaps sooner will come quicker than later where his outside dealings that are private business rather than official core constitutional duties will get scrutinized, especially involving his under the table foreign crypto dealings.
Although it has not been legally recognized there is a Substack site called “this will hold” who has published a series of articles that indicate that the 2024 presidential election was in fact won by fraud-
the republicans with help from some major oligarchs such as Elon Musk and Peter Theil orchestrated a vote manipulation scheme through voting machine access and changed the results in enough swing states to make Trump the winner - of course the Democratic Party is also to blame by not challenging the election results - I hope your readers will read “this will hold” articles on the 2024 election and spread the word
It will take a generation to repair this country if, and only if we vote the Klan majorities out in both Houses of Congress in November. This is based on the shaky assumption that Vought doesn’t declare a national emergency to suspend the very same elections that will strip him of his power!
This is addressed to Thom because of positions he has taken or positions I ascribe to him, rightly or wrongly. However, it is meant for everyone’s perusal. I welcome constructive comments and arguments based on facts.
Thom,
Do not hit the snooze button. It is time to wake up from the “declining” American dream.
I try never to take away from your astute writing and talks. Your knowledge is phenomenal, your grasp of history is extraordinary, your intelligence is genius (not merely in a figurative sense) and you are nearly always totally or nearly totally correct in your assessments and analyses. However, I have discerned that there is a problem which appears to be less of a blind spot and more of a sort of ingrained mental block or inability to be objective in one or two specific areas for reasons I can only speculate.
When will you exhaust the list of things on which to blame the ignorance of the American people while missing the primary reason? You have an entire series of books and articles dealing with neoliberalism. However, I do not believe you have had much of anything to say about how neoliberalism has impacted schooling or why it has been allowed to do so without resistance. Am I wrong to say that neoliberalism was born in academia, most specifically at the University of Chicago, because of the intellectual rot and laziness permeating academia for generations?
Are you aware that schooling has been made extraordinarily vulnerable to neoliberal incursions under the existing paradigm? Book reviewer, Jamie C. Atkinson, in his review of the book “Capitalism’s Education Catastrophe: And the Advancing End Game Revolt” by Rosa & Rosa, in the journal, Education Review (March 2016) says, “…purveyors of neoliberalism utilize educational structures to re-engineer society in their image, using ideologically infused language…”. Note: “educational structures”.
Have you noticed that neoliberalism leads to, as Atkinson states, “a “whitewashing” of education promoting the supremacy of the efforts of capitalism and the bourgeoise elite”? The tradition merely continues.
Am I to believe that the entire Progressive Education, Critical Pedagogy or Critical Education, Free School, Unschooling, or anti-colonial education movements as well as certain university student protests, which largely preceded neoliberalism, are of no consequence or relevance and do not merit any discussion whatsoever in your forum because they are aligned in their criticisms to some extent with the reactionaries and privatizers who are hostile to public schooling or “public education”? Is it reasonable to speak about “education” frequently and casually without ever defining what that term signifies to you beyond platitudes? UFO’s are of interest. Anything goes Friday. Daily reading for pleasure is at 16%! But when is the ignorance (or ‘stupidity’, according to a caller Friday - you did not argue) ‘of the American people’ worthy of an article or a real discussion?
It is a fact that the mostly semi-literate American people have demonstrated an astounding ignorance, not just relative to government and civic affairs but more broadly and encompassing politics, social issues, philosophy as a discipline, educational issues, and history. One should probably add Paine’s common sense to that list, as well.
I watched a very disturbing TMZ video two days ago of a teacher in tears over the inability of his senior class students who cannot read or write in Houston, Texas. Should everyone just assume that the causes for this catastrophic ignorance are known within the mainstream and need no further examination?
It is certainly fair to name corporate media as an important factor, along with distractions from technology, and the propaganda put out by billionaires to steer attention away from their exploitation. Dozens of other lesser culprits have been identified. But the problems continue to plague us. One might suppose that such an important topic would motivate serious discussion here and empirical evidence would be provided for supporting traditional schooling and for ignoring harsh criticisms having nothing to do with the privatization push.
It requires a special kind of aversion or obtuseness to find it difficult or even characteristically impossible to name chronic and widespread school failure as a primary factor in ignorance and ineptitude nationally when schools exist specifically, ostensibly, to cure those very confounding problems! Students who have spent over a decade during much of their formative years, three-quarters who eventually get a diploma, and many who spend time in “higher education”, lack critical thinking and other crucial skills, as indicted by numerous indices. Infotainment sells, while intellectual things are restricted to the margins, not respected by a majority. These things were true long before Reagan’s tenure.
It seems out of character and inauspicious for a highly respected scholar, intellectual leader, and teacher to use words casually without feeling the need or obligation to provide clarity as to what those words mean to him or her. Education certainly encompasses a wide variety of elements and conditions which are easily confused with other things which are NOT education or which are inherently detrimental to education.
You speak regularly of “public education”. If by that, you refer to institutional instruction, you have to be aware that dealing with groups of students of any age requires imposed order, structure, a measure of rigid control, standardization, strict discipline, planning, and conditioned impulse control on the part of students. These things tend to create barriers to what I have believed education to be.
Friday, in that conversation, I heard you say out loud that you believe in “compulsory education”. I seriously doubt that in your family’s history anyone ever needed to be forced to attend school. So, tell us, just who do you believe needs to be compelled to attend school and what they can be expected to experience there?
High IQ scores have often been ridiculed as proof of very little, but I never expected such an obviously obnoxious oxymoron to come from someone I have respected so highly. The pie in the sky is high in the sky. If it is compulsory, it must be indoctrination.
Every day, fingers are pointed. But never in the direction of traditional public schooling, apparently for fear of offending teachers or of giving traction to the pernicious privatizers. Authoritarians are scorned, and rightfully so. Yet the authoritarians controlling children get a pass.
Atkinson also mistakenly refers to “public education” in speaking about public schooling when he says, it “must be theorized to include those spaces and places outside of normative schooling capable of engendering creative interior/exterior tensions, particularly when authoritarian tendencies and acquiescence run so deep in institutions”. He does not connect the authoritarian tendencies to the authority handed to people who cannot be trusted with it by unconstitutional laws.
As a card-carrying member of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) it is hard to imagine that you were not aware of or did not read and concur with a pamphlet or booklet titled, “The Student as N***** (N-word). That manifesto or statement was, I believe the unofficial, or possibly official position of the SDS.
What I recall from my reading was that the ripple effects of students positioned as subservient, lacking in dignity, respect, and autonomy in academia and in society was extremely corrosive and detrimental to a democratic society. The pamphlet was aimed at the treatment and status of college and university students. However, it applied equally to “lower” (on a contrived hierarchical scale) K-12 students. You would have to be living in a true bubble not to see that most changes in those relationships have been merely symbolic or superficial since those chaotic days.
What happened? Did you forget? People died for that cause. The issue is certainly much greater than the ranking or status or the subservience of students in academia.
Authoritarianism becomes a pervasive and dangerous latent and even compelling idea when it is allowed to sneak in under the tent as a “necessary evil” or as applicable only for the purposes of conditioning and readying students primarily for economic roles in society. When authority is installed via laws which specifically designate students as the recipients of officially approved curricula and thoughts, and as less than complete citizens who must comply, obey, and submit, society must suffer and democracy is fatally undermined.
I am easy to ignore. Reality, not so much. Public ignorance has undermined democracy to such an extent that its survival is seriously in question. Schooling and capitalism have become intertwined and symbiotic in a way which is extremely hazardous. Capitalism has become more capitalistic and barely humanistic because of a feedback loop from schooling under a coercive paradigm made possible only by compulsory attendance law and consequential state enforcement and control.
Capitalism is another “ism” which has become more fundamentalist and reactionary, undemocratized, and predatory. I would like to that hear criticized more convincingly, also. We must have institutions which are more hospitable to oppositional thinking and dissidence if we are to escape this downward spiral.
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a crowdsourced US Bannned Book Lending Library. It could take in all copies of books banned by communities around the country, and lend them to people where they are banned. A perfect non-profit/charitable organization with the singular purpose of furthering the education of Americans.
Has Mr. Elliot, or others, read this book - I did in my college class of teacher education - way back in the 70's. LIFE IN CLASSROOMS by Phillip W. Jackson. It was a mind bender for me.
AI Overview [Life in Classrooms] is a classic 1968 educational book written by Philip W. Jackson that explores the daily realities and social structures of elementary schools.Key DetailsAuthor: Philip W. JacksonPublication Year: 1968Major Contribution: Jackson famously coined the term hidden curriculum in this book to describe the unspoken, informal rules and societal norms students must learn to navigate school life, such as waiting in line, obeying authority, and being patient.Impact: The book helped launch qualitative research and ethnography in the study of education and teaching.
Sad that you used an 'AI' overview.. When your own words might be just the thing. Truthfully.. EVERY child learns what is 'acceptable' at home, school and society.. It is a given. I've long thought the only way out is: Adults who LEARN, are Curious and refuse to continue the practices.. or could articulate good reasoning for them.. It is hard to teach what you do not KNOW.. AND.. we can DECIDE to find the root of the weeds. It's about the only way I can see Humanity has ever changed in any meaningful ways. Current humans have the attention span of a gnat.. Modern Life has more distractions than humans have ever known. QUESTIONING is everything. Logical and Philosophical thought might really be useful.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment. Just in case you hadn't thought of it it's been 50 and more years since I read Life In Classrooms as the semester book for that class. I just picked the first google response that came up to highlight.
Sounds great. I really like the name "Well-Read Troublemakers". Looking forward to it.
Glad you did not link Bezos' Behemoth for the book order but bookshop.org would be even better. https://bookshop.org/a/121852/9798890572639
Bookshop.org is a network of independent booksellers that passes on much of the proceeds, even for online orders, to real independent brick-and-mortar stores.
Marion the Librarian will need to get the hell out of Little Rock. They cannot afford the brain-drain result of this stupid law. Good thing Dolly Parton lives in Tennessee!
The most valuable possession I've always owned is my library card.
More good-trouble from the folks at Thom Hartmann---I like it! See you in the streets.
I just purchased and am reading Orwell's "1984" which I have not read since about 1970. At that time I only skimmed it. At this reading I am amazed at his foresight into what could possibly occur in a democracy when people/voters do not pay attention.
👍👍👍
I was recently in Portland, Oregon and went to the main Powell's downtown. I wish I had snapped a photo of the display of banned books, which included several I had taught: The Best We Could Do, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and others.
How do I get into the Well-Read Troublemakers Book Club discussion on Aug 30?
An email invitation will be sent to everyone ahead of the session, Penny.
It will be a video session, right here on Substack.
Institutional Corruption: Does Cheeto’s Immunity Cover Treason?
Cheeto is on the way that all dictators follow: take over judicial system, get rid of investigative journalists, pardon all the convicted felons, all to create institutional corruption, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains on MSNOW.
On July 24, 2024 the fascist Republican SCOTUS along party lines issued the infamous ruling in Trump v. United States in which the right wing Federalist Society appointed fascists gave what the Republicans since Reagan have wanted….the unitary executive with absolute immunity hence creating a dictator.
The ruling does not explicitly carve out an exception for treason. Instead, immunity depends on whether the act is an official core constitutional power or an unofficial private action. If a president commits an act using official core powers, the immunity is absolute, regardless of the crime.
If a treasonous act falls entirely outside official duties as a private, unofficial action, it carries no immunity and remains fully prosecutable and impeachable as an act of treason. There is so much brazen corruption by Cheeto and his fascist allies that perhaps sooner will come quicker than later where his outside dealings that are private business rather than official core constitutional duties will get scrutinized, especially involving his under the table foreign crypto dealings.
The hunt is on.
Although it has not been legally recognized there is a Substack site called “this will hold” who has published a series of articles that indicate that the 2024 presidential election was in fact won by fraud-
the republicans with help from some major oligarchs such as Elon Musk and Peter Theil orchestrated a vote manipulation scheme through voting machine access and changed the results in enough swing states to make Trump the winner - of course the Democratic Party is also to blame by not challenging the election results - I hope your readers will read “this will hold” articles on the 2024 election and spread the word
It will take a generation to repair this country if, and only if we vote the Klan majorities out in both Houses of Congress in November. This is based on the shaky assumption that Vought doesn’t declare a national emergency to suspend the very same elections that will strip him of his power!
This is addressed to Thom because of positions he has taken or positions I ascribe to him, rightly or wrongly. However, it is meant for everyone’s perusal. I welcome constructive comments and arguments based on facts.
Thom,
Do not hit the snooze button. It is time to wake up from the “declining” American dream.
I try never to take away from your astute writing and talks. Your knowledge is phenomenal, your grasp of history is extraordinary, your intelligence is genius (not merely in a figurative sense) and you are nearly always totally or nearly totally correct in your assessments and analyses. However, I have discerned that there is a problem which appears to be less of a blind spot and more of a sort of ingrained mental block or inability to be objective in one or two specific areas for reasons I can only speculate.
When will you exhaust the list of things on which to blame the ignorance of the American people while missing the primary reason? You have an entire series of books and articles dealing with neoliberalism. However, I do not believe you have had much of anything to say about how neoliberalism has impacted schooling or why it has been allowed to do so without resistance. Am I wrong to say that neoliberalism was born in academia, most specifically at the University of Chicago, because of the intellectual rot and laziness permeating academia for generations?
Are you aware that schooling has been made extraordinarily vulnerable to neoliberal incursions under the existing paradigm? Book reviewer, Jamie C. Atkinson, in his review of the book “Capitalism’s Education Catastrophe: And the Advancing End Game Revolt” by Rosa & Rosa, in the journal, Education Review (March 2016) says, “…purveyors of neoliberalism utilize educational structures to re-engineer society in their image, using ideologically infused language…”. Note: “educational structures”.
Have you noticed that neoliberalism leads to, as Atkinson states, “a “whitewashing” of education promoting the supremacy of the efforts of capitalism and the bourgeoise elite”? The tradition merely continues.
Am I to believe that the entire Progressive Education, Critical Pedagogy or Critical Education, Free School, Unschooling, or anti-colonial education movements as well as certain university student protests, which largely preceded neoliberalism, are of no consequence or relevance and do not merit any discussion whatsoever in your forum because they are aligned in their criticisms to some extent with the reactionaries and privatizers who are hostile to public schooling or “public education”? Is it reasonable to speak about “education” frequently and casually without ever defining what that term signifies to you beyond platitudes? UFO’s are of interest. Anything goes Friday. Daily reading for pleasure is at 16%! But when is the ignorance (or ‘stupidity’, according to a caller Friday - you did not argue) ‘of the American people’ worthy of an article or a real discussion?
It is a fact that the mostly semi-literate American people have demonstrated an astounding ignorance, not just relative to government and civic affairs but more broadly and encompassing politics, social issues, philosophy as a discipline, educational issues, and history. One should probably add Paine’s common sense to that list, as well.
I watched a very disturbing TMZ video two days ago of a teacher in tears over the inability of his senior class students who cannot read or write in Houston, Texas. Should everyone just assume that the causes for this catastrophic ignorance are known within the mainstream and need no further examination?
It is certainly fair to name corporate media as an important factor, along with distractions from technology, and the propaganda put out by billionaires to steer attention away from their exploitation. Dozens of other lesser culprits have been identified. But the problems continue to plague us. One might suppose that such an important topic would motivate serious discussion here and empirical evidence would be provided for supporting traditional schooling and for ignoring harsh criticisms having nothing to do with the privatization push.
It requires a special kind of aversion or obtuseness to find it difficult or even characteristically impossible to name chronic and widespread school failure as a primary factor in ignorance and ineptitude nationally when schools exist specifically, ostensibly, to cure those very confounding problems! Students who have spent over a decade during much of their formative years, three-quarters who eventually get a diploma, and many who spend time in “higher education”, lack critical thinking and other crucial skills, as indicted by numerous indices. Infotainment sells, while intellectual things are restricted to the margins, not respected by a majority. These things were true long before Reagan’s tenure.
It seems out of character and inauspicious for a highly respected scholar, intellectual leader, and teacher to use words casually without feeling the need or obligation to provide clarity as to what those words mean to him or her. Education certainly encompasses a wide variety of elements and conditions which are easily confused with other things which are NOT education or which are inherently detrimental to education.
You speak regularly of “public education”. If by that, you refer to institutional instruction, you have to be aware that dealing with groups of students of any age requires imposed order, structure, a measure of rigid control, standardization, strict discipline, planning, and conditioned impulse control on the part of students. These things tend to create barriers to what I have believed education to be.
Friday, in that conversation, I heard you say out loud that you believe in “compulsory education”. I seriously doubt that in your family’s history anyone ever needed to be forced to attend school. So, tell us, just who do you believe needs to be compelled to attend school and what they can be expected to experience there?
High IQ scores have often been ridiculed as proof of very little, but I never expected such an obviously obnoxious oxymoron to come from someone I have respected so highly. The pie in the sky is high in the sky. If it is compulsory, it must be indoctrination.
Every day, fingers are pointed. But never in the direction of traditional public schooling, apparently for fear of offending teachers or of giving traction to the pernicious privatizers. Authoritarians are scorned, and rightfully so. Yet the authoritarians controlling children get a pass.
Atkinson also mistakenly refers to “public education” in speaking about public schooling when he says, it “must be theorized to include those spaces and places outside of normative schooling capable of engendering creative interior/exterior tensions, particularly when authoritarian tendencies and acquiescence run so deep in institutions”. He does not connect the authoritarian tendencies to the authority handed to people who cannot be trusted with it by unconstitutional laws.
As a card-carrying member of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) it is hard to imagine that you were not aware of or did not read and concur with a pamphlet or booklet titled, “The Student as N***** (N-word). That manifesto or statement was, I believe the unofficial, or possibly official position of the SDS.
What I recall from my reading was that the ripple effects of students positioned as subservient, lacking in dignity, respect, and autonomy in academia and in society was extremely corrosive and detrimental to a democratic society. The pamphlet was aimed at the treatment and status of college and university students. However, it applied equally to “lower” (on a contrived hierarchical scale) K-12 students. You would have to be living in a true bubble not to see that most changes in those relationships have been merely symbolic or superficial since those chaotic days.
What happened? Did you forget? People died for that cause. The issue is certainly much greater than the ranking or status or the subservience of students in academia.
Authoritarianism becomes a pervasive and dangerous latent and even compelling idea when it is allowed to sneak in under the tent as a “necessary evil” or as applicable only for the purposes of conditioning and readying students primarily for economic roles in society. When authority is installed via laws which specifically designate students as the recipients of officially approved curricula and thoughts, and as less than complete citizens who must comply, obey, and submit, society must suffer and democracy is fatally undermined.
I am easy to ignore. Reality, not so much. Public ignorance has undermined democracy to such an extent that its survival is seriously in question. Schooling and capitalism have become intertwined and symbiotic in a way which is extremely hazardous. Capitalism has become more capitalistic and barely humanistic because of a feedback loop from schooling under a coercive paradigm made possible only by compulsory attendance law and consequential state enforcement and control.
Capitalism is another “ism” which has become more fundamentalist and reactionary, undemocratized, and predatory. I would like to that hear criticized more convincingly, also. We must have institutions which are more hospitable to oppositional thinking and dissidence if we are to escape this downward spiral.
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a crowdsourced US Bannned Book Lending Library. It could take in all copies of books banned by communities around the country, and lend them to people where they are banned. A perfect non-profit/charitable organization with the singular purpose of furthering the education of Americans.
Has Mr. Elliot, or others, read this book - I did in my college class of teacher education - way back in the 70's. LIFE IN CLASSROOMS by Phillip W. Jackson. It was a mind bender for me.
AI Overview [Life in Classrooms] is a classic 1968 educational book written by Philip W. Jackson that explores the daily realities and social structures of elementary schools.Key DetailsAuthor: Philip W. JacksonPublication Year: 1968Major Contribution: Jackson famously coined the term hidden curriculum in this book to describe the unspoken, informal rules and societal norms students must learn to navigate school life, such as waiting in line, obeying authority, and being patient.Impact: The book helped launch qualitative research and ethnography in the study of education and teaching.
Sad that you used an 'AI' overview.. When your own words might be just the thing. Truthfully.. EVERY child learns what is 'acceptable' at home, school and society.. It is a given. I've long thought the only way out is: Adults who LEARN, are Curious and refuse to continue the practices.. or could articulate good reasoning for them.. It is hard to teach what you do not KNOW.. AND.. we can DECIDE to find the root of the weeds. It's about the only way I can see Humanity has ever changed in any meaningful ways. Current humans have the attention span of a gnat.. Modern Life has more distractions than humans have ever known. QUESTIONING is everything. Logical and Philosophical thought might really be useful.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment. Just in case you hadn't thought of it it's been 50 and more years since I read Life In Classrooms as the semester book for that class. I just picked the first google response that came up to highlight.
I would love to see your current book recommendations.
Breaking the Spell, sounds right. Thom.