Just how dehumanizing is it to refer to people you kill as “bug splats”?? Good God.
Dehumanizing the “other” is as old as…well, war…I suppose. The “other” are portrayed as dogs, rats, and other things to dehumanize them. It makes it easier to shoot someone if you no longer see them as a human being.
200 innocent children dead. We should hang our heads in shame.
Jan Resseger has another excellent post up on her take of the Americans for Prosperity, aka Koch Brothers, and what’s happened in Kansas.
Jeff Glendening, the director of the Kansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity was quoted—framing the legislation as part of a fight between those who stand for children and those who stand for “adult” interests—by the NY Times : “We appreciate the willingness of the Legislature to place the interests of Kansas children over the welfare of the teachers’ union.” This kind of rhetoric is widely promoted by far-right groups such as StudentsFirst and Stand for Children. These groups try to imply that teachers, who have committed their lives to nurture children, are somehow a class of people working purely out of self interest.
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Incredible. The teacher’s intentions are an example of a stunning psychological twist of the truth. They claim to be concerned for the welfare of the children…but with Common Core, shoving special needs and struggling students out the door, and money being siphoned away from public education…we know differently.
As was pointed out yesterday, the teacher’s union is the same as the police and fire fighter unions….yet no one would think of saying that those unions are operating against the welfare of the people.
Related to this, Fred Klonsky has a post up on the pension raids with a statement on the theft by Karen Lewis.
“This is a sad day for our paraprofessionals, especially our retired ones, who will see their pensions reduced and devalued significantly. They will lose the value of a third of their retirement savings, so instead of the people who crashed the economic system having to pay their fair share, our elected officials brutally attack the people who are most vulnerable—many of whom have become the head of their households, caring for both children and grandchildren,” Lewis said.
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Target the elderly/retired. They have worked their entire lives putting into the system. They deserve to have those pensions. Now that they are retired, they have less money to fight back with–sly ploy by cowards to attack the weaker.
What sad times we live in….
As usual, the comments are insightful and compelling. They bring up the fact that it really isn’t that hard to get rid of “problem” teachers–all the administration has to do is harass them until they’ve had enough and leave. Done. Problem solved.
I’ve seen this in the state government, as well, so yeah, it’s not really that hard to get rid of someone. All you need is a bully in the midst while the administration looks the other way (or even worse–participates).
Urged on by conservative special interests such as Americans for Prosperity, Republican leaders pressed hard to eliminate due process rights for teachers.
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The handiwork of the Koch Brothers. Destroy public education so the Koch brothers don’t have to pay one more penny for unionized workers. More for me…poverty wages for you…
California has a bill up to force Sea World to stop using orcas in its shows and release them from their tanks.
They are too large, too intelligent, too socially complex and too far-ranging to be adequately cared for in captivity,” said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the Animal Welfare Institute, the bill’s sponsor.
[…]
“That argument is not based on credible peer-reviewed science,” said John Reilly, president of SeaWorld San Diego Park. “It’s based on emotion and a propaganda film.”
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Really? Because I’m pretty sure a marine mammal scientist knows the behavior of the orcas. Anyone with two eyes can see how the behavior of Tillikum is directly related to being held captive.
Even if there is no “scientific” standard, it’s just not right to keep an animal in captivity for the amusement of humans. We would not want to be treated that way.
Canadians are also moving to release dolphins and orcas from captivity. Good for them.
First, I have to say that I don’t endorse leaving children in vehicles, period.
BUT, if a mother is poor and going to a job interview to get out of poverty, and has no one to turn to…what is she supposed to do?
She’s told to ‘get off her ass and get a job”…but how is she supposed to do that when she has no money to afford day care until she get that job?
Was she supposed to take the children into the interview? She would have been shot down for the job immediately, especially given all the competition for positions.
“Everything is focused on the mother and understandably so. It seems to be a very compelling human interest story,” County Attorney Bill Montgomery said at a recent news conference. “But I’m equally concerned and compelled about the circumstances those two children were in.”
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Really…? So, if Shanesha brought the kids to your office, being “concerned and compelled” you would personally watch them while she went to the interview…? Yeah, I didn’t think so…
With all the obstacles, how exactly are the poor supposed to get out of poverty? Not being arrested is a good start.
Bless Amanda Bishop for looking out for another.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has a piece up at the New York Observer on the anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.
Carol A. Hand has written a piece on the soul robbing experience of Federal schools for Native American children.
And yes, it was designed to rob them of their culture, identity, heritage….
Warrior Publications has this up on the Onondaga men marching against domestic violence and child abuse. A great way to publicly show support…but then the hard work comes to put it into action. Honoring women, respecting women, and treating them as equals all takes a conscious effort to go against a culture of violence and rape. It means going against other men, when men are taught to stick together no matter what. It means courage and compassion.
Diane Ravitch has a post up on the repubs and DFERs (Democrats in favor of charter schools).
She notes that in 1988, advocates were saying that charters would cost less because of less bureaucracy. Remember that, folks, when they say “less government meddling”…the actual results speak volumes…
Samantha Power is set to mark the 20th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.
It doesn’t seem as though there has been a healing solution–that it could happen again if the conditions were right.
Hotel Rwanda is a graphic film about the genocide…that was ignored by Bill Clinton, even though he knew of the “final solution”. It’s sad to read the Catholic Church’s connection to the advancement of Tutsi…at the expense of the Hutu. Glad that they changed their thinking later, however, to help the Hutu.
Note how the Eugenics ideas are behind the Tutsi being put into power. And the acts of privatization caused poverty and slave labor.
They used identity cards to identify Hutu and Tutsi….the purpose can only be to keep Hutu in their “place”. Gah, it is so much like Nazi Germany…a holocaust not for religion, but for ancestry!
The use of rape as a war tool is highlighted in the piece. It’s often ignored as part of the war casualties numbers, as a woman’s issue, so its inclusion is hopefully a sign of measuring the true numbers of casualties of war. As I read this, I think about the resulting pregnancies…and it just seems so contradictory to their goals of eliminating the other–they ironically reproduce, mixing blood and genes and all they claim to find disgusting.
Eagle 
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