Category Archives: unions

Moyers on ALEC

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Center for Media and Democracy has this up on Bill Moyers covering the dirty dealings of American Legislative Exchange Council.  It states that this was all over the nation on PBS stations this weekend.  If it was on my local station, I saw no advertisement of it, so I missed it.  (Boy, do I miss FW, which has such a kick butt public radio station, and three PBS stations, as well. )

Luckily, there is a link here to watch the show online. Also, there is a link for finding out which of your own state’s representatives belong to ALEC.  I found a couple of surprises, there, such as Win Moses, who was the former mayor of Fort Wayne, and John Gregg, the guy who just ran for governor.  Mike Pence was not listed, but yeah, he seems to be doing their bidding:

mikepence.com/newsletter/pence-hires-atkins-policy-director

See…this exposure of ALEC is a double-edged sword–you’re getting the word out and people are paying attention, but they (ALEC)  will find ways around it by people who are off in the wings, such as Atkins.

Growing unrest in Turkey

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Report here.

After the incident, a representative from Turkey’s Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) issued a statement confirming that the individuals seen throwing the Molotov cocktails were not affiliated with the party, despite photographs of them carrying SDP flags.

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This just sickens me…there is just too, too much going on in the Middle East with what seems to be conflicts between those who are more progressive in their thinking who are sick of the austerity/conservative /pro-war gov’ts.  That’s just my take on it, your mileage may vary…

…it’s just my experience that most of the public, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist,  or whatever, are for peace.  They just want to live their lives and be let alone…

I’m thinking it’s time for a worldwide political party:  the Leave Us the Hell Alone Party.  We don’t *stand* for anything–we just live our lives following the Golden Rule of Doing Unto Others as We Would Have Done Unto Us….”

God Bless Us everyone…

 

 

 

Daniel Ellsberg on Snowden

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Daniel Ellsberg was on CNN last night, commenting on the NSA and Edward Snowden.  He asked the question…”Can you charge someone with a crime whom  has exposed a crime?  What Snowden did was expose a violation of the Constitution. ”  (paraphrasing). 

“They illegally wiretapped suspected terrorists…but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a terrorist….

Now they’re illegally wiretapping me and there’s no one brave enough to speak up….”

 

From this poem.

Leaving a Mark

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Diane Ravitch has a link up to this blog by a teacher fighting for public education.  Being hit from all sides, for sure.  We’re dealing with a sophisticated network that has $$$ behind it.  It’s hard to fight against that, but as Seamus says, I want to be able to look at my children and grandchildren and tell them I fought for public education with all that I had.

Helping ourselves

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commondreams has this up.  Be sure to look at all the videos–well worth the time.

The idea is so simple it’s like “duh!”

I have a quibble, though, with Klein saying that it’s up to the Left to “seize the moment”.  There are those who are NOT in the Tea Party on the Right who also need and want to find a solution to the crashes around us.  I say this because the Left has not been of the same mind — I was shot down on a progressive website when I advocated buying American so we could put people back to work.  I knew that Washington wasn’t going to get off its collective duff and do anything about the job loss.  (NAFTA being a good example of monumental job loss.)

I just don’t think people have been given the skills or knowledge to feel confident enough to take over a business if the owners want to sell out.  I think it may be a case of learned helplessness?  Not believing in yourself can be such a huge obstacle that one stops before even getting started.

Perhaps the “teach-ins” of 2013 should be “Business 101:  how to own a business without going belly-up nor bankrupting the environment on your way to the bank…”

The Native Americans learned this a loooong time ago–nature was not a second thought.  They did not separate their actions from nature.

It’s still so incredibly stupid that business has ignored the laws of nature, as if we could exist without clean water, clean air and chemical free food…

Well…exist is probably a bad word choice…since we are existing right now…perhaps thriving  is the better word.  All one has to do is look at folks’ skin and see that we are not thriving, but existing.  The skin is such a barometer of what’s going on in the insides…not doing too well by that account.

Anyway, Washington isn’t going to help us…most likely profiting off of NAFTA…so, it’s up to us if we want to save ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Wisconsin Tea Party afraid someone might eat tonight…

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…so they’re going to make sure that if you get $1 over your allotted meager unemployment check, they’re going to freeze your bank account.  Holy crap, I think Walker is the anti-Christ….by that I mean doing the opposite of what Christ would do…you know, Loaves and fishes….Walker would tell them to get a freaking job and stop expecting free handouts.

 

Ten Things Charter Schools Won’t Tell You; and the Modern Day Witch Hunt

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(**edited to fix  links. Oops.)

Diane Ravitch has a link up to this piece on the dirty little secrets of charter schools.  Everything that parents want in education is not in these schools.  They’re all fluff and no substance.  They’re not there to educate, but to collect funds. (it is so arrogant to think that you don’t have to be audited…you’re using the public funds for your endeavor–you better have your books open to the public. Gah…where have we heard this before?  IRS, anyone?)

They dump the learning disabled and behavioral cases.

I also clicked on the link to the “Ten Things Your School District Won’t Tell You” and have a few quibbles with the writer.  One is the licensing thing–Indiana has required licenses from teachers and not only that, but that they further their education into Master’s degrees–at least they used to.  I can’t say whether that is still true–I haven’t checked it lately…and with Governor Daniels’ assault on the public education in Indiana, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that standard has lapsed. )

Another thing I have a quibble with is the student-teacher ratio.  People want to have smaller class size?  Then you better be prepared to spend more in tax dollars towards the amount of teachers in the school.  But no…we can’t spend tax money on schools…we need to spend it on the military industrial complex because of a boogey-man enemy….meanwhile, our society crumbles all around…

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Ravitch also has another blog up with this link to the continuing meanness of the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley,. whom uttered the line:  “Only the little people pay taxes….”

(gotta love the snarky style of the writer…heh.)

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Courage and ethics.

…something tells me that you won’t see this with Charter school teachers. Nope.  Nor would I think they would lay down their lives for their students, as we saw with the Oklahoma tornado.  I’m sure there will be exceptions to the rule, but as a general application…I just don’t see that kind of caring about the kids.  It’s hard to care about something when you’re looking at it with $$ in your eyes….

…speaking of which.

Incredible.  Just incredible.  The game is on, folks.  Be aware of anything that plays on your emotions…as these opportunists are doing…look how they have tried to using anger, outrage, and the ever effective “don’t be a dummy and let them get away with whatever it is WE say they’re doing”  and the “us versus them” divisional tactics.

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And now we have the modern day “witch hunt” where it only takes a few disgruntled people to start a whispering campaign, or in this case, a petition drive, to disparage and ultimately permanently damage someone. (from Ravitch’s blog here.) (and the fact that it is once again a woman who is the target speaks volumes.)

I can’t get past this:

Parent leader Llury Garcia said that although her second-grade daughter has done fairly well at Weigand, Cobian was inaccessible and rude. She and other petition backers were assisted by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles nonprofit that lobbied for the parent trigger law and is aiding overhaul efforts at several other Los Angeles campuses.

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…although her second-grade daughter has done fairly well at Weigard….mindboggling—just mindboggling….that this parent would start a drive to oust her because she wasn’t “accessible” and perhaps was curt with her.  No telling what Garcia did that would warrant a crisp reply.  It says more about Garcia than about Cobian, as you read that Cobian was very accessible to the kids and frequently popped into the classrooms.  And the parent whose child had academic and behavioral issues…well, I don’t know the parent or the child personally, but what I do know is that the parent has to take responsibility towards the child’s education and is perhaps responsible for the behavioral issues (not always, as there are other factors in behavior, but the ultimate responsibility is the parents’. )  I mean, I have seen children come to school without breakfast!  And the parent expects the child to learn on an empty stomach?  Or worse, blame the teacher because the child can’t concentrate because they’re hungry…?!! (Or perhaps with this economy, the parent is poor and not able to provide a good nutritious breakfast…)

I have seen parents who don’t want to take responsibility…and expect the schools to be miracle workers.  They won’t put out the effort towards their own kids…

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…and then there is the subtext–I can’t help but wonder if Cobian is a liberal/progressive and Garcia is a conservative….just throwing that out there…

Why Detroit Matters

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I’m bopping around the web this morning reading up on Detroit….I just can’t get the dumping of petroleum coke out of my mind.

Whatever happens to Detroit happens to all of us….

Here’s a piece up on a refinery fire…by Marathon…where the residents were not even told what was going on.  It is just unconscionable that these folks were not told what was going on and that some were evacuated but others across the street were not.

This piece spouts the pro-corporate view that anything that supports the environment is bad for business.  Tell me, what good is business if so many are sick or even dead because of toxic overload?  Who will be left to buy your product?

From the article:

The document claims city planners fail to take into consideration that Metro Detroit’s poor and minority neighborhoods are already deluged with excessive pollution and contaminated industrial, commercial, and hazardous waste sites.

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Claims of “environmental injustice” (and environmental racism) are little more than catch phrases used by green activists to draw attention to the purportedly disproportionate negative effects of pollution in poor and minority communities. The accusation is that federal, state, and local governments have conspired to permit more pollution in impoverished black communities than in affluent ones.

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He goes on to say that there are the same health problems in more affluent neighborhoods.  He thinks the problem is their lifestyle rather than the toxic environment.  I think that’s too simplistic as it doesn’t take in the whole picture.  It is known that mercury damages a person’s DNA.  So…if the parents of affluent African Americans were poor and lived in these more toxic areas, being exposed to lead and mercury and arsenic, their DNA will be affected and pass that on to their children.  It gets worse with each generation.  Also, toxins do not stay in a particular geographical area, although it will be more concentrated in that area, it will drift, and also cause health issues (on a lesser scale) to those in affluent neighborhoods.

As far as environmental racism…it is a well known occurrence.  Probably should be better categorized as environmental “poor-ism” because it’s done towards the poor.  I say this with the thought in mind that it does not follow blacks whom have moved into more affluent neighborhoods.  Perhaps one can say that it is because whites also share that neighborhood.  Well….I guess you could say that, BUT then whites also share the poor neighborhoods with blacks….which leads me to conclude that it is against the poor rather than exclusively against blacks.

The last line about the gov’t allowing the poor to bear the brunt of toxins ignores the above~~you don’t see the petroleum coke being dumped on the Koch’s front lawn, do you?  When that happens, you can tell me that gov’t officials have not discriminated against the poor.

I notice that the author was once a commissioner….so I am left to wonder whether he, in his official capacity, willfully went along with poisoning the poor and is now trying to justify it?

On to the financial woes of Detroit, I found some interesting articles.

This one details the bad news. Note that they’re going after unions.  HUGE RED FLAG that Disaster Capitalism and ALEC are in the midst.  (related to this is a strike by fast food workers to form unions.)

This article on Slate paints a different picture of the stuff going on behind the scenes.  Note the link to the NY Times’ article on Dan Gilbert trying to make a fortune rebuilding the city…

The article talks about the cityscape with abandoned houses, empty spaces after demolition of houses, and the population dwindling from 2 million down to 700,000.    When reading that Gilbert’s solution is to bring business in, to spur people walking the streets (shoppers)…and it strikes me that there is so much opportunity here….but it feels like trying to fix the problem with the same old, same old…

With all the demolished houses…what about the urban farmer?  I know that would be difficult if the ground were polluted, as Detroit seems to be the dumping ground, but if the soil were not toxic, why not encourage that? It would help those in the inner cities to feed themselves as well as sell produce to earn income.

Why not encourage planting of trees to help the air quality?  As I blogged before, we need to include nature into our plans and stop ignoring the impact we have on nature and the colossal impact nature has on us.

It also ignores the devastating impact that Big Box stores have had on our local economies.  Walmart moves in….independent small businesses die…and entire downtowns are destroyed…not only do the businesses die, but our feeling of connectedness dies with them…

 

“Speak your mind…

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…even if your voice shakes.” (quote by Maggie Kuhn.) ( Oh, those uppity Presbyterian women…  :p   –I was raised Presbyterian.)

The story isn’t clear on what exactly was happening, other than the teacher handed him a packet as educational instruction.   I’ll presume, then, it is the brainless edumucation of  No Child Left A Mind that he is actually protesting….a mindless program that takes away the teacher’s creativity and ability to teach intuitively…rather, she/he must teach to the test.  If they don’t…the child doesn’t do well on the test…their school loses funding…and the teacher loses his/her job.  The child, though, is the one that loses the most–their most creative years for exploring their world are lost—all based on a false premise that the testing is a true assessment of the child’s aptitude and abilities.