yurbud
yurbud's JournalThe Democratic Party and Education: A Case Study of Alienating the Base
It's tough to cut this down to just four paragraphs.
Teachers are a core constituency of the Democratic Party, but the party has largely gone along with the Wall Street agenda of bashing teachers unions and trying to privatize public education.
If you want people to enthusiastically fight for your party, you have to respect and fight for them, not throw them to the Wall Street wolves when they snap their fingers.
I teach college and my wife teaches elementary school. Democrats are more generous with money, but they do nothing to obstruct and most often support the privatization movement. We are stuck because Republicans won't even spend the money.
But do you donate money and pound the pavement to support candidates who are actively destroying your profession and even the quality of public education because they throw a few more bucks your way?
Or do you vote for their candidates but feel like a fucking idiot because you don't know what else to do.
The Democrats probably have about two years to get their house in order. Before all but the wealthiest bolt. They better get started now.
And this issue would be a good place to do it.
Back in 1983, the Reagan Administration published A Nation at Risk, a poorly written report condemning public education. It was the opening salvo in the relentless attack on public education and on the teaching profession.
The administration of Bush the First commissioned Sandia laboratories to gather statistical data which they believed would support the conclusions of A Nation at Risk. Contrary to the expectations of the administration, the Sandia Report actually found that public education was performing quite well.
What was the Democratic response? Did the Democrats come to the defense of educators and point out that A Nation at Risk was pure propaganda? Did they use the Sandia Report counter the attacks on public education? These of course are rhetorical questions. You know the answer. The Democrats basically accepted the Reagan/Bush premise that American education was failing and joined in the trashing of teachers.
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The teacher unions backed Barack Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 general elections. In return we got Race to the Top and Arne Duncan. Duncan’s policies were not successful when he led the Chicago school system, but that didn’t prevent President Obama from hiring him as Secretary of Education. One would think that the President would have learned from Bush’s appointment of Rod Paige and would have been wary of alleged education “miracles”. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Duncan, of course, gained further notoriety when he stated that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans”. Disaster capitalism at its finest.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/27/1603786/-The-Democratic-Party-and-Education-A-Case-Study-of-Alienating-the-Base
Could Trump finally force the media to admit both major parties AREN'T the same?
The media's false equivalence between the two major parties is almost like surreal performance art or a Monty Python sketch, where a sportscaster interviews a badminton player about an upcoming match, then Leatherface comes out and chainsaws the first interviewee in half, and the sportscaster asks him, "And how do you think you'll do in today's match?"
Are Trump's faults and the GOP that made them possible finally so egregious that they have to admit one guy has a chainsaw and is wearing a mask made of human skin?
Trump's election makes me realize why you can't ask one member of a race what the whole race thinks
Because I'm white, and I have no idea what the hell white people who voted for him where thinking, whether it was racism, free floating economic angst, they recognized him from the TeeVee shows, or whatever combination thereof.
Should Obama seat Merrick Garland?
The argument for seating him is that the Senate, by refusing to hold confirmation hearings, has waived their right to advise and consent.
On this issue, both sides have high negatives: if he does seat him, it might set a precedent Republicans could abuse, for example, "Democrats did hold confirmation hearings in 24 hours, so they lost their shot."
On the other hand, letting Trump choose instead would be the ultimate reward for Mitch McConnell's eight years of obstruction, and set a percent for Republicans to do even worse the next time the Democrats win the White House.
I lean toward seating him as a way for Obama to admit his "go along to get along" tactic with Republicans mostly didn't work.
Also, even if people don't like Garland, who is about as middle of the road as you get, they might respect Obama for having the courage of his convictions.
And if the Republicans don't like it, they can always impeach Garland--or Obama.
PALAST:The Election was Stolen Here's How
Palast caught Republicans doing this in 2000. You would think as soon as Democrat's got control of the Justice Department back, this might have been on the agenda of things to fix.
How can Republicans do this stuff with impunity again and again, and Democrats don't even seem to care?
Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives.
Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.
The system, called Crosscheck, is detailed in my Rolling Stone report,
“The GOP’s Stealth War on Voters,” 8/24/2016.
Crosscheck in action:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922
Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/#more-12923
Why did Democrats do nothing about CROSSCHECK and other voter suppression efforts?
This was well documented well ahead of the election, and not only that, a similar effort with the felon voter purge in Florida in 2000 cut 100 times more voters from the rolls than Bush's margin of victory there.
Likewise, they seem to have completely ignored how easily electronic voting machines can be manipulated (more likely by GOP plumbers and ratfuckers than Russkies).
Does any have the inside scoop on how this can happen for at least two decades?
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