THE DAY AFTER

   RAD:  The horrific event at Fort Hood in Texas makes one realize the fragility of life and one's mortality.  In that light I've posted the quotes in the post below to bring solace to us all but especially the family and friends of the maimed and killed.                                                                                  
    On the morning after such horror we should be careful about drawing conclusions about what caused a soldier-psychiatrist who happens to be a USA born and raised Muslim-American to perpetrate such evil. Time will tell.  Speculation is rampant.  Already some are rushing to judgment focusing on the ethnicity and faith of the perpetrator as if that explained anything definitive.                                
    The US military has always included men and women from many races, ethnicities and faiths.  In WW II Japanese-Americans served their country with honor despite the fact their families were interned; Native-Americans served herorically despite centureis of mistreatment of their tribal peers; and African-Americans served bravely in segregated units.                                                                                         
    It is too easy to default to reasons of race, ethnicity or faith when the issues of this case are too complex for such one-dimensional analysis.  In the simmering pot of American pluralism people of different races, ethnicities, faiths, genders and sexual orientations have served their nation well abeit facing the slings and arrows of prejudice.
    It is clear from what we know so far that the accused was a very troubled person as his psychiatrist peers at Walter Reed in DC noted.  With all the warnings out there - why didn't anybody step up and go to the higher ups to note their concerns?  As with tragedies of this sort, including Oregon's own Kip Kinkle case, there is a conspiracy of silence which precedes such horrific events.  Why?              
    Let's also keep this tragedy in perspective, The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 by American militia movement sympathizer Timothy McVeigh, with the assistance of Terry Nichols was the most significant act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11 attacks in 2001, claiming the lives of 168 victims and injuring more than 680.                                                                          
    Finally, while the NRA will no doubt say at some point that “people, not guns, kill people” it’s hard to imagine such slaughter being possible without access in this case to automatic weapons.  And yet our 2nd Amendment fetish for unlimited access to personal weapons of mass destruction will no doubt continue – despite Fort Hood or similar events such as the killings at Virginia Tech.

MOURNING IN AMERICA

   Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.  ~From a headstone in Ireland

    When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.  ~Kahlil Gibran

    Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect.  The wisest know nothing.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa

        Time is a physician that heals every grief. ~Diphilus

        The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

        In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.  ~Robert Ingersoll

        Every evening I turn my worries over to God.  He's going to be up all night anyway.  ~Mary C. Crowley

    

THE EDUCATION FACTORY

    President Barack Obama was in Wisconsin yesterday marketing his education reform agenda – “the race to the top.”  As I have said in the blog many times over the last five years education reform based on high stakes testing will do nothing about erasing the “education gap” but it will increase the profit margins of corporations which sell tests, text books and soft-ware designed to implement the education reform scam.  
    Today’s Washington Post puts another light on the “race to the top” agenda.  Apparently the Pentagon types are having a hard time recruiting educated and healthy recruits.  While recruitment numbers are up due to big money bonuses and a downed economy the long-term prospects don’t look good since many potential recruits are high school dropouts and have serious health issues such as obesity.  
    The “factoid” which came out earlier this week that over 50% of US children are on food stamps sometime in the year and that among African-Americans that goes up to 90% gives one the picture that many in the current school age generation may suffer from long term education and health deficits that may make them unfit for service to their country. 
    Let me summarize what appears to be the rationale such so-called "education" reform:

• We need a global workforce who can compete with the best in the world especially from Europe and Asia.  Education reform is all about the nurturing and feeding of corporate America - filling the slots of an emergent high tech post-modern capitalism;
• We need a robust and versatile volunteer military to enable US presidents and Congresses to invade, occupy and defeat the space of “evil doers” wherever they might be.  So we need to produce able-bodied men and women who are physically and mentally equipped to be our nation’s fearless warriors;   

    The classic argument from Plato to Freire that education and good health are good in themselves and liberating has been covertly replaced by an explicit rationale that they instead are to be instruments of a strategy to fill the slots of corporate America and the Military Industrial Complex.  Testing and better nutrition are simply a “post-industrial” method of fitting square pegs into round holes.
    Educational reformers from John Dewey to Jonathon Kozol have identified the “industrial” model of schooling as the harbinger of conformity, mediocrity and failure.  Workforce education or the militarization of K-12 is not designed to educate engaged citizens but to fill the slots of our downsized economy and/or the manpower needs of an increasingly outsourced Pentagon.  
    Pass me my soma pill Dr. Orwell or Dr. Huxley.  Secretary of Education "Arne" Duncan is on the march to his own version of 1984 and Brave New World.  Now I get what “change” really means!   

    PS:  From the article (see link below):  Educators say preschool programs are one of the best ways to ensure academic success later in life.  Military officials think they're one of the best ways to ensure the country has a large pool of people who will be savvy enough to fly helicopters, drive tanks and gather intelligence.   "You can't wait until high school in order to change a young person," said Kelly, the retired major general. "It has to be done at a very early age, and that's why the need for high quality early learning is so vital."
    RAD:  To paraphrase a familiar line - "a mind [and body] are a terrible thing to waste!  Isn't that why we must bring the troops home now? 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/04/AR2009110402899.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

ELECTION '09

    The post-mortems from yesterday's governor elections in New Jersey and Virginia, a smattering of open congressional seats and some state-wide votes on gay rights are, except in the latter case, much ado about nothing.  In New Jersey the Corzine administration's political corruption was even too much for a state infamous for corruption and organized crime - hell it's part of the state's business model.  The voters there still support Barack - they just decided to throw the top "bum" out.  Sometimes no amount of money will save you!  
    In Virginia the GOP won several state wide races including governor because the Democratic candidate was a total gaffer.  Again, the exit polls show they still like Barack.  Add to all of this that turnout is always low in such by year elections so the voters who vote are the energizer rabbit like super partisan types in this case the GOP base.  The youth and African-American voters stayed home yersterday.  Now in the case of Maine's apparent defeat of a gay marriage proposition it should cause folks in the state of Washingto to reconsider their intention to run that flap up the political flagpole in '10.  
    The reality is that unless the economy has a miracle comeback in the next year - '10 is going to be a bad year for progressives and Democrats - with their guy in the Oval Office - that's the historic trend line.  The goal will be to minimize the loses and keep their majority.  If the gay rights folks do their thing - this will hurt them and more importantly for the rest of the progressive community it will energize the far right wing to get out their voters making November '10 a banner year for the GOP - remember '94?  Why would you want to do this to your allies Basic Rights folks? 

HEADLINE NEWS

    Given the frenetic 24/7 media clock cycle it's hard for even a retired poliitical science professor to keep up on all the news that's "fit to print" - there are simply not enough hours in a day if you have another life!  So after reading three days of newspapers here's some RAD headline news clips that got my attention after reading my hardcopy version of The Oregonian: 

•     The chatter on CNN et al about today's Virginia, New Jersey and New York elections is pure media hype.  All politics is local.  These are NOT referendums on Obama but a chance for the rightwingnuts to shout to their base, 30% of the electorate - who cares? 
•     All the huffing and puffing over a public option plan may be much ado about nothing.  If some version passes muster - it won't cover that many people and not very well at that;  
•     If health care reform passes where are the doctors and nurses going to come from to provide services to an additional 30-45 million people?
•     Don't worry about big Pharma being out in the cold if health care reform passes.  They have plenty of helpers on Capitol Hill covering their collective you know whats;  
•     50% of American children are on food stamps at some point in the year.  90% of African-American kids have that experience.  This is truly shocking in the richest and most powerful nation in the world. 
•     The now defunct Afghan run-off election would have pitted two insiders against each other doing nothing to reconcile the Pashtun majority of the country who support the Taliban and al Qaida;   
•     The gay rights movement in Washington and Oregon are gearing up again.  The "northern" alliance wants the names of all those folks who sign petititions and the "southern alliance" wants to redo the gay marriage debate.  Didn't you get the memo - pick fights you can win not one's that mobilize the right wing. 
•     How many coaches at Lincoln High can run off the tracks before the school board in Portland decides an investigation is required not just speculation from a well connected political columnist? 
•     Governor Kulongoski and the Oregon legislature have not been minding the store allowing tax payer dollars to be eaten up by “green energy” tax credits without any oversight;
•     Duck fans – get over it – The Quack Attack is and will never be rated #1 thanks to Boise State.  RAD – LOL.  You better hope your team doesn’t stumble on the way to the Rose Bowl.
•    Will the Bronx Bombers blow the Phillies out tomorrow or is this another '04?  Clearly most of the nation doesn't give a you know what.  Go Phils, Go Rauuuuuuuuuul.... 

    If you want to read more about the more local stories – check out the archives of Oregonlive…