A Room Full of Sociopaths Creating Horrors for Kids

Jonathan Kozol, a wiry, wonderfully GENTLE, very bright, elderly man who is author of "Letters to a Young Teacher" and who was an inner-city school teacher for more than 40 years, gave a magnificent lecture at the Baltimore County School District which was aired on C-Span's "BookTV" on August 24th.

If you get a chance to watch this guy on another repeat of the lecture, TAKE THE TIME to view it, I promise it will be rewarding. And if not, read his book.

His book is basically about giving young teachers survival strategies for how to deal with this hell delivered at their doorsteps by the Nearly Every Child Left Behind unfunded "mandate". In other words, how to engage in what Kozol calls, "creative non-compliance". (By heaven, I love that phrase.) He tries to impart "a sly irreverence, and an unshakable sense of humor" when confronting these new absurdities imposed on our educational system.

For instance, teachers are now required by law to write these numbered objectives on the board from the standardization requirements, prior to teaching the test lesson. Many of them ridiculously titled with big words to make some simple lesson like "How to write a story" sound more "official". They are, as Kozol characterizes them, "created by insecure men trying to overcompensate for their ignorance with multi-syllabic words."

Upon entering one classroom and seeing this Jonathan asked the teacher, "What on earth is that for?"

And the teacher replied, "That's in case the curriculum cops come in."

Something about these fool tests I didn't know, but learned during his lecture, was regarding the timing of them, and their results. The grades for these test are often not returned for up to six months. So the children take the test in December, and they don't get it back until June, and sometimes even LATER.

As Kozol said, "What is the teacher supposed to do with that? Write the student a post card in the summer and say, 'Well if I knew then, what I knew now, I would have focused more on vocabulary?'" Unlike tests teachers make up themselves, which are targeted to the individual needs of the students in front of them, these standardized tests are completely useless, not just because they kill creativity, but because they are not graded fast enough to do any good for the kids themselves. Teachers now teach to the test, not to the child.

( For more on why creativity is important to education, I encourage you to watch this: Sir Kenneth Robinson at TED )

He demonstrated how rightwing bureaucrats come up with almost diabolical means to skirt the regulations on class size. Rather than counting the actual number of children in a classroom, they "redefined" the meaning of "class size", to mean the "ratio of children to adults in any particular room" so that they can cram 90 kids into a single room (along with the inevitable cacophony & confusion), as long as there are three adults in the room.

He mentioned a "school" in a poor section of Los Angeles, where hundreds of students were herded into something akin to FEMA trailers for classes, but rather than calling them what they were - smelly trailers - the rightwing bureaucrats had taken to referring to them as "bungalows". As if merely changing the name of them would somehow alter the experience.

Then he went on to point out that at highend schools where the wealthy send their kids are far different. At Exeter 13 kids is the maximum class size, at Andover 12 kids maximum. A lot of dumb kids get into those schools because they have the right names and the right incomes. And they benefit from that help as any child would.

Kozol joked, "Bush for instance, went to Andover. It's a good school, but I do suspect that during the years he was there, the English faculty was on sabbatical," then went on more seriously to say, "But if such small classes are good enough for the richest members of our society, then it's good enough for our poorest Black and Hispanic children in the roughest parts of town."

He pointed out how the wealthy give their pre-kindergarten children fantastic early educational experiences at Montessori and the like, and how in some cases, this vital early education which SHOULD be available and fully funded for all, in private schools has grown in cost to as much as $24,000 per year for the three years preceding First Grade. Thereby putting it completely out of reach for the majority of American parents and their children.

Kozol amusingly said, "$24,000? Three year olds are so little, I always think, 'How much is that per pound?'" And he continued, "But three years later, all those children, whether they've had the benefit of early education or not, are going to have to take the same high stakes test. And which children do you think are going to be labeled gifted, and placed on a path to AP classes and ultimately the best colleges. And whom do you think will end up labeled 'developmentally challenged', and potentially left behind."

To quote George Carlin, "The government program used to be 'Head Start." Now it's 'No Child Left Behind'. Somebody's losing ground...."

Kozol said, "I sometimes think, 'Is there a little room, somewhere in Washington - perhaps in the basement of the Heritage Foundation - full of sociopaths who think up these horrors for children?'"

$3 billion a year in tax dollars are going to these private testing corporations. THAT is what NCLB is all about. That, and in Kozol's words, "creating this shaming ritual for the public schools, because NCLB was never intended to IMPROVE our public schools, it was precisely intended to DESTROY them, and move that money into privatization schemes like vouchers."

They simply do not want every American to receive a free, high-quality public education. It is yet another example of an incompetent Neocon pet project designed to dumb down America so that they'll be stupid enough to vote Republican. An educated populous simply isn't in their political interests, because no one with a brain votes for them.

So, born out of these crazed conservative "think" tanks and pushed onto the public by a myopic Republican Congress using Orwellian naming conventions to distract people from the damage their programs will inevitably inflict, they then underfund the program to further ensure it's failure and disproportionately cause harm to the weakest members of our society.

Democrats like Senator Edward Kennedy TRIED to turn this into something that might be productive for our children, but were far from successful under the Republican-dominated Legislative Branch, and have ever since been trying to, at a minimum, get it adequately funded. But we must recognize that this notion was inherently flawed from the beginning and just scrap it.

When Liberals finally wrest control of the country's driving seat from these incompetent Neocon Republicans in 2008, one of the first programs they must abolish is this one, and simply let educators DO THEIR JOBS.

Kozol said, "My friend, Fred Rogers, whom I miss very much, always said, 'Leave a time for silence when children get to pose the questions.' But it's hard to leave any time for the children themselves, when the teacher must march in lockstep to these arbitrary tests."

You Can Resign, Gonzo & Karl, But You Can't Hide

Scott Horton, of Harper's Magazine is reporting on a weird case in Alabama connected to the Justice Department U.S. Attorney firings (and in this case about the kinds of people who KEPT their jobs because apparently they were willing to do the kind of political hit jobs the fired USA's weren't willing to), and this one might nail Karl Rove himself.

Here's what I gleaned from the report.

Seems that last year, the most powerful Democrat in the state, Governor Don Siegelman, was brought up on charges that he allegedly was bribed by HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy who wanted a seat on the state health board in 1999. Siegelman was very popular even with Republican voters, and had never lost an election. The GOP hated him.

They couldn't beat him on the issues, so what to do? Well play dirty tricks of course! What did ya expect?

Some interesting factors here:

• In May of this year, Jill Simpson a Republican lawyer, filed an affidavit stating that William Canary, a GOP insider and the head of the Business Council of Alabama, had told Ms. Simpson that, "He had talked to Karl, and Karl had spoken to the Department of Justice, and they didn't have to worry about Don Siegelman anymore. He was going to be taken care of."
• Who brought the case against Siegelman? Laura Canary, William Canary's wife, as well as Alice Martin, who herself is under investigation for perjury.
• HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy was a major funder of the Republicans in Alabama.
• The judge handling the case is Judge Mark Fuller, a former member of the Executive Committee of the Alabama Republican Party, and a Bush Appointee himself, who had a well-known grudge against.... Governor Siegelman. He previously served as a district attorney. When he left that position to take on his new role as a judge, Governor Siegelman was in charge of appointing his replacement. As a part of that process, a mandatory audit was done, which revealed a lot of sketchy expenditures that Judge Fuller had made. That case is still under investigation, but Fuller maintained that it was all "a political attack by Siegelman", even though the audit was a regular procedure the Governor had very little to do with.
• Judge Fuller -- who clearly had a conflict of interest and should have recused himself from the case -- denied bail pending appeal, so that Gov. Siegelman would be put in jail immediately -- compare that to the treatment of Scooter Libby.
• Not only that, but Judge Fuller also directed that Governor Siegelman be placed in manacles and handcuffs and taken before waiting television cameras to be shown on the evening news in Alabama. All during election season.
• Alabama was one of the main centers of the Abramoff scandal, with a mass diversion of funds and casino gambling money going into the coffers of the Alabama Republican Party.
• After the trial and sentencing, 44 attorneys general from around the country, Democrats and Republicans, submitted a petition to Congress saying there's something horribly wrong with this case, and requesting Congressional investigation.

According to Horton:

"This is perhaps the first well-documented case of deep involvement by Karl Rove in the prosecutorial process, in fact a stunningly corrupt involvement, I would say, using the prosecutorial machinery for a political purpose that is staggering.

I think, there was a double motive or maybe even a triple motive involved. It involved eliminating the most important, most powerful Democratic figure in the state from political contention. It involved... [a way of diverting attention from the] corporate corruption issue, because HealthSouth was big on the agenda, and Richard Scrushy had been a major funder of the Republicans in Alabama. It also involved redirecting resources, which in that state had been following the Abramoff case. They were taken off of that investigation, which promised to involve leading Republican politicians, and instead they were directed at Siegelman.

[The case] was dotted with gross irregularities from beginning to end. That is, the conduct of the prosecutors did not follow well-established Department of Justice guidelines. There was very clear evidence of involvement of political figures in Washington at the highest level, not just from the affidavit, but even from the way it was touted at the beginning with press conferences. In fact, there was a remarkable coordination between press conferences the Department of Justice gave, and statements that were released by the Republican Party in Alabama. So it was done for clear political effect.

People at the top of the Justice Department and beyond that were deeply involved tracking and directing this case from the beginning. At the end of the day, I think we're going to see that trail lead back to Karl Rove and his office."

It's being speculated now that this Alabama connection is the main reason why the White House is refusing to turn over Rove's email messages at the Political Office, because the smoking gun evidence on this Alabama corruption, AND its corresponding ties to the Abramhoff Scandal are in there, not to mention all of the election fraud information connected to Karl Rove's protege', Tim Griffin, and his activities in Arkansas that intentionally purged the homeless, the elderly, and African-American soldiers serving in Iraq from the voting rolls.

If Karl, or Torquemada Gonzales, or anyone else think that by merely resigning, the law will cease to pursue them for their crimes, they are SADLY mistaken.

There WILL be a moment of truth when you are made accountable for your many crimes. Indeed, compared to authoring the torture memo that allowed war crimes to be committed, and the treasonous outing of a NOC CIA agent during war time, election fraud and committing prosecutorial misconduct are merely the most MINOR of your crimes.

And should you escape the just sentence of living the rest of your lives in chains for what you have done, I can promise you, you will spend the next five lifetimes as a dung beetle crawling up an elephant's ass in punishment.

Then again, that's not all that different from what you do now... is it?

Why Iraqi Reconstruction is "Failing"

Far too many in the corporate media report that the reconstruction in Iraq is "failing" or that "not enough diplomatic means have been employed", without ever asking WHY that is happening.

The answer is that if things were actually improving in Iraq, one couldn't loot the country by Executive Order as easily.

I refer to the suitably Orwellian-named, “Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq", otherwise known as Presidential Executive Order 13303, which Bush issued on May 22, 2003. This order, which effectively seized Iraqi oil wells and their revenues, was ostensibly intended to ensure that the funds would be spent on Iraqi reconstruction. What it does in actual practice, is place US oil corporations above the law by rendering any claim or lawsuit brought against them to be invalid. Whoever controls the revenues can thereby do anything they want with them -- like put the money in their pocket and walk away.

But this was not enough for the thieves currently running our government. They wished to go far further, they wanted to make the Iraqis actually consent to the theft. Sort of like making the bank manager sign a contract giving the bank robbers ownership of everything in the vault.

There is currently pending oil privatization legislation (written by the Bush Administration, no less) that the Iraqi Parliament -- foolishly thinking their oil is.... THEIR OIL -- is refusing to pass. And until they pass that bill, the Bush Administration is in effect, holding reconstruction hostage.

THAT is why Iraqis have no power, dirty water, open sewers, etc.

It is notable that Bush wanted benchmarks, not DEADLINES that the Democrats wanted -- but why? The corporate press played it as if the Bushbots were asking for this so that the IRAQIS could be more flexible and have time to meet the goals, but the real purpose was to allow them more time to PRESSURE the Parliament to pass this law that would give away the wealth of their nation to foreign invaders.

It should be also added that the legislation that BushCo. is trying to basically force the Iraqi gov't to sign at gunpoint, is an yet another express violation of the both the Hague IV Treaty and the US Army’s Law of Land Warfare, which says:

Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV) Article 55
"The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct." (In other words, you can't rob them blind. You only temporarily manage operations, you are NOT the ultimate OWNER of their resources.)

The US Army’s Law of Land Warfare
States that "the occupant does not have the right of sale or unqualified use of [nonmilitary] property."

In addition to Executive Order 13303, the oil privatization bill is in fact the THIRD violation of these laws and treaties, because on September 19, 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority head, Paul Bremer, enacted Order 39.

Order 39 just arbitrarily "announced" that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatized; decreed that foreign firms could retain 100 percent ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move 100 percent of their profits out of Iraq.

This information provides the PROOF to charge that the Bush Administration is INTENTIONALLY sabotaging the diplomatic solutions there, because of it's private oil agenda. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is basically using the U.S. Army as the trigger men for an economic hit on a sovereign nation, on behalf of a few amoral rich guys.

And the real reason why "1994 Cheney" didn't want us to topple Saddam, but 2002 Cheney was all for it, is because had we gone in in 1994, with Clinton in charge, it was virtually inevitable that Cheney and his fellow cronies wouldn't have PROFITED PERSONALLY from the invasion, because not only would the contracts have been based on merit and cost-effectiveness (not to mention have been awarded to Iraqi firms first), rather than partisan political loyalty, but because Clinton never would have tried to privatize the Iraqi oil fields in the first place.

If a judge can demand the release of an 'Environmental Atmospheric Report' from the White house, then a judge should be able to demand Cheney's suppressed 'minutes' of his secret Energy Department meetings. I'm certain those meetings were the Administration's launching pad to steal Iraqi Oil.

His energy meetings weren't just about how to hide Enron's cooked books, or how to jack up west coast resident's energy bills, but also about deciding, "Ok, so how do we carve up these 80 oil fields in Iraq?" in much the same way that Hyman Roth sat with Michael Corleone and cut a cake symbolizing Cuba into chunks.

In a broader context, beyond the criminal thugs running our country now, the fact of the matter is, Iraq itself is a foreign construct, not a naturally occurring nation state arrived at by the people themselves. The entire map of the Middle East was carved up by foreign businessmen and colonial masters. There is a reason why Jordan's border runs right along the pipeline. That line in the sand didn't just get drawn there by accident.

And just like Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, where the British slapped together tribes who hated each other and called it a country (then wondered why civil war broke out the minute the colonial government was gone), you have what amounts to the same thing in Iraq. And much like Rhodesia, you're ultimately going to end up with a three-country division of one sort or another, and its gonna be a mess in Sunni-Shia/"Iraq"/Kurdistan for at least the next three decades.

Thank you, President-select Bush.

The desire for a so-called "Muslim Caliphate" does not emerge solely from a religious place. The fact is that much of the Middle East has never had the chance to define THEMSELVES as nationalities, rather their national identity has been largely imposed from outside.

Democracy has to emerge out of SELF-determination. And I think it reveals a real lack of faith in the power of democracy, and the desire for human liberty, to not have enough confidence that eventually, everyone is going to come to some essential conclusions about the best way to run a government.

You cannot liberate people at gunpoint, I don't care how you do it. They have to want it for themselves FIRST. It can't be astroturfed, it has to grow naturally from the bottom up.

But then, as we've now demonstrated, "advancing freedom and democracy" were never the point of this entire exercise in Iraq to begin with. Indeed, these same people aren't terribly interested in preserving freedom and democracy here at home, much less overseas. The point of George's little jaunt into the desert, was to create just enough chaos to cover up the rank thievery of a greedy few.

It is beyond criminal neglect, it is beyond mere incompetence, this is using mass murder to hide what amounts to the biggest bank job in history.

California Senate Blocks Foolish Chip Implants

Per an article in today's Los Angeles Times:

The state Senate passed legislation that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin.

State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans.

The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person.

"RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses," Simitian said. "But we shouldn't condone forced 'tagging' of humans. It's the ultimate invasion of privacy."

Simitian said he fears that the devices could be compromised by persons with unauthorized scanners, facilitating identity theft and improper tracking and surveillance.

Putting "mark of the Beast" hysteria aside for the moment, the entire notion of tagging people with these chips is sheer idiocy from a purely technical standpoint. It's not some magic bullet that will make everything secure and controllable.

While this Democratic representative seems to have gotten a clue, somebody seriously needs to give the majority of people in "leadership" positions a course in chaos theory, like YESTERDAY.

To those that think, "Oh well, if we just tag prisoners, or illegals, or well everybody, then we'll know right off whether they're a criminal, or a threat of any kind," I have but one word for you: REPROGRAMMING.

And anyone who tells you they've made the tech hacker-proof ought to be slapped immediately, and HARD.

Already it's been proven that those idiot RFID tags their putting into our passports are useless, because they can be wiped and reprogrammed to say whatever the hell you want.

And the real danger with such an over-reliance on this sort of thing is that it lends a false sense of security.

The extreme extension of this would be to imagine Osama bin Laden himself walking up to the border control agent bold as day, but if his passport RFID tag says, "I'm innocent Mr. Magillicutty, a simple cobbler from Connecticut", that border control believes what the damned chip says, and not their own eyes. Just because the computer says it, it doesn't make it so. That applies to our voting, and it would sure as hell apply here. The data is only as reliable as the person who programmed it.

Like all of these foolish "security over freedoms" measures from illegal wiretapping, to permitting torture, or detention without trial, the only people the technology ends up constraining or unfairly abusing are ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and actually ends up HELPING the very bad people we're trying to stop.

The criminals and ultimately even ordinary people will find ways around it, so therefore all you've done is spend gobs of money to hurt innocent people, and yielded zero results save for bad ones.

It's like pouring water over a hand. The more you tighten your grip, the more water slips through your fingers.

Implanting RFID chips into humans, especially if it's mandatory, is pointless, totalitarian, and completely antithetical to the American spirit. It's an affront to the presumption of innocence, to whatever's left of the 4th Amendment, and is merely the technological equivalent of the Soviet, "Papers please!"