March 25, 2016

MUST SEE DOC: Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities

If you work in higher ed and think the only problems we face are fluctuating budgets, this is a must see.

Just as some wealthy individuals, corporations, and hedge funds are trying to remake K-12 public education to divert tax dollars into their own pockets with for profit charter schools, education management companies, repetitive standardized testing, and common core curriculum designed to maximize profits for textbook and testing companies while demonizing teachers and trying to break their unions is in the earlier stages of coming after colleges and universities.

Besides trashing K-12 public education, this corporate driven reform movement is not only driving teachers out of the profession, but dramatically reducing enrollment in education majors--so there aren't enough new teachers to replace those leaving.

If these "reforms" get very far in higher ed, the results could be even more chaotic and dramatic because of the large majority of part time faculty. K-12 teachers might put up with the crap a bit longer because of decent pay and full benefits.

That is not the case for college faculty members who have to patch together a couple of part time jobs to make a living (and still don't get family medical benefits even then).

As someone who started in K-12 and moved to higher ed, I had to make a choice between economic security but little control over what I taught if I stayed in K-12 or economic insecurity but academic freedom if I moved to higher ed. I know people who did the same for the same reasons.

What will happen if most college and university faculty are treated like crap economically AND academically?
Also, an ironic twist on this topic is the supposed superiority of the private sector in getting things done in K-12. In higher ed, whether you go to a public college, a private non-profit, or a private for profit college, you're classes will be taught by the same people.

One of my community college colleagues also teaches the same courses at a fairly well-known private school nearby and I asked him what he does differently for those students. He just laughed and said, "Nothing. They just pay more for it."

If private contractors get involved in delivering public education, taxpayers will pay the same or more, but get less so the contractors can skim a profit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/starving-the-beast-the-ba_b_9545130.html

March 23, 2016

Stop terrorist attacks? Stop our gov't & allies using terrorists as a tool of foreign policy

None of these groups could do anything without money and weapons, and nearly all of them at one point (or even still) were supported by us or our Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia as a way to undermine secular governments like those in Libya and Syria.

Whatever you think of the leaders of those countries, it had been a while since Libya did any terrorist attacks we blamed them for, and I can't remember Syria ever doing any.

In fact, Syria fought on our side in the first Gulf War, and after 9/11, Bush sent prisoners to Syria to be tortured and interrogated, which is not something I approve of, but if Washington ain't going to prosecute the Bushies for it, they have to acknowledge it as cooperation at least.

Some of Hillary's leaked emails revealed the real reasons we turned loose the terrorists on Libya, and none of it was worth the blowblack like we just saw in Belgium and will likely see elsewhere.

To "win" the war on terror, we and our allies need to stop using terrorists groups as a weapon and then acting surprised when they don't stay on task.

March 23, 2016

FRENCH REPORTER: "Norway, a country Trump supporters probably don't know exists"

I just heard that on Democracy Now the guy said it in passing it's funny to see how other countries view of trump matches so closely with ours

March 21, 2016

Exposing the Libyan Agenda: a Closer Look at Hillary’s Emails

I don't give a rat's ass where Hillary kept her emails.

The infinitely more important question is what they reveal about our foreign policy, so we can see how much we have been lied to and whether we want to approve of the real motives and goals for what we are doing to other countries.

Has any war in history been for purely or even primarily humanitarian reasons? Generally, the aggressor wants land, resources, cheap labor, or access to markets. Sidney Blumenthal's emails to Hillary about Libya certainly fit that model.

Blumenthal also mentions a currency issue that is usually treated as a far out conspiracy theory, which it no longer seems to be.

NOTE: I've gone over the four paragraph limit, but most of it is quotes from the emails. Only three paragraphs are from the author of the article about the emails.

March 17, 2016

One candidate would have been acceptable to progressives AND corporate Dems

Al Gore.

I wonder why he didn't run again, either in 2008 or now.

March 1, 2016

TOON: GOP Kool Aid in Flint, Mcihigan