The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion
Reality-Based Chat. Speak!
I work on an elementary campus and we all wonder how long it will be before a student shows up with a weapon of some kind. We've had a student bring a toy gun, or maybe it was a BB gun, I don't remember, and show it to other students and threaten them if they told. We've also had students bring bullets to school to show off, so you know they have access. I don't think any work place is really immune to that sort of gun violence any more. Disgruntled, and/or bullied employees and students abound, despite our best efforts to avert bullying behavior. Kids can be very subtle with bullying behavior and hide it from everyone.
Mary wrote: "Mark and Barbara, I originally planned to be a high school teacher, but after a few weeks of hall duty and cafeteria patrol, not to mention the undisciplined and occasionally high on drugs (this wa..."I am a teacher- although I resigned from the district because I am moving to New Mexico after I sell my house. Since my house is still sitting on the market, yesterday I applied to substitute until it does sell. I am a high school history teacher but I am also certified in Special Ed. k/12. I have worked in the alternative school here and I rather enjoyed it. My problem had more to do with the administration and a few of the teachers I worked with than the students. Sadly, those teaching at alternative schools do it to reduce student loans or as the bottom rung of getting better teaching positions in other schools. Two of the teachers I worked with fit that description and the students paid for it- big time. I taught in Crossroads with two other teachers. The first mistake was that the geniuses at the district thought it would be a good idea to put students of all levels in one classroom which meant we had students as young as 4th grade mixed in with high school seniors. You can imagine what a nightmare gym was. Anyway, the other two teachers (who had seniority) decided that order was the order of the day. They did not bond with the students for the most part and students either learned that promptly or ended up out of the class one way or the other. Two or three times a week, the police were called on 4th graders who had ripped paper and thrown it on the floor or for other "outrages" similar to that. The children in this class were truly the throw away kids of the town and I felt the other teachers did nothing to change that. I had several run ins with the other teachers because my methods were different from theirs. I knew they were too jaded to be working there. The children paid a hefty price. Perhaps not surprisingly, both of these people were NRA gun toting, right wingers. They shared what is a common trait among Republicans: they lacked empathy. I do not want to leave the impression that they were representative of the entire school because they certainly were not. There were and continue to be some wonderful, dedicated teachers working in that school, many of whom plan to stay there even should opportunities open up in other schools in town.
We dealt with some kids who came from horrible family situations but although there was occasionally some fighting (mostly among the younger students), we didn't really have a problem with guns or gang violence- possibly due to the size of the town. Sorry, I am just kind of rambling. I think there was a point somewhere. :)
Colleen - One point, I think, is that you have district administrators probably adept at politics (or very connected) but utterly incompetent at education, and supportive of "teachers" devoid of empathy whose major preoccupation is with the enforcement of "order" and not the prosecution of actual education or the nurturing of students. And I suspect, given that many school boards are elected by people of like authoritarian temperament, the problem is widespread. Besides, it actually advances the agenda of the power elite who'd really like to eliminate public education entirely -- but would, in any case, prefer an electorate as educationally disadvantaged as possible. One capable of watching Faux News without gaping incredulity and hysterical contempt.What amazes me, however, is that -- whatever their politics -- the local police would not start ignoring such gratuitous and unnecessary calls that divert their attention from actual business. Isn't it actually technically a crime to make repeated frivolous reports to the police?
Mark wrote: "Colleen - One point, I think, is that you have district administrators probably adept at politics (or very connected) but utterly incompetent at education, and supportive of "teachers" devoid of e..."The biggest problem here is that it isn't what you know; it's who you know.
Colleen wrote: "The biggest problem here is that it is what you know; it's who you know ."I think that is always and invariably the biggest problem, everywhere. (Along with the fact that the sort of people one has to know -- who wield actual power and authority -- are typically the biggest sociopaths on the planet. :-))
Barbara, Colleen, and Mark, did any of you read this week's (or maybe it's last week's now) cover story in Time? I skimmed it because I become too agitated when I read about politicians trying to improve education. The more they try to improve it with No Child Left Behind, Common Core, or whatever nonsense they come up with in Washington or their state capitols, the worst it gets. This article is about an attack on tenure, which started here in California. Now I agree that we need to be able to get rid of really bad teachers, and I'm disgusted that so many teachers recently have molested children. But politicians and businessmen aren't the ones who should find the solutions. We need people who have spent years in the classroom to come up with solutions. Testing is not the solution; test taking is a skill just like reading, writing, and critical thinking. So testing just tests our ability to take tests, and focusing on tests encourages teachers and school administrators to cheat and/or teach their students how to take tests.I worry not only about the privatization of education but also about home schooling. While I understand why parents would want to protect their children from being shot by an insane classmate or molested by an equally insane teacher, I also know that schools are our greatest socialization tool. We learn to follow instructions, to obey rules, to work on a schedule, to interact with (hopefully) diverse people, to adjust to different styles (of teaching), even to grow thick skins during the inevitable bullying. I figured out when I was standing in line in the supermarket one day after I had stood in line at the bank why we stood in line so much in elementary school. We were being prepared to spend our adult lives standing in lines. I think home schooled children will have a harder time adjusting to life as adults.
Mary - I'm very conflicted about the issue of home schooling.On the one hand, I tend automatically to oppose it because:
1) it's a vehicle whereby some truly ill-educated people can visit the same affliction upon their children (all the more, since it's especially popular among evolution-deniers whose grandparents rode dinosaurs).
2) taken in the aggregate, it serves the plutocratic agenda of further lobotomization of the populace (if that were possible) and destruction of one of the few professions still served by unions (and concomitant destruction of those unions). Teaching is a profession, moreover, whose practitioners represent (from the plutocratic perspective) a relatively progressive element that ought to be obliterated entirely. First, they came for the teachers... (Well, actually, it was the air traffic controllers, but even so...)
and
3) the prevailing view among the wealthy Randian objectivist sociopaths on the right is that no one deserves an education who isn't wealthy, in any case.
So it would seem to be a no-brainer to oppose home schooling with some measure of rabidity (which I do, for political purposes).
BUT
1) I personally spent twelve unendurable years of literal torture (which I think is the common experience of "geeks"), from which I learned precisely nothing that I had not known at the age of eight. If enduring torture from psychotic bullies whilst being intellectually insulted by a curriculum suitable for dysfunctional lemurs socializes one in any arguably helpful way, then consider me "socialized."
2) The best student I ever had was a thirteen-year-old home-schooled mathematical prodigy whose Ph.D. parents were disinclined to let him go alone to MIT at that age, and so let him do his undergraduate degree locally.
So -- public schooling was inexpressibly horrible for me, personally -- but geeks are, by definition, atypical. Nevertheless, until we spend enough on public education that every "atypical" student can be served by a wholly separate program in a magnet school -- which is never going to happen in the overwhelming majority of school districts -- then I think that constitutes a de facto decision to shovel more bodies and minds into the furnaces of hell for a twelve-year test of endurance of excruciation. My utilitarian political impulse turns out to be fathomlessly cruel and inhumane to... well, to people like me. On the other hand, I doubt that the parents of "geeks" are uniformly (or even commonly) able and willing to school their children at home, so I can't see that providing additional support for that option would rescue enough victims of stultification and incessant bullying to justify the broader victimization wrought by incrementally dismantling public education and rendering most of the populace illiterate (to whatever degree they're not already). /rant
I tend to oppose home schooling except in very extenuating circumstances - the child is too sick to attend school or it's too dangerous to walk to school or something equally dire. In many states, there is almost no regulation of home-schooling. For example, in Ohio, a parent merely has to be a high school graduate and submit a curriculum before the school year begins. This is not monitored at all.Nevertheless, I have seen some people home-schooled successfully, too. In Virginia, home-schoolers have to take the same state tests as children attending a school. Those who do okay in home school situations usually have some other group experiences to supplement - going to public school to be in the school band or doing sports there, participating in scouts or park district activities or being in a home school association with many group activities. I fear us becoming a nation of hermits otherwise. But maybe home schoolers are actually being prepared for the brave new world in which everyone works from home.
Lisa - I generally agree with you, so pardon my access of apoplexy -- doubtless a manifestation of PTSD yet to be dispelled after half a century. :-) I emphatically do not want to see public education undermined.
As a child, I was an outlier, so I suffered immoderately, and still feel impelled to question the value of socialization as a bonum in se. It's inarguable that public education accomplishes socialization, but that really ought to be 500th on the list of priorities down from accomplishing education. I just want non-abusive and effective public schools.
Mary wrote: "Barbara, Colleen, and Mark, did any of you read this week's (or maybe it's last week's now) cover story in Time? I skimmed it because I become too agitated when I read about politicians trying to ..."I agree with much of what you have to say. I have several points in response. These may seem a bit disjointed and for that I apologize. I agree with you completely about standardized testing. However, as for teacher made tests, I know that they serve a very useful purpose and should be administered on a regular basis- The difference between the two is that the former is to fulfill a political or economic purpose. They are a tool for legislators (often associated with ALEC) to discredit public education in their drive to destroy it. The latter are a means for teachers to measure their students progress. They are as much a test for the teacher as for the student. If students generally do poorly, than the teacher knows it is necessary to re-teach the information. If the students do well, it is time to move on.
Home schooling, for the most part, I am opposed to. First there is the issue of socialization. Most home schooled children I have been in contact with lack the social skills to function adequately in society. Moreover, short of homeschooled students submitting to some kind of evaluative process to determine their success and then a procedure to correct or supplement their instruction, it is difficult to determine when they are properly educated.
Those who take the SAT or ACT or even high school equivalency tests can indicate the level and success of the instruction they have received at home but short of that, there is no real way to measure their level of education. Unfortunately, too many are homeschooled because of the paranoia of their parents- often government hating individuals with little or no education themselves.
As for Common Core, I must defend it. I have taught students using it and if it is introduced very early (kindergarten) it does teach critical thinking skills and offers students a variety of ways to solve problems. This, in my opinion, opens their mind. My problem with it is that it was introduced to students at all levels of education all at once. It has been confusing and difficult for older students who learned one way of solving problems to suddenly have to adapt. I believe it should have been introduced in kindergarten who have it throughout the course of their education.
I just want to state (since I forgot to include it earlier) that there are successful homeschooled students. Unfortunately, they seem to comprise only a small part of the total who are homeschooled.
Barbara wrote: "I work on an elementary campus and we all wonder how long it will be before a student shows up with a weapon of some kind. We've had a student bring a toy gun, or maybe it was a BB gun, I don't rem..."It has been at least 15 years ago but a first grader did show up with a gun at an elementary school here. The response was to punish the child. While it was appropriate to discipline the child, there was no action taken against the parents who had obviously not secured it from the child. In my opinion, at six years of age, we cannot expect a child to sufficiently understand the danger involved. To me, it demonstrated a mindset that goes a long way in explaining why we have such a gun crazed society. The gun was discovered and secured so that no damage was done but it is frightening to think of what could happen.
My town is also the scene of one of the first school shootings in the recent spate. A middle school child, whose parents had both died from AIDS was bullied and taunted about them and brought a gun to school. Long story short, a student who had not participated in the bullying ended up being shot and killed. This actually happened a year or two before I moved back home so it had to have happened nearly 20 years ago.
Colleen - Your mention of a tragedy precipitated by bullying and the insane ready availability of guns in this country moved me to wonder whether the two aren't related. Really, this is a society that encourages "bullying" and predation at all levels, and worships instruments of death in a way that seems almost fetishistic. (Strike the "almost.") There is a very deep pathology in the American psyche, and it is not one of which all countries partake in the same measure, so I don't think it can be attributed entirely to universal atavistic instincts. The Scandinavian countries frown on spanking, and they have a vastly lower incidence of violence, overall. Perhaps we are just a society that operates on an engine of multigenerational child abuse, or perhaps it's something else. We are incredibly deferential to corporate bullies and predators, which seems to be another manifestation.
Mark wrote: "Colleen - Your mention of a tragedy precipitated by bullying and the insane ready availability of guns in this country moved me to wonder whether the two aren't related. Really, this is a society ..."Historically, the South always had a more violent culture than the North- particularly relating to guns. Unfortunately, I think the mindset spread across the country. I am not suggesting here that Southerners are responsible for all the violence in our country but when you look at the statistics, I do believe they are much more likely to "solve" problems by the use of violence than are Northerners. Look at where the death penalty is most prevalent. The South did not ban dueling until well after the North did. And they held onto slavery (their form of which was horrendously violent) and went to war to protect it. There is a lot that can be learned from the South. Unfortunately, Northerners have not learned the right lessons.
What I learned from the South, Colleen, was how to be tough. Maybe I am less bothered by the "inevitable bullying" than Mark was because I believe it toughened me to fight the battles I would need to fight and am still fighting (I'm going after an annoying home association right now) as an adult. But in some ways, I had my own kind of home schooling. I spent my first six years of public school in a segregated elementary school, taught by black females. Then at twelve I entered an integrated junior high, taught only by whites, where I encountered not only a few racist students (this was 1961) but racist teachers. I also encountered white teachers who were quietly supportive of a high-achieving black student. That's how I learned not to stereotype. And, Mark, this black "geek" was treated better than most other black students (probably not better than the athletes). I was popular with many of the white students, and the black students, who mostly ignored me when we were in the black elementary school, were proud of my achievements.
I've noticed that quite a few of the winners in the National Spelling Contest are homeschooled, so I assume that under the proper conditions students can learn more at home, but I agree with Lisa. Unless we are going to move to a society where everyone stays in the house and communicates only through their computers, we need schools for socialization.
As for bullying, I'm sure it's worst now than when I was in school because I see how adults bully each other on social media, and I notice how media people (and not just the obnoxious ones like Bill O'Reilly) bully. I'm annoyed when media folks talk about the most hated man or the most hated woman. I think we should stop promoting hate. I used to like Keith Olbermann's worst person in the world segment because he was clearly joking, but serious media folks should just state the facts and let their viewers make judgments. And haters should be silenced; they are the worst people in the world.
Colleen wrote: " Historically, the South always had a more violent culture than the North- particularly relating to guns. Unfortunately, I think the mindset spread across the country .."Having spent the first 23 years of my life north of the Mason-Dixon line -- and somewhat peripatetically -- and all of the remainder in the South (settling finally in what may be the epicenter of lust for the death of others and infatuation with phallic-substitute weaponry -- I think you can guess which state), for all that I'm loath to generalize, I think I would have to affirm your observation to be overwhemingly true (or at least, consistent with my own experience, statistically speaking).
There are, of course, a multitude of progressive Southerners -- especially in urban areas -- and you find the stray patches of blue in places like Austin, but overall, yes, Southerners like weapons much more than Northerners (in both senses of that assertion :-)), they like war much more than Northerners, and they embrace right-wing political positions much more than Northerners. Since this is a state of affairs that appears to be irremediable (though granted it's more a Gedankenexperiment than it is a serious proposal), what do you think of Thompson's idea? (Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession)
Mary - Bullying toughened you, and given the vicious societal racism with which you were going to have to contend for the balance of your career (and have to contend with, still), I believe you implicitly when you say that you were ultimately (paradoxically) well-served by the experience of abuse, though I truly lament that you couldn't have been well-served without it. That you couldn't have grown up in a less pervasively racist, xenophobic, violent and inhumane society.Where I went to what I will (with generosity but abuse of semantic integrity) describe as "school," it was inadmissible for boys to be literate or discernibly interested in books, much more so than for girls. I think it was perceived as a manifestation of effeminacy and weakness, and of course, homophobia (though I don't think the term as yet existed) played into it, though my actual orientation was irrelevant. Boys who read were ipso facto "sissies," and needed to be bullied and beaten with great regularity as a matter of principle. So whereas I was exempt from the greater burden you carried of a skin color that invited societal abuse, I think you may have endured less anathematization for being discernibly bookish -- because that was "okay" for girls.
Still, I suppose my own experience of abuse had an oblique positive outcome in the respect that it inspired me to spend my whole career attempting to support any student I thought to be persecuted or oppressed for otherness -- and to recruit women into a field that had (when I started teaching) pretty rigorously excluded them. Basically, it lowered my threshold of tolerance for intolerance to zero, and impelled me to undertake rigorous countermeasures. Whether I'd have done that absent the personal experience of abuse... I can't be sure. I think I've always tended to be empathic, and I've been politically far to the left since I was nine... so I might have acted the same, irrespective.
It would be nice not to live in a culture so thuggish that early childhood torture emerges as an element of inoculation. And in which Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump actually thrive and enjoy widespread admiration.
The popularity of the bullies might be overstated, Mark. O'Reilly is the highest-rated cable talking head, but the key word is cable. All of those cable shows are relatively low-rated. Limbaugh is losing sponsors and stations. And Trump finally seems to have put his foot in his mouth one time too many. I noticed that "Celebrity Apprentice" didn't appear on NBC this year. Trump shamelessly tried to use Joan Rivers' death to get some traction for it, claiming that she appeared in the show twice, but so far, it still hasn't been put on the schedule. Maybe bullying is finally becoming less acceptable, especially since Monica Lewinsky is out talking about being shamed by the media.You learned empathy from your experiences in school, I learned how to survive as an outsider, and I hope the white students who were experiencing integration with me learned to be more tolerant. I can't imagine that whites who were interacting with blacks when they were in junior high school would be "birthers" in their sixties.
But schools not only socialize; as your comments suggest, for every teacher who molests students, there are probably four or five who serve as the first line of defense for students who are being molested or abused. Many children come from dysfunctional homes and see school as a refuge. I don't know if you remember those children who were killed by their mother (in Texas, I believe). She was home schooling them. Perhaps if the older ones were going to school, a teacher or counselor might have recognized that there was something wrong in that home.
Mary wrote: "The popularity of the bullies might be overstated, Mark. O'Reilly is the highest-rated cable talking head, but the key word is cable. All of those cable shows are relatively low-rated. Limbaugh ..."Great post Mary! You said many things that needed to be said.
Mary wrote: "The popularity of the bullies might be overstated, Mark. O'Reilly is the highest-rated cable talking head, but the key word is cable. All of those cable shows are relatively low-rated. Limbaugh ..."Mary - I think you're right that Trump has discredited himself among all but the most ardent dittoheads. Limbaugh's and O'Reilly's dittoheads may have declined in number if measured strictly as a percentage of the media audience (thankfully), but unfortunately, I think the toxic inhumane attitudes they have managed to inculcate or reinforce in a substantial percentage of the voting population are not at all on the decline, and the outcome of the forthcoming election (according to all the predictive models that I've seen) is going to be cataclysmic. (Which I think is not too emphatic a word to characterize a Republican takeover of the Senate.) Given, especially, the virtual electoral notification that Republicans have managed to wreak in certain areas of the country through gerrymandering, spectacularly aggressive voter suppression techniques and legislation to support disenfranchisement of minorities, students and the elderly, I'm just not very hopeful... but I think it's all the more reason that progressives ought to be mobilizing their dispirited friends.
I greatly admire your optimism, Mary, and earnestly hope you're right about the diminished social acceptability of overt bullying, but I'm afraid we're all still prey to the limitless predation of corporate bullies, and would love to be persuaded that some means could be devised that wouldn't instantly be crushed to oppose that politically -- in fact, you'd help alleviate my political clinical depression if you could prevail on me to believe that! :-)
Finally, I fully agree with you about the role of teachers (especially) and even professors as a line of defense against abuse of students. (Though since I, like you, was teaching college students, I found that, mostly, I was defending them against the actions of a few colleagues with "issues." I did try to intercede to get help for students with psychological problems resulting from parental abuse, but since it was a predominantly residential college, at least most of them were geographically removed from their parents.) Colleen and Barbara have doubtless had much more experience with seeking to address child abuse.
By the way, though I know it's generally associated with the acolytes of Limbaugh, I sometimes use the word "dittoheads" synecdochically to apply to the whole constellation of ultra-right-wing, socially retrogressive conservative zealots. (Because it's shorter than "whole constellation of ultra-right-wing, socially retrogressive conservative zealots." :)) But I'd be happy to adopt another term of venery ("zombies" comes to mind), if anybody has one to suggest. :)
Thanks, Colleen. I think we teachers need to defend the good teachers because too often teachers are scapegoated, blamed for the problems in education that are not their fault. But if you are as observant of the media as I have been lately, you will notice how often successful people name teachers as positive influences. There are also quite a few entertainers who mention teaching as their second career choice if they weren't in show business. Oprah often mentions that she likes to think of herself as a teacher and has honored two of her former teachers by having them on her show. And some of the other talking heads are clearly wannabe teachers. I never watched Beck, but I saw several clips of him standing at the blackboard. Hello! I regularly watch Rachel Maddow and occasionally Lawrence O'Donnell. She often reminds me of a junior high school teacher with her (sometimes silly) props while he acts like a somewhat dull college professor.Mark, I call the "dittoheads" bubble dwellers when I debate them on google+. I borrowed that term from Bill Maher, who talked on his HBO show about Republicans living in a bubble. Let's face it, we liberals like to hang out together too; that's what we're doing on this site, and I watch MSNBC, not Fox. But I'm skeptical of all media, and I think liberals are more willing to criticize each other; we don't make good sheep.
Maybe I'm feeling more optimistic because I'm living in deep blue California, or maybe I'm feeling positive because this America is so much better for me than the one that the bubble dwellers want to take us back to, but I think you should stop worrying about what's going to happen on Tuesday. The Republicans will definitely still keep the House, but it's not clear that they will win the Senate, and we will probably pick up a few state houses. Here's something to remember: When the races are really close in the polls, the Democrats usually win. I've watched several races end with the Democrat behind, and when all the votes were finally counted, the Democrat ultimately won. That happened with Al Franken in 2008, for instance. It also recently happened with a state race in Virginia. Since I've been paying attention, I've never seen a race end with the Republican behind, and then the Republican wins. Also, note that the people who support Democrats are less likely to participate in those pre-election polls because they are younger and more diverse; in addition, most polling focuses on people with landline phones, and those people tend to be older. If our folks come out, we will win the Senate (Remember, there were "experts" like Karl Rove who thought Romney was going to win last time, and Obama won in a landslide). But even if we lose the Senate (and we may not know until December or January because there will probably be runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana), nothing much will change. The Republicans will have only a one or two vote majority in the Senate, so they can't override Obama's vetoes. And they can't really obstruct much more than they already have. In fact, they may decide to work with him because they know that he won't be running again, but they will. And if they lose the Senate, they may change their behavior because they will realize how unpopular they are. I'm urging my family members in Georgia and Kentucky to vote, to try to turn those red states blue, but I'm not sweating the results.
Thanks for the words of encouragement, Mary, relative to the prospective electoral outcomes on Tuesday. I suppose, pragmatically (as opposed to psychologically), my concern with the Senate has primarily to do with judicial appointments, but you are right to caution me not to catastrophize.I like "bubble dwellers." (That is to say, I like the term.) :-)
I guess we'll know after Tuesday night if the dire predictions have come to pass. Sometimes I think that all these polls influence the results. I wish people wouldn't talk about them until after the election is over.
Lisa wrote: "I guess we'll know after Tuesday night if the dire predictions have come to pass. Sometimes I think that all these polls influence the results. I wish people wouldn't talk about them until after th..."I debated that issue, myself -- which is why, for quite a while, I refrained from soliciting election commentary (because I'd written rather a lengthy screed in the form of a call to action, then decided it might backfire if issued as a broadcast message). So I confined myself to the simple comment, "midterms imminent," in the title of this thread in which I've been trying to revive activity in the group, and I'm grateful to you and Mary and Colleen and Barbara and Nancy, and a few others, for pitching in so eloquently.
On reflection, though, I decided that there were countervailing influences, and that whereas a sense of futility might inhibit a few people from voting (though almost certainly no one here), a reminder that there is an actual threat on the horizon might actually serve to motivate some theoretical reader who might otherwise succumb to anomie (though, again, no one here). The thing is, at the moment, there are few of us actively participating in the group, and we're all highly aware and highly motivated (or that's certainly my impression), so I didn't think that advance mention in this venue would actually matter at all.
Keep hope alive, folks! But the snow is bad news for our side. Unfortunately, we have more "unlikely" voters than the other side. Remember what happened when it rained in Ohio in 2004? I was thinking this morning that the Senate was probably gone, but now I'm getting e-mails saying the Democrats are surging. Maybe the Democratic strategists have decided that optimism will work better than panic at this point. We might know in less than forty-eight hours what has happened, or it might be 2000 all over again. Whatever happens, though, Obama will still be President, and the Republicans will still just be obstructionists. And the best news is our e-mail inboxes will be less full, these ridiculous candidates will be off television (Brown isn't bothering to campaign out here, but I'm sick to death of Maria Shriver's brother Bobby, who is competing for a Supervisors seat with another Democrat, an elderly former actress who I believe played Dobie Gillis' friend; only in L.A.). Among my many robocalls was one from singer John Legend, and I just deleted an e-mail from Scarlett what's her name, the actress who just had a baby, telling me to vote. Wednesday can't come soon enough for me. So let's all vote tomorrow if we haven't already and hope for the best.
Being a good Chicagoan, I voted early last week. Unfortunately, I can't vote often.
I don't think I need remind anyone. So this isn't a reminder. Remember that! You haven't actually been reminded, because you didn't need to be. By a change in the title of this thread, or anything like that. :)
It's not that I didn't expect it, but I didn't want to contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy by issuing cataclysmic prognostications. That said, welcome to hell.So... does anyone want to speculate on how many nanoseconds will be required for the Repubs to initiate impeachment proceedings against Obama (whose veto is the last impediment to their final establishment of Gilead/Panem**)? The pretext will be *any* action he takes, of whatever form, let alone a veto or an executive order. They've been fulminating for six years over the outrage of his commission of BPWB (Being POTUS while Black). Though it occurs to me that they might need to find some means by which to impeach Biden first. Boehner is, I believe, third in the line of succession, then the president pro tempore of the Senate, who'll be Leahy only until January.
I guess that was a slightly "immoderate" reaction from your moderator, but I don't think any of us is feeling very good today, so feel free to post any reactions, calculations, speculations, jeremiads, optimistic spins or cris de coeur. The lines are open.
** This is a book group, after all, so though I'm sure there's no one here who doesn't know:
Gilead < The Handmaid's Tale
Panem < The Hunger Games
I'm trying and failing to come up with any silver linings, but I don't think that they'll try to impeach Obama. They don't want Biden to be President.
Their first order of business will be to help the rich. Let's see what happens. I'm actually curious.
Well, after my complete failure as an optimistic prognosticator, I'm certainly not going to make any more predictions. Mark, last night was so bad that as I was watching an entertainment show, avoiding watching MSNBC until late in the evening when I thought they might have results from the tight races, Donald Trump appeared, promoting that already taped "Celebrity Apprentice" show, which I think he's still trying to bluff NBC into showing. I saw it as a bad omen, and it was.I have no idea what the Republicans might do, but trying to impeach the second Democratic President in a row would be stupid. Shutting down the government was also stupid, and as I've recently discovered, racism is a vile form of dementia, which causes people to do and say really stupid things. And I agree with you, Mark, that racism is behind much of the way Obama has been treated not only by the Republicans but by the media. I see the attempts by the media to portray the man who had the balls to give the order to go into Pakistan and get Osama after he had been described as naïve when he said he would do that during the 2008 campaign as the newest form of castration of the black man. Why weren't Bush and Clinton called weak when many more Americans were attacked on their watches, and they didn't have the capture of Osama to point to? I could go on, but I'm not as cool and mellow as Obama, and we liberals are already depressed enough today.
So here's what makes this particular liberal feel a little better: The first black female Republican U.S. Representative was elected in Utah. And we have two black elected Senators, Democrat Cory Booker from New Jersey, and quiet as it's been kept a Republican named I believe Tim Scott from South Carolina. Let's hope these two Republicans are more like Rice and especially Powell and less like Cain and Thomas. That's all I've got, folks, except to say that for me the Obama years have been the best of times and the worst of times. We've come a long way since my years of going through back doors in Kentucky, but now we also know that we have a long, long, long, long way to go.
Lisa wrote: "I'm trying and failing to come up with any silver linings, but I don't think that they'll try to impeach Obama. They don't want Biden to be President."Rachel Maddow was able to enumerate eight or ten (fairly inconsequential) "silver linings" in her Wednesday broadcast (one was that the mayor of the town of Richmond had been able to defeat the candidate of the Chevron Corporation), but overall, even she was compelled to acknowledge that it had been a pretty devastating outcome (not her words).
I suppose we'll see: they may think Obama would be useful as a liability to Democrats in 2016, but I'm certain the "passionate conviction of the worst" will have them champing at the bit to insist on his eviction from the White House, posthaste. The whole theme and the driving force of their campaign has been "Stop Obama," and I don't think the Tea Party elements are going to let the establishment Republicans forget it, so action motivated by rational self-interest cannot be relied upon. If they really do want to effect a more immediate coup, though, they'll have to impeach or discredit Biden somehow (gin up a scandal, perhaps), before going after Obama...
Mary wrote: "...but trying to impeach the second Democratic President in a row would be stupid..."Yes, Mary, it would be incredibly stupid, but as you've observed, a great many of them exhibit a "vile form of dementia," so to some extent, that makes it seem all the more probable. I think it depends on the calculus of the dwindling "establishment element" of the party, and the extent to which they have or haven't been rendered impotent by the ravening "can't-wait" element.
Let's hope that now that they see themselves in power and Pres. Obama's power decimated, they feel no need to impeach him. And yes, Mary, I believe that the Republican hatred for Obama is primarily motivated by racism. Their stated goal from the minute he took office has been to discredit him. The media can't even watch him get off a plane without criticizing him.
Sigh. The only silver lining I can come up with is that the Democrats are so demoralized by the fearfulness of their own leaders that only being "underdogs" will turn them out at the polls in 2016. I wish Elizabeth Warren would do something. I'm not sure what. But something. The despair of progressives needs to be brought out into the open.
Thanks to everybody here who voted even if--especially if--you lost.
Shelley
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com
Welcome to the Corporate States of America.
I like your point about the "fearfulness" of their leaders, Shelley. I think the reason we lost so badly (although we won here in California) is that the Democrats ran away from Obama's success, not because of racism, but because of fear and stupidity. I'm particularly upset with Allison Grimes from my old Kentucky home because I think she had a chance to take out McConnell and because I sent her some of my hard-earned money. It was smart of Grimes, who was running against an unpopular incumbent, not to campaign with Obama since he's unpopular in Kentucky, but it was stupid of her not to admit that she voted for him; it made her look like a typical sneaky, lying politician. And what appears to have been her last television ad showed her shooting a shotgun, looking into the camera and saying, "I'm not Barack Obama." McConnell was ahead by that point, but the race was tight. Excuse the pun (an occupational hazard), but the gun ad backfired, and she lost in a landslide. You're right, Allison, you're not Obama; he won one state election and two national ones comfortably (beating the formidable Clinton team on the way to the nomination in 2008), and you lost to an old, unpopular politician in a landslide. BAM!I don't care what all of the talking heads said about why the polls were wrong, and why the Democrats who usually do better than the polls predict (as they did in 2012) did worse this time, the reason is the Obama voters didn't come out because the Democrats disrespected him almost as much as the Republicans did. The Republicans put him on the ticket, and the Democrats should have run with that, pointing out all his successes and wondering why the media tried to portray him as a failed President,while predicting that a Republican Congress will try to impeach him. They didn't, so the Obama base stayed home. I just read that we black women voted in greater percentages in 2008 and 2012 than any other demographic. It'll be interesting to see how many black women stayed home this time. I know if I were still in Kentucky it would be hard for me to vote for a white woman who shot a gun just before declaring that she wasn't Obama. I would have voted for her but then fired off a nasty e-mail to her campaign headquarters.
Lisa, they may criticize how Obama gets on and off that plane, but at least two elderly black women--my mother and I--love watching him run up those steps and fly off to Washington. Whenever he visits L.A., we watch the news footage intently, laughing happily as he struts to the plane, runs up the steps, and then waves. I think he knows we're watching because he sometimes does a Chicago "pimp walk" just to make us older blacks feel good. I love how cool Obama is, and I know he was the perfect first black President. When my opponents on google+ try to blame him for the racism, which is like blaming a rape victim for being raped, I tell them if they want to see an angry black man find Clarence Thomas's 1991 high-tech lynching speech during the Anita Hill fiasco on youtube. I also remind them that Herman Cain, and we're often debating on his posts, cried racism during his bimbo explosion. I point out that these two men aren't hypocrites; they are just more like me. They are dark-skinned black men, born during the Jim Crow years, and raised in the South by black people. Obama handles the racism so much better than we darker and older baby boomers do because he was born in 1961 and raised in Hawaii by his white relatives.
Oh, one other thing, Mark, Donald Trump's already taped "Celebrity Apprentice" show will be on NBC in January. Geraldo, Kate Gosselin, and one of the Atlanta Housewives will be among the contestants. I don't know if I can take any more bad news. Talk about the worst of times!
These may not be classified as silver linings but here goes: This year, something like 22 out of the 34 Senators who were up for re-election were Democrats- meaning that there was a lot more turf to be defended than for the Republicans. In 2016, that will be turned on its head. Many more Republican seats will be up. Since it will be a general election year, many more Democrats will be voting. In the meantime, the Republicans have 2 years in which to demolish the country. They ALWAYS go way overboard- it's in their DNA and then people will be ready to get rid of them. In the meantime, I may just stick to my history books. John Wilkes Booth can't kill Lincoln again, there will probably not be another famine in Ireland, and highly unlikely to be a plague that will wipe out over a third of Europe. :)
http://gawker.com/ayn-rands-capitalis...I'd like for the Ayn Rand fans to be awarded a 1-way ticket to this "libertarian paradise." Did anybody ever wish the objectivists could actually get to try out their ideology?
Amusing Politico Headline: " Voters want the GOP to fix the economy. Good luck with that!"...and, in other news, cattle are hopeful that newly-elected butchers will improve their longevity.
Also, the residents of Troy are hopeful that the big wooden horse they've invited into their city will contain lots of toys and gifts.
And in latest-breaking developments, people who hit themselves in the head with hammers are hopeful that the practice will eliminate their headaches.
Mary wrote: "... one other thing, Mark, Donald Trump's already taped "Celebrity Apprentice" show will be on NBC in January ..."Thank you for the warning, Mary! I have just smashed my television.
(Thanks also for your many, many cogent points about racism and the cowardice of certain Democratic candidates.)
Shelley wrote: "Sigh. The only silver lining I can come up with is that the Democrats are so demoralized by the fearfulness of their own leaders that only being "underdogs" will turn them out at the polls in 2016...."Hi, Shelley!
Elizabeth Warren is a person of preternatural intellect, wisdom, compassion, integrity and fundamental decency. This guarantees a priori that no one in the country will ever listen to her. (I think it's an instance of the "Cassandra Syndrome.") But if anyone wants to disempower the now-fathomlessly-toxic Congress and put her up for monarch, I'd be inclined to second the motion. :-) :-)
Beverly wrote: "http://gawker.com/ayn-rands-capitalis...I'd like for the Ayn Rand fans to be awarded a 1-way ticket to this "libertarian paradise." Did anybody ever wi..."
Hi, Beverly!
Randian objectivists are, I believe, characterized primarily by NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). People with NPD have, per Wikipedia and the DSM-5, "...exaggerated feelings of self-importance... a sense of entitlement... grandiosity in their beliefs and behavior... a strong need for admiration," and an "impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others." They "lack feelings of empathy." Sound like any particular political group you can think of? :-) :-)
Thank you, Mark, for resurrecting this group just in time for us to commiserate about the election results. I've talked to some of my friends here who are too devastated to deal with it. The main thing that frightens me is the Supreme Court decision about Corporations being people and how that resulted in the billions being poured into campaigns. Since many more of these billionaires are Republican than Democrat, how are we going to fix this?
Barbara wrote: "Ha! Mark! Very good!"Thanks, Barbara! Maybe we should inaugurate a "headlines" contest. Politico's was deliberately sardonic, but so many headlines, these days, meant to be taken seriously, practically beg to be mocked.
Take, for example, from Business Insider: "This Could Be the New Face of the Republican Party." Oddly, an accompanying photo of Vlad Tepes was omitted, but I'm sure some of you could come with other appropriate bio pix.
Lisa wrote: "Thank you, Mark, for resurrecting this group just in time for us to commiserate about the election results. I've talked to some of my friends here who are too devastated to deal with it. The main..."
Thanks, Lisa. I think we all feel painfully devastated. Truthfully, I think the Supreme Court decision (to allow corporations and the wealthy to pour effectively infinite amounts of money into elections, unconstrained and often anonymously, to buy Congressional seats for their own proxy politicians) was effectively the last nail in the coffin, the official death certificate for this country as a functioning democracy. I wonder if anyone was in attendance to call the time of death. I suppose we could look it up.
Still, there's nothing to be gained by abandoning hope. At root, unconstrained plutocracy is a parasitic system of governance, and parasites tend to be oblivious to the long-term consequences of killing off the host (in this instance, the middle class). No more Eloi to feed on starts to impinge on the dietary privileges of the Morlocks.
(< The Time Machine)
That last paragraph doesn't sound like anything to pin ones hopes on. The governor-elect of Illinois spent $29 million of his own money on the campaign. Does anyone besides me find something wrong with picture? How can Democracy thrive when so much money is going into the campaigns?
What happened in Illinois, Lisa? Obama (and First Lady Michelle) did campaign there, and that governor still lost. I know that some of my extended family members--my stepfather's relatives--actually voted for Romney in 2012 because they were so mad at Obama's friend Mayor Emanuel for whatever he's doing to the teachers. These two people are my age and retired school teachers, proving that even teachers can vote stupidly. Why would two black teachers, who usually vote Democrat, vote for a Republican plutocrat because they are mad at their mayor who once worked for the half-black President? Was the vote against the Democratic governor a Chicago mayor backlash, or was that governor as corrupt as most Illinois politicians have been? How many of them are in jail now?
The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
A Gift Upon the Shore (other topics)Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (other topics)
Drift (other topics)
Drift (other topics)
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848 (other topics)
More...
Anyway, that was one incident in 30 years, though it happened in the eighties, and the prevalence of weapon-related violence on campuses has probably greatly increased since then. Of course, there have always
been an appalling abundance of rapes on campuses, and there have always been efforts by administrations to hush them up. (I am not referring to my own college, but I've spoken to colleagues elsewhere, as I'm sure you have.) Athletes, in particular, appear to be exempt from prosecution (or even expulsion) for criminal behavior.
That said, I do think you're right that the incidence of violence with which you would have to contend at a typical high school would be immeasurably worse. The one occasion on which I've reported representing the notable exception, I don't think I've ever encountered a professor who'd been confronted by a student with a gun (or who acknowledged as much, anyway).