The Weekly Watch
A Trip Down the Privatized Road
Invictus
William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I'm a big fan of the Foxfire books – oral histories collected by students in Rabun County, GA in southern Appalachia. It was a project of Eliot Wigginton, a fallen hero, who ended up serving time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Wigginton
He wrote an article from prison in the mid nineties that has stuck with me all these years about the similarities of schools and prisons. In some ways, life inside prison mimics that in the public schools. In both places, the way the institution responds to the individual's desire to seek meaning in life makes all the difference. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec93/vol51/num0...
I'm leading with that story because I think schools and prisons say a great deal about who we are and where we are going....our future and our reformation. And we are rapidly rushing down the road of privatization in search of ever more profit. http://prospect.org/article/incoming-privatization-assault
This corporatization of America is happening across the social and political spectrum. They even want to sell off the natural resources in the national monuments.
http://prospect.org/article/monumental-cave
But let's start the discussion with education or the lack thereof.
What is the real issue with schools...like much of life it is wealth inequality.
There are an amazing number of studies which clearly show poor children don't do as well in school as their wealthier counterparts. Family income is the single best indicator of student success. A landmark 1966 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education surveyed staff and students from 4,000 schools. It identified socioeconomic status as “the most powerful predictor of student success.”
http://www.schoolnewsnetwork.org/index.php/2014-15/most-students-achieve...
We have known this for a long time.
Where are the impoverished schools? I bet you know where the “poor” school is in your community? A higher percentage of students—22 percent—lived in poverty in Southern states.
http://febp.newamerica.net/k12/rankings/cenpov
Oh no...the nation is becoming more like the South. Poverty for the people!
Southern states gave 160 Electoral College votes to Trump, more than half of the 306 total he needed to become president. The Southern states are gaining clout as seen in the cabinet... the gravity of political power in this country going South.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/2/chris_kromm_the_souths_political_c...
https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/04/souths-political-clout-rising-under-...
Sadly there is a racist element too. Duh. First look at the income gap between the races
http://www.epi.org/blog/new-census-data-show-no-progress-in-closing-stub...
Multiply that disparity by the inherent institutional racism in schools.
http://www.publicschoolrenewal.org/essays/racism2.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parents-of-color-schools_us_5908c0e0...
Chris Hedges is joined by Adam Jackson, CEO of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a grassroots group working to improve the lives of African Americans in his home city of Baltimore. (28 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKUD04MOmqY
The fallacy of no child left behind was the idea of “punishing” failing schools. That's right the plan was to take away funding from “poor” schools...the absolute opposite of any rational attempt to improve schools.
Well Betsy DeVos' plan is far worse....a free for all of charter schools and vouchers for Christian and online schools using tax dollars.
Yet all the evidence shows public schools out perform private schools. Markets don't determine profitability based on quality and efficiency, but rather on salesmanship. (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmAoz5vC2PU
Richard had several nice education clips recently.
Richard Wolff, talks about the state of economic education today and the role that the mainstream media and educational institutions play in conveying economic information to the public. (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whNvYsIrfXQ
Here's his take on college education...that greed kills knowledge. Because when you replace well-paid experienced instructors with harried, underpaid, overworked people with no job security, you can still totally expect the same results, right? Right? (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB_Zv8lO0KI
The same type of fraud that occurred at Enron has been cropping up in the charter school sector. A handful of school officials have been caught using the Enron playbook to divert funding slated for these schools into their own pockets.
https://theconversation.com/is-charter-school-fraud-the-next-enron-74020
How about vouchers? They aren't working out well either. DC is the only city in the country where the federal government gives scholarships to underprivileged children to attend private schools.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/do-vouchers-actual...
It's got the democraps in a bind too. Good article on background of charters and vouchers
According to the latest accounting of charter school fraud, waste, and mismanagement, conducted by the Center for Popular Democracy, public funding of charter schools has grown to $40 billion annually while oversight of these schools has languished. CPD has identified over $223 million in public fund misuse by charters but the total estimated loss may top $2.1 billion.
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/the-democrats-dilemma-on-charter-...
Wouldn't it be nice if we invested in schools instead of walls, deportations, and wars?
https://ourfuture.org/20170501/instead-of-separating-families-building-w...
But where do we put our money?
Into perpetual punishment for poor people of color...using a mix of bail-bond, private prisons, probation, and parole systems we trap people in an unjust system of new age slavery.
If you have access to netflix you might want to watch Ava DuVernay’s documentary. The title 13TH refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” (2 min trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66F3WU2CKk
According to a 2016 analysis of federal data by the U.S. Education Department, state and local spending on incarceration has grown three times as much as spending on public education since 1980. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/07/07/since-1980-s...
It is debtors prison...The US is the only first-world country that commercializes bail. The for-profit industry rakes in more than $2 billion annually in revenue. Most criminal defendants can't pay the full bail amount and must either stay in jail or pay a 10 percent fee to secure a bond, which they won't recoup even if found not guilty. (25 min) from Vice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGomdoO368g
And another vice piece about for profit prisons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIghbrn5yfI (15 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRfCPFVUA5Y (10 min)
Prison statistics (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VArdOiu8k
This whole school to prison pipeline might make profit for the few in the short term, but it is a disaster for the nation in the bigger scheme of things. As a teacher I often thought we couldn't have designed an educational system more at odds with children's biology...sit down, be quiet, stay in line, don't run, and on and on is not in the nature of children. Similarly, we have a bloated prison system designed to make money for the proprietors. And neither institution serves the people.
Chris Hedges lays it out...This moment in history marks the end of a long, sad tale of greed and murder by the white races. It is inevitable that for the final show we vomited a grotesque figure like Trump.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/01/reign-idiots
And a final shot from Richard Wolff on the death of capitalism (17 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tfCLUlFb4Q
Let's see we've privatized schools and prisons what else can we destroy? Oh yeah...
Healthcare
Richard Wolff explains the tax aspects and nature of obamacare and its repeal. (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z_CgfgF_s
Republican leaders in the House and White House wanted to implement a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans (the health care bill passed Thursday) as a prelude to adopting a second massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations (the tax bill that’s next on their agenda).
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/05/did-marquis-de-sade-write-...
The rethugs are the party of death...
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/04/the-pro-life-party-has-become-the-party-...
Trumpcare, "will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher healthcare costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives..” says Alabama Rep Mo Brooks
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/02/exposing-gop-cruelty-alabam...
Nursing care is one big reason Medicaid recipients over 85 cost the program 2.5 times more than those who are between the ages of 65 and 74. Those funds will be significantly cut.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/house-gop-just-voted-to-slash-medica...
The obvious and the hidden...
Obomber is following the Clinton route to fortune...cashing in on the presidency.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/01/barack-obama-is-using-his-presidency...
How about a trip into cyberspace? What do you know about the Deep Web? Abby Martin and Alex Winter discuss the documentary Deep Web. The film focuses on the Silk Road, a black market hosted on the Darknet using bitcoin cryptocurrency, and the trial of Ross Ulbricht, who was given a double life sentence without the possibility of parole for creating and hosting the site. (27 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-DLiYoN1_4
Foreign policy
Glenn Greenwald nails it again...the US has always supported despots. Imposing or propping up dictators subservient to the U.S. has long been, and continues to be, the preferred means for U.S. policymakers to ensure that those inconvenient popular beliefs are suppressed.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/02/trumps-support-and-praise-of-despots...
Robert Sheer and CIA analyst Ray McGovern (audio and transcript)
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/former_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_cia...
Robert Sheer and Oliver Stone in conversation (audio and transcript)
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/oliver_stone_on_interviewing_putin_...
Korea
Trump administration's mixed messages on North Korea and the new THAAD missile system are sowing confusion in the Korean Peninsula ahead of a crucial South Korean vote
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
Why do the North Koreans hate the US? “The hate, though, is not all manufactured.” Some of it, “is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets.”
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/why-do-north-koreans-hate-us-one-rea...
U.S. officials have repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that North Korea has the capability to carry out a nuclear strike on U.S. soil. And the Trump White House has done little to tamp down media speculation about nuclear war, perhaps because the hype plays to its advantage.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/north-korea-wants-to-convince-the-wo...
Afghanistan
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says geopolitics and the Taliban's military strength will help keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan for decades to come.
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:18990:Wilkerson-on-Afghanistan%3A-The-Lo...
Syria
Excellent interview. Jimmy Dore talks with Canadian reporter that actually spends time in Syria (27 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9hPwbc8JZo
Most of my career was spent in a classroom. I have been an advocate for students and teachers at the local, state, and national level. I have long known of the ills of the system, but I never feared for the existence of public education. Here in Alabama they declared that the lowest performing 6% of schools would be labeled failing, and students in those schools are eligible to take their public dollars to private schools.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/08/22/alabama-school-choice-la...
Our prison system is beyond horrid and inhumane.
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/06/averting_its_eyes_alabama_lets....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/us/alabama-prison-violence.html?_r=0
Will the entire country become like Alabama and the south? Is your state becoming like Alabama?
Comments
Reading about Ross Ulbricht, I can better grasp why Aaron Swartz
might have concluded that there was no way out other than to kill himself.
That story flew under my radar until recently
The empire wants to control all information, and evidently bit coin threatened Wall Street.
Quite a trip into the deep web.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I want to draw your attention...
To a link early in the essay. It is long but worth just scanning if not a serious read.
http://prospect.org/article/incoming-privatization-assault
It will give you a notion of the extent to which the public good is being privatized.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
What a difference 40 years makes...
I got a great HS education, at a private girl's school. A scholarship landed a spot for me, a middle-class girl into an upper-middle class to upper-class setting. It was either that or the near public HS, strapped with boomer kids so they were talking shifts of school every day, double sessions. It never dawned on me that my parents had to pay tuition, too. My sister sent her children to Catholic schools because of some tax loophole that let them pay tuition as tithes to the Church.
My kids went through public school here. The one with faculty brats and trailer park trash. In a University town, education has value, now discounted. Yes, a charter school here now. And multiple religion-based schools. A few are scary. Home-schooling is popular in some circles. And we circle the drain. I have seen un-schooled kids as young as 8 learning trade from grandpa. A septic tank pumper.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
apprenticing is the age old learning system
I guess my point this morning is schools and prisons are institutions that are symptomatic of the decline of the empire.
I was lucky to obtain a good public school education, but I lived in a middle class neighborhood. Across the mountain, downtown, the schools were troubled, racist, and autocratic.
Hope that foot continues to heal RL!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
“100+ quotes by FDR, JFK, Kissinger, Bush…: get your tinfoil on”
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1383321
via JackPine Radicals
Caveat lector: AFAIK, Mikhail Gorbachev isn’t actually a “33rd degree” Freemason, Scottish Rite or otherwise.
Those are great!
Three of my favorites...
"The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses."
Albert Einstein
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson."
A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933
"I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insideous forces working from within."
General Douglas MacArthur
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Ouch! Some are retrospectively painful.
I do not use earbuds. Many do now. I wonder if not having to listen to propaganda 24/7 is better?
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Great essay as always Lookout....
Schools are given too much responsibility with not enough money. They can't be all things to all students. They are seen as a delivery system for welfare, food, health care, and occupational training for special needs students. I use occupational training in the broadest sense.
Jack of all trades leads to the master of none.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
in my experience...
Schools and school systems are managed for the convenience of the administrators.
Just saw a nice piece about art education
http://www.epi.org/blog/the-hidden-sides-of-naep-girls-art-and-empowerment/
Our teens are not very “fluent” in art. For example, when they listened to a simple solo melody, only half could identify the instrument as a clarinet (versus a saxophone or oboe).
Thanks for dropping by!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good Sunday morning, Lookiut ~~~
Another fine news round-up this morning. Thanks, as always, for the work involved in gathering and bringing it to our attention.
When I worked for the local public school in the '80's, we often lammented about the fact the state invested $2.500/year per child in public schools, while prisoners took $25,000/year. It's far worse today. In New Mexico our governor and her handmaiden, Hanna Skandera (worked for Jeb in Florida), have worked diligently for 6.5 years to destroy New Mexico's public school system. They've got 18 months left to finish the job.
It's a beautiful spring day. Rain expected on Tuesday, yay!
Have a beautiful day, folks!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning
A beautiful morning here too. A cool 50 degrees headed to 70.
I feel lucky to have lived my life in a golden age...I have a pension for example. I often feel bad for the young folks, but when I talk with them they seem so positive and up beat. I wish them the best and regret our generation has left them in such a pickle.
Have a great day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Lookout, I have waterfalls off my driveway now
carrying crushed stone and larger downhill. I have no water feature on my property, a hillside water recharge for the valleys below. I should call my downhill neighbor who is getting this runoff as well and apologise. But Nature.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Wow!
We got lots of rain over the last couple of weeks (about 5 inches), but spread out enough to be largely absorbed. I have to deal with a gravel road too. I use a box scrape and tractor to pull my gravel back up the hills. Luckily I had cleaned out all my ditches and weeps that drain off most of the road runoff.
In '89 we got 14 inches in about eight hours...water, water, everywhere. Still referred to as the year of the flood much like the blizzard of '93.
Unfortunately we can expect more flood events. As the atmosphere warms it can hold more water vapor...therefore more rain (and ironically more drought).
Be careful and I hope you dry out soon.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks again for this weekly round-up.
I'm watching a few of them right now. Here's a couple more that are worth a look.
TYT on Sanders' reaction to Trump praise for Australian healthcare: YouTube (7 min.)
Max and Stacy on finance and debt: YouTube (12 min.)
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Those are good
You've got me watching Keiser lately. I thought this one was interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xQHkZHvaZ0
At the start they discuss how John Deere, GMC, etc are claiming they own the software in your vehicle and therefore can legally take it over if it suits them. They already shut down cars with missed payments.
How do you create a link for just a clip from a show the way you did? Great trick.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
There's a way to do it,
but I've forgotten how. I didn't clip the Keiser Report, I just wanted to highlight the first half of the show.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.