Glenn Beck needs a civics lesson

Let me state outright that I am a Calvin Coolidge Republican - small government, generally favorable toward the free market, supporter of civil liberties.  I will vote for John McCain in our next senate election.  I didn't like the health care bill.  I don't like state-sponsored abortion.  I don't believe the government is always the best institution to solve the problems in society (though I think people who whine about "it's the church's job" should get up and do something about it)

But I'm not a tea-throwing, fist-shaking, piss-on-the-left Republican. I actually switched my offical party affiliation after W. proved that the party of fiscal conservatives could run up a massive deficit and then turn around and pay for a huge bailout.

Indeed, I find some irony in the fact that so many of the people who are anti-government zealots are part of a political party that began with the goal of keeping one government intact and striking a balance between federal and state's rights.

What scares me right now is the parallels I see between the current rhetoric of the right and the early propaganda or Nazi Germany.  While Glenn Beck is quick to point out that the Communists and the Fascists once used the term "social justice" in their slogans, it is Beck who beckons listeners to place political ideology above one's faith.  Scary stuff.  After all, the Confessing Church was first blasted as "too liberal" before it was ever considered a true enemy to Nazi Germany.

I'm not calling Republicans fascists.  However, I would like a quick civics lesson for the likes of Beck.  Fascism is not a political or economic system, but an ideology (much like communism) that general adheres to the following principals:

1. Nationalism: Hypernationalism toward the "nation" while being openly against the government - thereby setting up a potential coup
2. Militarism: The use of grassroots violence and militarism in the name of social conservatism - brown shirt tactics
3. A National Myth: A revisionist view of history toward recover a "volk" myth of "the good old days" (Texas, anyone?) and even calls to place one's nation above one's church affiliation 
4. Loss of Civil Liberties: The support of government surveillance in the name of rooting out internal terrorist threats (oddly enough, the same people who don't want me to fill out a census form feel perfectly fine with the government reading my e-mails to make sure I'm not a terrorist)
5. State-sponsored Capitalism: by placing social welfare programs as being Communist, they open the door to the privatization of all public programs (the Volkswagon is a great concept here - paying a company to create a car that supports capitalism with populist rhetoric)
6. A victim mentality
7. Hero worship - placing too much power in the hands of the top leader 
8. Racism 
9. Media - by labelling any "liberal" media as unpatriotic, the Nazis were able to seize various media outlets.  
10. Xenophobia / Anti-immigration - before they attacked the Jews, they attacked immigrants in Germany - I've seen immigrants being attacked and trust me, it felt like a fascist country
11. Imperialism: this is done especially in the name of "liberating" other countries
12. Anti-intellectualism (especially toward college education) as being elitist

I'm not suggesting that the right is fascist.  After all, the left became dangerously close to extreme socialism a few times.  Nor am I suggesting that the far right wing, the tea baggers (does that not have at least a little bit of innuendo?) will win the heart of the American people.  If there is any virtue in America it is that we allow enough extremism to be able to laugh at it.  Hopefully Sarah Palin will go the way of Borat.

So, it has me wondering if maybe all the anti-public education people are right.  Perhaps we have screwed up education if people didn't learn enough in history and civics to determine that Glenn Beck doesn't understand the meaning of fascism.

a racial dimension to a charter school

Someone sent a link to a private charter school with high achievement.  It's set in Harlem, a city forged by segregation, so the whole story begins with layers of a racialized narrative.  A woman who calls herself the CEO of this charter school talks about higher standards, ten hour work days, a no-nonsense approach to discipline.  She calls it an act of social justice.

The results?  Higher scores.  Perhaps even higher learning.  It begins within me a spiral of questions: To what extent are they actually reaching all students if they have such rigorous standards?  What type of student volunteers for a ten hour a day program?  What type of parent signs up for a charter school where they must volunteer a certain number of hours?

Is the learning authentic?  Is it meaningful?  Have they learned about life?

Eventually the questions stop and I wonder this:  If the children were white and they lived in the suburbs, would anyone be advocating an education that pulls a child away from the home for eleven to twelve hours a day?

my response to John Merrow

I don't know John Merrow.  I don't know what motivates him, so I want to point out that he probably isn't a douche.  Still, I don't know if there is any blogger who angers me more than his Taking Note blog. In this particular blog post, he gets angry that his tax-funded video footage was used in another documentary.  I get it, the man is angry that his intellectual property was stolen.  I'm a fan of Creative Commons (which is how I license any of what I create), but it's also not my livelihood.  So, fine, the man doesn't want to play fair.  That's okay.

However, I was jarred by his comment, “Our film of that event was broadcast nationally on PBS NewsHour and helped to illuminate the persona of Michelle Rhee as a fearless and determined reformer who puts the interests of children first.”

Can I quote that? I mean, is that fair use? Or will John Merrow write an angry blog post about how I stole his line in my commentary on his post?

Within his blog post, Merrow is pointing to a day when Chanellor Rhee allowed PBS cameras to video tape her firing a principal. Incidentally, did the principal agree to the terms of being video taped? Have we really degenerated as a culture that a so-called reformer has to take a page out of a reality show playbook to validate her sense of ego?

The mere fact that she would want people to video tape her taking away the livelihood of a person demonstrates that she is more interested in media than in helping humanity. Rhee is a media hound “reformer” with little evidence to prove that her reforms are successful. 

we expect more out of the poor than out of the rich

As we analyze the functions of money, a student raises his hand and wonders why we left off two categories. "What about bribes? It's not the same as spend, save, invest, give away, lend or borrow."

Another student argues that it fits better within the category of "spend." She points out that whether one spends money on influence or a product, it is still spending.

The first student then asks, "Well, what about stealing? Shouldn't that be a category?"

Another student asks, "What's the difference between stealing and investing." He's not joking. He asks about Bernie Madoff and I explain that most investors don't steal and yet he won't drop it.

"Why do rich people who steal millions go to fancy prisons while my brother goes to a ghetto prison for stealing a car?"

Another student jumps in, "Did he have a gun? That could have been armed robbery."

"Why does it matter if he had a gun?"

"Well, it would really scare someone if you had a gun."

"I'm sure people were scared when they lost their entire retirement."

It has me thinking about the ways our nation punishes poor people. If I am rich, I get golden parachutes during an economic crisis. If I'm rich and I donate, I get buildings named in my honor. If I am rich, I can steal and end up spending four years in a fancy prison. My money alone gives me the loudest voice in education reform.

The system is rigged. Seriously rigged. When Wall Street executives get fat bonus checks and seventh grade ELL students are still expected to pass a multiple choice reading exam, there is something wrong with our nation's definition of accountability.

For all the talk about low expectations among low income students, it seems to me that our nation has higher expectations for the poor than we do for the rich. I'm not against wealth.  I'm not a socialist.  It just seems wrong that those who are born into a challenging circumstance should then be required to live the rest of their lives at a higher ethical standard than those who are born into privilege.

the death of internet democracy

by John

Democracy is not a big word. It needs no capital letter. It remains in the local politic, where each person has a voice. It belongs in taverns and front porches and neighborhood parishes and potlucks and parks. Democracy is not simply a political process. It's social and cultural and human.

If a democracy expands too large, a republic is necessary. If the republic gets too large, factions become necessary. It's a matter of organization. One hundred senators each representing their local politic gets too confusing. We need parties, big parties and pinatas. Okay, not pinatas, but slogans and marketing and machinery. For the sake of effeciency, we need talking points and plans and platforms instead of pints and people and porches.

At some point the republic becomes an oligarchy and, if we're not careful, a plutocracy. We go from a few people ruling to a few people with economic interests ruling. The language is democratic, but the systems are economic.

***

I'm not an anarchist, I swear. Yet, I think people are confused by the Tea Party enthusiasts. They are not simply a wacky side of the GOP. Don't be fooled by Sarah Palin. Just talk to a few people who have attended. Some very well might be crazy, but no crazier than watching Fox News or CNN. What they want is a voice. What they want is a democracy. The organizers of information have only two spin options with the Tea Party People - either laugh in mockery or talk about how scary they are.

People feel angry about bail-outs and huge transnational corporations that run their lives and laws mandating that it is illegal to refuse health care, but okay to destroy a fetus. In other words, a woman has ownership of life growing in her body, but no ownership of her own body. These aren't left/right, blue/red issues, but we are conditioned to think in binary terms, because it's more efficient. We have ads in a few minutes and ticker tape running ever-changing stock prices and Hollywood news to get to.  Complexity requires porches and pints. 

***

I'm turning off Google Buzz. I liked it at first, but now I'm ignoring it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to become the Unibomber or anything. But I cringe at the creating of web-based oligopolies. Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Shouldn't individual's organize information? And shouldn't we be deciding, over a pint, what is accessible (what, for example, is private?) and what is useful?

I'm not anti-Google. I prefer it to Microsoft and Apple. But it's an advertisement company. It's like Clear Channel, just with a greater sense of ethics and fewer enemies . . . so far. Still, I need something more than a "don't be evil" statement for me to trust you. I need a voice. I need to be heard. I need to listen. Google can't listen to me. Google can't have a pint with me. A Droid can't sit on my front porch. 

I mention all of this, because I am concerned with a trend I see in blogs right now. Fewer and fewer bloggers seem to be creating new content and organizing it on their own terms. Few people use labels and folksonomy. Many bloggers seem to simply embed content from larger media organizations.

I guess that's fine, but I like the notion of the citizen storyteller and as bizarre as it might be, the internet seems to be one of the last places where this is occurring.

Space

Poor John probably thought I'd never show up over here.

Not that I blame him, I'm getting around to it after 2 months...

I asked a Psychic once if I was an old soul, or young soul. For the Zen-challenged, Buddhists (and other religions not as widely practiced) believe you're soul lives many lives. The number of lives you might have lived, varies person to person and has nothing to do with calendar age... hence why you meet 4 year olds that act like 80 year olds, and vice versa.

She responded:

"You're a young soul trying on adult clothes."

And for those who know me best, that is Brazen in a nutshell.

John asked if I would like to post over here and the first thing I did was buck responsibility like a five year old. Been feeling guilty for weeks now. Was waiting for him to say something, send me an email:

Eh Brazen... you alive?

But he didn't.

And in that empty space I discovered I was ready to try on some adult clothes. And now here I am. Writing to you about this seemingly silly topic... only that it's not so silly at all... but rather insight into something actually quite enormous.

Space.

To get somewhere in one's own time.

It's such a novel idea in such a face paced, competitive society we live in isn't it? And yet here's the great part:

Taking one's time
Playing
Smelling the roses....

... isn't new age hippie bullshit, unrealistic for today's modern world! In fact, it's more relevant than ever, and Science is proving it. And we all know how much those new age hippie doubters need their data and research, so here we go.

Daniel Pink does a much better job describing this over at the TED awards, but I'll summarize for you first, before you undoubtedly jettison over to hear him engage the pants off of everyone he speaks to. He presents a lot of great information- but the part that is relevant right here, is Carl Dunker's Candle Problem created in 1945. Here's the problem:

You have a candle, some thumbtacks, and a box of matches. Now, use these materials to keep burning candle wax from dripping onto the table.

I won't ruin the surprise, Pink does that for you if you want to listen to his speech. The solution isn't the juicy part.

The best part is the study that went a long with the problem. They divided people into two groups, and told one group: "The person that solves this problem fastest, will get a reward." The other group was allowed to take their time. No reward. Just pure satisfaction of problem solving.

Now according to Arne Duncan... we should race to the top! We should give a reward! And according the Candle Problem study, Arne would be right... if we were living in the early 20th century. The scientists discovered that rewards improved performance... but stunted creativity. The group that was offered a reward took an average of 3.5 minutes longer to solve the problem.

So here's the deal Arne... if we were preparing our children to compete for factory/office/or labor jobs, improving their performance would be ideal. But guess what? Those jobs are going overseas faster than... faster than I can think of a witty metaphor. So guess what we do need to prepare our children for? Ah yes... design jobs, leadership roles, engineering positions... jobs that require um, creative thinking.

And we have scientific research telling us that in order foster creative thinking we need....

Space.

Did you know you were so smart John? Giving me space and all?

seven small examples of my white privilege

People get uncomfortable with the term, "white privilege."  It seems to suggest that white Americans are still out lynching minorities or that, perhaps I am wearing sack cloth and beating my chest in guilt.  Neither are true, but I don't buy into the myth of a post-racial America.  I'm the racial minority in my classroom and I hold the power.  Sometimes that really bothers me.

1. When the old lady at Wal-Mart asks to see my receipt I don't second-guess her motive.  
2. If my wife straightens her hair nobody makes comments.  In fact, my hair will never be viewed as a social statement. 
3. When I am angry, they say, "Man, John seems angry" instead of "He's an angry black man."  
4. If I make an accusation about systemic racism no one claims that I'm just pulling the race card or the victim card or any other imaginary cards.  
5. If a white guy commits a crime no one ever turns to me and asks, "Did you know him?" 
6. If I am pulled over, I don't have layers of a centuries-old slave narrative tugging at myself and the officer.  I just hand him or her a driver's license. 
7. No one has ever attributed any of my athletic feats (which are few) to my racial identity.