Plato's Beard http://platosbeard.org whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must make random noises Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:59:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.16 Michelle Rhee comes to Oakland http://platosbeard.org/michelle-rhee-comes-to-oakland-2/ http://platosbeard.org/michelle-rhee-comes-to-oakland-2/#respond Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:59:48 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/?p=695 [The below is a guest post written by Joanna Bujes, and edited (for markup) by Ravi]

Rhee’s Framing of the Debate on Education

On the evening of February 7, Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of DC public schools and the public face of the opaquely funded StudentsFirst, addressed an audience of some four thousand people at the Paramount theater in Oakland. This lecture was one of a number of lectures purchased as a series, and did not imply any particular interest in Rhee or in education by the older and relatively affluent crowd attending, the sort of crowd one finds at similar series, whether theater, ballet, or classical music.

As I have never heard Rhee speak before, I cannot say that she tailored her talk to this particular audience, but given her consummate skills as a public speaker, I would be very surprised if she had not.

The lecture was divided in three parts. First, Rhee introduced herself and described her leadership of the DC public schools; next, she outlined her fundamental principles about education; finally, she answered questions from the audience.

In the first part, Rhee established her persona: a mix of unprepossessing but feisty “Korean lady,” finding herself unaccountably charged with the management of DC public schools and concerned only for the good of the children. Her narrative of her three years as DC chancellor, a position for which she had no qualifications or experience, framed her dictatorial and disruptive tenure as the story of a plain speaking firebrand who sliced through every piece of red tape and obstruction to transform institutional corruption into a working school system. Rich in anecdote and short on facts, the main point of the story was to set up Rhee as a concerned citizen who was out of patience with a dysfunctional system and whose arbitrary and devastating actions (performed under the aegis of Mayoral control) were not a violation of the democratic rights of parents and teachers and children, but the necessary and heroic actions of a woman more concerned with the good of the children than with the interest of other “adults” involved in the educational system. Someone listening closely might have wondered why schools were failing quite so badly since, in fact, they had been following the kill and drill NCLB model [No Child Left Behind] for close to a generation. Listeners might have also wondered about her assertions as to how much money is being lavished on these failing schools. But facts are little things, and Rhee’s aim to tell a “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” story largely succeeded. In this story, her lack of expertise and experience prove that she is not part of the education insiders responsible for the education crisis. (Predictably, Rhee thundered about the education crisis, forgetting to mention that the poor standing of the U.S. in the world reflects only the plight of our poorer students, and that comparing the right demographic groups yields results that are much different and far more complimentary to U.S. public education.)

Having established herself as regular folk with a passion for education, representing her lack of experience as the necessary foundation for a radical critique of the current state of education, Rhee went on to describe the three factors in the shaping of education: the importance of teachers, global competition, and bipartisanship.

The importance of teaching: First, Rhee acknowledged the importance of teachers. She told a very moving story of a great teacher in action, implicitly appealing to the memory of every great teacher that everyone has had at one time or another.

One would have had to be listening very closely and to have known something about the effect of NCLB on schools and the teaching profession to understand that something was wrong with the picture. How does one reconcile an admiration for teachers with her open contempt for the few benefits teachers enjoy: some measure of autonomy in their teaching practice, due process and stability in their profession, the prospect of retirement after a life-time of dedicated and selfless work? How does one reconcile her belief in the importance of teaching with her curt dismissal of the importance of professional training for teachers? How does one reconcile her appreciation of teachers with her promotion of ineffective and divisive merit pay, or her abject disregard for class size? How does one reconcile her belief in the importance of teaching with her capricious and destructive actions in DC?

In fact there is no way to reconcile these things. At bottom, her belief in the importance of teachers achieves two things: one, it makes the audience trust her because who could possibly believe in the effectiveness of an educational system that did not depend on the quality of teaching; two, to stress the importance of teaching is to minimize the much greater effect of poverty on educational outcomes. A great teacher, Rhee tells us again and again, can make all the difference. So if students are failing it cannot be that they are hungry or ill or stressed by homelessness or their parents’ despair. No, if students are failing, it is because a teacher has failed to teach them.

A constant refrain — explicit or implicit — in all of Rhee’s talk of education, turns on the notion that the interests of children and that of adults are diametrically opposed, and that educational policy is needed to reconcile them. According to this view, teachers care about benefits, retirement, and protection against their own incompetence; therefore they do not care about children. As a corollary, teachers’ unions exist specifically to protect teachers’ interests and therefore, necessarily, to undermine the education of children. This is why high stakes testing and merit pay are needed: a stick and a carrot for teachers who would otherwise neglect or underserve their charges. The notion that a teacher’s working environment is a student’s learning environment would be incomprehensible to Rhee. Or rather, it would be comprehensible only to the extent that keeping the teacher in a state of constant terror would be the most effective way of making sure that the job is done right.

Global competition: Second, Rhee remonstrated with the audience about how we coddle our children, praising mediocre performance and rendering them unfit to compete with the well drilled and properly humbled children of Singapore, Korea, Japan, etc. To support this thesis, Rhee described the trophies adorning the rooms of her two daughters, admittedly lousy soccer players. One would have to think hard to figure out how unearned soccer trophies are an analogue to the current drill and kill regime in the public schools. I would think that they were opposites. I guess the subtext was that some measure of pain is necessary to make students “competitive,” though what exactly the parents would be signing up for under this rubric was not clear. I guess the larger aim was to present education as something that was inextricably tied to competition and to providing exactly the kind of labor that corporations need. Education not as a project of enlightenment, not as a foundation for democracy, not as a second chance in a grotesquely skewed economy — but as a form of mortification that might render one employable.

Bipartisan agenda: Third, while acknowledging herself to be a die hard Democrat, Rhee asserted that her educational program transcends political boundaries and could include Democrat as well as Republican. Of course, the neo-liberal educational agenda, which would essentially place education under private control is already completely bipartisan. Obama’s “Race to the Topfollows smoothly from Bush’s NCLB; the actual goal of both programs is to justify the privatization of all “failing” schools and the transmutation of public funds into guaranteed profits. So why belabor the bipartisan issue? One answer might be the voucher story: At this point she told the story of a woman who had failed to get her child into a good school, and was petitioning for a voucher. Rhee, unable to betray the needs of the child for a more abstract good, crossed party lines and produced the voucher. Thus, under the cover of an anecdote that shows her warm humanitarian concerns, Rhee signals her implicit support for the next step in the privatization process: from charter to voucher, a step not yet taken by the democrats as a whole. I’m guessing too that rhetorically the first goal is to disavow any personal political interest (unlike those Democratic teachers unions) and second to fish for money wherever it could be found, Democratic or Republican pockets.

Here’s what I took away from the lecture that might be useful going forward:

  1. Rhee is an outstanding public speaker, who manages to turn her inexperience as an educator into the virtue of being the objective outsider. Within this frame, questioning her or her motives is simply evidence of one’s entrenched devotion to the status quo.
  2. Rhee is the public face of a counter-revolution in education that promises better outcomes without additional resources. She insists that we spend lots of money on education without getting results; therefore money does not matter. Except for merit pay. That’s not consistent? Oh well. However her insistence that we must work within current economic constraints makes her argument appear more realistic.
  3. The core of her argument is that the interests of children and teachers (adults) are opposed. Therefore, limiting the pay of most teachers, taking away tenure or collective bargaining rights, or firing teachers when they become too expensive can only benefit children.
  4. She has no notion of anything greater than the self-interested individual. Education is something that happens as a result of a system of punishments and rewards for both teachers and students. The notion that children are naturally interested in learning, that teachers care about children, and that education depends upon relationships– the relationship of student to teacher, and the relationship of teachers to one another– has no place in her narrative.
  5. Her overt message is framed in such a way that it is impossible not to applaud (unless one looks under the covers): who would deny that education is important? who would deny that children need good teachers? who would deny that we live in a competitive world? Her claim that StudentsFirst has over a million followers is very likely a lie. The tallied numbers represent eyeballs rather than active, engaged members. But it’s very clear that her framing is aimed at winning over multitudes and claiming wide popular support for what is essentially a privatization scheme that is backed by a billionaire’s club.

There are a number of ways to fight Rhee

It is hard not to attempt to fight Rhee in a rational way, using actual data. She is a liar and that ought to matter. Unfortunately, this counter-revolution in public education should convince us that facts do not matter in the least bit. Or, at least, they have not mattered so far. What matters far more is the framing. So here are our choices.

  • Offer facts and figures about the invention of an educational crisis. I don’t think this works because while it’s clear there is a crisis; fewer know that it is mainly the result of policies like NCLB and overall economic collapse.
  • Offer facts and figures about Rhee’s backers. I don’t think this works because a lot of people think it’s good that the billionaires are donating to public ed. Rhee herself is not shy about acknowledging lunching with Warren Buffet. She uses it as proof of her importance and of the validity of her ideas.(She reported that Buffett had the solution to improving public education: Make private schools illegal and send all kids to public schools using a lottery system. That, he insists, would improve the schools pronto. I applauded this idea wildly, but she had trotted it out simply to underline the fact that it was an impossible solution.)
  • Offer facts and figures about Rhee herself and her failure in DC (re-hired teachers, cheating, destruction of community schools). This would not defeat the larger framing issues.
  • Re-frame the debate: insisting upon the following principles:
    • The interests of students and teachers are not opposed.
    • Education results from the relationship of student to teacher.
    • Education is not a race; it is the foundation of the common good.
    • Experience matters.
    • Education is not a scarce good

Let us be conscious of the fact that “Students first” recalls the moral imperative of “women and children first,” an honored protocol during a time of disaster. But, the promoters of this strategy fail to ask how that disaster came about. They refuse to look at the social, economic, and historical forces that have placed war first, bank bailouts first, and children last. Rather, Students First demands that we choose the interests of students over that of teachers, implying that their interests are in conflict, that a gain for one must be a loss for the other. Viewed in this light, teachers unwilling to work yet more hours, teachers who are concerned about job security, and teachers who care about working conditions are traitors to student interests. Let us be very clear about the origins of our current disaster.

We have all sat through flight safety instructions, where, counter to our protective impulses, we are urged to put on the oxygen mask before tending to our children. A moment’s thought proves the wisdom of this recommendation. We cannot help our children unless we ourselves can breathe; but Students First would have us believe that the more tenuous, the more stressed the position of the teacher, the more benefit accrues to their students. Apparently for Students First, there are never enough oxygen masks. This is the most important frame for us to use in teaching people and teachers how to think about the current situation.

The only way forward is to create a more compelling story that shifts the terms of the debate. It is not enough to claim that public education is for the 99%. In fact, that 99% has been sliced and diced in so many ways, that we are left with the contending special interests of suburban schools, urban schools, charters, vouchers… and the very mistaken notion that a good education is of necessity a scarce good.

The core of our story must be that a good education is the result of an enduring relationship of student to teacher, and that the commitment of the educational system to the teacher — to her training, evaluation, and job satisfaction — will translate into her effective commitment to the education of her students. It is because this relationship is so essential to education that education cannot be industrialized. Neither the teacher nor the student are interchangeable parts.

The absolute rejection of high-stakes testing, which devours the energy, resources, and morale of teachers; which strips the autonomy and authority of educators; and which serves no other purpose than to justify the destruction of unions and eventual privatization.

The insistence that training and experience are key to good teaching…with parallels drawn to every other profession known to man.


Joanna A. Bujes is an Oakland public school parent and supporter of public education. She has taught at U.C. Berkeley, University of Santa Clara, and SUNY Plattsburgh, and she has been a volunteer teacher and tutor in the Oakland public schools (poetry, drama, math) whenever she could find the time.

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Obama, Summers and the stimulus http://platosbeard.org/obama-summers-and-the-stimulus/ http://platosbeard.org/obama-summers-and-the-stimulus/#respond Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:57:46 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/?p=692 Since his exit from the Obama administration, Larry Summers has parroted the party line that the administration would have loved a larger stimulus but it was just practically i.e., politically infeasible. This line that the administration was united in accepting the need for a larger stimulus was always questionable given Christina Romer’s portrayal of conflicts within the economic team; but now there is more to back up the suspicion that there were opposing views on the size and Larry Summers (as is almost always the case) prevailed with his support of a smaller package. Paul Krugman parses through Ryan Lizza’s report on Summers’s memo to Obama:

The key thing I took away from the memo is that it does not read at all like the current story the administration gives for the inadequate size of the stimulus, which is that they knew it should be larger but had to face political reality.

Instead, the memo argues that a bigger stimulus would be counterproductive in economic terms, because of the “market reaction”. That is, Summers et al were afraid of the invisible bond vigilantes.

And to the extent that there is a political judgment, it’s all in the opposite direction: if the stimulus is too big, we’ll have trouble scaling it back, but if it’s too small, we can always go back to Congress for more.

via Larry and the Invisibles – NYTimes.com.

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OWS: reporting and reality http://platosbeard.org/ows-reporting-and-reality/ http://platosbeard.org/ows-reporting-and-reality/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:59:02 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/?p=685 Yesterday I wrote about the strange analysis of OWS from the Left by Jodi Dean. In my comment I expressed some doubt on the sincerity of her argument. The post by Dean that I was referring to is an old one. Shortly after that one, Dean repeated a bit of unsubstantiated news that was floating around claiming that OWS was coming to an end due to the inability to resolve the simple matter of keeping drumming to a minimum. On Oct 24th, Dean quoted alleged OWS insiders, without comment:

OWS is over after Tuesday:

Friends, mediation with the drummers has been called off. It has gone on for more than 2 weeks and it has reached a dead end. The drummers formed a working group called Pulse and agreed to 2 hrs/day at times during the mediation, and more recently that changed to 4 hrs/day. It’s my feeling that we may have a fighting chance with the community board if we could indeed limit drumming and loud instrumentation to 12-2pm and 4-6pm, however that isn’t what’s happening.

This would have been pretty big, if true. Except it wasn’t. Michael Pollak — the most fair, level-headed and rational person I know on the Left — has been visiting Zuccotti frequently and attending some of the General Assembly sessions. He had this say:

Okay, I just got back from the park and 60 Wall (which is the hive of the working groups) and this was clearly a non-issue.  Nobody mentioned it and everyone is still working with timelines extending into the indefinite future.  I was a little embarassed to ask, to be honest, it was so obviously an exaggerated rumor.  But when asked, the general answer was the same: the GA/drum circle conflict has been there since the beginning, and conflict and negotiation with the neighbors and city officials has been there since the beginning.  Nothing’s changed or come to crisis.  On the contrary, things have recently gotten substantially better on both fronts precisely because the drummers are drumming substantially less now. So the conflict will continue, and hopefully continue to improve.  No one was worried.  People getting mad or feeling agreements were reneged is just considered SOP when there’s a conflict.  It always leads to another meeting.

And speaking of conflicts — or lack thereof — the Demand working group met today with the Facilitation working group, the one that sets the agenda for the nightly general assembly.  They couldn’t have been nicer or more efficient.  We asked if we could propose it and they said sure.

So rumors that this would somehow get strangled in its cradle behind the scenes seem entirely ungrounded. To judge by this meeting, I don’t see how it would such smothering would be even possible, this committee seems so transparent and rational and non-judgmental.  It looks at this point as if the whole idea was either a misunderstanding or a bluff or both.

What a difference data makes!

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OWS and its detractors http://platosbeard.org/ows-and-its-detractors/ http://platosbeard.org/ows-and-its-detractors/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:52:55 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/?p=667 In case you have been living in a cave, OWS is Occupy Wall Street: a protest movement that arose from an initial call by AdBusters, and is now a world-wide affair with “occupations” springing up in cities across the USA and the rest of the world.

The idea is simple and brilliant:

Occupy Wall Street Signage

1. Choose a method — occupation — that overcomes the customary weakness of other actions of the powerless such as rallies and marches: politicians, administrators, the police, simply wait them out; let the protestors have their day with marching and speeches, after which the powerful can return to business as usual. Even the term “occupy” upends that relationship.

2. Target the clearest representation (Wall Street) of the few who were the primary cause of the economic meltdown of 2008, while also the greatest beneficiaries of the government response to the crisis.

3. Make the identification clear: the most common slogan used by the group is “we are the 99%“. While their sentiments may not be shared by all of the 90+% that took the bulk of the pain and gained little benefit from the Bush-Obama bailouts and half-hearted programs, the material reality is well captured by the slogan. A long overdue challenge, in simple terms, to the Right’s effortless claim to the majority opinion or position.

Due to their resilience, and with the “help” of the inevitable police brutality, this movement has struck a chord and gained popularity and sympathy among the larger public. The response from right-wing organs such as Fox News has been predictable. More unexpectedly, some on the left have issues as well. Here is Jodi Dean:

[T]he language of occupying occupy wall street that I am using suggests that any attempt to hegemonize the space will be a problem for the ‘movement.’ That is, to remain the movement it is (18 days in), it has to resist any and all efforts to channel the message. But that then implies not that the priority is a contestation among people to forge a way ahead but instead that openness and indeterminacy are themselves the goal, that which is to be protected. If that’s the case, then there is something wrong, a kind of built in (self-deceiving?) confusion: the goal is just to keep the occupation going, not to use the occupation to overthrow capitalism or bring down the banks, or redistribute wealth at all. In fact, it’s probably wrong for me to call this confused or self-deceiving: it’s explicit in a number of different statements about democracy and discussion and raising questions. This language is a language of process rather than ends. Or, the process is the end. To the extent that this is the goal, rather than a means of overthrowing capitalism and working toward putting in place a communist solution, then that’s not my revolution.

There is a lot going on in this single paragraph, almost all of which is troublesome. To begin with, Dean gives away the strawman quite explicitly in her very first sentence, with the  accurate qualifier that “the language of occupying occupy wall street” is one that she is using i.e., this is her take on it, and if her take or language leads to some “confusion” or “self-deception” it is not clear who else is to blame here!

And what exactly is a “language of process“, or a “language of ends“? I am pretty sure I don’t know. What is clear however is that Dean wants to lay down the terms on which she will consider Occupy Wall Street “her” revolution: the movement has to share her goal, without question, of a communist solution. Well, okay, that’s her call to make. Why we worry? The trouble I have with Dean’s post is the way she goes about making her point, using all sorts of bad faith hypotheticals, logical leaps, and by playing games with the meaning of words like “process” and “goal”.

One example is Dean’s worry about the presence of Ron Paulites:

To the extent that Occupy Wall Street remains open to and for multiple political persuasions, it is not a left movement at all.  […] As I understand it, Ron Paul supports an odd notion of free markets; he thinks that individuals make better decisions than groups and that a social safety net damages freedom. If there is space for this view in Occupy Wall Street, then that’s not my revolution. In fact, it seems like a version of the one that hijacked the country in the 70s.

What is “space for this view“, per Dean, and how do the protestors please Dean by purging the movement of such space? Should they chase away Paul leafletters hovering around the periphery? Should they not  listen to them should Paulites attempt to start a discussion? Dean’s own hypothetical extent to which OWS is “open” to alternate “persuasions” or provides “a space” for them, is evidence (“it seems“) that OWS is out to hijack the country. In this analysis, it’s a direct route from hypotheticals (“to the extent that“, “if there is space“) to conclusions.

Another example is the first section quoted above, where Dean condenses all the varied procedures, activities, slogans and positions of OWS to a matter of obsession with “process“. Out of the Brownian flurry of hypotheses bouncing around in her own mind, Dean builds a caricature of a movement — not a movement that is occupying a space to achieve goals (explicitly stated in their statements and placards); not a movement trying to avoid co-option by staying open (while also guarded) to ideas and arguments; but really rather a movement in love with its on machinations and minutiae.

What do we make of the  analysis that people have occupied a park for the fun of the process of being open to Ron Paulites and for the thrill of continuing such occupation into the balmy days of winter, rather than the more probable case that they are using the occupation as a base for protests whose goals are made explicit in their slogans? What could the author possibly mean?

I suspect that to get to the content, you have to work through Dean’s post in a different sequence than top down. It is the Lenin references up front and the political identifications towards the end (“those of us who think of ourselves as communists, Leninists, Trotskyists…“) that provide the necessary backdrop for Dean’s dismissals: “that’s not my revolution” and “Occupy Wall Street … is not a left movement at all“. The contrast to watch for is not the one Dean draws between libertarianism and leftism:

The easiest rough initial cut is between those who begin with an emphasis on equality and those who begin with an emphasis on freedom; another crude cut would distinguish between those who begin from an emphasis on individualism and those who begin from an emphasis on collectivity, solidarity, and a commons.

For surely those actually collected in solidarity in the commons hardly need lecturing (a la Ricard Dawkins: by all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out) on libertarianism! Dean is of course not lecturing OWS. She is writing to that “those of us“, her people, and the contrast she draws out is really between the ideological commitment of those like her, and the open-ended process of discovery through action employed by OWS. We cannot take seriously the speculation that OWS is some sort of ISO9001 circle jerk. So, when she raises the suspicion that OWS may not be about “overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with a communist solution“, the emphasis is likely on the latter part. The lack of a priori commitment to communism is Dean’s real issue. But there is good news. She is willing to wait for OWS to come around:

For those of us who think of ourselves as communists, Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists, and socialists, our challenge is finding ways to work within and together with the movement, which can well mean not pushing too quickly for something for which the proper support has not yet been built.

Or of course there is the alternate possibility. As a fellow subscriber on a left mailing list summarised this kind of analysis (using a quote that seems to be widely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi):

There go my people. I must run and catch up with them because I am their leader.

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Return of the blah-blahg http://platosbeard.org/return-of-the-blah-blahg/ http://platosbeard.org/return-of-the-blah-blahg/#respond Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:11:03 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/?p=665 I expect to start posting to this blog more regularly. I leave it to you (is there still a you out there? If so, post a comment for my gratification!) to decide whether that’s a good thing. Some of this material will be stuff migrated from my Posterous site, but will likely be new to you.

 

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PETA | The Faces of Animal Testing http://platosbeard.org/peta-the-faces-of-animal-testing/ http://platosbeard.org/peta-the-faces-of-animal-testing/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:51:14 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/archives/656

Bite Back Magazine has posted all of the images on its website.
Primate Products

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Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us – NYT http://platosbeard.org/hamas-the-i-r-a-and-us-nyt/ http://platosbeard.org/hamas-the-i-r-a-and-us-nyt/#respond Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:35:51 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/archives/655

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29abunimah.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Both the Irish and Middle Eastern conflicts figure prominently in American domestic politics — yet both have played out in very different ways. The United States allowed the Irish-American lobby to help steer policy toward the weaker side: the Irish government in Dublin and Sinn Fein and other nationalist parties in the north. At times, the United States put intense pressure on the British government, leveling the field so that negotiations could result in an agreement with broad support. By contrast, the American government let the Israel lobby shift the balance of United States support toward the stronger of the two parties: Israel.

This disparity has not gone unnoticed by those with firsthand knowledge of the Irish talks. In a 2009 letter to The Times of London, several British and Irish negotiators, including John Hume, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the Belfast Agreement, criticized the one-sided demands imposed solely on Hamas. “Engaging Hamas,” the negotiators wrote, “does not amount to condoning terrorism or attacks on civilians. In fact, it is a precondition for security and for brokering a workable agreement.”

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SciAm: How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth’s Resources, Made Interactive http://platosbeard.org/sciam-how-much-is-left-the-limits-of-earths-resources-made-interactive/ http://platosbeard.org/sciam-how-much-is-left-the-limits-of-earths-resources-made-interactive/#respond Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:41:44 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/archives/653
What’s Left?

Powered by Ergo:Ux

My friends on the Left do not like to speak much of the impact of human behaviour on our own future, since to them it smacks of Malthusianism and denial of resources to the poor (the rich not only consume more on average but also have the power to keep doing so). However, it may be time to start seeing that human exploitation of nature equally (and equally disproportionately) harms the poor and working classes.

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Terrorist Tapes Found Under CIA Desk : NPR http://platosbeard.org/terrorist-tapes-found-under-cia-desk-npr/ http://platosbeard.org/terrorist-tapes-found-under-cia-desk-npr/#respond Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:41:41 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/archives/652

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists.

The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system.

The tapes depict Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely guarded secret.

When the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two other al-Qaida operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being waterboarded in 2005, officials believed they had wiped away all of the agency’s interrogation footage. But in 2007, a staffer discovered a box tucked under a desk in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and pulled out the Binalshibh tapes.

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Nothing is good enough for Democrats http://platosbeard.org/nothing-is-good-enough-for-democrats/ http://platosbeard.org/nothing-is-good-enough-for-democrats/#respond Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:50:33 +0000 http://platosbeard.org/archives/651

To be sure, the president has seen both his nominees to the Supreme Court approved with little suspense. But the Senate has yet to allow a vote on most of the 85 nominees he has sent up for federal judgeships at the district and appeals court levels.

Same old partisan story? Not quite. The last five presidents, three of them Republicans, have seen four out of five of their appointments confirmed.

Democrats under Majority Leader Harry Reid have not been willing to call the minority’s bluff on this tactic by demanding real-time filibusters with all-night sessions and cots in the lobbies. No one wants the delay, the drama or the indignity.

Back in 2000, when a few principled human beings supported the candidacy of Ralph Nader, they (and their candidate) were accused of being “spoilers” and of enabling the election of George Bush and the consequences. After the election of their dream candidate, Barack Obama, these same Democrats have remained mostly silent as their man continues many of the wicked politics of his predecessor. In their silence, they present not some worldly pragmatism; they merely echo the pusillanimity of the leaders they wish us to join them in electing. The opposition suffers from no such timidity.

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