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Most outrageous comments of 2006

From MediaMatters.org: The Most outrageous comments of 2006

Summary:

How extreme were conservative commentators in their remarks this year? How about calls to nuke the Middle East and an allegation that a “gay … mafia” used the congressional page program as its own “personal preserve.” Right-wing rhetoric documented by Media Matters for America included the nonsensical (including Rush Limbaugh’s claim that America’s “obesity crisis” is caused by, among other things, our failure to “teach [the poor] how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter”), the offensive (such as right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel’s question about “Barack Hussein Obama”: is he “a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?”), and the simply bizarre (such as William A. Donohue’s claim that some Hollywood stars would “sodomize their own mother in a movie”). Since there were so many outrageous statements, we included a list of honorable mentions along with the top 11, which, if not for Ann Coulter, we might have limited to 10.

The top 11 (in chronological order):

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: “Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn’t care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face.” [2/9/06]

Fox News host John Gibson: “Do your duty. Make more babies. That’s a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days. First, a story yesterday that half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call ‘gabachos’ — white people — are having fewer.” [5/11/06]

Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on The New York Times’ decision to report on the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program and a Treasury Department financial transaction tracking program: The Times had done “something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get [Julius and Ethel] Rosenberg[] executed.” [7/12/06]

Coulter responding to Hardball host Chris Matthews’ question, “How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton’s gay?”: “I don’t know if he’s gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore — total fag.” [7/27/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage: “That’s why the department store dummy named Wolf Blitzer, a Jew who was born in Israel, will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He’s probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King, who takes a close runner-up by the hair of a nose. The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis.” [8/7/06]

Coulter on Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), an African-American: “Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn’t involve wearing a paper hat. Waters also considers Joe ‘soft’ on the issue of the CIA inventing crack cocaine and AIDS to kill all the black people in America.” [8/9/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, blaming America’s “obesity crisis” on “the left,” “liberal government,” and “food stamps”: “Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn’t teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn’t teach them how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in — is in government.” [8/29/06]

Coulter on Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI): “They Shot the Wrong Lincoln.” [8/30/06]

Conservative pundit and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan: “Look, [Rep. Jim] Kolbe [R-AZ] is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. [Rep. Mark] Foley [R-FL] was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages [Jeff Trandahl] was gay. Foley’s administrative assistant, Mr. [Kirk] Fordham, The New York Times tell us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What’s going on here, Joe [Scarborough, MSNBC host], is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their — sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party.” [10/9/06]

CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN): “OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. … With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, ‘Let’s cut and run.’ And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’ ” [11/14/06]

Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian … is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?” [12/18/06]

Honorable mentions (also in chronological order):

Beck: “Cindy Sheehan. That’s a pretty big prostitute there, you know what I mean?” [1/10/06]

Republican strategist Mary Matalin: “I mean, you know, I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists. And they’re keeping constituency, they’re keeping their neighborhoods and their African-American brothers enslaved, if you will, by continuing to let them think that they’re — or forced to think that they’re victims, that the whole system is against them.” [2/8/06]

Pat Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club: “But it does seem that with the current makeup of the court, they still don’t have as many judges as would be needed to overturn Roe [v. Wade]. They need one more, and I dare say before the end of this year there will be another vacancy on the court.” [3/7/06]

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program: “Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it’s Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power.” [3/17/06]

Nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz on Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s (D-GA) hairstyle: “She looks like a ghetto slut. … It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. … She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. … She looks like a shih tzu!” [3/31/06]

Boortz on McKinney’s hairstyle (again): “I saw Cynthia McKinney’s hairdo yesterday — saw it on TV. I don’t blame that cop for stopping her. It looked like a welfare drag queen was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building. That hairdo is ghetto trash. I don’t blame them for stopping her.” [3/31/06]

Limbaugh discussing a videotape released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq: “[I]t sounds just like the DNC [Democratic National Committee] is writing his scripts now.” (4/26/06)

Beck: “Blowing up Iran. I say we nuke the bastards. In fact, it doesn’t have to be Iran, it can be everywhere, anyplace that disagrees with me.” [5/11/06]

Jonathan Hoenig, managing member of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC, on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto: “I think when it comes to Iran, the problem is we haven’t been forceful enough. I mean if you — frankly, if you want to see the Dow go up, let’s get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat.” [6/5/06]

Fox host Geraldo Rivera: “I’ve known [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA] for over 35 years. Unlike me, he is a combat veteran, so he gets some props. But in the last 35 years, I’ve seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry. And for a smart man like that in a political ploy to set a date certain only aids and abets the enemy, and the Democrats are at their own self-destructive behavior once again.” [6/22/06]

Savage: “I don’t know why we don’t use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out with everyone in there.” [7/21/06]

Boortz: “I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how — that’s right, I used those words — how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can’t earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh — human, the minimum wage.” [8/3/06]

Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas on businessman Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate: “It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing. … [T]hey have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to ‘kill’ one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party’s kook fringe.” [8/10/06]

Fox News host Sean Hannity, two months before the November midterm elections: “This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of ’em is making sure [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] doesn’t become the [House] speaker.” [8/29/06]

Beck: “The Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians. That’s what I thought at 5 o’clock this morning, and I thought, ‘Oh, geez, what — what is this?’ If they take over — the barbarians storm the gate and take over the Middle East (this is what I’m thinking at 5 o’clock in the morning) — we’re going to have to nuke the whole place.” [9/12/06]

Savage: “My fear is that if the Democrats win [in the November midterm elections], and I’m afraid that they might, you’re going to see America melt down faster that you could ever imagine. It will happen overnight, and it could lead to the breakup of the United States of America, the way the Soviet Union broke up.” [10/13/06]

Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Nancy Pelosi’s appearance: “I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, ‘You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn’t work the first time, let it go.’ ” [10/31/06]

Limbaugh on the Middle East: “Fine, just blow the place up.” [11/27/06]

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly (on his radio show): “Do I care if the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq? No. I don’t care. Let’s get our people out of there. Let them kill each other. Maybe they’ll all kill each other, and then we can have a decent country in Iraq.” [12/5/06]

New York Post columnist Ralph Peters on Iraq Study Group co-chairman James Baker: “The difference is that [Pontius] Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops.” [12/7/06]

Conservative syndicated radio host Michael Medved on the animated movie Happy Feet: The film contains “a whole subtext, as there so often is, about homosexuality.” [12/11/06]

Fox captions

Additionally, although these are not examples of specific conservative commentators making outrageous comments, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Fox News made a regular practice of attacking Democrats or repeating Republican talking points in on-screen text during its coverage of political issues. Some examples:

“All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?” [2/23/06]

“Attacking Capitalism: Have Dems Declared War on America?” [2/18/06]

“Dems Helping the Enemy?” [5/22/06]

“A Lamont Win, Bad News for Democracy in Mideast?”

“Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?”

“Is the Democratic Party Soft on Terror?” [8/8/06]

“The #1 President on Mideast Matters: George W Bush?” [8/14/06]

“Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?” [8/16/06]

— M.M.

Posted to the web on Friday December 22, 2006 at 6:12 PM EST

I Can’t Stand it…R.I.P. James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, Mr. Dynamite, Soul Brother No. 1, Minister of Super Heavy Funk

James Brown died this morning in Atlanta’s Emory Crawford Long Hospital from complications from pneumonia.

The New York Times obituary by Jon Parelles.

Photo gallery from The New York Times.

It’s Star Time—Watch the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business”:

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”

“Sex Machine”

“I Feel Good”

This is the famous James Brown concert that was broadcast live on WGBH TV in Boston less than 24 hours after the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: James Brown medley (Boston, April 5, 1968)

L.A. Style: “James Brown is Dead”

Download James Brown concert (MP3) here.

Listent to Terry Gross interview with James Brown from Fresh Air (February 2, 2005) here.

Best of 2006 in music

Here’s my yearly list of the best albums I’ve found this year. It would be more accurate to call this my a list of my favorites, I don’t really claim these are the “best”, rather these are the albums/tracks that I played the most throughout the year. [If you’re into Top Ten+ lists, Metacritic.com has an interesting and extensive list of ratings.]

The Liner Notes

Since I can’t restrain myself, I’ve put together two CDs of favorites. Volume 1 includes my favorites of the new studio recorded music. Volume 2 includes covers, reissues, live tracks released in 2006 (plus some studio tracks I couldn’t squeeze onto the first CD).

As usual my listening is pretty eclectic, but leaning toward blues, roots, and R&B. There’s a strong New Orleans theme to be found in this year’s line up, from funky second-line drummer Stanton Moore to the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint and even Ray Davies (who was shot while chasing down a couple of muggers when he was in NOLA writing songs for his first solo album ever).

Wayne’s Favs of 2006—Volume 1—Best of New Studio Music

Stanton Moore, III, “Poison Pushy”
The funky drummer from Galactic, along with Robert Walter on the Hammond B3.

Tony Joe White, Uncovered, “Not One Bad Thought” (with Mark Knopfler)
King of Swamp Rock is back.

Roman Candle, The Wee Hours Review, “You Don’t Belong To This World”
Alt-country and indie rock from Chapel Hill

Alejandro Escovedo, The Boxing Mirror, “Arizona”
All Music Guides says: On The Boxing Mirror, Escovedo and producer John Cale erase the line: rock, pop, country, Tejano, and other folk forms are woven into a rich, colorful fabric without regard for classification.

Rosanne Cash, Black Cadillac, “Black Cadillac”
Documents loss, grief, acceptances of the passing John R. Cash, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, and June Carter Cash.

The Handsome Family, Last Days of Wonder, “All The Time In Airports”
Postmodern-Alt-country-goth.

The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers, “Steady As She Goes”
Detroit’s Jack White and Brendan Benson hook up with the rhythm section of and Cincinnati’s Greenhornes.

Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam, “World Wide Suicide”
Seattle’s grunge kings get political with one of their best since Ten.

Beck, The Information, “Strange Apparition”
Quirky white-boy funk-rock and rap, with hints of psychedelia and folk-rock.

Robert Pollard, Normal Happiness, “Rhoda Rhoda”
God of the sublime two-minute power pop record.

Don Dixon, The Entire Combustible World In One Small Room, “Sunlit Room”
Producer of great ’80s jangle power pop (see R.E.M., Marshall Crenshaw, Matthew Sweet, etc.), former member of Chapel Hill legends Arrogance, creates concept album everyday life plays out in various rooms.

Yo la Tengo, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, “Song For Mahila”
Best album title of the year.

Ray Davies, Other People’s Lives, “Run Away From Time”
Best songwriter of the rock era? I think so.

Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped, “Reena”
Less-jam, tighter playing, rounds out the triple play with Sonic Nurse, Murray Street…Kim Gordon rocks!

Destroyer, Destroyers’ Rubies, “European Oils”
Vancouver’s indie=pop craftsman Dan Bejar (also a member of The New Pornographers) masterminds a cerebral pop gem.

Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, “Margaret vs. Pauline”
Members of the Sadies and Calexico as well as Garth Hudson of the Band, Howe Gelb from Giant Sand, and Kelly Hogan join westcoast indie-pop/alt-country chanteuse (and New Pornographer) Case on songs of the heart.

Los Lonely Boys, Sacred, “Roses”
Took the Garza’s three years to get this one out, but no sophomore slump after “Heaven” smash.

Los Lobos, The Town and The City, “The Town”
Powerful exploration of the Mexican-American experience, rates up there with 1992’s Kiko.

Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, The River in Reverse, “The River In Reverse”
Unlikely paring revive Toussaint’s New Orleans R&B classics on one half of the record and collaborate on new tunes for the other half. Katrina serves backdrop.

The Flaming Lips, At War With the Mystics, “Goin’ On”
Wayne Coyne and his OK City buddies produce album of anti-Bush psychedelia (they’ve been listening to Pink Floyd and smoking something too).

Wayne’s Favs of 2006—Volume 2—Best of the Covers, Live, Reissued Tracks, Two from 2005, Plus the Stuff That Wouldn’t Fit on Volume 1

Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend [Deluxe Edition], “Girlfriend”
Best Album of the 90s, with bonus tracks, demos and rare Goodfriend bonus disc.

Dave Alvin, West of the West, “Redneck Friend”
California troubador covers other Golden State songwriters including, Merle Haggard, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, John Fogerty, Brian Wilson, Kate Wolf, Los Lobos. Check out the do-wop version of “Surfer Girl”.

Los Super Seven, I Heard it On the X, “Heard It On The X”
Celebration of border radio by producer Dan Goodman’s collective, including LSS vets Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Freddy Fender, and Ruben Ramos who are joined by John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Rodney Crowell and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. This is a 2005 release, but who cares.

The Black Keys, Chulahoma, “Meet Me In The City”
Two white boys from Akron channel the late, great, north Mississippi bluesman Junior Kimbrough on Chulahoma and do their own thing on Magic Potion

Buddy Guy, Can’t Quit the Blues, “I’d Rather Be Blind, Crippled & Crazy”
Ole Buddy rips it up on this great box set that covers his career from the 1950s to 2006.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band, What’s Goin’ On?, “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”
DDBB asks the question on everyone’s mind following Katrina as they re-make Marvin Gaye’s classic, New Orleans style.

Chris Whitley & The Bastard Club, Reiter In, “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
Posthumous release by one of the great postmodern bluesmen of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.

Sir Douglas Quintet, The Complete Mercury Recordings, “Mendocino”
Limited edition box of Doug Sahm and the most influential Tex-Mex group of all time—mash-up of country, blues, jazz, R&B, Mexican conjunto/norteño music, Cajun dance, British Invasion rock & roll, garage rock, and psychedelia from the Lone Star State.

Ridely Bent, Blam, “David Harley’s Son”
A 2005 release, but I didn’t discover this one until Paul O. passed it my way. Hick Hop from Vancouver, BC.

Todd Snider, The Devil You Know, “The Devil You Know”
Snider blends blues, rock, folk and country on sharply written tunes about life in pre-apocalyptic America.

Antony, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man [Soundtrack], “If It Be Your Will”
While Rufus Wainwright hogs the camera and Nick Cave does the most authentic Cohen, Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) steals the show with his version of “If It Be Your Will.” AMG says: “Antony’s white-hot vocal expressionism and humility tear the surface off every emotion and word in the song for the purpose of finding what they’re really made of. If this one doesn’t just blow you away, you have sawdust instead of blood running in your veins. It almost feels like the voice of God coming through the grain of his own.”

M. Ward, Post-War, “Poison Cup”
Westcoast singer/songwriter makes dusty, retro-folk-pop-rock that sounds brand new and old at the same time.

Golden Smog, Another Fine Day, “Another Fine Day”
Alt-country supergroup (members of Jayhawks, plus Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy) makes well-crafted jangle-pop.

My Morning Jacket, Okonokos, “Dancefloors”
Louisville’s MMJ harken’s back to the good old days with their fourth release, a live double album (recorded at San Francisco’s Filmore no less).

Solomon Burke, Nashville, “That’s How I Got To Memphis”
Buddy Miller produced album of country/soul tunes by the King of Rock & Soul, includes duets with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and Gillian Welch. (Remember King Solomon did a killer version of “Detroit City” back in 1968).

R.E.M., And I Feel Fine: The Best Of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 , “Begin The Begin”
R.E.M. at their very best (before that “Shiny Happy People” shit).

Bob Dylan, Modern Times, “Workingman’s Blues #2”
Bob does down and dirty blues.

Gram Parsons, The Complete Reprise Sessions, “Hickory Wind (Alternate Take)”
Three disc box collects GP, Grievous Angel, and the reason to buy this set, a disc of alternate takes from both albums. Emmylou looms large here.

Latest issue of Journal of Whole Schooling

The January 2007 issue of Journal of Whole Schooling is now online.

These are all wonderful pieces, all exploring the interface of inclusive education and teaching with good schooling and teaching practices. The articles range from daily practice to policy. To download copies of the articles go here

Here’s an introduction to these great contributions:

Champions of Inclusion: Making the Extraordinary Ordinary. Written by Bill Henderson, Principal of O’Hearn Elementary School in Boston, a fully inclusive school, this article highlights many practical, daily actions by many people that make the experience of inclusion occur.

Multi-age Instruction and Inclusion: A Collaborative Approach. A collaborative article by Shannon Stuart, a university faculty member, and a team of teachers that explores the way in which instructional strategies, community building, and teaming help to support students of a wide range of abilities and characteristics in learning as a community.

From Policy to Practice: A South African Perspective on Implementing Inclusive Education Policy. The author, Sigamoney Naicker, was until recently the top administrator for special education in the country of South Africa. In his tenure, he worked to implement a policy and practice move to inclusive education as an integral part of that country’s efforts to transform its educational system with new values in post-apartheid times.

Please feel free to forward these to people in your networks. We also invite you to submit articles ranging from scholary research and reviews to practical voices of parents, students, and teachers. To see guidelines for submitting articles go here.

Feel free to contact the co-editors: Tim Loreman and Billie Jo Clausen.

Happy Holidays from the Rouge Forum!

Dear Friends,

Happy Holidays from the Rouge Forum!

Remember the Rouge Forum Conference, Their Wars Left Behind, in Detroit, March 1 to 4, 2007.

The Rouge Forum No Blood for Oil page is updated.

Among the highlights are a Rouge Forum Broadside on How to Get Out of Iraq.

an indication of the possibility of troop refusals in the face of Bush’s demand for 70,000 more troops and a wider war

a challenging video on past US covert operations;

a link to the newest edition of Cultural Logic with a fine piece by our friend Ted Allen on the connections of race and class.

In schools, where the NCLB seeks to regiment what is known and how people come to know it through curricula standards and racist high-stakes exams in order to turn educators into missionaries for capitalism, and kids into the empire’s warriors, the nation’s largest and richest union, the National Education Association took a sharp position against those who oppose the bi-partisan law. NEA’s bosses, led by what is unquestionably the least well-informed NEA President in decades, Reg Weaver, attacked Susan Ohanian and the Education Roundtable, urging NEA members not to sign the an online protest. The Roundtable responds here.

Here are three short paragraphs representing the consensus of the Roundtable at the NCSS International Assembly in D.C. Next year we will be bigger and better in San Diego.

Those unfortunately good for the rest of your life Rouge Forum posters, great for classroom discussion, are available cheap are available here.

And check out the IWW Pyramid of the Capitalist System.

Remember to give a sub to Substance Newspaper, the best hard copy newspaper on education.

We mourn the loss of a wonderful friend and member of the Rouge Forum, Marshall Michelson, who helped the RF from the beginning in every way he could. In the new year, we hope we can live up to the standards he set for intelligence, inner strength, humor, and perseverance.

We close with advice from Bertolt Brecht.

The Rouge Forum Updates will go on hiatus until January. Here’s to a new year of equality, democracy, reason, and freedom, and the courage it takes to get there. Meanwhile, you can join the Rouge Forum Discussion list here.

People can join the discussion list two ways:

2. Send an email to rougeforum@pipeline.com requesting to be added to the Rouge Forum Discussion list. Since we will have two lists (mailing list and discussion list), please clearly state that you want to be added to the discussion list, otherwise you will be just added to the mailing list.

Thanks to Gil, Phillip, Amber, Wayne, Susan, Dave Si., Joe B., Gordon, Jim3, Sandy, Gloria, Tom H., Greg J, Bill B, Greg and Katie, Bob A., Tommie, Betty W., Sharon, ZG, Laura, Kathy H., Monty, John DeW., Dave, Carrie, Judytheteacher, Joel S., Sally, Sean A., Connie, Pauline L., Pat S., Richard B, Marc, Currie, Kev, Perry, Steve F, Allan S, and so long BigM.

All the best, r

New issue of Cultural Logic

Cultural Logic, an electronic journal of Marxist theory and practice, has just launched its latest issue.

This issue includes:

An edited version of Theodore W. Allen’s “Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race” with an introduction by Jeffrey B. Perry.

A cluster of articles on utopia by Maryam El-Shall (“Salafi Utopia: The Making of the Islamic State”), Christopher Kendrick (“Tendencies of Utopia: Reflections on Recent Work in the Modern Utopian Tradition”), and Michael David Szekely (“Rethinking Benjamin: The Fuction of the Utopian Ideal”).

U.S. Panel on Work-Force Skills Calls for Drastic Overhaul of America’s Education System

Yet another panel of corporate, political and higher education leaders have presented a sweeping proposal to reform US education. The report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce calls for $67 million from the current “system” to fund it’s recommendations, which include: (a)national examinations in all 10th graders, which would determine their educational future; (b) a standardized salary scale for all teachers, with hiring done by states rather than districts; and (c) removing control of teacher education from colleges and universities, setting quotas for admission to programs, and establishing “performance contracts” for teacher education “providers”.

Here are a few details:

Creating a new examination that would test students in 10th grade on core subjects. Students who met the test’s minimum standards could leave high school early and enroll in a community college for a two-year degree in a technical field or a program that would enable them to transfer to a four-year institution. Students who scored well on the test could stay in high school to prepare for a more rigorous test, like the current Advanced Placement exams or those given by the International Baccalaureate program. Those students could graduate high school with enough credits to enter college as juniors.

Developing a different system for recruiting and compensating teachers. The commission recommended that states, not local school districts, employ teachers and set a statewide salary schedule that would pay beginning teachers about $45,000 a year. If salaries were raised across the board, the report says, more teachers would come from the top third of high-school students going to college, not the bottom third, as is now the case. The salary increase could be paid for by making the teachers’ pension system less generous, the panel suggested.

Overhauling the way teachers are trained. The commission recommended that states create Teacher Development Agencies that would be charged with recruiting, training, and certifying teachers. “The state would launch national recruiting campaigns, allocate slots for training the needed number of teachers, and write performance contracts with schools of education, but also teachers’ collaboratives, school districts, and others interested in training teachers,” the report says. Those providers whose graduates did not perform well would get fewer slots.

The executive summary of the report, “Tough Choices or Tough Times” can be downloaded here.

NEA Disclaims NCLB “Dismantling” Petition

Mike Antonucci’s Education Intelligence Agency reports:

When it comes to the No Child Left Behind Act, NEA will happily embrace arguments made by states’ rights proponents, but it’s uncomfortable with the public discussion of one possible outcome of its efforts: the dismantling of the law.

An organization called the Educator Roundtable has posted “a petition calling for the dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act.” NEA headquarters was prompted to distribute an internal memo about it.

“Information about the petition and calls for signing it have been circulating on many email lists,” reads the memo from NEA President Reg Weaver and Executive Director John Wilson. “Affiliates, NEA staff, and others are asking questions about the petition and whether or not NEA endorses it. The short answer? Absolutely not.”

NEA says the petition “does not propose any positive changes or alternatives” and that “some of the petition’s initiators have been critical of NEA and our efforts around NCLB.”

The petition website is registered to Philip Kovacs, but it appears to bear the stamp of the second signature on the petition – Susan Ohanian.

Indeed, NEA’s reaction is the subject of not one, but two, “NCLB Outrages” on Ohanian’s web site.

“What is the NEA leadership afraid of?” Ohanian asks. “That its members might think for themselves?”

Those are two short questions deserving of one long answer, but it will be more fun watching NEA and Ohanian thrash it out for themselves.

To sign the petition go to:
A Petition Calling for the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act

US border wall built by “illegal” immigrants

San Diego Union-Tribune: Fence firm executives admit hiring illegal immigrants

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
7:22 p.m. December 14, 2006
SAN DIEGO – The heads of a company that built fences at military bases and along the Mexican border pleaded guilty Thursday to hiring illegal immigrants in an unusual case in which two executives agreed to forfeit $4.7 million and face imprisonment.
The admission by Riverside-based Golden State Fence Co. involves what a federal official said is the largest penalty brought against an employer in this type of criminal prosecution.

The case also is one of the few in which employers of illegal immigrants face prison, said Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of the San Diego office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This is the largest criminal forfeiture in a work site case that I’m aware of,” said Unzueta, who asked his staff to research similar cases.

“Nobody can put their finger on another case where a corporate officer actually did jail time,” he said.

Prosecutors routinely convince judges to imprison people who repeatedly enter the country illegally but jail time for employers of illegal immigrants is “extremely rare,” said Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney in San Diego.

Golden State and two of its executives admitted in San Diego federal court that they repeatedly hired undocumented workers deported after raids even though authorities warned them not to.

The plea agreement in San Diego federal court allows prosecutors to seek prison terms of at least six months against company founder and president Melvin Kay Jr., and vice president Michael McLaughlin, who ran the company’s Oceanside office.

Defense lawyers said they will ask for more lenient sentences at a hearing scheduled for March 28 before U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz. The case comes as federal officials are ratcheting up criminal investigations into the hiring of illegal immigrants. Raids this week on meat-processing plants in six states led to more than 1,200 arrests.

The largest civil penalty for hiring illegal immigrants was $11 million, paid in 2005 by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which settled with federal officials to avoid criminal charges.

Twelve contractors who provided janitors to Wal-Mart agreed to criminal forfeitures of $4 million as part of that case.

Golden State garnered millions of dollars of federal contracts, including projects at North Island Naval Air Station. In the late 1990s the company built more than a mile of fencing along the Mexican border in Otay Mesa.

Based on payroll information gathered in raids in 1999, 2004 and 2005, federal investigators estimated that one-quarter to one-third of the company’s 600 to 750 workers were likely in the country illegally. Thirty-seven workers were arrested.

Many of the workers gave the Riverside-based company fraudulent documents when asked to verify their legal status and some were using other people’s paperwork.

In 2001, Moskowitz sentenced a man who knowingly hired an illegal immigrant to work at a hotel to four days in custody, which the defendant had already served. In that case, the defendant told investigators he knew the man he was hiring didn’t have permission to work here.

Such cases are rare because it’s difficult for authorities to prove that employers know the people they hire don’t have work permits, Lam said.

A 1986 law requires employers to ask workers for identification verifying their employment status. But employers don’t have to verify authenticity and complain it’s difficult to recognize fakes.

Golden State, however, ignored orders from federal officials not to hire particular workers who were deported after raids, Unzueta said.

The company said it now screens its workers through a government program that matches employees with a national Social Security database.

Fewer than one percent of California employers participate in that voluntary program.

The $4.7 million the family-owned company agreed to forfeit is an estimate of how much money it made using labor from workers without papers. In addition, Kay agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and McLaughlin $100,000.

Kay told the judge he hired at least 10 illegal immigrants.

“Did you know they had no right to work in the United States?” Moskowitz asked him.

“Yes, sir,” Kay quietly responded.

The 64-year-old Temecula man was raised by migrant workers from Oklahoma, said his lawyer, Richard Hirsch.

Hirsch said Kay built the company from scratch and hired people to build fences across the state, sometimes in punishing terrain.

“It’s tough to get people to do that kind of work,” he said.

The investigation stemmed from a post-September 11 effort to weed out undocumented workers from high-security job sites, including military bases, airports and nuclear plants.

Alinsky for Teacher Organizers

From the introduction:

Alinsky for Teacher Organizerswas written in 1972 for use in the training of teachers. If many recognize it as the facilitative process, the Delphi technique, to which they have been exposed, such is because they are one and the same. This process has been around for a long time, being perfected and fine-tuned, awaiting the time when it would be implemented extensively in the interests of transforming America.

The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), founded by Saul Alinsky, is alive and well in the United States, organizing and expanding its power base in many states under various names. The IAF is associated with the Interfaith Alliance in many communities, also churches and schools. The organization’s religious philosophy is that of Paulo Freire as put forth in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, what
has become known as liberation theology: the “haves” are the oppressors, the “have nots” are the oppressed; the “have nots” must rise up against the “haves”, if by violent means, so be it.

Saul Alinsky was a self-avowed Marxist, his books Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals are reflections of his beliefs and organizing strategies and tactics, alive and well in the IAF of today.

The strategies, tactics and beliefs of Saul Alinsky find basis in the Hegelian Dialectic developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. His philosophy would be furthered by Karl Marx.