E Wayne Ross – Page 152 – Critical Theories in Education

BCTF sues BC Premier Campbell

B.C.T.F. Sues Premier for Defaming Teachers

[Article for upcoming issue of Substance newspaper, Chicago, IL]

The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has launched a lawsuit against the recently re-elected B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, claiming teachers were defamed by Campbell, who in the closing days of the election campaign said they were going to strike in June.

In May, during last stages of the provincial election campaign, Campbell raised fears about the disruption the school year, particularly the provincial exams, by claiming that the B.C.T.F. was poised to take a strike vote immediately following the election.

At a news conference on May 12 (and in a press release titled “Put Students before Strikes”) Campbell accused the B.C.T.F. of harboring a “secret” and “duplicitous plan meant to engineer a school strike only weeks before the provincial exams that would throw our school system into chaos.”Campbell also accused the B.C.T.F. of acting in concert with the New Democratic Party, his primary opposition in the election, saying “they have run a campaign of deception, half-truths and misinformation. They are turning our classrooms and playgrounds into places of propaganda instead of places of learning.”

Campbell is also quoted as saying, “this is the N.D.P. and B.C.T.F.’s hidden agenda. It’s a shameful confirmation of what we have suspected all along. It’s about putting strikes ahead of students and union interests ahead of public interests … no one wants another strike in our school system to deny our children their right to learning.”

B.C.T.F. immediately declared the Campbell’s comments and the imputation that the B.C.T.F. and the N.D.P. have colluded and conspired to achieve some improper purpose were “false and slanderous.”

During the last week of the campaign, B.C.T.F. President Sims challenged Campbell to explain “why he’s misleading British Columbians with ugly falsehoods about teachers holding children hostage. He’s using children as a wedge issue for his own political purposes.”

The B.C.T.F. called on Campbell to stop spouting inflammatory rhetoric and to tell the truth about teacher strikes: there has not been a single one in the last 12 years.

Here are a few important facts teacher actions in British Columbia:

Since 1993, when provincial bargaining was introduced under the N.D.P. government of Mike Harcourt, not one single school day has been lost due to a teacher strike. There have been some local strikes by school support workers, and in those instances teachers have respected the third-party picket lines. But in the last dozen years, B.C. schools have never once been closed due to a teacher strike.

Teachers first won full bargaining rights, including the right to strike, in 1987 under the Social Credit government of Bill VanderZalm. Since then, not a single student has failed to complete the school year due to a teacher strike.

In 2001, shortly after they took office, the Campbell Liberals attacked teachers’ bargaining rights by imposing essential service designation on education. B.C. is the only province in Canada to do so, and remains one of the only jurisdictions in the industrial world that deems education an essential service. Normally that designation is reserved for police, fire, and health care — services that impact life and limb.

In January 2002, the Liberals imposed a teacher contract through legislation. Bills 27 and 28 gutted the provisions that upheld the quality of public education in B.C., and teachers were outraged. As a result, tens of thousands protested this blow to public education with massive demonstrations in Vancouver, Victoria, and throughout the province.

“January 28, 2002 is the only day that schools have been closed due to a teacher action, and it would never have happened without the B.C. Liberals’ unjust legislation,” B.C.T.F. President Jinny Sims said. “Teachers are deeply concerned that parents are being unnecessarily alarmed by Campbell’s attempt to manufacture a crisis in the final days of the campaign.”

Sims added, “It is unconscionable for Premier Campbell to claim that there are plans for a school strike only weeks before provincial exams and days after the election.” She added, “It is outrageous that the premier would tell such blatant lies to the electorate. This is nothing less than fear-mongering. It is a disturbing act of desperation from a government that has failed our students and therefore needs to deflect scrutiny of its record.”

The suit against Campbell was filed in B.C. Supreme Court on May 25 and is seeking unspecified damages after Campbell and the B.C. Liberal party refused to issue an apology or retract statements made in the last week of the election campaign. The full text of Campbell’s comments can be found on the BC Liberal Party web site.

The suit claims the defendants knowingly committed defamation “in order to enhance the electoral prospects of Gordon Campbell personally, and the B.C. Liberal party’s candidates in the provincial legislature generally.”

Campbell’s remarks were based on a leaked memo from Mission, B.C. teachers that purported to show a strike was being prepared.

“Any decision to strike would have to be made by the [B.C.T.F.’s] representative assembly and that was said right in the Mission memo. At no time was a decision made to strike and even today no decision has been made and no recommendations have been made for a strike by the executive committee,” Sims told The Vancouver Sun [May 26].

“We have been without a contract for a year and we’d be remiss if we didn’t consider all the tools available to us, but at no time has a decision been made to take a strike vote,” said Sims.

Five days after the press conference in which Campbell made his inflammatory remarks, and for the first time in 22 years, British Columbia voters re-elected the governing party, but the new legislative assembly has a significantly stronger opposition. In their first term, Campbell’s Liberal’s hacked away at health care, social programs, and attacked unionized labor at every turn.

The opposition New Democratic Party, which held only two seats in the previous assembly, exceeded expectations by winning 41 percent of the vote (to the Liberals 46 percent). The new legislative assembly will host 33 N.D.P. representatives, with one seat still undecided. The B.C. Labor Federation backs the N.D.P.

Against objectivity

People are often misled to think that anyone who comes into a discussion with strong views about an issue cannot be unprejudiced. The key question is whether the views are justified.

Neutrality, objectivity, and unbiasness are often considered largely the same thing and almost always a good when it comes to teaching, journalism, and writing history.

But, consider the following. Neutrality is a political category, that is, not supporting any factions in a dispute. Holding a neutral stance in a conflict is no more likely to ensure rightness or objectivity than any other and often is a sign of ignorance of the issues. In a recent interview on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!, Howard Zinn put it this way “to be neutral, to be passive in a situation is to collaborate with whatever is going on.”

Absence of bias in an area is not absence of convictions in an area, thus neutrality is not objectivity. To be objective is to be unbiased or unprejudiced.

The spring 2005 newletter of the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild included a brief quote from Zinn that objectivity in scholarship and in the media is not only “harmful and misleading, it’s not desirable.”

The brief quote in the PNHG newsletter is from an interview of Zinn by David Barsamian (founder of Alternative Radio) in 1992. The complete interview is available on the amazing ZNet web site.

Here is a brief excerpt from that interview, in which Zinn makes his case against objectivity:DB: You’ve made the astounding comment that objectivity in scholarship, in the media and elsewhere is not only “harmful and misleading, it’s not desirable.”

HZ:I’ve said two things about it. One, that it’s not possible. Two, it’s not desirable. It’s not possible because all history is a selection out of an infinite number of facts. As soon as you begin to select, you select according to what you think is important. Therefore it is already not objective. It’s already biased in the direction of whatever you, as the selector of this information, think people should know. So it’s really not possible. Of course, some people claim to be objective. The worst thing is to claim to be objective. Of course you can’t be. Historians should say what their values are, what they care about, what their background is, and let you know what is important to them so that young people and everybody who reads history are warned in advance that they should never count on any one source, but should go to many sources. So it’s not possible to be objective, and it’s not desirable if it were possible. We should have history that does reflect points of view and values, in other words, history that is not objective. We should have history that enhances human values, humane values, values of brotherhood, sisterhood, peace, justice and equality. The closest I can get to it is the values enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Equality, the right of all people to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are values that historians should actively promulgate in writing history. In doing that they needn’t distort or omit important things. But it does mean if they have those values in mind, that they will emphasize those things in history which will bring up a new generation of people who read history books and who will care about treating other people equally, about doing away with war, about justice in every form.

DB: How do you filter those biases, or can you even filter them?

HZ:As I’ve said, yes, I have my biases, my leanings. So if I’m writing or speaking about Columbus, I will try not to hide, omit the fact that Columbus did a remarkable thing in crossing the ocean and venturing out into uncharted waters. It took physical courage and navigational skill. It was a remarkable event. I have to say that so that I don’t omit what people see as the positive side of Columbus. But then I have to go on to say the other things about Columbus which are much more important than his navigational skill, than the fact that he was a religious man. That is how he treated the human beings that he found in this hemisphere. The enslavement, the torture, the murder, the dehumanization of these people. That is the important thing.

There’s an interesting way in which you can frame a sentence which will show what you emphasize and which will have two very different results. Here’s what I mean. Take Columbus as an example. You can frame it, and this was the way the Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison in effect framed it in his biography of Columbus: Columbus committed genocide, but he was a wonderful sailor. He did a remarkable and extraordinary thing in finding these islands in the Western Hemisphere. Where’s the emphasis there? He committed genocide, but … He’s a good sailor. I say, He was a good sailor, but he treated people with the most horrible cruelty. Those are two different ways of saying the same facts. Depending on which side of the buck you’re on, you show your bias. I believe that it’s good for us to put our biases in the direction of a humane view of history.

The unreported Vietnam-Iraq parallel

In a recent ZNet commentary, news dissector Danny Schechter (editor of MediaChannel.org) offered a dozen unreported parallels between the Vietnam war and the current US war on Iraq:

l. Both wars were illegal acts of pre-emptive aggression unsanctioned by international law or world opinion. Earlier, U.S. interventions involved successive US administrations. JFK’s CIA helped put Saddam in power, Reagan armed him to fight Iran. George Bush, 41 led the first Gulf War against him. Clinton tightened sanctions. George Bush, 43 invaded again. Five Administrations–Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford fought in Vietnam.

2. Both wars were launched with deception. In Iraq it was the now proven phony WMD threat and contrived Saddam-Osama connection. In Vietnam, it was the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident and the elections mandated by the Geneva agreement that were canceled by Washington in l956 when the US feared Ho Chi Minh would win.

3. The government lied regularly in both wars. Back then, the lies were pronounced a “credibility gap.” Today, they are considered acceptable “information warfare.” In Saigon military briefers conducted discredited “5 O’Clock Follies” press conferences. In this war, the Pentagon spoon-fed info at a Hollywood style briefing center in Doha.

Read on for parallels 4-12…4. The US press was initially an enthusiastic cheerleader in both wars. When Vietnam protest grew and the war seen as a lost cause, the media frame changed. In Iraq today most of the media is trapped in hotel rooms. Only one side is covered now whereas in Vietnam, there was more reporting occasionally from the other. In Vietnam, the accent was on progress and “turned corners.” The same is true in Iraq.

5. In both wars, prisoners were abused. In South Vietnam, thousands of captives were tortured in what were the called “tiger cages.” Vietnamese POWs were often killed; In North Vietnam, some US POWs were abused after bombing civilians. In Iraq, POWs on both sides were also mistreated. It was US soldiers that first leaked major war crimes and abuses. In Vietnam, Ron Ridenour disclosed the My Lai Massacre. In Iraq, it was a soldier who first told investigators about the torture in Abu Ghraib prison. (Seymour Hersh the reporter who exposed My-Lai in Vietnam later exposed illegal abuses in Iraq.)

6. Illegal weapons were “deployed” in both wars. The US dropped napalm, used cluster bombs against civilians and sprayed toxic agent orange in Vietnam. Cluster bombs and updated Mark 77 napalm-like firebombs were dropped on Iraqis. Depleted uranium was added to the arsenal of prohibited weapons in Iraq.

7. Both wars claimed to be about promoting democracy. Vietnam staged elections and saw a succession of governments controlled by the US. come and go. Iraq has had one election so far in which most voters say they were casting ballots primarily to get the US to leave. The US has stage-managed Iraq’s interim government. Exiles were brought back and put in power. Vietnam’s Diem came from New Jersey, Iraq’s Allawi from Britain.

8. Both wars claimed to be about noble international goals. Vietnam was pictured as a crusade against aggressive communism and falling dominos. Iraq was sold as a front in a global war on terrorism. Neither claim proved true.

9. An imperial drive for resource control and markets helped drive both interventions. Vietnam had rubber and manganese and rare minerals. Iraq has oil. In both wars, any economic agenda was officially denied and ignored by most media outlets.

10. Both wars took place in countries with cultures we never understood or spoke the language, Both involved “insurgents” whose military prowess was underestimated and misrepresented. In Vietnam, we called the “enemy” communists; in Iraq we call them foreign terrorists. (Soldiers had their own terms, “gooks” in Vietnam, “ragheads” in Iraq) In both counties, they was in fact an indigenous resistance that enjoyed popular support. (Both targeted and brutalized people they considered collaborators with the invaders just as our own Revolution went after Americans who backed the British.) In both wars, as in all wars, innocent civilians died in droves.

11. In both countries the US promised to help rebuild the damages caused by US bombing. In Vietnam, a $2 Billion presidential reconstruction pledge was not honored. In Iraq, the electricity and other services are still out in many areas. In both wars US companies and suppliers have profited handsomely; Brown &Root in Vietnam; Halliburton in Iraq, to cite but two.

12. In Vietnam, the Pentagon’s counter-insurgency effort failed to “pacify” the countryside even with a half a million US soldiers “in country.” The insurgency in Iraq is growing despite the best efforts of US soldiers. More have died since President Bush proclaimed “mission accomplished” than during the invasion.

Country blue-grass blues (other music for uplifting gormandizers)

Last year the Bottom Line bit the dust. Now, another lengendary New York rock/punk club is in trouble. Reports are that CBGB’s next (improbable) home might be Las Vegas.

CBGB is the famous/infamous launch pad for punk bands Television, Talking Heads, Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc. Its existence is now threatened by the gentrification of of Manhattan’s Bowery neighborhood. The club’s landlord, the Bowery Residents Committee, is raising the club’s rent to market levels, which would mean doubling (or tripling) its current $20,000 per month.

There is now a project to save the club, which includes a “Save CBGBs” box of chocolates.

How to hit a fastball

I don’t usually read the American Scientist, but the cover of the May-June issue caught my eye with a colorful painting of the Phillies Hall-of-Famer Robin Roberts cutting loose with one his fastballs. The Roberts painting (by official HOF artist Dick Perez) was hyping the cover story, “Predicting a Baseball’s Path.”

The article is quite techinical, but it’s worth the read if your baseball fan (some nice illustrations too). The basic physics of a pitch, various grips, cataloging curvatures, seeing and concealing are all examined. The authors (including Dave Baldwin, Ph.D., who pitched for the Senators, Brewers, and White Sox in the 60s and 70s) conclude: the pitcher should use a four-seam grip for fastballs and curveballs and the two-seam grip for the slider.

If I had read an article like this earlier in my life I wouldn’t have been any better as a hitter, but I might have been a more motivated physics student.

(BTW, turns out that Baldwin is not only a systems engineer, geneticist, and former major league pitcher, but also an artist. You can check out his artwork here.