E Wayne Ross – Page 55 – Critical Theories in Education

Matt Taibbi explains why the government is an executive committee of the rich

Now Taibbi doesn’t put it exactly that way, but there is no other conclusion that can be drawn from his fabulously clear explanations and analyses of the global economic meltdown in a trilogy of articles for Rolling Stone.

In “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle” (in the latest Rolling Stone #1089), Taibbi describes how investment banks cannibalized their own kind (Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers) via a counterfeit stock scheme (e.g., naked short-selling). (Taibbi gives a video lesson on short-selling here.)

Taibbi clearly illustrates that “the American capital markets are a crime in progress,” and that “our economy is so completely fucked, the rich are running out of things to steal.” Thus why they are turning on themselves.

He sums things up this way:

The nation’s largest financial players are able to write the rules for own their [sic] businesses and brazenly steal billions under the noses of regulators, and nothing is done about it. A thing so fundamental to civilized society as the integrity of a stock, or a mortgage note, or even a U.S. Treasury bond, can no longer be protected, not even in crisis, and a crime as vulgar and conspicuous as counerfeiting can take place on a systemic level for years without being stopped, even after it begins to affect the modern-day equvialents of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. What 10 years ago was a cheap stock-fraud scheme for second-rate grifters in Brooklyn has become a major profit center for Wall Street. Our burglar class now rules the national economy. And no one is trying to stop them.

Well, the government is not only not trying to stop them, Taibbi’s own article describes how the U.S. Treasury Department, staffed by ex-Goldman Sachs executives, facilitates the fleecing of the rest of us. Why is this happening…because the U.S. government is an executive committee of the rich.

See Taibbi’s other RS articles on the economy:

The Big Takeover—The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution (RS 1075, March 19, 2009)

Inside The Great American Bubble Machine—Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression (RS July 2, 2009)

The NFL, idiot fascism, and the future of America

The latest issue of Rolling Stone (RS 1089) is highly recommended (even if Bono is hamming it up on the cover). Skip the fawning piece on U2’s current US tour (it’s mainly about their mega-stage and luxury airliners) and read the bits by Matt Taibbi.

The former sports editor for The Moscow Times (Russia not Idaho) gives us a gonzo take on the opening of the NFL season, which includes a report on the new Dallas Cowboys stadium that merits quoting because it is the best paragraph to appear in on a “sports page” in the 21st Century:

Dallas’ opening home game against the Giants, in which their hideously commercialized mall palace known as the new Cowboys Stadium was unveiled to the world, was a genuinely terrifying broadcast event of a kind not seen since the premiere of Triumph of the Will. This was like a debutante ball for America’s new idiot fascism. Still, there was something weirdly compelling about seeing 100,000 Texans cheering historical footnote George W. Bush as they christened what promises to be about 490 years of municipal sales-tax payments, all so that Jerry Jones can see a 160-foot wide image of his own surgery-tightened face on the world’s biggest HDTV. At the home opener, ticket-holders got to see Tony Romo throw three interceptions against the backdrop of multiple corporate billboards lining the field. Then there was the specter of 100,000 people watching a giant taxpayer-funded TV while sitting at the live event. If this is the future, could America be any more fucked?

Taibbi’s writing sits well along side Guy Debord and Raul Vaneigem.

Taibbi also adds this tidbit on the Detroit Lions, biggest losers in the NFL:

If Lions rookie QB Matt Stafford busts, the city of Detroit will collapse under the Earth’s crust, forever, to be spoken of in the future as a mythical lost place, like an Atlantis full of shuttered Ford plants.

The birthplace of the Rouge Forum deserves better but my advice to Bill Blank and the gang is to get outta there.

“Community and resistance—or imperial barbarism”

Below is note from Rich Gibson (San Diego State University) on the anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan.

Dear Friends,

Today is the 8th Anniversary of the US assault on Afghanistan, a full invasion, war, in response to a crime.

In my section A section of the New York Times (CA) , there is no mention of that.

Since then, $12.9 trillion was given to the banks. The wars will cost around $3 trillion if they project into next year, as they will.

The government became a full blown corporate state, an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich. Schools merged with the effort, becoming full-blown missions for capitalism. Those educators who collaborated became, knowingly or not, its missionaries.

The American public, having agreed to shop during Bush’s wars, can no longer shop. The US economy, 2/3 rooted in consumerism, cannot consume, nor produce, and the banks will not loan to the unemployed. Spectacles continue, more and faster. Baseball! Football! Porn!!

The demagogue, Obama and his friend, Arne Duncan, now throw the Bush agenda for education into hyperspeed: Regimented curricula promoting witless nationalism, anti working class high stakes exams, militarization, layoffs and cutbacks, some privatization, and, with perfect logic, merit pay.

The union leadership of every major union cooperated at every turn, played a significant role in electing Obama, in harmony with their Quisling roles of the past. They are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers’ enemies. Harsh measures for them.

Professional organizations accepted the division of academic labor they represent; remained largely impotent. Historians talked to historians, wrote a few petitions, rarely crossed the hall to deal with the sociologists. Some took up petitions, begging.

The rich grew much richer as barbarism rose. The poor became much poorer. Segmented by race, class, gender, split against each other by reactionary unions, now we see impoverished people battling for scraps.

The education agenda is a war agenda. The core issue of our time is the reality of the promise of endless war and booming inequality met by the potential of mass, activist, class conscious resistance, connecting reason to real power.

The youth at the occupation of UCSC point the way. Having a good school within this capitalist society is like having a reading room in a prison. Not acceptable.

The choice is clear enough. Community and resistance—or Imperial Barbarism.

Up the rebels!

Good luck to us, every one.

r

Rouge Forum Update: The Resistance Rises. Up the Rebels!

Think Outside the Testing Bubble (by Bryan Reinholdt)

Rouge Forum Update: The Resistance Rises. Up the Rebels!

Dear Friends,

Our Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page (complete with those good for the rest of your life anti-war posters on sale) is updated at www.rougeforum.org

Reality is catching up with our analysis. Direct action takes the place of a single-tactic electoral outlook. The term, “capitalism,” is revived and post-modernism, that loud religion with an angry cloak, becomes a tidbit of history. The core issue of our time is the terrible reality of endless wars and inequality met by the potential of mass class-conscious resistance.

The Resistance Rises. Up the Rebels!

“Though we denounce the privatization of the university and its authoritarian system of governance, we do not seek structural reforms. We demand not a free university but a free society. A free university in the midst of a capitalist society is like a reading room in a prison; it serves only as a distraction from the misery of daily life. Instead we seek to channel the anger of the dispossessed students and workers into a declaration of war.”

UC Walkout
Media solidarity
Bousquet Interviews the Sitdowners at UCSC
Video on MORE

Read the rest of the RF Update here.

Matt Hern has a new blog. You’ll be a smarter and better person if you read it.

Mighty Matt Hern is an East Van superhero and the chief Canucklehead fan. He writes about lots of interesting stuff: community, cities, learning, deschooling. He has a new blog. I think you should read it.

Look out for his new book, Common Ground in a Liquid City, from AK Press.

Fair use vs. “libertarian” scholar’s pocketbook

From: E Wayne Ross
Subject: Re: copyright violation
Date: October 4, 2009 2:52:22 PM PDT
To: Joel Spring
Cc: Naomi Silverman, William Pinar

Joel,

I put the first two chapters of your book and the epilogue on my course blog for the students in my doctoral seminar to read in preparation for your visit to campus and meeting with the seminar on Wednesday, Oct 7.

With such a short lead time before your visit—about 3 weeks from when I heard you were going to be on campus and available to meet until next week’s seminar—I felt the most practical approach for students to have a common reading of your work was to post something to the blog.

The course blog is very low traffic (see the attached pdf of Google Analytics for Sept 3-Oct 3, 2009). The blog is for my current students and I take all posts down at the end of each term. My belief was/is that this was a reasonable and educationally justifiable approach considering the circumstances. My actions were motivated by a desire to have students engaged with your most recent scholarship and to be prepared to make the most of the rare opportunity they have to meet with you.

As long time colleague and friendly acquaintance I am disappointed by your legalistic, tattling response. (Why not a share your concern in friendly or even inquisitive way.) I wonder too just how your response to this pedagogical situation jibes your long standing scholarly interests in maximizing individual liberty and social harmony.

So, of course, I’ll take down the link; would have done so at the slightness indication of concern on your part.

Best,

Wayne

On 2009-10-04, at 8:03 AM, Joel Spring wrote:

Dear Wayne, An article in today’s New York Times about illegal sharing of books on the internet led me to do search of my books.

Unhappily your course appeared as a violator of international copyright laws for posting, for anyone in the world to download, 41 pages from my book.

Please remove link from your course website for the copyrighted material.
This is very upsetting.

Naomi will be sending link to Informa.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/ewayne/2009/09/cust-601-globalization-of-education-a-discussion-with-joel-spring/

Joel

Joel Spring
Professor
Graduate Center and Queens College
City University of New York
Series Editor
Routledge Publisher

E. Wayne Ross
Professor
Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
University of British Columbia
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Canada
604-822-2830
wayne.ross@ubc.ca
http://www.ewayneross.net

Critical Education: www.criticaleducation.org
Cultural Logic: www.eserver.org/clogic
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor: www.workplace-gsc.com

Analytics_blogs.ubc.ca-ewayne-_20090903-20091003_(VisitorsOverviewReport)

Zombie preparedness

Gainesville, FL on a typical Friday (or game day Saturday)

The University of Florida disaster preparedness web site was recently updated to include a “Zombie Attack Disaster Preparedness Simulation Exercise plan, along with the usual threats like hurricanes and H1N1.

As reported by Inside Higher Ed,

“the guide for dealing with a zombie attack includes a helpful list of signs that zombie attacks may be increasing. You should watch, for example, for “increasing numbers of gruesome unexplained deaths and disappearances, especially at night” and listen for “lots of strange moaning.”

“The guide includes an “Infected Co-Worker Dispatch Form” for Florida employees to let superiors know when a colleague exhibits signs of zombie behavior, with a checklist of such behaviors, including “references to wanting to eat brains,” “recently dead but moving again,” “lack of rational thought (this can cause problems confusing zombies with managers)” and “killed and ate another employee.”

“A footnote in the plan suggests the importance of maintaining sensitivity in a time of zombie attack: “While many people refer to ‘undead,’ practitioners in the field of Zombie Studies and zombie advocates such as PETZ: People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies, and supporters of Florida Zombie Preserve, Inc. insist that the term ‘undead’ clearly connotes deficiency; specifically the absence of both life and death. Hence, we suggest here the term ‘life impaired’ to recognize the difficulties imposed on a former person by zombie behavior spectrum disorder (ZBSD) but without suggesting the former person is somehow ‘deficient’ as a result of the infection.”

According to the Associated Press, university officials have decided that zombies are not a sufficient threat to the university community to be included on their disaster preparedness web site, which is hard to believe if you have ever walked down Gainesville’s University Ave on Friday night (or earlier Saturday morning).

Pilger: How We are Prepared for Another War of Aggression

In a piece titled “The Lying Game: How We are Prepared for Prepared for Another War of Aggression,” journalist John Pilger compares the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on a fake “nuclear threat”, with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.3 million people.

Obama is giving us what he promised: war in Afghanistan. The expansion strategy and the public’s distaste for ware are nearly mirror images of the run-up to Bush’s fiasco in Iraq.

Obama’s “showdown” with Iran has another agenda. On both sides of the Atlantic the media have been tasked with preparing the public for endless war. The US/Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal says 500,000 troops will be required in Afghanistan over five years, according to America’s NBC. The goal is control of the “strategic prize” of the gas and oilfields of the Caspian Sea, central Asia, the Gulf and Iran – in other words, Eurasia. But the war is opposed by 69 per cent of the British public, 57 per cent of the US public and almost every other human being. Convincing “us” that Iran is the new demon will not be easy. McChrystal’s spurious claim that Iran “is reportedly training fighters for certain Taliban groups” is as desperate as Brown’s pathetic echo of “a line in the sand”.

During the Bush years, according to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a military coup took place in the US, and the Pentagon is now ascendant in every area of American foreign policy. A measure of its control is the number of wars of aggression being waged simultaneously and the adoption of a “first-strike” doctrine that has lowered the threshold on nuclear weapons, together with the blurring of the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons.

All this mocks Obama’s media rhetoric about “a world without nuclear weapons”. In fact, he is the Pentagon’s most important acquisition. His acquiescence with its demand that he keep on Bush’s secretary of “defence” and arch war-maker, Robert Gates, is unique in US history. He has proved his worth with escalated wars from south Asia to the Horn of Africa. Like Bush’s America, Obama’s America is run by some very dangerous people. We have a right to be warned. When will those paid to keep the record straight do their job?