Police in thought pursuit

The Washington Times: Police in thought pursuit

December 27, 2007

By Bruce Fein – The Pope had his Index of Forbidden Books. Japan had its Thought Police against subversive or dangerous ideologies. And the United States Congress and President Bush have learned nothing from those examples.

Congress is perched to enact the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007 (Act),” probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, the bill passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a 404-6 vote under a rule suspension that curtailed debate. To borrow from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, the First Amendment should not distract Congress from doing important business. The Senate companion bill (S. 1959), sponsored by Susan Collins, Maine Republican, has encountered little opposition. Especially in an election year, senators crave every opportunity to appear tough on terrorism. Few if any care about or understand either freedom of expression or the Thought Police dangers of S. 1959. Former President John Quincy Adams presciently lamented: “Democracy has no forefathers, it looks to no posterity, it is swallowed up in the present and thinks of nothing but itself.”
Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the Act aims to identify and stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus.

The Act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further “violent radicalization;” and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list.

Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to conventional wisdom will flag. There are no better examples of sinister congressional folly.

The Act inflates the danger of homegrown terrorism manifold to justify creating a marquee National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence (Commission) in the legislative branch. Since September 11, 2001, no American has died from homegrown terrorism, while about 120,000 have been murdered.

In the so-called post-September 11 “war” against international terrorism, Mr. Bush has detained only two citizens as enemy combatants. One was voluntarily deported to Saudi Arabia; the other was indicted, tried and convicted in a civilian court of providing material assistance to a foreign terrorist organization. And employing customary law enforcement tools, the United States has successfully prosecuted several pre-embryonic terrorism conspiracies amidst numerous false starts.

Prior to September 11, homegrown terrorism consisted largely of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, the Unibomber and the D.C. Metropolitan area snipers. The Act, nevertheless, counterfactually finds “homegrown terrorism … poses a threat to domestic security” that “cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.”

Twelve members of the commission will be appointed by the president and leaders in the House and Senate. They will predictably serve the political needs of their political masters.

The commission’s Big Brother task is to discover ideas and political associations, including connections to non-U.S. persons and networks, that promote “violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States.” And “violent radicalization” is defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.”

Under the Act, William Lloyd Garrison would have been guilty of promoting “violent radicalization” for publishing the anti-slavery Liberator in 1831, which “facilitated” John Brown. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have been condemned for assailing laws disenfranchising women and creating an intellectual atmosphere receptive to violence. And Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fallen under the Act’s suspicion for denouncing Jim Crow and practicing civil disobedience, which “facilitated” H. Rap Brown.

The commission will certainly hold choreographed public hearings. Witnesses will testify that non-Christian ideas or vocal challenges to the status quo promote “an extremist belief system” that facilitates ideologically based violence. Internet communications, the media, schools, religious institutions and home life will be scrutinized for promoting pernicious thoughts.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed in Gitlow v. New York (1925): “Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.”

Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and thoughts to be shunned will be compiled. Portions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo. The lives of countless innocent citizens will be shattered. That is the lesson of HUAC and every prior government enterprise to identify “dangerous” people or ideas — for example, the 120,000 innocent Japanese-Americans herded into concentration camps during World War II.

The ideological persecutions invited by the Act will do more to create than to deter homegrown terrorism. Mark Anthony’s words in “Julius Caesar” are a fitting commentary on what Congress is prepared to enact: “O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.”

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and Chairman of the American Freedom Agenda.

Why We Need to Save (and Strengthen) Social Studies

Below is a commentary piece from the December 19, 2007 edition of Education Week, describing how the high-stakes testing environment created by the No Child Left Behind Act is squeezing social studies education out of the curriculum in the elementary grades.

“Why We Need to Save (and Strengthen) Social Studies”
By Judith L. Pace
Education Week
Published Online: December 18, 2007
Published in Print: December 19, 2007

Commentary

Amid the chorus of much-needed criticisms of the No Child Left Behind
Act, hardly a note has been heard in the media about the “squeezing”
of social studies, a significant consequence of the pressure to raise
test scores in reading and mathematics. Only a tiny body of published
research on the problem exists, but it, along with widespread
anecdotal evidence, indicates that high-stakes accountability based
on reading and math scores is marginalizing the social studies
curriculum in elementary schools.

Surveys have reported reduced instructional time in various states,
and organizations such as the National Council for the Social Studies
have responded with letters and statements to Congress. Social
studies educators have begun to lobby their lawmakers. But the
apparent mainstream acceptance of drastic reductions in the amount of
time and attention given to one of elementary education’s core
academic subjects is shocking. We are in danger of losing a
generation of citizens schooled in the foundations of democracy—and
of producing high school graduates who are not broadly educated human
beings.

In my own state of California, where history/social studies is not
tested until 8th grade, this trend began with the state’s Public
Schools Accountability Act of 1999, and has accelerated with the No
Child Left Behind law. The social studies squeeze occurs
disproportionately in low-performing schools with large minority and
low-income populations that are under intense pressure to raise
scores. And this, too, has alarming implications for educational
opportunity and civic participation.

In one of the few qualitative research studies on this topic, the
University of California, Riverside, researcher John S. Wills
examined the dilemmas faced by teachers in a poor, rural school in
California when social studies instruction was curtailed by high-
stakes-testing demands in other subjects. He found that teachers
managed these dilemmas differently, but with a common consequence:
Elements of thoughtful teaching were eradicated. Wills asks whether
the drive for accountability is leading not only to lost content
knowledge, but also, and paradoxically, to the elimination of
thoughtful, student-centered instruction “disproportionately from the
education of poor students and students of color.”

Anecdotal evidence is disturbing, and cries out for more systematic
investigation. Some large school districts in California and other
states have now virtually eliminated social studies instruction from
all of their elementary schools, and some middle schools. Many
students are not getting social studies instruction until the 10th
grade. Teacher-educators, including myself and colleagues at other
institutions, have discovered that elementary school preservice
candidates are not having an opportunity to observe or practice
social studies teaching. Especially in schools where teachers are
required to spend more hours on reading and math, often using
scripted programs, little time is left for social studies. With the
advent in California of science testing in the 5th grade, this
subject, too, will trump social studies.

This past spring, I interviewed 5th grade teachers in three Northern
California districts about the teaching of social studies for a small
pilot study. My sample was skewed, because many teachers in low-
performing schools declined the invitation to talk and I purposely
recruited teachers who love history. Still, the interviews were
revealing, and may hold some significance for other school systems
nationwide.

The apparent mainstream acceptance of drastic reductions in the
amount of time and attention given to one of elementary education’s
core academic subjects is shocking.
In the suburban, high-performing district I studied, teachers
reported that history is a centerpiece of the curriculum. Although
this district’s report card de-emphasizes history-social science, its
teachers are free to give the subject area priority in their classrooms.

The other two districts in my study were urban, with a wide range of
schools represented. Teachers at these districts’ low-performing
schools talked about the huge difficulty of teaching social studies
in the face of such daily curricular requirements as 2½ hours for
reading and language arts, 1½ hours for math, and a half-hour for
English-language development. Teachers at high-performing schools,
meanwhile, spoke of having some flexibility in making curricular
decisions because of their high test scores. District mandates need
not apply, it appears, in better-performing schools.

In essence, the data point to a social studies divide, caused by the
confluence of high-stakes accountability and school segregation by
race and class.

Perennial debates over whether social studies is even a valid
academic subject are an unfortunate distraction. The social studies
wars, though real enough in academia, are irrelevant to
schoolteachers and their students. At the elementary level, the
social studies curriculum is, appropriately, an integration of
history, geography, economics, sociology, anthropology, and political
science. And California’s standards for “history-social science,”
while flawed, constitute a serious and substantive document.

Why must we save social studies education for all students? A
voluminous literature, written by scholars, curriculum makers, and
practitioners alike, speaks convincingly to that question. I will
only add—at the risk of repeating bad news—that, internationally,
public opinion of the United States, both its government and its
people, worsens every day. The domestic and international issues
facing us are so complex and pressing that, to preserve democracy as
we know it, citizens must have some depth of historical, political,
and cultural understanding. Making good decisions requires that. It’s
one thing to have a nation of diverse opinions, which is crucial for
democracy, but opinion before knowledge, or without tolerance, leads
to demise. We’ve seen more than enough evidence of that in recent years.

Granted, social studies education historically has had its problems.
The quality of instruction and students’ attitudes toward the subject
often have been found lacking. In many classrooms, teachers rely on
textbooks and lectures that trivialize, even distort, the subject
matter. But examples of excellent social studies education also are
abundant.

We must now address inequality by improving the quality of teaching
and the curriculum in poor, segregated schools.

We need not only to save, but to strengthen social studies education.
Many argue that young people today are not educated to care about
political matters, understand complex issues, make informed
decisions, and contribute to a just society. Studies point to a
glaring gap in civic knowledge based on test scores correlated with
socioeconomic background and race or ethnicity. While ineffective
school practices may fail to address the current realities of
students, especially students of color in economically disadvantaged
circumstances, throwing out the baby with the bath water is certain
to exacerbate the biggest evil in our education system—inequality.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this year to disallow the use of
race in school assignments has set back progress toward racial
integration. We must now address inequality in other ways, the
foremost being by improving the quality of teaching and the
curriculum in poor, segregated schools. We are cheating already
marginalized children if social studies is squeezed out of their
elementary school education. We also are setting up their high school
history teachers for failure. Worse, we may be paving the way for
potentially dire consequences for our democracy.

I am not ready to support testing in social studies in elementary
schools; we need less standardized testing, not more. (Social studies
is “high stakes” in states such as Virginia, and there the press for
“cultural literacy” has turned elementary school teaching into a
coverage craze.) We need fewer mandates that dictate classroom
schedules and scripted curricula. Policymakers must understand that
subjects like social studies actually develop reading and writing
skills in meaningful and enriching curricular contexts. When teachers
have resources, such as time for planning and good professional
development, many become passionate and knowledgeable about teaching
social studies, which goes a long way toward engaging students in
powerful learning.

For now, however, the situation calls for educational researchers to
carefully document the problem, how it plays out in a variety of
school settings, and what its consequences are. As Stanford
University’s Linda Darling-Hammond says, we practitioners and
scholars must educate our government about how to educate our children.

Judith L. Pace is a professor in the University of San Francisco’s
school of education.
Vol. 27, Issue 16, Pages 26-27
December 19, 2007 |

NCSS passes resolution calling for speedy conclusion to war in Iraq

At its annual meeting in San Diego last month, the National Council for the Social Studies passed a resolution sponsored by The Rouge Forum calling for it members “to do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.”

Founded in 1921, National Council for the Social Studies has grown to be the largest association in the country devoted solely to social studies education. NCSS engages and supports educators in strengthening and advocating social studies. With members in all the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 69 foreign countries, NCSS serves as an umbrella organization for elementary, secondary, and college teachers of history, geography, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and law-related education. Organized into a network of more than 110 affiliated state, local, and regional councils and associated groups, the NCSS membership represents K-12 classroom teachers, college and university faculty members, curriculum designers and specialists, social studies supervisors, and leaders in the various disciplines that constitute the social studies.

The resolution was passed by the NCSS House of Delegates, which represents its affiliated councils. The NCSS Board will vote on the resolution at February 2008 meeting.

Last year the NCSS House of Delegates tabled a similar resolution submitted by The Rouge Forum.

Ironically, the College and University Faculty Assembly of NCSS failed to support a motion calling for an end to the Iraq war at their annual meeting, which was held in conjunction with NCSS. CUFA had passed resolutions calling for an end to the Iraq war in four previous years.

NCSS House of Delegates Resolution (passed)

07-04-1. A Call for a Public Stand

Rationale: NCSS standards documents and position statements consistently identify citizenship education as the primary purpose of K-12 social studies. These statements argue that concern for the common good and citizen participation in public life are essential to the health of our democratic system. If, as NCSS consistently argues, effective social studies education prepares young people to identify, understand, critically analyze and take action to solve the problems facing our diverse nation in an increasingly interdependent world. Then it is incumbent on social studies educators and their primary professional organization to take actions in the public arena that are consistent with the stated purposes of the profession.


07-04-1. A Call for a Public Stand
BE IT RESOLVED: that the National Council for the Social Studies urges its members, associated groups and communities: To take a public stand as citizens on behalf of the values and goals taught in social studies and necessary to the practice of our profession; and To do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.

Strategies for countering the accountability agenda

Last month I had the opportunity to speak at the British Columbia Teacher Federation’s Representative Assembly. The kind folks at the BCTF have printed an edited version of my talk, “Strategies for countering the accountability agenda” in the November/December issue of Teacher Newsmagazine.

Video of the speech available here

Presentation slides available here

Rouge Forum 2008

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Just a reminder to urge you to come to Louisville for the Rouge Forum Conference. I can say with confidence that there are no other conferences of this kind in the US, nothing close. We will bring together educators, activists, community people, students, and unionists from the U.K, India, South Africa, the US, Venezuela, and Grenada (and more to come) to celebrate ten years of struggle to, as our logo above says, connect reason to power.

No other group has matched the research,writing, and direct action that members of the Rouge Forum have conducted in schools and out. And, we are fun. Please join us for our best conference yet. Go to the web site and see how you can participate. www.rougeforumconference.org

College and University Faculty Assembly of National Council for the Social Studies Votes to Oppose Resolution Against Iraq War

NCSS/CUFA VOTES To Oppose Resolution Against Iraq War

On November 29, 2007, the assembled members of the College and University Faculty Association of the National Council for the Social Studies voted to reject a motion raised by members of the Rouge Forum opposing the Iraq invasion and war. The vote was 58 “No” to 46 “Yes” with 17 abstentions. As we go press, the final tally had not been reconfirmed by Cufa officials. This was a very small turnout for a Cufa meeting but the vote was a hand count and the ultimate result cannot be disputed.

This is the motion CUFA members, who had earlier heard former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day Oconnor say the US, “is moving toward fascism,” rejected:


Whereas the Iraq invasion and reason have nothing in common and,

Whereas the Iraq war has invaded our education system with military recruiters who defy reason with unkept promises and who unfairly take advantage of economically deprived and oppressed students, and,

Whereas the invasion has intensified the regimentation of curricula and,

Whereas the invasion escalated the use of high-stakes testing as a weapon which sorts youth along lines of race and class, having little to do with intellectual achievement, serving as a pipeline to what is in fact a war for empire,

Wheras the war is an extension of the international war of the rich on the poor, destroying all semblance of democracy in its wake,

Be it resolved that CUFA notify NCSS, the President of the US, Congress, and the press that we think the US should get out of Iraq now.

Among those voting against this motion were social studies luminaries like Linda Levstik, Walter Parker, David Hicks, and Jeff Passe.

CUFA is the university faculty wing of the National Council of Social Studies. As noted above, CUFA members had, earlier in the day, heard Sandra Day Oconnor, former Supreme Court Justice, say, “Fascism is rising in the USA.” Then, in the CUFA meeting, prior to the vote on the war, members voted in favor of a motion urging NCATE retain the term “social justice,” in their by-laws.

There was no debate on the Iraq resolution, as has been the case in nearly every similar motion brought by the Rouge Forum to CUFA. Debate inside this group of PhD’s who choose to stand aside like mandarins as their claims to democratic education evaporate around them, is quite rare. In one session four years ago, a CUFA chair person urged that debate on an antiwar motion be cut off before it began on the grounds that snacks were already being served in another room.

In the past, CUFA voted to oppose the war or its conduct. It may be that the smaller numbers at the NCSS convention shifted this vote. The loss of attendance could be due to cuts in social studies education where there are few, if any, state tests. The NCSS response? Demand a Social Studies test–that will invariably hide the terms ” capitalism,” and “imperialism,” and measure, not knowledge, but subservience and parental income. In any case, several NCSS members reported that their travel funding was cut because of the low status of social studies but they came anyway. It’s no stretcher to guess that costs kept many people away.

CUFA and NCSS believe they are the bulwarks of education for democratic citizenship in the US. Contrary to that belief is the fact that top CUFA members, including leading multiculturalist professors, voted against a Rouge Forum motion favoring affirmative action in 2003, on the grounds that such action might cost profesors money from their pay.

Last year, CUFA was addressed by the founder of a million dollar institute, and tenured professor, who spoke for an hour, claiming that the reason people in what he called the Third World suffer from the conditions of their daily lives is because they are not sufficiently “cosmopolitan.” Only Rouge Forum members were laughing.

At the NCSS conference in San Diego this year, no session would have mentioned the war in Iraq if they session had not been proposed and organized by Rouge Forum members. This, in a conference which listed 80 pages of sessions.

Many CUFA and NCSS members, especially grad students and younger teachers unaccustomed to NCSS’ undemocratic and reactionary ways, expressed dismay that such an august group could be such an autocratic muddle. But in the course of the conference, nearly 100 new people joined the Rouge Forum, enjoyed long discussions at our booth and social activities.

If is is the case that fascism now emerges around us, and I think it does, the educational work and direct action, of groups like the Rouge Forum would seem to be vital. Justice demands organization. Absent the Rouge Forum at NCSS: Nothing.

Thanks go to many, many Rouge Forum activists who made a great weekend possible. Amber, Beau and Noi, Wayne, Greg and Katie, Tommie, Steve and Perry, Marc, AK, Steve, Chris (write that letter), Cynthia M (great salad! and thanks for your patience) Sandy, Sally, Molly, Sean, Bill B and the Blanks, Bob A., Susan, Cheir, Ken, Kimi, Matt and all who are not forgotten.

Clever fundraising appeal number two: NCSS cost a lot of money. The low attendance hurt our ability to sell material and recoup our costs: about $2700.00. If you can spare any cash at all, please send some. Or, visit the Rouge Forum web page (www.rougeforum.org) and get some of those terrific good-for-the-rest-of -your-life anti-war posters for holiday presents. And, we have Rouge Forum tshirts on sale as well. Ten bucks plus postages. Images online soon.

All the best, r

Rouge Forum at NCSS and More

Dear Friends,

As a reminder:

The Rouge Forum will be hosting a booth, a party, and several sessions at the upcoming National Council for the Social Studies Conference in San Diego, this weekend. Here are three presentations that might interest you.

*FRIDAY (8:30 – 10AM) International Assembly: Is It Possible or Desirable to Teach for Democracy Today?

*FRIDAY (5 – 6 PM) World History SD Convention Center 30B
Overcoming High-Stakes Tests: Keeping Our Ideals and Still Teaching

*SATURDAY (2:45-3:45) Experienced k12 Teachers at SD Convention Center 30D
How We Keep Our Ideals and Teach:Progressive Teachers in the Classroom.

Come visit and go on the record abot NCLB and the wars for our video at our booth.

The party is Saturday night. Please rsvp if you wish to attend.

It is easy to witness the madness of our times, the spectacles that lure more than a million people a week to attend NFL gams, Judge Judy tormenting volunteer fools, Reality TV becoming “Not Reality But Actuality TV,” (formerly Court TV) the glaring contradiction of the moment as in 800,000 millionaires in New York City matched by one person in six in the same city going to bed hungry, wars around the world going unreported—and to miss the fact that people do resist.

The Paris uprisings of late run parallel with, and intersect each other. Students protesting the French government’s moves to create a two-tier privatized education system (a la the UC and CSU systems in California) initiated the battles, quickly joined by striking workers. Now the same police that attacked the students are attacking immigrant communities, and being met with a ferocious counterattack. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/world/europe/29france.html?hp

In Russia, workers demanding wage increases and a six hour day have seized a Ford plant outside St. Petersburg (Leningrad).

In schools, educators around the country seek to drive military recruiters off their campuses and to halt the high-stakes exams that strangle freedom and learning. Ethical school workers have nearly reached the limit of their tolerance. Our task is to make sense of resistance that must occur.

On December 8, at Fresno State there will be a meeting of education activists trying to organize testing boycotts. Watch the coming updates for time and place. Our task is to connect reason to power, to try to build a mass based class conscious movement of people prepared to take the risks and make the sacrifices necessary to fashion and sustain an equitable world== toward the consciousness of freedom; the same project of centuries that our great-grandparents took on, that we should pass on to the kids. You are welcome to join us in Fresno.

Meanwhile, the California Teachers Association (NEA) and the California Federation of Teacher (AFT) battle each other to the tune of hundreds of thousands of lobbying dollars. CTA opposes CFT’s proposition 92 which would reduce costs at community colleges and guarantee some cc funding. This cannot be a new low in unionism as the UAW’s recent contract still holds that rank, but it is a highlight in demonstrating that US union executives have nothing but opportunism as a guide. CFA fears that funding community colleges might cut into their k12 teacher pay while CFT’s membership is heavily in the cc’s. To their credit, the United Teachers of L.A. rejected CTA-NEA’s position.
http://www.prop92yes.com/

Our friends in the AFT-D.C. local asked to spread the word about where their dues went, via the criminal AFT president Barbara Bullock. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/04/AR2007110401865.html

Justice in schools and communities demands new kinds of organizations.

Remember the Rouge Forum conference March 14-16 in Louisville. This is the call for papers: www.rougeforumconference.org

best, r

Billionaires Up, America Down

MindtheGap.jpg
In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires (there were 482 last year), the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.

ZNet Commentary
Billionaires Up, America Down
November 19, 2007
By Holly Sklar

When it comes to producing billionaires, America is doing great.

Until 2005, multimillionaires could still make the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2006, the Forbes 400 went billionaires only.

This year, you’d need a Forbes 482 to fit all the billionaires.

A billion dollars is a lot of dough. Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch for five decades, would have to add $400 million to her $600 million fortune to reach $1 billion. And she’d need another $300 million to reach the Forbes 400 minimum of $1.3 billion. The average Forbes 400 member has $3.8 billion.

When the Forbes 400 began in 1982, it was dominated by oil and manufacturing fortunes. Today, says Forbes, “Wall Street is king.”

Nearly half the 45 new members, says Forbes, “made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer.”

The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn’t party time for America.

We have a record 482 billionaires — and record foreclosures.

We have a record 482 billionaires — and a record 47 million people without any health insurance.

Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires — and 5 million more people living below the poverty line.

The official poverty threshold for one person was a ridiculously low $10,294 in 2006. That won’t get you two pounds of caviar ($9,800) and 25 cigars ($730) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The $20,614 family-of-four poverty threshold is lower than the cost of three months of home flower arrangements ($24,525).

Wealth is being redistributed from poorer to richer.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

In 2004, one out of six households had zero or negative net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity. That’s before the mortgage crisis hit.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires, the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.

The Forbes 400 is even more of a rich men’s club than when it began. The number of women has dropped from 75 in 1982 to 39 today.

The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the total annual value of goods and services produced by our nation of 303 million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP.

And the rich, notes Fortune magazine, “give away a smaller share of their income than the rest of us.”

Thanks to mega-tax cuts, the rich can afford more mega-yachts, accessorized with helicopters and mini-submarines. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of bridges, levees, mass transit, parks and other public assets inherited from earlier generations of taxpayers crumbles from neglect, and the holes in the safety net are growing.

The top 1 percent of households — average income $1.5 million — will save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. That’s more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department, Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus interest.

The children and grandchildren of today’s underpaid workers will pay for the partying of today’s plutocrats and their retinue of lobbyists.

It’s time for Congress to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy and close the loophole letting billionaire hedge fund speculators pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries.

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels. It was bad for our nation then. It’s bad for our nation now.

Holly Sklar is co-author of “Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us” and “A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future.” She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.

Rouge Forum Update

joehill07.gifDear Friends,

The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page is updated at www.rougeforum.org

Please take note of the call for papers for the upcoming Rouge Forum Conference in Louisville, March 14-16, 2008. The theme for the 2008 Rouge Forum Conference is: “Education: Reform or Revolution?” and will be hosted by Bellarmine University. The Call for Proposals and Registration information can be found at: http://www.rougeforumconference.org/

The Rouge Forum will be hosting a booth, a party, and several sessions at the upcoming National Council for the Social Studies Conference in San Diego, at the end of November. Here are three presentations that might interest you.

*FRIDAY (8:30 – 10AM) International Assembly: Is It Possible or Desirable to Teach for Democracy Today?

*FRIDAY (5 – 6 PM) World History SD Convention Center 30B
Overcoming High-Stakes Tests: Keeping Our Ideals and Still Teaching

*SATURDAY (2:45-3:45) Experienced k12 Teachers at SD Convention Center 30D
How We Keep Our Ideals and Teach:Progressive Teachers in the Classroom

The party is Saturday night. Please rsvp if you wish to attend.

It is still nearly impossible to get comprehensive news on the student/worker struggles in France. Students now fight to occupy university buildings throughout the country and transportation workers remain out, though it appears their union is urging people back to work. The possibility for a general strike in France is quite real, a strike initiated by students. Their chances for victory, if they continue to fight for the combined demands of no privatization of education, for pension benefits for workers, health care, the right to strike, and the rights of immigrants, seem good. Perhaps the French break the bonds of their own postmodernism: religion in disguise.

By contrast, in the US, 81% of the UAW-Ford membership voted to build their own scaffolds in the form of massive wage cuts, the nearly certain destruction of their own health benefits, and a two-tier wage system, impoverishing their own children. The leadership of the AFT adopted a merit pay plan in their key local in New York. NEA still insists it will fight merit pay, but not NCLB nor its curricula regimentation nor high stakes exams. But stage hands and Hollywood writers are out on strike–a bizarre statement about the impact of de-industrialization and the lack of left leadership in the US which has misled the antiwar movement into a series of cul-de-sacs, each one denying the central roles of class struggle and class consciousness.

Direct action can answer some of this. There are answers in struggle. With CalCare and others, the Rouge Forum is backing the call for boycotts of high-stakes exams. We are also planning for massive demonstrations against the empires’ expanding wars on March 20, the anniversary of the invasion.

On this war, and the ones to come, Michael Klare writes on the centrality of oil: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18742.htm

This is the anniversary of the death of the great poet and songwriter of the Industrial Workers of the World, Joe Hill, murdered by the authorities in Utah after a Kangaroo trial in 1915. Hill’s last word to his firing squad: Fire. Here is his hopeful take on the future, from his song The Preacher and the Slave.

Workingmen of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry;
Chop some wood, ’twill do you good
Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye

Thanks to Bill T, Bob A, Amber, Wayne, Beau, Bill, George (subscribe to Substance) Schmidt, Susan, Sharon A., Sally, Sandy, Colleen, Jim Wolin, Alexander, Victoria, Ileana, Marc, Bonnie, Christopher, William, Erin, and Tommie.
all the best, r

The evolution of creationism

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/13/intelligent_design/print.html
Salon.com
The evolution of creationism
After their notorious legal defeat, intelligent design proponents are resurfacing with insidious new assaults on science.

By Gordy Slack

Nov. 13, 2007 | Two years ago, Pennsylvania federal Judge John Jones III handed down a stunning decision that many said would take down the intelligent design movement. But American creationism doesn’t die. It just adapts.

Decades earlier, when the courts deemed creation science — proto intelligent design — a religious view and not constitutionally teachable as science in public schools, it adapted by cutting God off its letterhead and calling itself “intelligent design.” The argument for I.D., and for “scientific creation theory” before it, is that evolution isn’t up to the task of accounting for life. Given biology’s complexity, and natural selection’s inability to explain it, I.D. thinking goes, life must be designed by a, well, designer. I.D.ers skirted any mention of God, hoping to avoid getting snagged on the First Amendment’s prohibition against promoting religion by arguing that I.D. was just a young and outlying science.

In the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, Judge Jones ruled that if you want to teach intelligent design in science class, first you have to show that it is a distinct species from its earlier, creationist form, not just a modified type. You’ve got to show us the science part, he said. Besides, Jones declared, your intelligent designer is obviously God.

The six-week trial — the focus of a Nova documentary, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” airing Nov. 13 — addressed a host of heady questions. What is science and how does it work? Can evolution account for the diversity of life we see on earth? What is religion? Can science say anything about the existence of a creator and still be science? It also examined the motivations of a local school board that tried to smuggle creationism into its high school biology curriculum. The judge’s decision — that I.D. was not science and that the school board was trying to promote its members’ own religious views — was followed by a short period of shock from the I.D. community.

But like bacteria adapting to antibiotics, creationism has slimmed down once again, this time shedding even a mention of an intelligent designer. A new textbook put out by the Discovery Institute, the Seattle think tank that promotes I.D., doesn’t even have the words “intelligent design” in its index. Instead of pushing I.D. explicitly, “Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Darwinism,” promoted as a high school- or college-level biology text, “teaches the controversy.” Teach the controversy is the new mantra of the I.D. movement.

“We want to teach more about evolution,” says Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin, “not less.” The “more” they want to teach, of course, is what they see as evolution’s shortcomings, leaving an ecological niche that will then be filled by intelligent design.

But not all creationists have embraced the strategy. Many responded to the Dover trial by coming out of I.D.’s big tent, which once gave shelter to young earth creationists, old earthers, academics interested in I.D.’s hypotheses, and anyone who wanted to promote a Christian-compatible view of science. Judge Jones’ decision was like a lightning strike on the big top, sending many of the constituents running home through the rain. Creationist groups like Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and Reasons to Believe are now attacking I.D. for not having the guts to call its designer God or to be explicit about such key questions as the age of the world. (Answers in Genesis’ answer: about 6,000 years.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the I.D.ers have adopted a persecution complex. “After Dover,” Luskin says, “there’s been an increase in the boldness of Darwinists who persecute I.D. proponents: researchers, teachers and students. The debate in the academy has intensified radically,” he says. “It’s just a lot more political.” He points to Guillermo Gonzalez, a physicist at Iowa State who failed to get tenure, allegedly because he is an advocate of I.D., and Richard Sternberg, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health who was “attacked” for publishing an article by Stephen Meyer, a proponent of intelligent design, in a peer-review journal Sternberg edited.

Evolutionary biologists respond that hiring a biologist who doesn’t accept evolution is like hiring a mathematician who doesn’t accept multiplication. That oversimplifies, but for better or worse, the battle has intensified and come out more into the open.

Recently, long retired chemist Homer Jacobson retracted a paper titled “Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life,” which he’d published in the journal American Scientist 52 years ago. Upon Googling himself, the 84-year-old Jacobson found that his old paper was often cited by creationists as evidence of the implausibility of life emerging from the prebiotic soup found on early Earth. Jacobson noticed some errors in his paper (it was a half-century old!) and, in order to keep neo-creationists from engaging in “malignant denunciations of Darwin,” he wrote a letter of retraction to the journal. Retraction of a scientific paper is rare, and doing it for political reasons is rarer still. The act provoked accusations of “historical revisionism” from Discovery Institute senior fellow William Dembski.

Following the Dover decision, some I.D.ers became more timid, or at least more evasive. John Angus Campbell, a Discovery Institute fellow and coauthor of a book about teaching I.D. in the schools, ran for a school board seat in Mason County, Wash., last week. During his campaign, he intentionally left his middle name out of his election materials and failed to mention his affiliation with the Discovery Institute. The camouflage strategy worked and he was elected.

I.D. will also be striking back in “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a pro-I.D. documentary, to be released in February. Featuring conservative writer and political commentator Ben Stein, it portrays I.D. proponents as a group of iconoclastic firebrand scientists with the guts to go after the dogmatic Darwinists who have, the I.D.ers say, grown lazy and corrupt sitting atop a monopolistic theory with zero tolerance for dissent, within or outside of their ranks.

Stein told the New York Times that Darwin may well have been onto something with his theory of evolution, but that it is isn’t up to explaining the origins and diversity of life on its own. Plus, he thinks Darwinism leads to racism and genocide. If Stein had his way, he said, the documentary would have been called “From Darwin to Hitler.”

No, the battle between creationism and evolution is hardly over. The true believers in intelligent design and other forms of creationism aren’t about to lay down their worldview for a federal judge or anyone else. And polls show that about half of America is on their side. “Evolution remains under attack,” says Eugenie Scott, an anthropologist and a director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching evolution in public schools. “If creationists have their way, teachers will eventually just stop teaching evolution. It’ll just be too much trouble. And generations of students will continue to grow up ignorant of basic scientific realities.”

— By Gordy Slack

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