Brett Kavanaugh is the Link Between Rape and Abortion

September 30, 2018September 30, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Civil Rights, Compassion, Congress, Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Election, Election Reform, Feminism, Healthcare, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Propaganda, protest, Republican, Schools, Sexism, Social Justice, Students, Supreme Court, voting abortion, abuse of power, Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford, Congress, consent, dehumanization, Donald Trump, human rights, male, male privilege, men, patriarchy, Politics, Rape, religion, Republicans, Senate, sexism, Sexual Assault, sexual harassment, Supreme Court, women

I think I will always associate Brett Kavanaugh with the taste of vomit in the back of my throat.

I couldn’t watch his sham of a confirmation hearing without my gag reflex going into overdrive.

Here was one of the most privileged of people on the planet alternatively weeping and raging that he was being denied his due.

Here was a man bemoaning that no matter what happened, his reputation forever would be ruined, but who likewise refused to call for an investigation to exonerate himself.

At least three separate women have accused him of sexual assault, yet Congressional Republicans are still planning to ram through his nomination to the Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment where he will almost certainly be the tie breaking vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

How fitting.

What perfect symmetry.

You couldn’t have planned it any more poetically.

A man accused of multiple attempted rapes who is doing everything in his power to make abortion illegal.

An overgrown frat boy crying into his beer that we can’t take away his God given right to take away women’s rights.

A confederacy of almost exclusively male lawmakers ready to discount women’s reports of violence so that they can limit women’s freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.

If there is one good thing to come from this farce, it is the spotlight it has shown on the relationship between rape and the movement to recriminalize abortion.

These two things are essentially intertwined.

On the one hand, we have sexual intercourse carried out under threat of violence, sex without consent or in direct violation of consent – a crime invariably perpetrated by men on women.

On the other hand, we have the removal of female consent from the birthing process.

They are almost the same thing, or at least two sides of the same coin.

In both cases, we’re removing or ignoring female permission, agreement, approval, agency. We’re saying it doesn’t matter what the woman wants. It only matters what men or a patriarchal society wants.

And the justification is an ancient text – the New Testament – that doesn’t mention abortion once. And the Old Testament actually gives instructions on how to conduct an abortion (Numbers 5:11-31).

Not that it really should matter. The United States is not a theocracy.

But it IS a patriarchy.

That’s what this is – an attempt by the most insecure, power hungry men to control women.

It is about keeping and strengthening a caste system where men are allowed to be fully realized people and women are allowed only secondary status.

It is about dehumanization clothed in piety and false morality.

All those people crying for the lost lives of a cluster of cells in female uteruses care not a wit about the thousands of women who will die from unsafe abortions once safe procedures become unlawful.

We’ve been here before. Abortion was illegal in the US from the early 1800s until 1973, and we know what will happen. There is actual history on this – back alley procedures conducted by quacks using sharp implements to pierce the womb – and there is no reason to think it won’t repeat itself.

Changing the law won’t stop abortions. It will just make them unsafe for everyone except rich women who can afford doctors willing to take a chance on going to jail for a big payday.

If these people really wanted to stop abortions, they’d support handing out free contraception. They’d turn every orphanage into a palace. They’d each adopt as many children as they could. They’d make neonatal care free, expand services to help women raise children, increase maternity leave, pay for free childcare, expand education funding.

But they don’t do any of that because despite their crocodile tears, their objection has nothing to do with unborn children.

It has to do with mature women making decisions for themselves. It has to do with conceptualizing them as people equal to men and with minds capable of consent.

It’s about allowing women the right to choose – choose whom to have sex with and what exactly the consequences of that sex will or will not be.

I am so thankful that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her testimony. What bravery! What grace under pressure!

To be able to share with an entire nation her personal trauma at the hands of Kavanaugh. Such courage boggles the mind almost as much as those who refuse to accept her story as genuine.

They say that this is political. That it’s a hit job. Yet they pound their fists onto their ears to drown out Kavanaugh’s words in self-defense where he makes it entirely clear how partisan he is and will be once he takes the bench:

“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”

These are not the words of a fair arbitrator. They are the ravings of someone with an axe to grind.

But they do well to point out the elephant in the room – Donald Trump.

The man who nominated Kavanaugh has had at least 19 women accuse him of sexual assault. He even admitted to it on video in the infamous Access Hollywood tape.

Yet a minority of Americans elected him President through a legislative loophole kept open by centuries of neglect, apathy and moneyed interest.

I don’t know how this all will end. The FBI will conduct a limited investigation this week – probably stymied as much as possible by the Trump administration.

But the road that lead us here is achingly clear.

This is a tantrum of the patriarchy.

It is the weakest, most twisted men and their Stockholm syndrome suffering accomplices.

It is not about defining when life begins.

It’s about defining who gets to count as fully human – who gets the freedom to choose.

Like this post? I’ve written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

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The Best Way to Prepare for School Shootings is to Reduce the Chances They’ll Happen at All

September 28, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Congress, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Gun Control, Guns, Mass Shooting, nonviolence, Parents, Pennsylvania, Police, Politics, Poverty, protest, Republican, School Funding, School to Prison Pipeline, school violence, Schools, Shooting, Students, Teachers active shooter drill, education, Gun Control, gun sense, Gun Violence, Guns, Guns in Schools, NRA, public schools, school shootings, schools, teachers, teaching

I participated in yet another active shooter drill at my school this week.

“Death to the infidels!” shouted Mr. O’Grady, one of my fellow teachers, as he stormed the classroom with a Nerf blaster rifle.

I had stuffed myself under a table in another teacher’s reading nook.

But it did no good.

One of the soft yellow balls came sproinging out of the gun and bounced off the carpet into my groin.

Then someone blew a whistle and the scenario was over.

The classroom full of teachers collected ourselves from behind overturned tables and under desks before uncertainly getting to our feet.

“Who got hit?” asked the principal as he poked his head into the room.

A flurry of hands went up including mine.

The students had been dismissed about an hour earlier. The body count was made up entirely of faculty and staff – teachers, administrators, security guards, substitutes, lunch ladies, etc.

The lesson we were supposed to take away from the activity was that hiding was a losing strategy.

“Do something,” one of the police officers conducting the drill said.

They wanted us to swarm the shooter, throw things at him (Nerf balls in our scenario) or make a run for it. Anything but simply staying put and being sitting ducks.

It made me wonder why our lawmakers don’t heed the same advice.

Do something?

Yeah. Why doesn’t Harrisburg do something? Why doesn’t Washington?

That’s where you can make a real difference to keep our schools safe.

Instead of making the world safer for our kids, we’re trying to lock them up in a castle and keep the violence out.

But it’s impossible. You can’t keep out human nature.

The same things that cause shooters to enter the school and go on a killing spree are already in our classrooms.

O’Grady may have imagined he was a member of Al-Qaeda as he pretended to blow his co-workers away, but if a shooter ever enters our building, he’s more likely to be a co-worker, parent or student.

We don’t need more ways to keep them out. We CAN’T keep them out and still do our jobs!

All we can do is try to alleviate the pressure, to counsel mental distress, heal physical trauma, guard against societal hurts.

And if that doesn’t work, we can lower the stakes and limit the amount of damage done.

Turning the school into a prison will not help. Turning teachers into guards (armed or otherwise) will not solve anything.

Back in 1999 in the wake of the Columbine school shooting, the Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education warned against all the things we’re doing now – police officers in the schools, metal detectors, cameras, etc.

Instead, they advised us as follows:

“Specifically, Initiative findings suggest that [school] officials may wish to consider focusing their efforts to formulate strategies for preventing these attacks in two principal areas:

developing the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information that might indicate that there is a risk of a targeted school attack; and,

employing the results of these risk evaluations or “threat assessments” in developing strategies to prevent potential school attacks from occurring.”

That means prevention over disaster prepping. Homeland Security and education officials wanted us to pay close attention to our students, their needs and their struggles.

We keep our schools safe by looking to the humans in them and not new ways to barricade the building or watch the whole disaster unfold on closed circuit TV.

The fact is that our schools are actually much safer than the communities that support them. Numerous studies have concluded that students are more secure in school than on the streets or even in their own homes.

If we want to make the schools safer, we need to make the communities safer.

And, no, I’m not just talking about high poverty neighborhoods populated mostly by people of color. I mean everywhere – in our society, itself.

There are too many guns out there. We have more firearms than people!

According to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Americans now own 40 per cent of all guns in the world – more than the next 25 countries combined. And with every mass shooting and the hysteria trumped up by gun manufacturers with each surge in profits, that number continues to climb.

You can do whatever you want to the schools, but you’ll never increase safety until you deal with THAT problem.

The fact is countries with more guns have more gun deaths. States and Countries with more rigorous gun control have fewer gun deaths.

(If you doubt it, see Florida’s “The Geography of Gun Deaths,” and a 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews.)

We need sane, sensible gun regulations. We need government buyback programs. And we need to smash the NRA’s stranglehold on our political process.

These ridiculous safety drills are simply whistling in the dark.

They’re not harmless. They’re HARMFUL.

They actually make our schools less safe.

Metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and resource officers do not create safer schools. According to a study released by the National Association of School Psychologists :

“There is no clear research evidence that the use of metal detectors, security cameras, or guards in schools is effective in preventing school violence (Addington, 2009; Borum, Cornell, Modzeleski, & Jimerson, 2010; Casella, 2006; Garcia, 2003). In fact, research has shown that their presence negatively impacts students’ perceptions of safety and even increases fear among some students (Bachman, Randolph, & Brown, 2011; Schreck & Miller, 2003). In addition, studies suggest that restrictive school security measures have the potential to harm school learning environments (Beger, 2003; Phaneuf, 2009).”

At this week’s active shooter drill in my school, one of the student aides asked the principal when he thought the state would be arming teachers.

For him, it wasn’t a matter of if. It was a matter of when.

And if you listen to the cowardly garbage spewing out of our lawmakers mouths, you can certainly understand why he believes that.

However, arming teachers or even adding more armed police to the school will not make our classrooms more secure.

There is overwhelming evidence that it will do just the opposite.

As Melinda Wenner Moyer reports in Scientific American, “guns are associated with an increased risk for violence and homicide”—but not with greater safety.

Just look at the facts.

Security cameras were present at Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech. They didn’t stop anything from happening.

Armed resource officers were present at Columbine and Parkland. That didn’t stop anything from happening.

All these measures do is criminalize our students. It turns them from prospective learners into would-be prison inmates – and as we know, our prisons are not exactly the safest places to be.

“How’d I do?” asked Mr. O’Grady, my co-worker who had posed as the shooter during the last scenario.

“You shot me in the dick,” I said.

He laughed. And I laughed.

But it was the kind of laugh that dies in your throat and leaves a taste of ashes.

School safety is a joke in 2018. Not because of what teachers and districts are doing.

When society fails to meet its obligations – as it does time-and-again – it’s our schools that continually step up to take the slack.

The problem is that we can’t even pretend to do this one on our own.

We can’t keep the schools safe if you won’t do anything about the community – if you won’t reduce poverty, violence and trauma.

We can’t keep the schools safe, if you won’t do something about the river of guns that flow through our nation like a high caliber Mississippi.

Do something?

Take your own advice, America.

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Disowning the Lie of Whiteness

September 11, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Civil Rights, Compassion, Hate Crimes, Labor, nonviolence, Police, Politics, Prejudice, protest, Racism, School to Prison Pipeline, segregation, Social Justice, White Allies, White Privilege, Whiteness anti-racism, anti-semitism, Holocaust, jewish, Philosophy, Politics, racism, racist, white ally, white culture, white privilege, white supremacy, Whiteness

The most vivid memory I have of my great-grandfather is the tattoo on his arm.

It wasn’t an anchor or a sweetheart’s name or even the old faithful, “Mom.”

It was just a series of digits scrawled across his withered tan flesh like someone had written a note they didn’t want to forget.

Beneath the copious salt and pepper hairs was a stark number, the darkest stain on his skin.

Gramps is a kindly figure in my mind.

He died before I was even 10-years-old. All I really remember about him are wisps of impressions – his constant smile, a whiff of mothballs, how he always seemed to have butterscotch candies.

And that tattoo.

I think it was my father who told me what it meant.

When he was just a young man, Gramps escaped from Auschwitz. A guard took pity on him and smuggled him out.

His big European family didn’t make it.

My scattered relatives in the United States are all that are left of us.

Those are the only details that have come down to me. And Gramps isn’t here to add anything further.

But his tattoo has never left me.

It’s become a pillar of my subconscious.

The fact that someone could look at my kindly Gramps and still see fit to tattoo a numeric signifier on him as if he were an animal.

A little reminder that he wasn’t human, that he shouldn’t be treated like a person, that he was marked for erasure.

If I look at my own arm, there is no tell-tale integer peeking through the skin. But I am keenly aware of its presence.

I know that it’s there in a very real sense.

It is only the American dream that hides it.

Coming to this country, my family has made a deal, something of a Faustian bargain, but it’s one that most of us have accepted as the price of admission.

It’s called whiteness.

I am white.

Or I get to be white. So long as I suppress any differences to the contrary.

I agree to homogenize myself as much as possible and define myself purely by that signifier.

White. American. No hyphen necessary.

Anything else is secondary. I don’t have to deny it, but I have to keep it hidden until the right context comes to bring it out.

During Octoberfest I have license to be German. When at international village I can root for Poland. And on Saturdays I can wear a Kippah and be Jewish.

But in the normal flow of life, don’t draw attention to my differences. Don’t show everyone the number on my arm.

Because America is a great place, but people here – as in many other places – are drawn to those sorts of symbols and will do what they can to stamp them out.

I learned that in school when I was younger.

There weren’t a lot of Jewish kids where I grew up. I remember lots of cracks about “Jewing” people down, fighting against a common assumption that I would be greedy, etc. I remember one girl I had a crush on actually asked to see my horns.

And of course there were the kids who chased me home from the bus stop. The scratched graffiti on my locker: “Yid.”

The message was clear – “You’re different. We’ll put up with you, but don’t ever forget you are NOT one of us.”

There were a lot more black kids. They didn’t get it any easier but at least they could join together.

It seemed I had one choice – assimilate or face it alone.

So I did. I became white.

I played up my similarities, never talked about my differences except to close friends.

And America worked her magic.

So I’ve always been aware that whiteness is the biggest delusion in the world.

It’s not a result of the color wheel. Look at your skin. You’re not white. You’re peach or pink or salmon or rose or coral or olive or any of a million other shades.

Whiteness has as much to do with color as Red has to do with Communism or Green has to do with environmental protection.

It is the way a lose confederacy of nationalities and ethnicities have banded together to form a fake majority and lord power over all those they’ve excluded.

It’s social protection for wealth – a kind of firewall against the underclass built, manned and protected by those who are also being exploited.

It’s like a circle around the wealthy protecting them from everyone outside its borders. Yet if everyone banded together against the few rich and powerful, we could all have a more equitable share.

But in America, social class has been weaponized and racialized.

You’ll see some media outlets talking about demographics as if white people were in danger of losing their numerical majority in this country in the next few decades. But there’s no way it’s ever going to happen.

Today’s xenophobia is a direct response to this challenge. Some are trying to deport, displace and murder as many black and brown people as possible to preserve the status quo.

But even if that doesn’t work, whiteness will not become a minority. It will do what it has always done – incorporate some of those whom it had previously excluded to keep its position.

Certain groups of Hispanics and Latinos probably will find themselves allowed to identify as white, thereby solidifying the majority.

Because the only thing that matters is that there are some people who are “white” and the rest who are not.

Long ago, my family experienced this.

Before I was born, we got our provisional white card. And if I want, I can use it to hide behind.

I’ve been doing it most of my life.

Every white person does it.

It’s almost impossible not to do it.

How do you deny being white?

At this point, I could throw back my head and shout to the heavens, “I’M NOT WHITE!” and it wouldn’t matter.

Only in a closed environment like a school or a job or in a social media circle can you retain the stigma of appearing pale but still being other.

In everyday life, it doesn’t matter what you say, only how you appear.

I can’t shout my difference all the time. Every moment I’m quiet, I’ll still be seen as white.

It’s not personal. It’s social. It’s not something that happens among individuals. It’s a way of being seen.

The best I can do is try to use my whiteness as a tool. I can speak out against the illusion. I can stand up when people of color are being victimized. I can vote for leaders who will do something to dismantle white supremacy.

Not because I am some kind of savior, but because I know that my own freedom is tied to the freedom of those being oppressed by a system that provides me certain privileges.

But let me be clear: doing so is not the safe way to go.

In defending others you make yourself a target.

I get threats all the time from racists and Nazis of all sorts. They say they can tell just by looking at me that I’m not white at all.

The worst part is I’m not sure what I am anymore.

I don’t go to synagogue. I don’t even believe in God. But I’m Jewish enough to have been rounded up like Gramps was, so I won’t deny that identity. It’s just that I’m more than one thing.

That’s what whiteness tries to reduce you to – one thing.

I don’t want it anymore.

I’m not saying I don’t like the protection, the ability to be anonymous, the easy out.

But it’s not worth it if it has to come with the creation of an other.

I don’t want to live in a world where people of color are considered less than me and mine.

I don’t want to live in a world where they can be treated unfairly, beaten and brutalized so that I can get some special advantage.

I don’t want to live in a world where human beings are tattooed and numbered and sent to their deaths.

Because the Holocaust is not over.

American slavery is not over.

Neither is Jim Crow or lynching or a thousand other marks of hatred and bigotry.

Nazis march unmasked in our streets. Our prisons are the new plantation. And too many of our police use murder and atrocity to ensure the social order.

As long as we allow ourselves to be white, there will be no justice for both ourselves and others.

So consider this my renunciation of whiteness – and I make it here in public.

I know that no matter what I say, I will still be seen as part of the problem. And I will still reap the rewards.

But I will use what power is given me to tear it down.

I’m burning my white card.

I know it’s a symbolic gesture. But I invite my white brothers and sisters to add theirs to the flames.

Let us make a conflagration, a pillar of fire into the sky.

Let whiteness evaporate as the smoke it is.

Let us revel in the natural hues of our faces as we watch it burn.

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The Only Way to Survive Trump is Together

August 11, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Bernie Sanders, capitalism, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Dr. Jill Stein, Education, Election, Election Reform, Green Party, Hillary Clinton, immigration, John Podesta, Obama, Politics, Prejudice, President, protest, Republican, School to Prison Pipeline, Schools, Social Justice, Teachers, voter suppression, voting Depression, Donald Trump, hope, Pessimism, Politics, Psychology, Trump Anxiety Disorder, unity

There are days when I feel like a broken man.

And it is Donald Trump who has broken me.

Not his political victories. Not the failures of his opposition.

But the very fact that this piece of shit is President of the United States – that fact sits on my brain like an insect I can’t swat.

On those days my belief in this country wavers and disappears.

Oh, I’ve always recognized its faults, how our reality hardly ever lived up to our ideals. But I also thought that the United States was populated by mostly good people who knew right from wrong.

To run this country we wouldn’t choose an obvious conman, a racist and sexist, a person of low IQ, a man with little to no experience, a reality TV star. We wouldn’t let him pick the next Supreme Court justices. We wouldn’t give him the power to pardon whomever he likes. We wouldn’t give him the ability to write almost whatever he wants into law through signing statements. And we certainly wouldn’t give him the nuclear codes.

But we did.

We did all of that.

Or we allowed it to happen by ignoring a broken electoral system that overturns the popular vote with frightening regularity.

So there he sits in the Oval Office – when he isn’t on vacation at Mar-a-Lago – like a smear of feces on the American flag.

Therapists call this feeling “Trump Anxiety Disorder” and I have it. Boy! Do I have it!

The D.C. Counseling and Psychotherapy Center has identified it as a “collective politically induced anxiety among patients.”

Apparently, Trump’s name comes up frequently in sessions with mental health professionals. Patients say they feel on edge because of the President’s ill-chosen, childish and undiplomatic words, fear of his bad decision making, and anxiety over his xenophobic and prejudicial policies.

Trump Anxiety Disorder is not yet an official diagnosis, but symptoms seem to include lack of sleep, a feeling of losing control and helplessness in an unpredictable political scene, along with endless negative headlines and excessive time spent on social media.

Elisabeth LaMotte, a therapist at the Washington, DC, center, said, “There is a fear of the world ending. It’s very disorienting and constantly unsettling.”

I’m not sure I fear that Armageddon is close at hand, but I certainly feel like the world I thought I knew is unraveling.

Fox News was quick to frame this story as a joke – those silly “libtards” are losing their minds over Trump. But it’s not just people on the left who suffer from the disorder, says LaMotte.

Many Trump supporters feel isolated from friends and family who don’t blindly follow their diminutive Furor. I guess it’s hard to pal around with someone who thinks it’s completely justified to separate children from their parents and lock them up in cages – unless you think the same thing.

Even the American Psychological Association (APA) has recorded a rise in anxiety since the 2016 election that increases depending on how political a person is regardless of affiliation.

The APA also noted that electronic news consumption increases that risk.

In my own case, my symptoms manifested physically on Election Day, itself.

I literally had a heart attack in 2016 after casting my ballot. And I had another one a short while later.

The first one may have had something to do with depression over the political options.

I didn’t know Trump would win. I thought the chances of it were infinitesimal. But I didn’t want Hillary Clinton, either.

I wanted Bernie Sanders, and since I thought the Democratic National Convention stacked the deck against him (and therefore voters) in the primaries, I voted for Jill Stein.

In the months since, I’ve run that decision over in my mind a million times.

Was I right? Was I wrong? Could I have given Trump the margin of victory with my one stupid vote?

When I examine all the information I had at the time, it still makes sense.

The media was telling us that there was no way Trump could win. Clinton was going to come storming into the White House and continue or worsen the neoliberal policies of Barack Obama.

As a school teacher, I was concerned that she would continue to wage war on public education – she would continue to boost charter schools and standardized testing while shrugging at funding inequity, increased segregation and the school-to-prison pipeline.

It’s not that I didn’t realize Trump would be worse. It’s that I didn’t think Clinton would be that much better.

But had she won, I don’t think I would be suffering the same anxiety.

We would have a sane and sensible leader who wouldn’t do anything much to make things better, but certainly wouldn’t be plunging us into an abyss. She wouldn’t betray every single American value while blatantly using her office for personal gain and gaslighting anyone who had the temerity to point out what was happening in plain sight.

So maybe some of it is guilt in my case.

Maybe I caused all this chaos. But I’ve looked at the numbers and that doesn’t add up.

Even if my position as a blogger who criticized Clinton (and Trump) convinced thousands of voters to cast ballots like I did, I could not have significantly affected the outcome.

But on those days of doubt and depression, I still feel guilty.

This is not the world I want to live in.

Things would be different if I thought there were any real hope of change.

Sure Trump may be defeated. If there’s a blue wave in the midterms, the orange one may be impeached. Or he may find it increasingly difficult to continue his corruption and be ousted in 2020.

But long term I don’t see much changing.

The Democrats are almost as corrupt as the Republicans.

Don’t give me this false equivalency crap. I’m not saying they’re the same. The Democrats are unequivocally better. But with the exception of social issues, their policies are almost the same as Republicans. The only difference is timeframe.

Republicans will destroy the world tomorrow. Democrats will destroy it next week.

And the system is just not set up to offer any challenge to the duopoly.

I desperately want to believe that insurgent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zephyr Teachout will somehow wrest control of the Democrats and steer the party back to real populist goals, but on most days it’s hard to keep that hope alive.

On those days it seems like the rich and powerful own our government and will never allow us to take it back no matter how many of us try to vote, no matter how often we take to the streets, no matter what we do.

We live in a world of shit.

And none of it will ever change for the better.

I don’t want to feel this way.

I still want to believe that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.

But on most days that feels like an illusion.

Is that a mental disorder? Or do I finally see the world for the way it is?

I have no answers.

Perhaps this article has no point.

I only offer it as a mark of solidarity.

If you’re feeling this way, you are not alone.

There are many more out there like you.

I don’t know how we get through this or even if we can. But this much seems certain.

If we are to survive, the only way is together.

So I send out this missive of hope and fear with all my love and a big virtual hug.

Be kind to each other. We’re all we’ve got.

For a peak at my views on more positive days, see HERE and HERE.

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Resistance to High Stakes Testing Persists as Media Celebrates Its End

July 31, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Donald Trump, Education, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Journalism, Junk science, Learning, Local Control, Media, Opt Out, Parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Toxic Testing, Value Added Measures, VAM annual testing, Corporate Education Reform, corporate school reform, education, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Fair Test, high stakes testing, media, Opt Out, Politics, spin, standardized testing, test-based accountability, Value Added Measures

There has never been more opposition to high stakes standardized testing.

Yet the corporate controlled media is pretending that the resistance is over.

Parents are refusing to let their kids take these tests at the same or even greater numbers than ever.

Fewer states require high stakes tests as graduation exams and/or use them to evaluate their teachers. Across the nation, states are cutting the size of standardized tests or eliminating them altogether. And more state legislatures passed laws explicitly allowing parents to opt their children out of the tests.

Yet Education Week published an article a few days ago called “Anti-Test Movement Slows to a Crawl.”

I think we have different definitions of “Slows” and “Crawl.”

That may not be surprising since we also seem to have different definitions of “Anti-Test.”

The Opt Out Movement is not “Anti-Test.” It is anti-high stakes standardized test.

It is against the federal government forcing states to use corporate written, corporate graded and corporate remediated standardized assessments.

It is against the federal government requiring each state to participate in a corporate boondoggle that not only wastes billions of tax dollars that could be better spent to educate children but also unfairly assesses their academic progress and feeds the push to privatize public schools.

Most people against high stakes standardized testing, however, have no problem with authentic teacher-created assessments.

Calling these folks “Anti-Test” is like labeling those pushing for stricter gun regulations “Anti-Gun” or smearing those protesting government corruption as “Anti-Government.”

And that’s just the title!

The author Alyson Klein further misdirects readers by conflating opt out rates and test resistance.

She implied that the only measure of opposition was the percentage of students who opt out. However, as noted above, there are multiple measures of resistance.

Moreover, few states advertise their opt out rates. Especially after the movement began, states made that information harder to come by to dissuade more people from joining it.

Of those states where information is available, Klein puts the most negative possible spin on the facts in order to make her point – a point that it seems to me is not at all justified.

For instance, Klein writes:

“At least some of the steam has gone out of the opt-out movement in states such as New Jersey and New York, considered hotbeds of anti-testing fervor.”

Really?

In New York, Opt out numbers remained at approximately 20% – the same as they have for the past three years.

And New York is one of our most densely populated states. That percentage represents more than 225,000 parents across the Empire State who refused to let their children take the tests despite threats from many administrators and district officials for doing so.

In New Jersey, opt out rates were marginally lower this year than last year. They went from 7% to 5%. But once again New Jersey is a populous state. That percentage represents about 68,500 students.

In addition, this is after massive opt outs three years ago that forced the state to change its federally mandated assessment. Testing boycotts pushed the state education association to get rid of four PARCC assessments and allow students who fail the remaining two tests to take an alternative assessment. And this is in a state where there is no law explicitly allowing parents to opt out of the tests.

I don’t know if I’d call that running out of steam.

Moreover, opt out rates have increased in other states for which we have data. For instance, test refusal is on the rise in heartland states like Minnesota.

And it nearly doubled in Utah over the past two years to about 6%. In some schools in the Beehive State, rates are much higher. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, 1 in 5 students in the Park City school district refused to take the tests.

Though my own state of Pennsylvania has been mum on last year’s opt outs, from my own personal experience as a teacher in suburban Pittsburgh, I never had more students boycott our federally mandated standardized test than I did last year.

There were so many they had to be quarantined in a special room.

Moreover, an increasing number of parents ask me about the issue, express concern and wonder about their rights.

So even when examining just the rate of opt out, I don’t see any reason to assume the movement is slowing down.

On the contrary, it is picking up steam with multiple victories.

As recently as 2012, half of all U.S. states required high school exit exams in order for students to graduate. Today that number has dropped to 12. The reason? Exit exams don’t raise student achievement – they raise the dropout rate. At least that’s what The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences tells us.

Another positive sign – seven states have stopped using value added measures (VAM) to judge teachers. This is the highly controversial practice of assessing educators based on their students test scores – a practice that has never been proven fair to teachers or effective in helping students learn. Six states have dropped this requirement altogether: Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Connecticut still gathers the information but cannot use it in the teacher’s “summative rating.” And other states like New Mexico still use value added measures but have reduced the weight given to student test scores.

Moreover, let’s not forget how many states have slashed the size of the high stakes tests they’re giving to students. After the recent wave of opt outs and public outcry, state education departments have ensured that testing at least takes up less time. This includes New York, Maryland, New Mexico, California, Minnesota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Washington, Illinois, West Virginia, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Some of this is because the PARCC test used in 21 states was slashed by 90 minutes.

And when it comes to opt out, two more states – Idaho and North Dakota – now have explicit laws on the books allowing parents to refuse the test for their children – in whole or in part. That brings the total number of states up to 10. It would have been 11, but Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, a Republican, vetoed an opt-out bill. The federal government still wants us to penalize these districts for non-participation in flagrant violation of its authority. But as more states respect parents’ rights on this matter, it will be increasingly difficult for the U.S. Department of Education to continue trampling them.

And speaking of the federal government, some states are taking advantage of the wiggle room in the federal law that governs K-12 education – the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – to allow students to avoid standardized testing entirely. Some states are implementation performance assessments instead. Kids can use a portfolio of classwork to demonstrate learning instead of getting a grade on a corporate-written standardized test. New Hampshire, for instance, has pioneered this approach with a program that now involves half the state’s districts.

These are not the signs of a movement that is slowing to a crawl.

It just makes sense that some of the rhetoric of the movement may have become less forceful with the enactment of the federal ESSA.

Many had hoped for a better law – one that did away with federally mandated testing altogether.

And that could still happen sooner than many think. Next year it will be time to reauthorize the law again.

It took Congress six years to reauthorize the federal education law last time. Perhaps our duly elected representatives can be coaxed into doing their jobs a bit quicker this time.

There is already some proposed legislation to make positive changes. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.) introduced legislation last year to replace annual assessments with grade-span tests. The United States is, after all, one of the only countries in the world – if not the only one – to require students be tested every year. These proposed changes are not nearly enough, but they’re a step in the right direction.

One of the biggest obstacles to abolishing federally mandated testing last time was that some of the oldest and most well funded civil rights organizations opposed it. Many of them get their money and support from the same billionaires who profit off of the standardized testing and privatization industries.

However, that support for testing was short lived. Already the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has revoked it returning to a call for opposition to testing.

If our nation survives the many crises of the Donald Trump administration, there is no reason our future cannot be bright.

We have the support, we have the tools, we just need the chance to do right by our children.

And the pendulum is swinging back our way.

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Republicans, Democrats – Let’s Scrap Them Both!

July 29, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, capitalism, Democrat, Election, Election Reform, Green Party, immigration, Local Control, Philosophy, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, President, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Republican, Schools, Social Justice Alexander Hamilton, Dark Money, Democrats, founding fathers, George Washington, Gore Vidal, history, John Adams, political parties, Politics, Republicans, third party, Thomas Jefferson, trickle down economics

Political parties are a huge mistake.

Our founding fathers knew this.

Though it was their constant squabbling and political power struggles that gave way to the party system in the first place, they also were incredibly vocal about the errors they, themselves, were committing.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison preferred state power that would protect southern interests including slave-holding. George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton favored federal authority that would benefit the north and manufacturing.

But in taking sides to protect their own power, they split into the very factions they knew would poison the newborn Republic.

At his farewell address in 1796, Washington put it this way:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

His successor, Adams wrote:

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

In 1789, Jefferson put it more succinctly:

“If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

So why do we today enshrine political parties in our system of government?

In short, it keeps the wealthy in power.

Nothing robs democracy of its populism so much as the party system.

Backward legislation and regressive court decisions equating money with speech only make this worse. But they are simply exacerbating a sickness that’s already there.

Political parties condense the world of advertising and commerce to that of government.

Political ideas are sorted and processed until they can become tasty sound bites – one accorded to one group and the corresponding response to another.

Federalism vs. States.

Taxation vs. Business

Guns vs. Regulations

It’s all bullshit.

No one really cares whether rules are made by an aggregation of the entire nation or merely an aggregation from each individual state. We only care that laws are fair and just.

No one really wants businesses to be taxed to death, nor do they want individuals to be unfairly burdened. They want a just system of taxation where everyone pays their fair share and supports an equitable distribution of the wealth.

No one really wants to unilaterally prohibit individual freedoms – including the freedom to own a gun. They want sane regulations so that killers and maniacs can’t as easily destroy innocent lives.

But political parties obscure these simple truths and sort us all into one of two teams. Yet both sides support the same unchangeable status quo.

As writer Gore Vidal put it:

“Officially we have two parties which are in fact wings of a common party of property with two right wings. Corporate wealth finances each. Since the property party controls every aspect of media they have had decades to create a false reality for a citizenry largely uneducated by public schools that teach conformity with an occasional advanced degree in consumerism.”

Part of this is due to our insistence that the party system be limited to two groups – Republicans and Democrats. We make it incredibly difficult – nearly impossible – for any third party candidate to appear on the ballot less than win a major election.

But increasing the party system would only minimize the damage. It wouldn’t stop it.

When issues are divided into political camps, they obscure basic similarities about voters.

Fairness and justice are not political. They are human.

By making them political, we obscure basic truths to convince subsections of the populace onto our side.

And these are rarely legitimate differences of opinion. They are often a matter of truth or falsity.

For instance, take trickle down economics. Either it is a fair and just distribution of wealth or it is not. Either it provides both rich and poor with a means of equitable economic advancement or it does not.

We have tried this policy for decades. There is a plethora of evidence that this system does not work. It unjustly favors the rich and starves the poor.

To understand this, one need not have an advanced degree in political science. A simple understanding of mathematics will suffice.

If there were no political parties, this would be self-evident. But the rich have used both parties to obscure this fact and make it a game of policy football. You support whichever team you’ve signed up for regardless of how doing so impacts you, personally.

It is the victory of tribalism over common sense.

The same goes for almost every issue facing the nation.

Should schools be public or private?

Should LGBT people be allowed the same rights as cis citizens?

Should we spend the majority of our federal budget on the military?

Should there be a path to citizenship for those wishing to immigrate?

Each and every one of these questions could be decided on facts. Instead evidence is hardly mentioned at all. We use the issues to elect the legislators who then can’t do anything about them for fear that action one way or another would upset the political power struggle against them.

Some economists suggest that the principle behind Democrats and Republicans, the principle behind liberals and conservatives, really comes down to economics.

It is an innate psychological reaction to scarcity and abundance.

In times of little food or resources, conservative tendencies are ascendant because they help us survive the lean times. However, in an era where there is enough for all, liberal tendencies flourish because they help the growing population thrive.

Even if this were true, it is a factual question of whether we live in times of abundance or scarcity.

In the 21^st Century United States, we have more wealth than we have ever had. There is enough food for everyone. We grow more than we can eat and end up throwing much of it away. Yet a tremendous amount of us live in abject poverty. More than half of public school students live below the poverty line.

This is not because we live in a time of scarcity. We live in a time of abundance where we keep much of that surplus away from the majority in order to create a false sense of scarcity so that the richest among us can horde as much as they possibly can.

That is the ugly truth hidden behind the party system.

It is a truth that could not be maintained without the easy marketing and tribalism of political parties – Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, the Judean Peoples Front or the People’s Front of Judea.

Until we remove the stranglehold of political parties, until we set up a government that makes factionalism difficult, until we establish a government that welcomes candidates regardless of party – our politics will be forever immobilized by wealth, sectarianism and voter apathy.

This could mean holding nonpartisan primaries where all candidates irrespective of party who meet a certain signature threshold are welcome, followed by a general election of the two highest vote-getters. Or it could mean something radically different like not voting at all but filling government with ordinary citizens randomly drafted into public service.

The point is that we can do better than party politics.

If we’re to survive as a nation, we’ll need to find a more just way.

Or as Hamilton put it:

“Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.”

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Don’t Tread on Me, But Let Me Tread All Over You: The Credo of Personal Freedom and Limitless Greed

July 12, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, capitalism, church and state, Civil Rights, Compassion, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Gun Control, Guns, Hate Crimes, Healthcare, immigration, Labor, LGBT, Mass Shooting, Media, Obama, Philosophy, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, Propaganda, protest, Racism, Republican, Shooting, Social Justice, Students, Whiteness America, American Culture, American Revolution, class warfare, Don't Tread on Me, extremism, Far right, freedom, Gadsen Flag, Greed, history, patriotism, Politics, racism, selfishness, Tea Party, United States

Every neighborhood has one.

A yellow flag showing a coiled spring of a snake above the motto, “Don’t Tread on Me.”

In my usually well-manicured suburb, you’ll find it waving bravely over the garbage house.

There’s three broken down RVs sitting on the lawn, a busted sofa in the back yard, a rotten picnic bench and several rusted out vehicles in various states of disrepair.

I’m not sure why the owners think anyone would want to tread on them. We’d much rather walk quickly on by without being seen or commented on.

Because in my experience that’s the thing about most of the people who fly this flag.

They’re indignant about anyone stepping on their rights but all too ready to step all over yours.

I remember it wasn’t really too long ago that this flag had no such connotations.

It was simply the Gadsen flag, a relic of the American Revolution. It was nothing more than a reminder of a time when we cherished our national independence from Great Britain and wanted to make sure they knew we didn’t want the King to come back and start ordering us around.

In fact, it was designed by American general and politician Christopher Gadsden in 1775. This “Sam Adams of South Carolina” modeled his patriotic statement first used by the Continental Marines on an earlier famous cartoon from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.

You’ve probably seen it. A snake is cut into several pieces – each representing one of the colonies – with the motto, “Join or Die.”

So originally it was a call for unity, perhaps even federalism. It was a way of framing the argument that we’d be stronger as one nation than as a group of separate states.

Gadsen’s version was really a continuation of that same thought. It was as if he were saying, “Here we are, one unified nation ready to strike to protect itself from tyranny.”

It wasn’t until 2009 that Gadsen’s flag became associated with the radical right.

Like so many hitherto nonpartisan symbols, it was appropriated by the Tea Party movement, which tried to cast their libertarian extremism as somehow harkening back to the American Revolution.

Even the name Tea Party is a misnomer. The original Boston members of the Sons of Liberty who threw British tea into the harbor in 1773 were protesting taxation without representation. Modern day Tea Partiers were protesting the taxes levied by their own duly elected representatives.

They were poor people duped into thinking the rich paid too much despite the fact of gross income inequality and the wealthy not paying their fair share.

It’s this willful ignorance that typifies the contemporary right.

The truth doesn’t matter. It only matters what can be spun into a pithy sound bite that can be broadcast on Fox News or some other propaganda source and then repeated ad infinitum in place of any real debate or conversation.

To be fair, the left does it, too, but not nearly to the same degree.

When a topic makes the rounds of the 24-hour news cycle, you can hear the same canned responses from right and left on just about every channel regardless of who is speaking. The only difference is that the left usually makes at least passing reference to reality while the right closes its eyes and says whatever it believes to be true with perfect conviction.

The Gadsen flag is a perfect example of this hypocrisy.

The motto “Don’t Tread on Me” has come to mean radical individual freedom.

I can do whatever I like and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I can own as many guns as I like. I can teach my kids whatever facts I like. I can discriminate against anyone I like.

But there’s never a mention about other people except to limit what they can do in relation to the speaker.

In short, there’s nothing explicit about making this rule universal – I won’t tread on you if you won’t tread on me.

It’s just don’t tread on me and I’ll do whatever I like in relation to you.

After all, many of these personal freedoms the radical right cherishes actually do impact the rest of us.

Unregulated gun ownership means more shootings, more suicides, more deadly instances of domestic violence, more kids coming to school with semi-automatic guns in their book bags and more malls and theaters slick with bystander blood.

Moreover, if you teach your kids whatever facts you like, that means you indoctrinate them into your worldview. You don’t give them the chance to see the real world for what it is in case they may have different views on it than you do. This impacts both your children and the country, itself, which will have to somehow run with a greater portion of ignorant and close-minded citizens.

And don’t get me started on discrimination! You think you should be able to say whatever you like to whomever you like whenever you like. It’s fine to wear a t-shirt calling Hillary Clinton a “cunt” but when late night comedian Samantha Bee does the same to Ivanka Trump, you’re up in arms!

You think you can support laws that allow bakers to refuse to make wedding cakes for gay couples but are raving mad when a restaurateur refuses service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders!

This kind of sanctimonious duplicity has real world consequences.

Unarmed black people are shot and killed by police at a much higher rate than white people. Yet you won’t tolerate any protest, condemnation or protest. People can’t assemble in the streets, athletes can’t kneel during the national anthem, you won’t even allow the slogan “Black Lives Matter,” because you say, “All Lives Matter,” while in reality you mean “All Lives Except Black Ones.”

You oppose abortion but no one is forcing anyone to have abortions. In your headlong crusade for individual freedom you want to ensure that others don’t have this choice because they might choose differently than you. Or at least they might choose differently than you SAY you do, because when the light of day is cast upon you, we find an alarming number of hypocrites here, too.

There are too many far right politicians who campaign on overturning Roe v. Wade who pressure their mistresses to abort the unwanted issue of their indiscretion.

The underlying cause of such myopia is a perverse focus only on the self.

You look at what you want for you and pay no attention at all to what others should likewise be allowed.

It is the underlying selfishness of post Enlightenment Western thought come back to haunt us.

Hobbes and Locke and Smith told us that greed was good.

It’s what makes the world go round.

You look to your self-interest, and I’ll look to mine, and that’s what’s best for everyone.

However, they forgot that everyone doesn’t have the same power – physical, social, financial or political. Some people are strong and some are weak. Some are rich and some are poor. If you pull the shortest straw at the lottery of birth, you won’t be able to get the same things for yourself as those who won it as soon as the doctor slapped their newborn bums.

So we have layers and layers of class and economics. We have social structures designed to keep black people here and Hispanics there and white people at the top. We have a society that worships the rich and bedevils the poor. We have belief systems that praise one kind of sexuality only and demonizes anything that diverges from that norm. And the most defining thing of any newborn baby is what you’ll find between its legs.

“Don’t Tread on Me” has become a farce.

It’s a maxim hoisted on those with very little individual power to convince them to join together and become powerful while guarding the door for the wealthy.

They sit atop their mountains of trash as if they were dragons on piles of gold.

And they point their pitchforks at the rest of us as if we wanted a piece of it.

In this way, they make themselves the willing patsies of the ruling class.

It’s a sad thing to behold.

Because if we all just stopped for a second and recognized our common humanity, we’d agree that the status quo is unacceptable.

If we were more concerned about the rights of all than just our own rights, we’d agree that the wealth of this great nation has not been fairly distributed.

The snake is coiled and ready to strike but it is pointed in the wrong direction.

It shouldn’t be pointed at 99% of us. And it shouldn’t be so solitary.

It should be a sea of snakes, a great slithering mass of humanity, hissing and spitting with venom, our reptilian eyes focused on the elites.

Don’t tread on me?

Don’t tread on USSSSSSSSSSS!

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Thank You, Wealthy Robber Barons, for the Freedom to be a Free Rider!

July 2, 2018July 2, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Campaign Donations, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Labor, Politics, privatization, Propaganda, protest, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, School to Prison Pipeline, school vouchers, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, union busting, Unions, Value Added Measures, VAM Betsy DeVos, class warfare, free riders, Janus v. AFSCME, Koch Brothers, labor, Mackinac Center, public schools, teachers, union busting, Union Contract, union dues, workers

Wow! I now have a real choice when it comes to my union!

At least, that’s what the email I got from the Mackinac Center says!

Now that the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the Janus vs. AFSCME case, I don’t have to pay any of my hard earned cash to my union!

I can be a free rider! I can get all the advantages of belonging to a union – higher salary, better benefits, better safety precautions – and I can leave it to the rest of the membership to pay for me!

That’s amazing!

And what’s even more amazing is who is sending this email to me!

I mean the Mackinac Center is funded by Betsy DeVos and her family, the Koch Brothers, Eli Broad, the Scaifes, and the Walton family!

Who would have ever thought some of the richest people in the world would take an interest in my union membership!?

How nice of them!

I’m merely a public school teacher! In my more than a decade in the classroom, they’ve spent billions of dollars to weaken my profession!

They lobbied for education funding nationwide to be gutted so they could get another tax cut!

They invested in charter and voucher schools and then demanded we build more of these privatized institutions with little to no accountability so they could rake in record profits!

They’ve weakened education at schools serving the highest populations of students of color and then benefited when those same kids turned to crime and were incarcerated in their private prisons!

Instead of holding politicians accountable for inequitable funding and instead of supporting teacher autonomy, they forced high stakes standardized testing and Common Core on me and my students!

They demanded my administrators undervalue what I actually do in the classroom but instead evaluate me based on my student test scores – so being given struggling students means I’m somehow a worse teacher than the person across the hall with the honors class!

They did all that but suddenly they’re concerned about my freedom to withhold union dues!?

Well Golly!

Jeepers!

Gee Willikers!

Goodness gracious and bless my soul!

I must have been wrong about these fellers and these ladies all along!

They really DO care about little people like me!

Did you know that a 2011 study by researchers at Harvard and the University of Washington concluded that higher union membership encourages higher pay across the economy!?

It’s true!

They said the decline of unions accounts for as much as one-third of the increase in wage inequality since the 1970s!

According to the Economic Policy Institute, when union membership goes down, the wealthy make more money! Conversely, the more union membership goes up, the less money goes to the wealthy!

And despite all that, the rich are concerned that I have the right to stop paying union dues!

I mean if I stop paying my dues and my fellow working stiffs stop paying their dues, then my union might just have to close up shop!

And that would mean my wages would go down!

But these same rich people who just sent me an email would see their investments go up!

They’d take home sacks of cash! So much money that they’d probably drop some and maybe I might be able to pick up a few pennies they leave on the curb!

Isn’t that great!?

You know public sector employees including firefighters and police, and teachers like me are the largest sector left of the workforce still represented by unions!

According to BLS statistics, 38 percent of public sector employees are represented by unions!

It’s true!

Back in 1945, union membership nationwide was at its highest rate of 33.4%! That means back then about a third of all American workers belonged to a union!

Last year it was down to 10.7 percent!

In the intervening years, manufacturing jobs have declined, blue collar jobs have been outsourced and both political parties have passed laws making it harder to unionize and collectively bargain!

But thank goodness I now have the right to get something for nothing from my union!

That’s going to perk things right up!

Sure, numerous studies have shown that declining union membership is one of the major causes why middle class wages have remained basically flat! But I get to keep a hundred bucks in my pocket so everything’s square!

One thing worries me, though!

I’m not sure many union workers are going to take advantage of this new freedom!

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t agree with everything my union does! No one could say that!

I don’t agree with everything my government does, either, but I still pay taxes!

And I wouldn’t stop paying taxes even if I could! I like being an American citizen, and I like much of what my government provides by way of our military, infrastructure and social programs!

It’s the same with my union!

I mean I LIKE earning higher wages! I LIKE getting better benefits! I LIKE knowing I work in a safe environment!

And when I have a better working environment, my students have a better learning environment!

I doubt many of my co-workers are going to stop paying their dues just because they can!

We’re not stupid! We know that if you want union benefits, you have to pay union dues! The Supreme Court can say whatever it likes! It can’t legislate passed reality!

Moreover, who would want to associate with a co-worker who refuses to pull his or her own weight!?

If I found out one of my colleagues was leaving it to me to pay for both of us, I’d throw a fit! I wouldn’t associate with that person!

If he or she came to my room asking for advice, I’d tell them to get lost! I wouldn’t eat with them at lunch, I wouldn’t chat about their day, I’d give them their walking papers, myself!

Frankly, the social cost would be higher than just paying your union dues!

So thanks anyway, Mackinac Center! Thanks anyway, Charles and David Koch! Thanks anyway, Betsy DeVos!

I’m sticking with my union.

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It’s Not Rude to Refuse Service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It’s the Height of Respect

June 26, 2018 stevenmsinger Accountability, Civil Rights, Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Journalism, Media, nonviolence, Obama, Philosophy, Political Correctness, Politics, Prejudice, President, protest, Racism, Republican, Social Justice Civility, Donald Trump, ethics, Golden Rule, moral, Politics, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, shunning

We’ve all heard the story by now.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went to the Red Hen restaurant and was refused service because she works for the Trump administration.

But while many far right and mainstream media outlets are decrying the restaurateur’s decision as discourteous, they seem to have missed the point.

Discourteous?

It was exactly the opposite.

There was no greater way to show Sanders respect than to deny her service.

After all, she defended the Supreme Court’s recent ruling for a conservative baker’s right to refuse to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.

If Sanders thinks it’s a good thing for this baker to be able to deny service to someone because this potential customer’s lifestyle violates his moral convictions, then she should also support the owner of the Red Hen denying her service because her lifestyle violates the owner’s moral convictions.

And make no mistake – this isn’t a rebuke of Sanders. It’s a celebration.

Twice in the New Testament Jesus, himself, is quoted prescribing what has come to be called The Golden Rule.

In Matthew 7:12:

“Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”

In Luke 6:31:

“Do to others what you would want them to do to you.”

Sanders and other Trump Republicans have done onto others in just this manner. Therefore, that is how they must also want to be treated.

Isn’t that exactly what the owner of the Red Hen did?

She knew Sanders was in favor of business owners refusing service based on their own personal religious convictions.

Sanders life violates the owner’s religious convictions.

Therefore, she should deny Sanders service.

What has Sanders done to violate the owner’s ethical beliefs?

Easy.

No matter what immoral and repulsive position Donald Trump takes, Sanders defends it.

Separating undocumented children from their parents in detention centers – she defended it.

Using a racial slur to describe Sen. Elizabeth Warren – Defended it.

Spreading lies that diversity immigrants are not vetted – backed it up.

Assuring us that Trump has never encouraged or promoted violence – she said it.

Backing up Trump’s absurd assertion that President Obama wiretapped him – she backed it up.

Heck! Covfefe!!!!! COVFEFE! She actually told a roomful of adults that a typo on her boss’s Twitter was a hidden message to supporters!

Lies, racism, blood libel, and outright fascism!

What Sanders does everyday in the White House violates just about everyone’s moral code.

So how should we treat her?

I say, with the utmost respect and dignity.

And if we truly want to give Sander’s beliefs the reverence they deserve, we should deny her service. Reporters should stop attending her press conferences. Cable news programs should stop inviting her on the air. And, yes, no more food at chicken restaurants!

But we shouldn’t stop with her.

We should do the same for every member of the Trump administration. THEY believe this stuff. We should honor their convictions and treat them how they apparently want to be treated.

And why stop there? Every MAGA hat wearing Trumpster you see in your everyday life should likewise be denied service.

When they come into our places of business, our houses of worship, our homes, we should ask them politely to leave.

This isn’t punishment.

It’s the most deferential treatment imaginable.

We are showing them that we honor their moral code of reciprocity and individual freedom.

Those who are calling for “civility” don’t seem to understand that patronizing Trumpsters would be the true mark of disrespect.

If they think it is right to treat others like this, then we should treat them the same way.

That is how you show respect for someone’s beliefs – not by denying their code and treating them by your own.

Now I know what some of you are thinking – Didn’t Jesus also say, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39)?

Yes, he did. And many of US may believe that sentiment, but Trumpsters obviously don’t or else they wouldn’t support the policies they do. Should we really force our beliefs on them? Would that be fair?

I say no. We should treat them by their own code – and refuse them service.

Ah, but I can hear this objection, too – what if treating Trumpsters like this changes their beliefs?

Might attaching social consequences to repugnant political views dissuade people from holding those views?

Perhaps.

But don’t we owe it to these far rightsters to give them that choice?

If being ostracized from society makes them recant their views, then at that point we should stop excluding them. However, this may be exactly the test Trump-servatives are hoping for. Perhaps they want to see which they care more about – being part of a civil society or supporting neo-fascist politics.

The best course is to treat their conviction as serious and to give it the seriousness it deserves.

Doing so treats them as ends in themselves and not merely as a means to social lubrication.

No one wants to rock the boat, but we must.

This is the only truly polite course of action.

You’re welcome, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

You’re welcome, Donald Trump.

Now get outta here.

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Antwon Rose’s Life Matters

June 23, 2018 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Education, Guns, Police, Politics, Prejudice, protest, Racism, Schools, Shooting, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, White Allies, White Privilege Antwon Rose, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, East Pittsburgh, Gun Violence, Michael Rosfeld, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, poetry, police, police brutality, police shootings, schools, teachers, violence against children, Woodland Hills

Antwon Rose could have been my student.

I teach 7^th and 8^th grade language arts in a district located minutes away from where the 17-year-old was shot and killed by police.

East Pittsburgh, the neighborhood where his car was stopped and where he ran from officers before being shot three times in the back, is minutes from my house.

He went to Woodland Hills School District, minutes from my house.

Michael Rosfeld, the officer who just started working at East Pittsburgh less than two hours before he shot and killed Antwon, had been fired with cause from his previous job as a security officer at the University of Pittsburgh, where I got both my graduate and undergraduate degrees and where my wife works.

The poem Antwon wrote about not wanting to become another statistic that was read aloud at a protest was the product of an assignment I give my own classes.

So I say again – he could have been my student.

I have had many children like him.

Most of my kids are like him.

Promising, smart, burdened by fears no teenager should have to face.

When I look at the smiling picture of Antwon released to the media, he looks like so many others I have known and loved.

How many kids have passed before me worried that they’ll be the victims of police violence?

How many kids have sat in those seats trying to concentrate on my work while anxious about the reality of the streets they have to walk just to get home?

How many kids have been afraid that if the worst happens, the rest of us will forget their humanity?

I am a white teacher. I don’t know what it’s like to live as a black person in America except by extension of what my kids and others tell me.

When my daughter goes to school or plays in the yard, I don’t have to worry the police will consider her a threat simply because of the amount of melanin in her skin.

But I do see how white people like me blame a 17-year-old kid for his own death.

If he hadn’t been in that car, he’d still be alive. If he hadn’t run from police, they wouldn’t have shot.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But being in the wrong place at the wrong time shouldn’t bring with it a death sentence. Running away shouldn’t bring with it the finality of the grave.

Yesterday Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide. That’s a good start.

But plenty of questions remain.

Rosfeld is still on unpaid leave. Why hasn’t he been arrested?

Civil rights writer Shaun King reports that when Rosfeld worked at the University of Pittsburgh, he had a history of harassing black students and was only let go after he harassed one of the chancellor’s own children. If true, was that reported to East Pittsburgh before they hired him?

Why is it police can apprehend white shooters with no violence, but when a suspect is black the rules of engagement start and end with bloodshed?

Protests have rocked this city for two days and will continue today.

And I’m glad.

We need answers to those and more questions. We need justice for Antwon.

But more than anything we need to recognize that he was a human being.

He was a little boy with his whole life ahead of him.

His life matters.

I don’t say “mattered” because even though he’s gone, his life still matters.

We can’t bring him back, but we can honor who he was.

We can recognize his common humanity is the same as anyone else’s.

We can give him and his family justice.

And we must – we MUST – make sure that things like this don’t happen again.

I’ve had far too many students die at the end of a gun.

At absolute minimum, the hand holding it shouldn’t belong to someone tasked with the job to serve and protect.

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