From The Mouths Of Babes... And Noam Chomsky

I was just watching a giant L.A. school district walk-out on TV, tens of thousands of students protesting Trump's odd and very questionable ascension to the presidency. L.A. students I've spoken with are worried about Trump's intolerance, xenophobia, racism, misogyny and homophobia and how that mindset may manifest itself as part of a policy agenda sure to be rubber-stamped for the next 2 years by a Republican Congress. But the other topic I heard from the majority of students I spoke with in the last week was Climate Change. These young people take it a lot more seriously than my older friends do. As Noam Chomsky pointed out in an interview Monday, there was something at least as consequential as Trump's election last week. On the same day "the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered a report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco (COP22) which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreement of COP21. The WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on record. It reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of the unexpectedly rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge Antarctic glaciers. Already, Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 28 percent below the average of the previous 29 years, not only raising sea levels, but also reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection of solar rays, thereby accelerating the grim effects of global warming. The WMO reported further that temperatures are approaching dangerously close to the goal established by COP21, along with other dire reports and forecasts... [the same day that] the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government-- executive, Congress, the Supreme Court-- in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history... The Party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for such a stand."

My friends in their 40s and 50s often say, half in jest, "we'll be dead before the catastrophe comes." These students in their teens and twenties won't be.

Teaching Tolerance, a nonpartisan organization under the umbrella of the Southern Poverty Law Center, neither endorses political candidates nor engages in electioneering activities. They put out a study last spring asking something like 2,000 teachers how the presidential campaign was affecting their students and their teaching, something they called The Trump Effect:The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation’s Schools.

The results indicated that the campaign is having a profoundly negative impact on schoolchildren across the country, producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported. Many educators fear teaching about the election at all. Teachers also reported an increase in the bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates.

“We’re deeply concerned about the level of fear among minority children who feel threatened by both the incendiary campaign rhetoric and the bullying they’re encountering in school,” said Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen. “We’ve seen Donald Trump behave like a 12-year-old, and now we’re seeing 12-year-olds behave like Donald Trump.”

The online survey was not scientific, but it provides a rich source of information about the impact of this year’s election on the country’s classrooms. The data, including 5,000 comments from educators, shows a disturbing nationwide problem, one that is particularly acute in schools with high concentrations of minority children.

• More than two-thirds of the teachers reported that students-- mainly immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslims-- have expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election.
• More than half have seen an increase in uncivil political discourse.
• More than third have observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment.
• More than 40 percent are hesitant to teach about the election.

While the survey did not identify candidates, more than 1,000 comments mentioned Donald Trump by name. In contrast, a total of fewer than 200 contained the names Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. More than 500 comments contained the words fear, scared, afraid, anxious or terrified to describe the campaign’s impact on minority students.

Educators, meanwhile, are perplexed and conflicted about what to do. They report being stymied by the need to remain nonpartisan but disturbed by the anxiety in their classrooms and the lessons that children may be absorbing from this campaign.

“Schools are finding that their anti-bullying work is being tested and, in many places, falling apart,” said Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello, author of the report. “Most teachers seem to feel they need to make a choice between teaching about the election or protecting their kids. In elementary schools, half have decided to avoid it. In middle and high schools, we’re seeing more who have decided, for the first time, not to be neutral.”

The long-term impact on children’s well-being, their behavior or their civic education is impossible to gauge. Some teachers report that their students are highly engaged and interested in the political process this year. Others worry that the election is making them “less trusting of government” or “hostile to opposing points of view,” or that children are “losing respect for the political process.”

They may have something else to worry about that wasn't talked about all that much during the campaign-- the antipathy many of the people around Trump feel towards public education. As Rudy Giuliani crowed to the NY Post on Monday, Trump is going to be the best thing that ever happened for the charter school movement. "We’ve spoken about it. Donald is going to create incentives for that promote and open more charter schools. It’s a priority," said Giuliani, a longtime charter school advocate.

During the campaign, Trump proposed a $20 billion federal block grant for states to use to provide school choice to 11 million students living in poverty.

“As your President, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice. I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom-- the civil right-- to attend the school of their choice,’’ Trump vowed in September.

Trump’s plan would redirect money from the federal budget to create the $20 billion school choice block grant.

“Distribution of this grant will favor states that have private school choice, magnet schools and charter laws, encouraging them to participate,” Trump said during the campaign. “Each state will develop its own formula, but we want the dollars to follow the student.

“This $20 billion will instantly extend choice to millions more students.”

Trump will have a Republican-controlled Congress [very hostile to public education] to push through the school choice plan.

Charter school advocates are giddy. Trump will clearly be much more supportive of charter schools than Hillary Clinton.

One of Clinton’s earliest backers was national teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten. Following the teacher union endorsements, Clinton was muted on her support of charters and even parroted union talking points that the alternative, mostly non-union schools serve fewer needier students than traditional public schools.

Trump won’t be beholden to the unions, charter advocates said.

“We think Trump will be great on charters. We have made tremendous progress bringing real school choice to families who can’t afford private schools or fancy neighborhoods. We think the new president will continue and accelerate that,” said Jessica Mokhiber, spokeswoman for the Northeast Charter Schools Network.

“Interestingly, it’s an issue where the new President and Governor Cuomo share common ground. Just this year, the Governor, the Republican Senate, and Democratic Assembly doubled the amount of money in the budget for charter funding. We’re very optimistic that this kind of bipartisan support will continue.”

About yesterday's terrorist events in Overland Park: We're all in Kansas, Toto

The Overland Park alleged perp is, alas, only too well-known to hate-terrorist trackers like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

by Ken

When Howie e-mailed this morning asking if I had any interest in "doing anything on the KKK guy who murdered the 3 in Kansas," my first thought was:

I had some flash of a thought about it this morning while I was reading about it. I forget what the thought was, but maybe it'll come back to me. (More interesting, I hope, than "Oh God, not this again.") I know that before I knew what had happened, I'd read an e-mail from the 92nd Street Y referring to it in announcing new amped-up security procedures there, which I'm pretty sure I saved for just this possible use.

The 92nd Street Y, for those who don't know, is one of NYC's cherished institutions (140 years old, as you'll note below) -- a cultural center (home to some of the city's most interesting concerts and lectures); fitness center; children's, teens', and adults' education center, and Jewish community center. Just as a "for instance," off the top of my head I recall writing about a tribute to my idol James Thurber moderated by Keith Olbermann, with guests including longtime New Yorker reporter and humorist Calvin Trillin, New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and Thurber's publicity-averse daughter Rosemary, held at the 92nd Street Y ("At the 92nd Street Y Thurber 'do,' Keith O gives a virtuoso performance," June 2011).

Here's the e-mail from "92Y," as the 92nd Street YM-YWHA likes to style itself in even shorter-hand:

To our 92Y Community,


We wanted you to be aware that you will notice extra security presence at 92Y following the tragic events at the Overland Park Jewish Community Center and the Village Shalom assisted living center outside Kansas City. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire community there. 


Please know that Kevin Green, our director of security, is in touch with our law enforcement and homeland security partners and will issue additional updates as information becomes available.


As always, our goal is to provide an environment at 92Y that is welcoming, safe and secure. You can continue to help us do that by showing your identification to our security staff every time you enter the building, and asking your caregivers to do the same when they enter the building with your children. 
We also ask that you remain vigilant, and always report any suspicious activity to law enforcement immediately.


Please do not hesitate to contact any of us at any time if you have questions or concerns you would like to share.

Henry Timms

Interim Executive Director


Kevin P. Green
Director of Security
NYPD Lieut. (ret.)

Naturally the Right-Wing Noise Machine will clam up behind the denial that its followers have anything to do with this sort of violence, though it should be pretty clear to anyone with eyes that it's basically a full-bodied response to the ideology of Hate of the Other that is at the heart of 21st-century American conservatism. A colleague recalls that "just two years ago another noted white supremacist took the lives of seven Americans at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin" and notes "how the right-wing media had freaked out when a DHS report was declassified detailing potential increase in right-wing extremism in early years of this presidency."

I think we all remember how not just the RWNM but the media generally suffered such a drop in interest or at least intensity level at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing when it turned out that the perpetrators weren't Muslim extremists but good old-fashioned home-grown American right-wing terrorists. And I suppose it can be argued that with a mere three victims shot dead, this episode barely qualifies for conversation by present-day gun-violence standards, and considering that apparently none of the victims were Jewish, how can it stand as a cautionary tale of standing American anti-Semitism? (Partial answer: It reminds us that right-wing blowhards aren't just violent but stupid.)

By coincidence, the weekend before last I paid my first-ever visit to the heart of Lubavitcher Chassidic country, in Brooklyn's Crown Heights South, on a pre-Passover outing organized by Justin Ferate as the first of the spring "Wolfe Walkers" walks, and Rabbi Beryl Epstein, of the Chassidic Discovery Center, our remarkable tour guide (tours are given Sunday through Friday mornings as part of the Lubavitchers' eager outreach to the outside Jewish and non-Jewish world) gave the best explanation I've heard of the often-remarked-upon inward turning of Chassidic communities. The Chassidic movement, he reminded us, was born Eastern Europe in 18th-century, a time when about all that Jewish communities could expect from the outside world was bellicosity that too easily encompassed violence, often of the sweepingly deadly kind.

As Juan Cole reminds us, "US Press Once Again Declines to Call White Terrorism in Kansas, Nevada, White Terrorism, referring back to his own August 2012 post "Top Ten differences between White Terrorists and Others." Myself, I'm less concerned about whether the shootings are tried as a "hate crime" (I have no problem with trial and punishment for three murders, but apparently yes) than that for once some significant attention be focused on the cancer flourishing in the supposed heartland of America, increasingly in the grip of the right-wing culture of hate and violence.

#

"Hate Group" Designation Angers Hate Groups

Tony Perkins-- Good actor/bad actor

-by Noah

Earlier this week, I happened across an article from The Washington Post titled "Hate Group Designation Angers Same-Sex Marriage Opponents." It seems that some hate groups aren’t comfortable with their recent designation as hate groups by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Gee. Ain’t that just a whole lot of too damn bad.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a major Civil Rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama defines itself as a non-profit civil rights organization that is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry towards the vulnerable in our society. It monitors and tracks hate groups, militias, white supremacists, and other extremists. The SPLC started up in 1971 and they define hate groups as those who have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people. The SPLC issued its newest report on the haters just in time for Thanksgiving.

Chief among the included and affronted was The Family Research Council. The SPLC accuses the council of putting out “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.” Peter Sprigg, who calls himself a “senior fellow for policy studies” at the FRC, recently went so far as to state, proudly no doubt, that he thinks “homosexual behavior” should be outlawed. Council President Tony Perkins (no blood relation to the guy from Psycho), clearly resenting the designation called the designation a political attack by “a liberal organization.” There it is again. Imagine what the flies on the walls heard: Damn liberals! Always fighting for peoples’ rights! Next thing ya know, they’ll be allowing gay people to vote! Oh, wait! They do! This is terrible! The sky is falling! My marriage is being threatened!

Perkins’ hissy fit statement droned on:

“The left’s smear campaign of conservatives is… being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state… that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so.”

These guys are soooo touchy; like schoolyard bullies. Every sign of human decency is “radical” to them, but, when you stand up to them, they start to whine and cry. Gee Tony. Sorry to ruin your holiday weekend as you and your faux Christian group of mental misfits would do to others. You dedicate your whole life, your whole being to causing misery for others and then you whine when someone calls you on it. How dare they! Burn in your Crypto-Christian Hell, Tony.

I wish President Obama and the rest of the Democrats would learn this: It’s time to call these Republican nutbags out loudly and reveal them for what they are once and for all. For instance, I think the about-to-be House Speaker, John Boehner, is so tightly wrapped that he could be reduced to a sobbing, wailing, puddle quite easily. We’ve seen the evidence. He’d have to be carried away to a padded cell where he belongs. Put him in a cell next to one that says Bachmann on the door, just down the hall from one that says Jabba the Limbaugh. Throw it right back in their faces like the editor of Motor Trend Magazine did earlier this week when Limbaugh went all wackadoodle over their calling GM’s Chevy Volt the Car Of The Year; seeing something good as a threat. "Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don't mix."

Tony Perkins, like the rest of the Repugs, keeps referring to the midterm election results as if they were some sort of mandate for their various and sundry perversions. They will continue to do so until they are called out. The Dems need to do some research on these hideous gasbags and find out what pushes their buttons. Then, push away, with extreme prejudice. Most Republicans are so far gone down the road to blithering nutbagville why not speed them on their way to their final destination and be done with them? Give them the treatment that matches what they dole out. Smack ‘em upside the mind and make ‘em cry for mommy. The Post’s article goes on to quote gay rights advocate Dan Savage as saying on CNN:

“… [W]e need a cultural reckoning around gay and lesbian issues. There was once two sides to the race debate. There was once a side you could go on television and argue for segregation, you could argue against interracial marriage, against the Civil Rights Act, against extending voting rights to African Americans, and that used to be treated as one side… of a pressing national debate, and it isn’t anymore. And we really need to reach that point with gay and lesbian issues. There are no ‘two sides’ to the issues about gay and lesbian rights."

Savage is right, of course, and just as good people stood up to pro-segregation bullies decades ago when the SPLC was just getting started, good people need to stand up now. Tolerating the incessant hate of Neanderthal groups like the Family Research Council only serves to impede social progress, and, yes, social justice. If Republicans don’t like it, make them eat it.

Brian Brown, President of another merry band of homophobes, the ironically named National Organization For Marriage, also griped about the inclusion of his group in the SPLC’s new report:

“This is about protecting marriage… The whole idea that somehow those folks who stand up for traditional marriage, like the Family Research Council, are hateful is wrong. [The Law Center is] trying to marginalize and intimidate folks for standing up for marriage and also trying to equate them somehow to the KKK is wrong.”

Yeah Brownie. Heckuva job. And your point is? You see, I’ve been married to the same woman for 28 years and I know you’ll be appalled to learn that we lived together without a piece of paper for many years before that. In that time, I have known and worked with and for some very fine gay people. I even know some who are married to other gay people, great gay people. At no time in all that time, have I ever felt that my marriage was threatened by what you fear and what most of us would call the real world. Get over it. What is it about YOUR marriage that makes you feel threatened?