Teach for America has a series of global offshoots known as Teach for All, the Friedster breathlessly reports ("I never thought I’d have to come to China for a breath of fresh air." Get it, urban air pollution? Get it?) from "the China-Myanmar border area."
He "could not help but remark to Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America and C.E.O. of Teach for All, that Teach for All is 'the anti-Al Qaeda.'" You see, "since 9/11, I’ve spent so much time writing about people who are breaking things and so little time covering people who are making things."
The day that changed everything, indeed. I'm sure the Teach for Peru participants he mentions have a similar take on things, just opposing Al Qaeda in Peru at every turn, trying to perpetrate the anti-9/11.
"Which is why, concludes Kopp, investing in smart schools and kids pays so many more dividends than smart bombs."
It's pretty easy to get confused, what with the word 'smart' being in both, but stocks that pay dividends tend to grow in value, making them superior to other investment options, such as Al Qaeda, as well as air pollution in China.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Anti-Americanism and NSA Spying
"Anti-Americanism" is a label designed to conceal the issues at stake.
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| (Photo: CLAUDIA HIMMELREICH — McClatchy) |
But one wonders how much portraying Germany's "hostile press" really has to do. As Max Paul Friedman has argued in his book Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations, "anti-Americanism" is a myth designed to make disagreement with U.S. government actions and policies seem like a psychological disorder instead of rational dissent from certain specific actions.
And Berman also confuses the issue by blaming Obama's purported "foreign policy of weakness" for "anti-Americanism." Weakness and strength are beside the point. Notice that anti-Japanese sentiment has grown after Japan has become weaker, while anti-Chinese sentiment has grown while China grows stronger. Rather, it is how a nation is weak or strong and how it treats those outside its borders that determines world opinion toward it. So an economically and politically weak Cuba retains a great deal of influence, while North Korea's massive military strength has brought it virtually no prestige or friendship.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tom Friedman is the Walrus
“Seriously, you’d get a much better feel for Washington politics today by reading ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ than the Federalist Papers.”
Like the time he filibustered to try to shut down the Ottoman system of governance before raiding a village on camelback. (Had to say “Seriously” just to emphasize how similar these things are. Exactly the same, pretty much, except the sandstorms.)
“Let me start by recalling a column I recently wrote from Kansas that noted the parallel between monocultures and polycultures in nature and politics.”
Recycling is good, I guess.
[Then he blabs on for about five paragraphs about horticulture in Kansas {where he was, btw, in person, even though people usually don’t go there, except maybe Kansans, and he has also been to the Middle East to see lotuses and Lexuses, on multiple occasions more than once and met real Arab Muslim people}.]
“It’s striking how much the Tea Party wing of the G.O.P. has adopted the tactics of the P.O.G. – ‘Party of God’ – better known as Hezbollah.”
For instance, playing pogs around the campfire after a good jihad. Also, the higher education wing of the U.K. has adopted the strategy of K.U. – better known as Kuwait University. Let that sink in and then consider the implications.
[Blah, blah, Tea Party is just like Hezbollah, blowing things up and getting blown up by Israel, except not exactly like Hezbollah because they’re not technically terrorists, but let’s throw in Ted Cruz’s name now so no one notices how dumb the analogy is. Two minute hate.]
These people are employed, as writers, right now.
Yes, the writing is atrocious. But what's really problematic is the way these liberal opinionistas brand any viewpoint outside their own narrow imagination as radical and terroristic. By accusing their opponents of being nihilistic or Islamist, they are using crude metaphors to do the work that should be done by actual arguments.
These metaphors rely upon social signals, namely the notion that "those people" of the Tea Party have nothing in common with us wealthy, enlightened Manhattanites. Despite his conversations with CEOs on golf courses all around the world, Friedman has to get out more. Maybe next time he's in Kansas he can talk to more people than plants.
These metaphors rely upon social signals, namely the notion that "those people" of the Tea Party have nothing in common with us wealthy, enlightened Manhattanites. Despite his conversations with CEOs on golf courses all around the world, Friedman has to get out more. Maybe next time he's in Kansas he can talk to more people than plants.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Tea Party Justice
(Other) people (who I don't know) should be punished for their shortcomings (about which I know nothing).
In the wake of the 2013 U.S. government shutdown and a narrowly averted default on federal debt, many commentators have tried to explain the apparently irrational actions of politicians associated with the Tea Party movement. In light of the fruitlessness of these actions and the potentially catastrophic implications of a default, it does seem worthwhile to explain what motivates Tea Party rage, especially regarding the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As someone who isn't particularly attached to that legislation, I still find it frightening just how disproportionate the anger toward it is.
Quite a few observers have claimed that the Tea Party is motivated by nihilism. The Big Lebowski aside, this isn't much of an explanation. Other than some fringe groups of Russians and Germans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nihilism hasn't typically actually inspired any significant collective action.
Another theory is that the fear of a black president has tapped into deep reservoirs of anti-black hatred in the U.S. There is something to that, since for roughly 450 of the 500 years since North America was settled by non-Natives there has been some form or another of open hostility toward people with any known African ancestry. Given the kind of unintelligible rage inspired by the relatively moderate policies and measured and calm personality of Obama (in comparison to the reprehensible personal life of Clinton and the flippant rhetoric of Dubya), there might be something to this. In particular, the Affordable Care Act, supposedly a socialist and un-American plot, is rooted in the ideas of conservative and Republican think-tanks and politicians. (Anyone ignorant enough to think of the ACA as socialist is welcome to sign up for the public option--oh yeah, there is none).
So what really motivates the Tea Party? They are largely motivated by the idea that bad and lazy people should be punished. This principle of retributive justice is fairly widely held in the U.S. But the Tea Party conveniently feeds off the idea that someone, somewhere out there is undeserving of healthcare, food, and housing, as Mitt Romney put it. Of course, no one can name 47% percent of the people they know as part of this category, but the factual issue is beside the point. More important is the moral aspect: There is a moral disagreement between the notion that people ought to suffer for (alleged) wrongdoing and the notion that people should not be allowed to suffer if that is at all possible. For the most part, the Tea Party buys into the notion of retributive justice: Doing right should be rewarded proportionately, while doing wrong should be punished proportionately.
Of course, one might think, isn't that just what morality is? There are some serious problems with this approach, though. For one thing, who could possibly sort out the deserving from the undeserving to know who should and who shouldn't be allowed to starve/go homeless/die without medical care? An obvious answer is that this can be privately worked out by churches, employers, family members, etc. As Corey Robin has pointed out, since 1789 or so conservative ideology has been more interested in preserving private hierarchies than in preserving public ones. In other words, relying on such entities as employers to determine who should be given food, healthcare, and housing amounts to reliance on a largely unaccountable private tyranny. There is the mythology of the best and hardest working rising to the top, but that ignores the countless times when that doesn't happen. More than that, though, it allows the other 90% to potentially fall through the cracks of society. (As for churches and charities, go ask them if they are both able and willing to pay for the rent, grocery bills, and health insurance of even 10 families in need. Didn't think so.)
Moreover, there is something horribly wrong with a moral outlook that allows for people starving, going involuntarily homeless, or lacking needed medical care simply on the basis of (again, alleged) moral failure. Even if we could identify those who deserve to be poor, that fate is one that no one deserves unless incredible scarcity exists. Such scarcity obviously does not exist. What remains is a decision about the (plausible) mechanism used to eliminate poverty in a society. But that assumes that one views poverty as an unmitigated evil. For many Tea Party members, it may be that poverty is a good thing insofar as it properly disciplines the workforce and forces people to accept their just deserts. Other people, that is. (Keep your government hands of my Medicare, etc.)
[Update: Paul Krugman says something similar.]
In the wake of the 2013 U.S. government shutdown and a narrowly averted default on federal debt, many commentators have tried to explain the apparently irrational actions of politicians associated with the Tea Party movement. In light of the fruitlessness of these actions and the potentially catastrophic implications of a default, it does seem worthwhile to explain what motivates Tea Party rage, especially regarding the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As someone who isn't particularly attached to that legislation, I still find it frightening just how disproportionate the anger toward it is.
Quite a few observers have claimed that the Tea Party is motivated by nihilism. The Big Lebowski aside, this isn't much of an explanation. Other than some fringe groups of Russians and Germans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nihilism hasn't typically actually inspired any significant collective action.
Another theory is that the fear of a black president has tapped into deep reservoirs of anti-black hatred in the U.S. There is something to that, since for roughly 450 of the 500 years since North America was settled by non-Natives there has been some form or another of open hostility toward people with any known African ancestry. Given the kind of unintelligible rage inspired by the relatively moderate policies and measured and calm personality of Obama (in comparison to the reprehensible personal life of Clinton and the flippant rhetoric of Dubya), there might be something to this. In particular, the Affordable Care Act, supposedly a socialist and un-American plot, is rooted in the ideas of conservative and Republican think-tanks and politicians. (Anyone ignorant enough to think of the ACA as socialist is welcome to sign up for the public option--oh yeah, there is none).
So what really motivates the Tea Party? They are largely motivated by the idea that bad and lazy people should be punished. This principle of retributive justice is fairly widely held in the U.S. But the Tea Party conveniently feeds off the idea that someone, somewhere out there is undeserving of healthcare, food, and housing, as Mitt Romney put it. Of course, no one can name 47% percent of the people they know as part of this category, but the factual issue is beside the point. More important is the moral aspect: There is a moral disagreement between the notion that people ought to suffer for (alleged) wrongdoing and the notion that people should not be allowed to suffer if that is at all possible. For the most part, the Tea Party buys into the notion of retributive justice: Doing right should be rewarded proportionately, while doing wrong should be punished proportionately.
Of course, one might think, isn't that just what morality is? There are some serious problems with this approach, though. For one thing, who could possibly sort out the deserving from the undeserving to know who should and who shouldn't be allowed to starve/go homeless/die without medical care? An obvious answer is that this can be privately worked out by churches, employers, family members, etc. As Corey Robin has pointed out, since 1789 or so conservative ideology has been more interested in preserving private hierarchies than in preserving public ones. In other words, relying on such entities as employers to determine who should be given food, healthcare, and housing amounts to reliance on a largely unaccountable private tyranny. There is the mythology of the best and hardest working rising to the top, but that ignores the countless times when that doesn't happen. More than that, though, it allows the other 90% to potentially fall through the cracks of society. (As for churches and charities, go ask them if they are both able and willing to pay for the rent, grocery bills, and health insurance of even 10 families in need. Didn't think so.)
Moreover, there is something horribly wrong with a moral outlook that allows for people starving, going involuntarily homeless, or lacking needed medical care simply on the basis of (again, alleged) moral failure. Even if we could identify those who deserve to be poor, that fate is one that no one deserves unless incredible scarcity exists. Such scarcity obviously does not exist. What remains is a decision about the (plausible) mechanism used to eliminate poverty in a society. But that assumes that one views poverty as an unmitigated evil. For many Tea Party members, it may be that poverty is a good thing insofar as it properly disciplines the workforce and forces people to accept their just deserts. Other people, that is. (Keep your government hands of my Medicare, etc.)
[Update: Paul Krugman says something similar.]
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Don't Put Children First
Putting children before teachers undermines all of us, including children.
In recent years conversations about education in the United States have revolved around reform: Something is wrong with our schools, we are told. We've let the interests of teachers' unions rather than the needs of students dictate education policy. What we really need to do, the story goes, is put the needs of children first. This, in turn, translates into calls for increased reliance on standardized testing, school privatization, competition between schools, and a lessening of the power held by teachers' unions. For an overview of problems with this approach, see Diane Ravitch's recent writing. Among other things, Ravitch points out that U.S. test scores and graduation rates have actually risen over the past few decades, while differences in student performance correspond closely to parents' income levels.
Opponents of so-called school reform (such as Ravitch) typically argue that, at the end of the day, privatization and purported accountability measures are not what's really best for children. This may have some value as a public relations approach (especially when teachers feel that they have been publicly maligned), but it's an approach that cedes a lot of ground. Really, the rest of us have to stand with teachers, with whom we have shared interests.
One of the biggest falsehoods behind the notion of putting children first is the idea that education inherently leads to better economic outcomes, for both individuals and nations. So it is assumed that better education will almost automatically lead to both national economic prosperity and a path out of poverty for low-income students. On a national level, this is false in that economic prosperity typically paves the way for better educational outcomes (as in Massachusetts or Singapore), while other areas (such as Palestine) have excellent educational opportunities but nothing to show for it economically. Clearly, social and other structural factors have a lot more say in things than whether students have learned calculus, although basic literacy is a prerequisite for most economic development.
On an individual level, one can point to the plight of adjunct university and college faculty members in the U.S., who typically live in poverty and without steady workloads. These are a substantial portion of the most well-educated people in the world, but demand for their labor has fallen drastically for reasons outside their control. More broadly, we have to realize that not everyone in a society is going to be able to work in a high-wage field, not simply because of aptitudes, but also because there isn't sufficient demand for lawyers or engineers while there is a great deal of demand for home care workers (who weren't even covered by U.S. minimum wage laws until this year) and cashiers. Higher levels of education will substantially aid employers, but not labor, who will face increased job market competition and still-stagnant or falling wages, unless wages for all fields rise. To assume that one's survival will depend on a combination of educational attainment and unusual job market success is to consign most people in a society to poverty. That is the future under an approach that assumes that better education will necessarily lead to more wealth for individuals.
But what does this have to do with teachers? Things are getting bad for the U.S. middle class. Among other things, teachers in Chicago are being laid off and replaced by low-wage college graduates who are typically just using a stint in teaching as a resume builder before going on to high status jobs in fields like law and politics. That's not what the Teach For America (TFA) program has been everywhere, but it is what it is becoming. And the thing is, teachers in Chicago are yesterday's students. Their children are today's students. It does not better students' lives to undermine the very jobs that their parents depend on and that they themselves might one day fill. Should issues such as teachers' pensions be renegotiated? Possibly, but not at the cost of turning teaching into yet another low-wage (former) profession. Such an approach runs counter to the marked success of highly professionalized and well-paid teachers in Finland (and, to a lesser extent, in Massachusetts). If anything, recruitment of highly-qualified long-term teachers for the future (not short-term TFA teachers) is necessary, but such an effort is undermined when the job status of current teachers is degraded.
But what about all the bad teachers out there? First of all, U.S. surveys show that the general public, including parents of schoolchildren, highly rates local schools and teachers, while believing that somewhere out there there are utterly terrible teachers who must be fired. Obviously, any profession has some less-qualified members, but public opinion suggests that belief that there are many bad teachers out there comes mostly from hearsay (or propaganda). So who are these imaginary bad teachers? Without hard research, it might be safe to guess that they are disproportionately female, older, and black or Hispanic. In other words, the same groups consistently vilified in U.S. class warfare conducted by the likes of hedge fund managers, who contribute a lot (of commentary and inflated prices due to speculation and automated trading, as well as excessive fees) to society. Rhetorical attacks against teachers are a key aspect of a divide-and-conquer strategy against the livelihood of all middle and working class citizens.
Are there forces in society that don't support the interests of children, especially low-income children? Yes, but teachers are not usually among them. At the end of the day, the interests of children and the interests of teachers are closely aligned, because both would benefit from a society that ended poverty and treated workers decently.
In recent years conversations about education in the United States have revolved around reform: Something is wrong with our schools, we are told. We've let the interests of teachers' unions rather than the needs of students dictate education policy. What we really need to do, the story goes, is put the needs of children first. This, in turn, translates into calls for increased reliance on standardized testing, school privatization, competition between schools, and a lessening of the power held by teachers' unions. For an overview of problems with this approach, see Diane Ravitch's recent writing. Among other things, Ravitch points out that U.S. test scores and graduation rates have actually risen over the past few decades, while differences in student performance correspond closely to parents' income levels.
Opponents of so-called school reform (such as Ravitch) typically argue that, at the end of the day, privatization and purported accountability measures are not what's really best for children. This may have some value as a public relations approach (especially when teachers feel that they have been publicly maligned), but it's an approach that cedes a lot of ground. Really, the rest of us have to stand with teachers, with whom we have shared interests.
One of the biggest falsehoods behind the notion of putting children first is the idea that education inherently leads to better economic outcomes, for both individuals and nations. So it is assumed that better education will almost automatically lead to both national economic prosperity and a path out of poverty for low-income students. On a national level, this is false in that economic prosperity typically paves the way for better educational outcomes (as in Massachusetts or Singapore), while other areas (such as Palestine) have excellent educational opportunities but nothing to show for it economically. Clearly, social and other structural factors have a lot more say in things than whether students have learned calculus, although basic literacy is a prerequisite for most economic development.
On an individual level, one can point to the plight of adjunct university and college faculty members in the U.S., who typically live in poverty and without steady workloads. These are a substantial portion of the most well-educated people in the world, but demand for their labor has fallen drastically for reasons outside their control. More broadly, we have to realize that not everyone in a society is going to be able to work in a high-wage field, not simply because of aptitudes, but also because there isn't sufficient demand for lawyers or engineers while there is a great deal of demand for home care workers (who weren't even covered by U.S. minimum wage laws until this year) and cashiers. Higher levels of education will substantially aid employers, but not labor, who will face increased job market competition and still-stagnant or falling wages, unless wages for all fields rise. To assume that one's survival will depend on a combination of educational attainment and unusual job market success is to consign most people in a society to poverty. That is the future under an approach that assumes that better education will necessarily lead to more wealth for individuals.
But what does this have to do with teachers? Things are getting bad for the U.S. middle class. Among other things, teachers in Chicago are being laid off and replaced by low-wage college graduates who are typically just using a stint in teaching as a resume builder before going on to high status jobs in fields like law and politics. That's not what the Teach For America (TFA) program has been everywhere, but it is what it is becoming. And the thing is, teachers in Chicago are yesterday's students. Their children are today's students. It does not better students' lives to undermine the very jobs that their parents depend on and that they themselves might one day fill. Should issues such as teachers' pensions be renegotiated? Possibly, but not at the cost of turning teaching into yet another low-wage (former) profession. Such an approach runs counter to the marked success of highly professionalized and well-paid teachers in Finland (and, to a lesser extent, in Massachusetts). If anything, recruitment of highly-qualified long-term teachers for the future (not short-term TFA teachers) is necessary, but such an effort is undermined when the job status of current teachers is degraded.
But what about all the bad teachers out there? First of all, U.S. surveys show that the general public, including parents of schoolchildren, highly rates local schools and teachers, while believing that somewhere out there there are utterly terrible teachers who must be fired. Obviously, any profession has some less-qualified members, but public opinion suggests that belief that there are many bad teachers out there comes mostly from hearsay (or propaganda). So who are these imaginary bad teachers? Without hard research, it might be safe to guess that they are disproportionately female, older, and black or Hispanic. In other words, the same groups consistently vilified in U.S. class warfare conducted by the likes of hedge fund managers, who contribute a lot (of commentary and inflated prices due to speculation and automated trading, as well as excessive fees) to society. Rhetorical attacks against teachers are a key aspect of a divide-and-conquer strategy against the livelihood of all middle and working class citizens.
Are there forces in society that don't support the interests of children, especially low-income children? Yes, but teachers are not usually among them. At the end of the day, the interests of children and the interests of teachers are closely aligned, because both would benefit from a society that ended poverty and treated workers decently.
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