Campbell's Law

No, not this Campbell.

Campbell’s law


by Sharon Nichols and David Berliner entitled Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools, which demonstrates the accuracy of what those in social science research know as Campbell's Law:

"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

Also see:
Accountability Frankenstein: Understanding and Taming the Monster (PB) (Paperback)
by Sherman Dorn

Intellectual Freedom

Where else better to celebrate the opportunity to exercise intellectual freedom than in a country that exemplifies the best that any liberal democracy can offer? And, furthermore, using the venue of a tax-funded public library. For we love our public libraries and use them well - their inventory of publications on any conceivable subject - the better to further our ongoing education outside the world of academia.

And, in Canada, in the city of Vancouver in the province of British Columbia, national Freedom To Read Week is being celebrated in a very special way. It would appear that the library board, or the chief librarian, has a very special speaking treat in store for Vancouverites. For the library's choice as featured author for this acclaim-for-literature week happens to be a man known as an Anti-Semite of the first order.

Author of countless articles detailing the usual Jewish conspiracy claims, and going even further, to invite his readers to believe that Zionists manufactured al-Qaeda, a mere sub-plot to a larger Jewish plot to subvert the U.S. Constitution, and in the process handily target Muslims for mass murder, ostensibly in revenge for horrific assaults against the West that they were not guilty of; framed by the Jewish conspiracy.

Moreover, this same highly esteemed writer, Greg Felton, has also revealed that Zionists encouraged Nazi Germany to exterminate Europe's Jewish population; in fact aided and assisted in incinerating their brethren. Thereby neatly exonerating all the world's enablers of responsibility in the event and the extent of the Holocaust. Which was, in all likelihood, a shield beyond which the greater drama of Jewish world domination was playing out.

Where, one might ask, would this man be more welcome, more celebrated than in Iran, which also espouses that very same line of incendiary slander? Well, on the face of it, in Vancouver, too. This man's writing appears in the Tehran Times - now isn't that a surprise? - along with other newspapers in the Arab world. Where, just incidentally, not just anyone has the freedom to write what they think; where, just incidentally, press censorship is reality.

And now, this much-published writer can also be seen and heard - live! - in Vancouver. Some ingrates - most likely Jews themselves - have sought to reason with the good people at the Vancouver Public Library who appear to value - despite protests - their public relations coup in bringing the author of "The Host and the Parasite: How Israel's Fifth Column Consumed America", to public appreciation.

The chief librarian, Paul Whitney, claims, loftily, that in the spirit of free discourse and the exchange of ideas, this is merely a matter of "intellectual freedom".

How like the Jews to take things out of context, to make things so personal.

Transformation: CBC to Al Jazeera

How about that, a nice Jewish boy has finally made it. To the big time. Just where he deserves to be. His grandfather, David Lewis, was a good and a just man. A proud Jew, a proud Canadian, a disciplined politician; a practical-minded, socially aware human being.

His father, hmmm, Stephen Lewis, born with a silver spoon, but raised on Socialist gruel. Attending a public school like any other normal kid, but transcending normal, chauffeur-driven to and from.

Avi has moved beyond kvetching Judaism. He's one of those self-loathers; his Jewish heritage is such a drag. Now that other heritage, socialist devotion to a better world for everyone - it too has been transformed, has become another kind of left-wing ideology, the kind that sees companionship in understanding between fascism and the far left; truly two of a kind.

Avi has become what one radical communist touted as a class warrior. "Whoever cries out against Jewish capitalists is already a class warrior, even when he does not know it... Kick down the Jewish capitalists, hang them from the lampposts and stamp upon them."

In lieu of Jewish capitalists, Avi has carefully selected Americans, the U.S. Its society, culture, politics. And he sincerely hangs them from the lampposts of his scornful dismissal, believing them to be the scourge of the earth. But there's a place for Jewish identity and Jewish politics and Jewish loathing in all of this; just opt to perform as a spokesman for the very source of anti-Semitic enablement.

Now he's taking up a post in that very den of social/political iniquity. To report on their unfortunate excesses against humanity so all may read and take umbrage along with Avi Lewis. His audience will be wide, and for this he is most appreciative. His audience will range from the English-speaking world, to translation for the Arab-speaking world.

Because he is a Jew, speaking not as a Jew - although his audience does not recognize this - but as a radical leftist, his words will be received well.

In the Arab world he will be perceived as a triumphant discovery, yet another Jew anxiously willing to sell out his ancestry for a pottage of fame. Mind, it is infamy he brings on his grandfather's name. But he learned his grandstanding aptitude well, patterning himself effortlessly after his father's style. Concern for humankind? So they insist.

Like most radicals, the background is one of privilege, and all patricians know they must defer to the masses, that great proletariat for whom they deign to speak. Railing, in the process, against the very privilege that gave them the opportunities they chose to spurn. Representing themselves as one with the people whom they purport to serve.

And let's face it, he just wasn't getting anywhere fast with the CBC. That once-proud Canadian institution since become drearily irrelevant, just as it slid irrevocably into the same leftist trend that Avi Lewis now exemplifies. That same social democratic left-turned infrastructure that lauds the unprivileged Palestinians's struggle against the oppressive Israeli military might.

One doubts he will be missed by his CBC audience, let alone the CBC network, which appears to have struggled with the difficulty of sufficiently recognizing their erstwhile host's talents. In an interview, Mr. Lewis appears to have spoken most disdainfully of the lacks apparent in the CBC structure, as opposed to the "resource-rich" work environment of Al Jazeera.

He denies Al Jazeera's reputation as an apologist for the Arab world: "absolutely hilarious", he declares. It's the nationalist right-wingers in the United States that has given Al Jazeera its black eye. As a journalist, he says, "I like to judge things on the evidence", without, alas, recounting the evidence, as it would be of such interest to everyone to hear it.

Things may be a little tough for Mr. Lewis at this juncture. His biting reproach of America's social conscience has garnered him scant few admirers there, so he's finding it "pretty difficult", what with public officials declining to be interviewed with him on the record. People aren't fond of shooting themselves wilfully. Unless you're an Avi Lewis.

And he's revelling in his newfound future, hugging himself with satisfaction in the fact that his value has been recognized and he now has the opportunity "to have the resources to do stories properly; a rare luxury". A shill for Al Jazeera.

But then my opinion is somewhat tainted, unlike his.

California School Finance

State Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Issues Statement
Regarding Legislative Analyst's Budget Finding
SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today issued the following statement after the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) released its analysis (Outside Source) of the state budget:

"The Legislative Analyst's Office projects an even direr fiscal picture for our state than was presented in the January Governor's budget, and proposes cuts to schools in the current year in addition to those approved by the Legislature last week. While the LAO proposes a smaller reduction to Proposition 98 in the upcoming budget year than the Governor, any suspension of Proposition 98 would result in direct harm to programs critical to closing the achievement gap and preparing all students to succeed in a demanding future.

"I am opposed to suspending payments to our schools under the Quality Education Investment Act, a program that is vital to serving students most in need of extra assistance. I also strongly oppose changes to the Class Size Reduction program that could lead to larger classes and threaten the quality of education of California's students.

"While it is true that our fiscal situation is dire, the need to invest in education has never been more important to securing the future of our state. Just a few weeks ago Education Week ranked California 46th in the nation in per-pupil funding. Cutting even further into education programs serving our diverse and challenging student population is both unfair and unwise."

School Accountability

Great podcasts on a complex topic.
http://www.accountabilityfrankenstein.com/

Religious Obligations in Islam

They've been interpreted and re-interpreted ad infinitum. Islam, after all, is one-and-a-half millennia-aged. That's a long time in human history. Written history. And at that time the world was a far different place than it is now. Technologically, in any event.

Knowledge-wise, perhaps not so much. Societies were then more distinctly separated, and they would have it so. We think that the world was a more dangerous place then, but was it? In the micro-level, perhaps.

The kind of societal law and order that any nation relies upon to ensure the safety and security of all its people was largely absent in some countries of the world, but not all. Not to be compared, however, to what obtains in the modern world.

Yet, on the other hand, the cataclysmic armed disasters that one country is now capable of visiting upon another - at a remove, through the increasing development and use of weapons-at-a-remove - might quality this era as a potentially more violent time in history.

But in the instance of a desert society of nomadic tribes each suspicious of the other, preying on one another and each resisting the other's attempts at territorial securement, there was no universal law and order.

In the Middle East it was, quite simply, one distinct tribe against another; the territorial imperative at its most basic, primal level. Until they became unified through the auspices of a tribal religion.

A religion that reflected the disorder of the day, seeking to implement a universal message of control over the disparate parts of the whole, eventually - at least on the surface - pacifying rival tribes with the message of brotherhood in Islam.

Taking the best attributes of those cultures and clarifying them into a code of behaviour that reflected a spirit of peace - after centuries of Islamic conquest.

Now, Turkish religious scholars have undertaken to reinterpret the Hadith, a body of scripture that reflects the vision and parables and conclusions of the Prophet Muhammad, writing at that time for the edification and collectivization of a squabbling, desert-hardened community of communities. From whence comes Islamic law, Shariah.

The plan being to reinterpret the Hadith so it no longer reflects the conditions of life and society as it was at its inception, the birth of Islam. A prevailing culture that classified women alongside livestock as valued possessions indicative of wealth and standing. To reinterpret and reclassify some of the laws deliberately designed to ensure male domination over their weaker counterparts.

Which, in turn, gave assent to honour killings; justification for murder as a result of a woman's intended or unintended, guilty or innocent presumptuousness in bringing shame to her family. By becoming a victim of rape or incest, by assuming without due cause, that she had leave to enter a room, a vehicle, a public arena, where men were assembled.

All these prohibitions against women mingling in the company of men for their own protection. An awkward admission that men, practising Islam, are incapable of regulating their behaviour, of disciplining their basic animal urges, of civilizing the brute in themselves.

Therefore, women must take all necessary precautionary steps to ensure they do not awaken the beast in men. Equal, some would claim, but very, very separate.

Throwing Their Wait Around

So, what else is new? The leading Democratic-presidential contenders are thrusting ahead full steam trying to outdo one another, to impress that fickle (for Clinton) electorate that they're the person of the future (hello, Obama) to lead their country. Each contradicts the other, punishingly finding fault with one another's promises, although truth to tell, they echo one another in content.

Senator Obama appears to have elevated the debate to an elegant, almost spiritual promissory note that has enraptured his audience. Senator Clinton appears increasingly to pale in comparison with her opponent in elevating the discourse beyond the practical to the Elysian Fields of Faith; in self, in country, in the future; above all, in Obama!

She is struggling to recover the upper hand. He, not at all smug, but quite convinced of his superior lead - as who will now disavow its reality? - continues to counter all her efforts at persuading the public that it is she, with her experience, her dauntless vision, her commitment and love of country who will offer the best opportunities for America's near future.

Barak Obama's lead, his charismatic performances that have elevated him in the esteem of his countrymen - at all levels of society, across religious, ideological and class strata - reaching far outside the confines of his own country's borders, to transfix and fascinate Europeans, Africans, Asians, could have him coasting at this juncture, but still he issues those unforgettably opaque yet transcendent messages.

Oops, they're coming down to earth a trifle. Settling on yet another topic, geared to reflect the concerns of the latest home audience. Hillary Clinton is now on record as threatening - promising? - to haul the U.S. out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It always lingered there in the background for her party, and now it's out there, front and centre. Wait: Senator Obama is echoing her.

They're both chiming it together: NAFTA is dead, unless Mexico and Canada agree to greater concessions availing American interests in "strengthening labour and environmental standards". Wot!! Labour unions struggling to maintain themselves in the United States have the faintest representation of any country in the developed world, so what's up there? And since the U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto what environmental standards do they mean?

Words, words. It all comes down to protectionism, and if the Democrats exemplify anything it's protectionist imperatives hoisted against the devilish plans of their neighbours to do their utmost to pull the trade wool over American eyes. As if. As though any country entering into a free trade deal - any trade deal - with the United States would ever come away with the upper hand.

Said Mrs. Clinton: "I will say we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate. I have said we will renegotiate NAFTA and you would have to say to Canada and Mexico 'That's what we are going to do." Said Mr. Obama: "We should use the hammer of a potential opt-out to force Canada and Mexico to reopen trade talks." Did they consult beforehand?

Shameless opportunists, both. Appealing to the voters in a state claiming to have lost jobs to NAFTA, while knowing full well that most other states of the union have realized a real boost in their economies thanks to NAFTA. Knowing full well that Mexico and Canada dance to the tune of America's demands which often enough overturn agreed-upon NAFTA rules.

Truth is, the suspense is killing them. Will their dreams of presidential power come to fruition? They haven't all that long to wait, after all. And of course there's always the disgusting possibility that their Republican rival John McCain will receive the ultimate nod, and they'll be a highly-regarded historical footnote.

Good to try another time, though; at least one of them.

Time out.

A challenge to Education Week

A challenge to Education Week

Yesterday Deborah Meier, Susan Ohanian, Gerald Bracey, and a few others sent a letter taking Education Week to task. This was not a run-of-the-mill complaint about inaccuracy or bias. Rather, it lodged a serious charge about journalistic ethics: that the newspaper’s Quality Counts feature makes a pretense of “objectivity” while covertly advocating for “the standards-and-testing industrial school paradigm of No Child Left Behind.”

It’s about time somebody pointed this out. As the authors note:

for more than a decade [Editorial Projects in Education] has published its Quality Counts annual volume, purporting to assess the condition of American public schooling from a neutral and fair-minded vantage. … But a quick inspection of the 2008 volume reveals the dishonesty in this presentation. Quality Counts is not reporting in any normal sense of the word. Rather it is advocacy. Its assertions and conclusions often support particular policy positions.

They go on to document how Quality Counts adopts the criteria of NCLB enthusiasts — “rigorous" standards, high-stakes testing to judge school quality, “sanctioning of low-performing schools,” “teacher evaluation tied to student achievement” — and uses them to grade states in their school reform efforts. In other words, Quality Counts promotes an ideology under cover of “objective journalism.”

I hope the editors of Education Week will take the criticism seriously and rethink what they are doing. As Meier et al. point out, this is an egregious breach of journalistic ethics. It’s also a disservice to an above-board and productive debate on education policy.

So Much For Sincere Regrets

Looks as though the sorry saga of medical incompetence isn't quite over for Dr. Charles Smith. Despite his recent admission, replete with crocodile tears of remorse at the enquiry set up to review his work, and which found the commission of serious errors in 20 of the 45 suspicious child deaths he helped investigate as chief paediatric coroner in Toronto, he's now demonstrating an unparalleled degree of chutzpah.

This man, who admitted to sloppy habits along with procrastination and faulty and incomplete professional training leading to egregious errors during the enquiry, has now turned back into what he has always been; an arrogant sociopath. He experienced no crisis of conscience when in his self-appointed role as "defender" of vulnerable children, and professionally-inadequate coroner, his "expert" testimony was directly responsible for the conviction and incarceration of innocent people.

Once questions began to be seriously asked about his professional competence, he found it expedient to leave the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and go elsewhere. He took up a one-year contract in Saskatoon as a surgical pathologist in 2005. When he became somewhat notorious as his past began unravelling in the news, the Saskatoon Health Region's board declined to approve his hospital privileges.

Whereupon the health region terminated his contract. But Dr. Smith decided to take recourse to action, appealing that decision to a provincial tribunal which, a year later ruled the regional health authority had erred. In the interim Dr. Smith's licence to practise in the province had expired, meaning he could not then legally practise medicine in the province.

When a new license was released to him, it included a condition that denied him the practise of forensic pathology. A logical conclusion, given his history. And, given the legal and professional rebukes and the public shame that this man had experienced, one might assume he would be grateful to slink back into some hole in the ground and not bring undue attention.

But no: he has decided to sue the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority for wrongful dismissal. Is he out of touch with reality, or what?

Oh, The Pain Of It!

Surely the great multinational pharmaceuticals whose anti-depressant sales represent the bulwark of their splendorous coffers of earnings, issued one great heartfelt groan of pure pain at the recently-released research findings suggesting that the wholesale use of prescribed anti-depressants give value to scant few patients, while sending the profits of their makers into the stratosphere.

One after another, the "cures" in pill form for whatever ails humankind are proving to be somewhat less than efficacious despite what their manufacturers claim. And little wonder, given the scores of deleterious side effects commonly experienced by those unfortunate enough to have been prescribed medications for the failing organs and other bodily constituents that so plague humankind. From congenital malfunctions to lifestyle-derived diseases.

We've become so accustomed to popping pills most of us never read the cautionary literature in the finest of print that comes with the medications, or the pharmacy print-outs warning of the potential for iatrogenic effects. High blood pressure, cholesterol, stroke and heart medication, anti-inflammatories; they've all got their dirty little secrets.

Hyperactive children are placed on a steady diet of chemicals to induce compliance. Long term side effects? Who knows?

And that huge segment of any population visiting a doctor complaining of symptoms identified as depressive, are routinely handed out prescriptions for anti-depressants. Upset over something? Deal with it. Get out in the fresh air, exercise, take yoga lessons, indulge in a little meaningful introspection to isolate the cause of one's depression.

Now four "new-generation" anti-depressants - inclusive of Prozac, Effexor, Serzone and Paxil, have been demonstrated to be roughly equivalent to a placebo for effectiveness. In other words, mind over matter; think you're imbibing a chemical that will have a useful effect on your "condition" and it will.

And since one in six individuals will experience depression at some point in their lives, that's one huge audience clamouring for chemical relief from what ails them.

Oh sure, it was found that in extreme cases of depression, those who are incapable of responding to other types of intervention, the anti-depressions can have an ameliorating effect, but that group is representationally minuscule. In Canada alone, 30.2-million prescriptions were filled for anti-depressions in a one-year period.

It's easy for a harried and busy family physician to scribble out a prescription, then go on to the next complainer.

Of that 30.2-million prescriptions, about 20-million were filled for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, a newer generation depressant. New is always good for the pharmaceuticals, it means more sales, more assurances going out to prescribing physicians and patients alike that their health problems will be well looked after.

Trouble is the SSRLs have been linked with an increased risk of suicide, particularly among young people.

It's not only the pharmaceutical giants feeling the pain of revelation. Some health professionals are exceedingly reluctant to give up a valued tool of their profession. Yet it's a known fact that many doctors will prescribe pills the moment someone presents with symptoms of depression.

"One thing I can tell you is that as you go up the scale of depression, the proportion of people (who are extremely depressed) gets fewer and fewer, according to professor of psychology at the University of Hull in Britain, Irving Kirsch.

The study, just published in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine found that the anti-depressants provided virtually no benefit over placebos for moderate depression, and only a small measure of help for those who are severely depressed.

That indicates, says the study's lead author, Dr. Kirsch: ".... that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments".

Swindler Extraordinaire

Or master charlatan, take your pick. On the other hand, perhaps merely a foxily enterprising opportunist. He seems to have glommed on to the incontrovertible fact that people will believe what they want to believe. And they appear to want to believe that anyone who declares themselves to be seriously committed to that Old Tyme Religion - of U.S.-style hucksterism that appeals for money to support the cause of God - to be the Almighty's spirit working on earth.

For the fact seems to be that people are just itching to take the word of Jim Bakker; yes, that ineffable primate of Praise The Lord and Tammy Faye fame. He's back. He of the $129-million-a-year empire of religion for the masses through the expedient of televangelism gone directly to the peoples' living rooms where he could mesmerize them into rhapsodic visions of heaven in the futures through the simple medium of financing the Bakkers' Heritage Christian theme park. Itself heaven on earth.

Until, alas, revelations of a sex scandal erupted and not even old friend Jerry Falwell's kindly monetary intervention could do anything to keep that PTL Empire from collapsing. They proved between them, with Jim Bakker's silver-tongued platitudes in praise of the Lord, and Tammy Faye's irresistible mascaraed, lash-batting that God had faith in them, so why wouldn't those who worshipped at the alter of tatty Big Box Religion not have faith in Jim and Tammy?

Faith! They also worshipped them, every word that dropped out of their mouths, every promise that erupted from their throats, every inducement and enticement had their irresistible pull. And when Jim Bakker appealed despairingly to his audience that "we need ten thousand dollars a month to stay on air, we're on the verge of bankruptcy, we can't pay our bills", his wheedling weeping distress loosed a waterfall of donations.

But with his failed reputation also came enquiries of the most inconvenient kind from disbelieving, disgruntled supporters. The shame they endured, so sad. Even sadder the five years of imprisonment for embezzlement. But you can't keep a good Man of God down, and here he is once again, surfaced in Missouri, and moving from temporary quarters in a run-down area into a huge new complex newly built for him, a 600-acre complex named Morningside.

It's a start, with more to come. It's nothing like his previous empire, with all of those three thousand employees doing his bidding and that of the Good Lord. The current enterprise boasts a mere 30 employees, but it's on the go. And destined to grow. The same entranced supporters who shelled out big time for "lifetime partnerships" in Heritage USA will do the same for Morningside, and it'll take off like a rocket hurtling into space. And Mr. Bakker will be advanced the same opportunities to divert millions for his personal use.

You'd think, logically, that all those hundreds of thousands of former supporters of this failed televangelist would denounce his feeble attempts at a come-back, disgraced for life, and good riddance. But, none of it. This is Missouri, after all, the "Show Me State", of Missourians thought to be somewhat slow on the take-up and as bright as a tarnished penny. So Jim Bakker is showing them, and they're lapping it all up, delighted he's back in business and entertaining them as only he can.

As one of his ardent supporters claimed, "there's a lot of love left for Jim Bakker". And what does that say about the perspicacity of his followers? Um, guess they deserve one another.

Corporate Agenda and Schools

Personal Opinion Paper: Exterminating Public Education
(http://www.ncte.org/about/issues/slate/126874.htm)

Personal Opinion Paper
Exterminating Public Education
Jack Gerson and Steven Miller, Oakland Public Schools, California

“The merits of a marketplace model for public education have been among the most prominent themes in education policy discussions over the last two decades. The 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, popularly known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), has accelerated the trend toward private, for-profit activities in public education.”

--Alex Molnar, “For-Profit K–12 Education: Through the Glass Darkly,” Chapter 5, Educational Entrepreneurship, Frederick M. Hess, editor. Harvard Education Press, 2006.

The corporate campaign to privatize public education entered a new phase on December 14, 2006 when the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce released its book-length report, Tough Choices or Tough Times, published by the National Center on Education and the Economy. (The executive summary is available at http://www.skillcommission.org.) This is the definitive corporate statement on public education. It is a statement of intent.

Tough Choices or Tough Times calls for, among other things: making all public schools into something beyond charter schools, something called “Contract Schools”; ending high school for many students after the 10th grade; ending teacher pension plans and cutting back on teacher health benefits; introducing merit pay and other pay differentials for teachers; eliminating the powers of local school boards (with the “public” schools to be owned by private companies and all regulation done by the states).

These measures would cut the heart out of public education, would severely penalize students, and would deal a heavy blow to teacher unions. No one should take the report lightly:

• It was funded by some of the world’s richest and most powerful entities (most notably, Bill Gates and his GatesFoundation). It represents their interests and, indeed, puts forward the current consensus
recommendations of U.S. corporations and politicians.

• It was issued by a group with a track record: the last report issued by the Commission on the Skills of the
American Workforce helped lay the groundwork for No Child Left Behind.

Gates
Bill Gates has apparently decided to take charge of public education in the U.S., whether we like it or not. NYU professor Diane Ravitch, writing in the July 3, Los Angeles Times, explains that:

“With the ability to hand out more than $1 billion or more every year to U.S. educators without any external review, the Gates Foundation looms larger in the eyes of school leaders than even the U.S. Department of Education, which, by comparison, has only about $20 million in truly discretionary funds. The Department may have sticks, but the Foundation has almost all the carrots.

“In light of the size of the Foundation's endowment, Bill Gates is now the nation's superintendent of schools. He can support whatever he wants, based on any theory or philosophy that appeals to him. We must all watch for signs and portents to decipher what lies in store for American education.”

Ravitch calls Gates “The Nation’s Superintendent of Schools.” But the nation didn’t elect Gates to run our schools, much less to convert public schools to contract schools, to kick millions of kids out of school after 10th grade, or to undermine teacher unions.

The Commission
In 1990 the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce issued the influential report titled America’s Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! This report argued that the U.S. could compete in the global capital and jobs markets only if American public education adopted a strongly standards-based approach that used standardized tests to enforce accountability of students and teachers. That report too was a statement of intent. In its wake followed No Child Left Behind with its emphasis on high stakes testing (with ridiculously unrealistic and statistically meaningless targets for student reading and math scores). NCLB is an unfunded mandate that strangles public schools and leads to school closures and privatizations.

The standards-based, high stakes testing approach espoused by the 1990 Commission report and executed by NCLB has failed miserably—so miserably that it is finally losing much of its support (NEA and AFT have grown increasingly critical; Democratic and Republican politicians are expressing their doubts). In fact, NCLB is up for renewal this year by the now Democratically controlled Congress. But rather than fade quietly into the night, the folks who brought us the 1990 report are back with a new plan for public education.

The so-called Skills Commission is not a public body. The report is not the result of testimony and analysis presented democratically in open meetings, nor is it the synthesis of a public analysis of our schools. It is a corporate vision of what corporations want. It is an attempt to seize the debate about public education and channel it in very specific directions.

The report is bipartisan in the sense that it represents a broad consensus of the U.S. corporate elite. It was funded by Bill Gates (the world’s richest man) and his Gates Foundation; the Hewlett (as in Hewlett-Packard) Foundation; the Casey Foundation; the Lumina Foundation. The Commission includes two former U.S. Secretaries of Education--Rod Paige (Bush Jr.'s) and Richard Riley (Clinton's); a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Ray Marshall (LBJ’s); the heads of the NYC and Washington D.C. public schools (respectively, Joel Klein and Clifford Janey); the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education (David Driscoll); the former head of the Boston schools (Thomas Payzant); the head of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (Harry Spence); the "President Emeritus" of the Communications Workers of America (Morton Bahr); the head of the Urban League (Marc Morial); the head of the National Association of Manufacturers (John Engler, formerly governor of Michigan); major corporate players (e.g., Henry Schatz, former CEO of Lucent); and a few other prominent politicians and academics.

What’s their rationale?
"We" (U.S. capital) need a highly skilled and highly creative work force to compete in the world market. The report admits that the 1990 report’s program of emphasis on standards-based learning discouraged creativity in favor of rote learning. And, the new report says the 1990 report’s emphasis on educating for high skills is inadequate for the current global economy, where the only way to thrive will be to always be the first to come up with new technological breakthroughs.

This vision of a dog-eat-dog world is, unfortunately, an accurate portrayal of the dynamics of global capital. And, as the new report admits (and even explains), automation and digitization have made it possible for U.S. companies to export almost all manufacturing and many service jobs, skilled and unskilled alike: anything that can be routinized will be digitized, automated, and outsourced. But the folks behind the report—Gates, Engler, now head of the National Association of Manufacturers, et al.— are the very folks who shift capital around the globe, to wherever labor is cheapest and profits are highest. And that’s the real source of tough times.

Tough Choices or Tough Times
Schools
The Commission writes:

"First, the role of school boards would change. Schools would no longer be owned by local school districts. Instead, schools would be operated by independent contractors, many of them limited-liability corporations owned and run by teachers. The primary role of school district central offices would be to write performance contracts with the operators of these schools, monitor their operations, cancel or decide not to renew the contracts of those providers that did not perform well, and find others that could do better….The contract schools would be public schools, subject to all of the safety, curriculum, testing, and other accountability of public schools".
(“Executive Summary,” p. 16, emphasis added)

This is exactly the same language of de-regulation and “letting the free market decide” that gave us ENRON, the rape of California by energy companies and the trillion dollar Savings & Loan scandals of the early 1990's. Re-stating that contract schools are public schools is an attempt to obfuscate the real intent. If simple “regulation and accountability” mean public power, then Exxon is a public corporation too!

Basically, the Commission wants to change state education codes to accommodate the kinds of exceptions and practices currently being piloted by charter schools. In effect, all public schools would be run like today's charter schools—run by private companies, with "flexible" hours, longer school days, longer school years, no teacher seniority rights, no pensions, limited health benefits, etc. Or, to put it another way: ALL public schools would be charter schools—only the charters would no longer be needed, because the charter exceptions would be written right into the state education codes. The report calls their proposed schools “contract schools,” but it’s clear that these are basically charter schools writ large.

This is so clear that the two labor members of the commission, Morton Bahr and Dal Lawrence (past president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers), wrote a short statement registering “concern” that “The design for contract schools can become an open door for profiteers,” citing the example of Ohio, “where charter school legislation has resulted in almost universal poor student achievement, minimal accountability, and yet considerable profits for charter operators, many with peculiar political agendas.”

The Commission claims it will save $60 billion on K–12 education. It does not mention that corporations today already feast on a trillion dollar a year market based on privatizing public schools and their services. This is the corporate plan to expand that market. It is a vision of schools as “profit centers,” run by “entrepreneurs,” where children are commodities. The role of the public is reduced from having the final power over schools to being consumers. Let the buyer beware.


Students
Students would face severe tracking that would end high school for millions of children by the 10th grade, by the ages of 15 or 16. This would be enforced by "benchmark" high school exit exams to be administered in the 10th grade, created at the state level. The report explicitly calls for these tests to assess high school grade level skills, not the middle school skills that are typically “measured” by routine high school exit exams. In other words, the Commission demands tests pitched well beyond the current level in many states.

(1) Students who do poorly get tossed out of school. The "Commissioners" argue that students can retake the tests any number of times, so if they're really motivated they may eventually pass, albeit years later, and, essentially, on their own.

(2) Students who do OK go to community college or technical school. The door is left ajar for the possibility of letting some students stick around high school for another couple of years to prepare for university. Is this an escape clause for mediocre but rich suburban students?

(3) Students who do well can go on to university.

The "Commissioners" predict that 95% of students will pass the exams because they will be motivated, and because they will be taught by better teachers. [Right. And No Child is Left Behind.] In fact, things will be so splendid that remediation won't be needed—you see, students will be taught right in the lower grades and will get it right the first time. In practice, corporations want to dump special education and intervention programs, just like they dumped bilingual education.

The report argues that students must become proficient in ALL areas: math, science, humanities, social sciences. And it says that education must emphasize concepts and creativity, not just rote learning. The Commission explicitly criticizes current standardized tests in that regard. (So high stakes testing may go down in flames. It was always just a means to an end—the end being the demolition of public education with the victimization of poor children.) The new goal of all students being polymaths is absurd. As we all know, everyone has different strengths and abilities. When exactly did we abandon the decades-long vision of public education? This vision guaranteed everyone an equal, quality public education precisely so that they could be all that they could be!

Teachers
States supposedly will increase teacher pay at expense of pensions and health benefits. The report argues that teacher compensation is "backloaded" (heavy on benefits, light on salary) which favors veteran teachers over new teachers. They want to turn this on its head and propose "frontloading" (increase salary, eliminate pensions, and cut health benefits).

This will victimize veteran teachers and generally eliminate traditional defined-benefit pensions. The result will be to accelerate the already unacceptably high teacher turnover rate, which is especially destabilizing to inner city schools and communities. The report's rationale that this will improve instruction rings hollow for at least two reasons: a) studies show high correlation between teacher's experience and student's achievement, so chasing out veterans will hurt students and learning; and (b) corporations are trying to eliminate pensions and health benefits everywhere—not just in education.


2006
The underlying assumptions in the report reveal the typical “bait and switch” public policies that have ruined public access to health care, created NAFTA, and have led to the war in Iraq. The report notes (page 5) that corporations everywhere now have access to a worldwide workforce. It states, “Today, Indian engineers make $7500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications…why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work?” Unfortunately, they have no real answer for this question.

The significance of the report is that the march towards the privatization of public schools came completely out of the closet in 2006. No longer is it a hidden agenda. Now the open campaigning will begin, the lobbying and bribery will ensue, and laws will be debated to change public schools in the corporate direction.

There was plenty of evidence for this in 2006. The public schools of New Orleans were almost completely privatized, charter schools are appearing everywhere, the Mayor of Los Angeles is trying to take over the public schools to facilitate charter school corporations, and Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City Public Schools (a public office and public trust), sits as a commissioner on the (private) “Skills Commission.”

Meanwhile, the Broad Foundation—with an openly corporate agenda—has its fingers in a hundred public school systems. Eli Broad joins with fellow billionaires like Gates and Donald Fisher of The Gap as “philanthropists” who have suddenly become civic-minded and want the best for the nation’s children. During 2006 individual billionaires put billions of dollars into foundations to control social policy in our country.

Few people are aware that the great state university systems, including publicly funded institutions like the University of Illinois, the University of California, Michigan State, etc., were essentially privatized by corporations in the ‘90s. Virtually all of them now receive the majority of their funding from “partnerships” with corporations. Now corporations are drawing a bead on the country’s school system for children, for people under 18 years old.

Engineering the Future
How we reckon with the report’s impact, how we learn the lessons, will help bring to pass one kind of future or another. The implications for our country are obvious. Teachers, and everyone, must begin speaking in the name of all society. Corporations have no problem saying this is how things should go. Why should they have the predominant voice?

One thing is certain. The very richest Americans, all based in hugely powerful and influential corporations, are proposing that the United States, the first country to develop free, universal public education, now abandon it.

Isn’t this worthy of some public discussion and debate? Call it what you want, when corporations meet privately to determine what to do with a public institution, one that mainly serves the people who must work for said corporations, this smells a lot like class warfare. You can bet the campaign to implement contract schools will soon be pushed by the corporate media to turn this into public policy. We will be sold on it with minimal public discussion, without letting the people whose lives will be most altered by this public choice have much say over it. Then suddenly the laws will have changed.

Let’s accept the challenge. Let’s open up the discussion of what kind of society the majority of people need and put it on the table. Let’s make it as open and as public as possible. If we fail in this, we will pay a bitter price. If corporations can openly call for re-engineering society, then it is appropriate to discuss what kind of changes shall be made, whose interests they will be made in, and who shall benefit.

Since the corporate attack is openly against the public nature of education, there is no way to protect our hard-won gains towards equal and public education without defending and expanding the very nature of what “the public” means. It’s not just corporations who have the right to put the reorganization of society on the table. Let’s look behind the hype and see who are the winners and the losers here. It’s not hard to do.

The privatization of public education already results in the transfer of tens of millions of dollars in public assets into corporate hands without a discussion of compensation or, still more fundamentally, whether society should allow public education to fall into private, corporate hands.

Public schools originally arose in opposition to the child labor of the 1830's, where the only children who attended school were those whose families could afford it. What will happen when schools are completely privatized and only the rich can afford to give their children an education?

As high technology inevitably replaces jobs, corporations that profit from human exploitation will simply no longer have a need for an educated workforce, or even much of a workforce at all. Public education must be guaranteed as a human right, just as are the rights to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and culture.

Many people confuse the Apocalypse with Armageddon. Armageddon is the final battle between good and evil, but it is the end of the process. The Apocalypse arises first and plays a formative role in the events that follow. The Apocalypse means, in Greek, “the raising of the veil.” This is when fog lifts, the moment when things finally become clear, indicating the path ahead.

As always in human affairs, it’s up to us and to what we do. There can be no question that the world is being rapidly transformed. That transformation is not the property of corporations. Let’s make our future into our property—public property.


Sources

Tough Choices or Tough Times. The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. http://skillscommission.org/executive.htm

The Jewish Connection

Well, that's really good news. That Muqtada al-Sadr has decided, after all, on an extension of the cease-fire he imposed upon his Mahdi militia. While he remains piously incommunicado, in some unknown place in Iran, continuing his religious studies, intent on arriving at a level of learned scholarship to rival that of his deceased - dispatched-by-Saddam - father.

Another six months of declining to clash with American troops in Iraq. Big relief. Really. Fact is there are more than sufficient militias, eager to battle it out with foreign troops in Iraq, so one less to worry about is one less to worry about. And so, it can be anticipated further than the current situation of low-frequency spear-throwing may continue.

And how's this for high-flown rhetoric; the Iraqi government characterizing this new move, along with the al-Sadr movement - which, if one recalls, is questionable in any event, since Muqtada al-Sadr, once a semi-integral part of the government, chose to step down and go his own way, rejecting the Shia-Sunni coalition in favour of battling American troops - as "a cornerstone of the political process on the path to building a new Iraq".

Some path, that. And the really hilarious, if not downright hideously Machiavellian part of this is that Iraqi government security forces, controlled by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - a Shia militia - has been waging its own low-profile, but exceedingly provocative war of attrition on Muqtada al-Sadr's faithful, arresting them, harassing their families and overall offering goodwill gestures on behalf of the government.

Sunni malovently against Shia, Shia confronting Sunni, all bitter enemies and not to be placated by the simple fact that they are all Muslims, all ethnically, culturally and socially similar, all human beings with the same needs and aspirations. And now - Shia against Shia, where does it end? The implacable hatred evidenced by one sect of that great religion against the other. If they so much detest one another, how to measure their detestation of Jews?

Funny that: Shias hold the ghostly personage of the 12th imam to the most sacred level of belief; that he will one day return to earth from his present mysterious place of residence to which he departed centuries ago and where he remains in a shroud of mystic revelation. Salvation will arrive with his presence, for it is held that on the day of Judgement he will appear among his followers to lead the way.

And with him at that signal time in the future toward which all pious thought is centred? None other than a learned and wise Jewish man, one whose presence on earth, and whose prescriptions for a life well lived have come down through the millennia to inform countless believers in his divinity of the rightness of his message: Jesus Christ.

How Supremely Incautious Can We Be?

Possibly it's true, that there's one sucker born every minute. I'm in no position to doubt that. Particularly given the numbers of people accommodating themselves to being suckered. No one could possibly be ignorant of the fact that fraud artists are happily at work doing their best to cajole people out of their hard-earned money.

Having a ball doing it, too, it would appear. Since there appears to be no lack of individuals - presumably halfway endowed with sufficient brains to get by in life - who eagerly bite the bait. Not that anyone might wish to suggest that people go through life casting suspicious glances at every approaching stranger, eliminating all correspondence of unknown derivation, anticipating that everyone is out to steal from them.

Just exercise some restraint from compulsive reaction, use one's common sense - if they're imbued with any - above all, don't fall for the approach that riches can be had for little-to-no-effort, other than to be complicit in someoneelse's shady schemes. Greedy buggers.

Hey, there's even a sheepish admission by a columnist in the Lifestyles Section of the newspaper I read, that he wasn't sufficiently diligent in responding to an email from "his bank" and how grateful he was to "his bank" for catching the anomaly, stopping fund transfer, effectively bailing him out of his own moronic sleepwalking.

Sometimes it's encouragement to send money directly for the purpose of qualifying for a much larger amount of money - send it along, chum/p/s, as a goodwill gesture and you'll win the jackpot.

Turns out they're the unhappy Jack sitting on the pot, with no recourse to action in reclaiming their escaped funds. Sometimes it's falling for that old "you won!" come-on, be it a vehicle, a vacation or whatever - again, a goodwill gesture is required and all too many are happy to be compliant.

The really funny thing is that we ascribe to all these losers one dominant fact; they're elderly and not quite fully engaged, a tad shy of full-wittedness. Well, not necessarily, it would appear.

New statistics appear to reveal that about 6 in 10 adults succumb to these silly blandishments to get involved in a neat scheme to rid themselves of their own money. These so-called 'victims' (victims of their own gullibility) report an average of 21 contacts through fraudsters.

Victims claim demands averaging $1,900 from fraud artists; how incautious and trusting can one be to loosen that much cash and send it flying into fraud artists' hands can one possibly be? Losses range the gamut from a few dollars to a whopping $50,000, amounting to an estimated total of $450-million(!) lost on an annual basis. But wait, that's not the most unbelievable part of this.

The victims range across all demographics, from educated to not, wealthy to not, young to elderly. And so much for the hip generation of today, one-third of victims are under age 30, while those over 60 represent a relatively lighter load of idiots, at 13%.

Best of all, those with university degrees and juicy incomes in excess of $100,000 are as readily sweet-talked into compliance as any other groups.

The categories of money-parting fraud are numerous, from sweepstakes fraud to high-pressure sales-pitch vacation frauds; bogus health products and cure frauds, to investment fraud; cheque cashing/money transfer job fraud, to overpayment for sale of merchandise fraud.

They're cunning; you can receive notification in the mail that an unknown relative has died intestate, and lawyers have traced to you as the only living family member. Make a deposit at your bank, under the serial number given in the letter - which, incidentally, is addressed to you, specifically, middle-initial included - and the bulk of the estate will be yours.

Email messages purporting to be from your bank wishing you to confirm certain personal data; just log in to the message line and confirm, thank you very much. Make a modest deposit for a time-share vacation home and everything will be arranged for your dream vacation, ad infinitum.

The big question here is: trusting, or stupid?

Unions endorse Obama

WASHINGTON (February 21, 2008 AP) -- The new Change to Win labor federation gave its first presidential endorsement to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday, saying its 6 million members could help push him over the top and into the general election as the Democratic nominee.

"We think we can make a difference," chair Anna Burger said. "We think it's time to bring this nomination to a close."

The endorsement came after a teleconference between Change to Win's leaders and the heads of the seven unions that make up the federation. The federation's members will now head to the crucial election states of Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island for the upcoming March 4 primaries, as well as Pennsylvania on April 22.

Change to Win has 175,000 members in Ohio, 60,000 in Texas and 25,000 in Rhode Island, Burger said. Besides leafletting, knocking on doors and advocating for Obama at workplaces, Burger said she expected more than 100,000 Change to Win voters to participate in the Ohio primary alone.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost the last 11 presidential contests to Obama.

"There is certainly a movement building here," Burger said. "The winds of change are blowing and they're blowing for Barack Obama."

The federation's endorsement was more about approving of Obama than disapproving of Clinton, Burger said, but she did note that NAFTA was passed while Clinton's husband, former President Clinton, was in office. Unions have been highly critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it disproportionally hurt working-class voters. Clinton has become a NAFTA critic even though she has previously helped champion the measure as a product of her husband's presidency.

"Barack Obama has a history of standing up for working-class families," said Burger, who called him the strongest candidate for Democrats in the general election.

Four of Change to Win's unions already had endorsed Obama, with the Teamsters endorsing him Wednesday. UNITE HERE, the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers also have endorsed Obama.

The federation's endorsement now means those unions will coordinate their efforts for Obama and have access to Change to Win resources. "We think we can make a huge difference for him," Burger said.

The vote was unanimous although the United Farm Workers, the Laborers' International Union and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners had abstained. The farmworkers already had endorsed Clinton; the Carpenters originally endorsed John Edwards, who has dropped out, and the Laborers have yet to make an endorsement. The three unions released the federation to work for Obama in the upcoming primaries and caucuses.

"Everybody agreed it was time for us to move forward," Burger said. She noted that none of the abstaining unions objected to the endorsement and the United Farm Workers is based mostly in California, which voted on Feb. 5.

The Laborers union will survey its members next week to see if either candidate has support of 60 percent of the union, said Terence M. O'Sullivan, the union's president.

The unions in the Change to Win federation broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005 over internal disagreements on how best to build organized labor's membership and political clout.

The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, has not endorsed any candidate in the Democratic primary, although it has allowed its 56 member unions to make individual endorsements. The AFL-CIO's executive council will meet in San Diego March 3-5, and a decision could be announced about whether the 10.5-million member federation will endorse.

Clinton has been endorsed by 12 AFL-CIO unions, as well as the United Farm Workers. Obama has been endorsed by three AFL-CIO unions: the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, the Transport Workers Union and the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters. He also has the backing of the independent National Weather Service Employees Organization.

Denying Science Its Just Due

Yes, they're right in flagging Canada's dismal record in funding critical scientific enquiry on the environment. Canada has been remiss for decades in adequately funding science projects of all kinds.

We have the scientific expertise, we have built some world-class scientific infrastructure, our universities graduate skilled scientific technologists and brilliant scientific enquirers, but we've become lamentably niggardly in setting aside reliably ongoing funding to ensure that Canadian scientific innovation can continue to percolate.

And the current Conservative-led government hasn't bothered to shine a bright light of support on Canadian scientists, no more than its predecessors.

In fact, they're probably worse in some respects because of their actual withdrawal of needed monetary support from scientific monitoring of environmental situations as a result of global warming, in those very areas where we most need to be aware of what has been happening and what continues to happen, as our weather patterns inexorably change and our atmosphere becomes ever more degraded.

Now none other than the highly respected British journal Nature has published an editorial faulting Canada's current government for its dreadful lack of commitment toward science and the environment. Response from official government sources has been swift and unequivocal; the conclusions are quite simply "incomprehensible" and most certainly "misleading".

On the other hand, Canadian scientists are standing up and shouting "right!". Not at all proud of the fact that the current government is stunting the potential for scientific enquiry and enlightenment on the environment.

After all, if we can't understand what is happening, and why it is occurring, and where the most serious problems arise, then how can we possibly devise a science-based working response in hopes of remediation?

It "has expressed what many of us feel", according to Andrew Miall of the University of Toronto, president of the Royal Society of Canada's Academy of Science.

Dr. Miall and his colleagues have been witnessing the dismantling of scientific advisory bodies, and the dismissal of people vital to science such as chemist Arthur Carty, former president of the National Research Council.

Where most developed and wealthy countries of the world are busy supporting science and technology, Canada's dismal record in ignoring the need for such support is troubling and speaks to a lack of intelligent leadership in this area. The government has been severely truncating budgets for scientific enquiry at a time when we need it most.

While the Canada Research Chairs program is well funded and able to recruit the scientists we need, the funding for applications for scientific programs just isn't there. We've made strides in some areas, notably the Canadian Light Source synchrotron in Saskatoon, yet big-science projects such as this one hardly know where their ongoing funding is going to come from.

Surely a country as well endowed with educated professionals in the fields of science, technology and engineering, can do a lot better that this?

Cavilling, Forever Nit-Picking

That's what the opposition does; they take their role seriously. Not their role as elected officials in the Parliament of Canada, entrusted to waive personal dislikes and to fairly weigh options that are in the country's best interests, setting aside partisan politics for the greater good. Not that, but to oppose. Oppose what, after all? Well, it would appear just about anything that the party in power, the current government, proposes to dispose.

If it's done neutrally, fairly, with a view to representing the best interests of the country, no one could quibble with that. But when it's straight-out political, in that 'my party of choice has a better agenda than yours', then we're in trouble. The kind of trouble that, for example, Canadian troops face in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, with the very public squabbles between the prime minister of the country and the leader of the official opposition highlighting uncertainty.

Which the Taliban and their backers are only too happy to exploit, as why would they not? If indeed Canada's position in Afghanistan is that tenuous that there is not universal acceptance within the various political parties of our position there and the need for it, then any helpful little nudges on their part may hasten the collectivity to a firmer response, and a pull-out. Leaving the field to the fundamentalist Islamists to repeat their previous administration.

Look, the prime minister is confident that Canada has committed itself morally in defense of eventual normalcy in Afghanistan, along with Canada's NATO partners. That Canada's presence in that country is giving hope for the future, enabling Afghans to discover what their country can attain to. To all those who consider the man intransigently set on his own decision making, Stephen Harper has unsettled his critics by demonstrating that he can listen.

And having done so, and consulted with Liberal leader Stephane Dion, he has chosen to accept key portions of the Liberal position and the alterations they put forward, for the purpose of reaching a consensus. Resulting in a new motion proposing an extension of Canada's mission in Afghanistan, accepting the Liberal ideas, and incorporating them into the larger proposal, clarifying Canada's future focus on reconstruction, development and training.

And setting a firm pull-out date from Kandahar - just what the Liberals have been clamouring for. But now that their demands have been met, they're suddenly uncertain, and to Mr. Harper's statement that "It seems clear that we have moved significantly toward the kind of bipartisan consensus that can be presented to Parliament for ratification", the Liberal defence critic glumly responds it's too precipitate; his party may or may not sign on.

Stephane Dion still intends to grill the prime minister over a five-month disparity in the Liberal- recommended pull-out date (February) and the date the prime minister has indicated (July). The motion will be tabled for debate in the House of Commons, giving the opportunity for a two-day discussion. And this will be a matter of confidence. Defeat the motion and take the country to the polls.

The prime minister gently offered a little reality check to his critics and his larger audience: "If Canada wants to contribute to global security, we will have to participate in UN peace-enforcement missions, not just traditional peacekeeping, as well as intelligence sharing, and and development." The simple fact appears to be that the future may call more frequently upon Canada to take part in more combat missions.

And gruffly outspoken General Rick Hillier warns Canadians that there is a fall-out from this public bickering over Canada's mission in Afghanistan. He doesn't make claim that assaults against Canadian troops owe their stepped-up occurrence to the parliamentary verbal assaults against our presence there, but he does caution that this may be exactly what is occurring.

Where once military adversaries sought to crack coded messages, they now need only to turn to the Internet, to access information freely available for public consumption thanks to our valued freedom of information, and casual airing of our nation's discontent.

Zimbabwe's Dilemma

Zimbabweans, even if they could afford to buy the food they need, find themselves looking at bare shelves in their food markets. The very basic commodities of daily life are simply not available. And they've been given the information that the country's government statisticians have figured that the official inflation rate now stands at over 100,000 percent.

Is that staggering, or not? The wonder is that Robert Mugabe hasn't imprisoned them for outing that data.

But he's in a good mood, things are going along zippingly for him. It's his birthday after all, he's reached the prime old age of 84 in a country whose population cannot begin to approach half that age in their ongoing search for a fulfilling life.

Smoke, anyone? Nice way to relax, forget your problems. That'll cost you $500,000 (Zim/babwe). To put that in perspective, the exchange rate is $8-million (Zim) to the U.S. dollar - and rising.

That awkward imbalance highlighting the perilous descent of the country's finances and future is of no real concern to President Mugabe and his friends, though. They get a very special rate, bearing no resemblance to that imposed on their hapless countrymen. The Mugabe-approved insiders are doing all right for themselves, building huge mansions.

In stark contrast to the impoverished population struggling for existence in their shantytowns. But a nice display will be put on for the president and his cronies in celebration of the great man's birthday. As for the upcoming presidential elections, contested by "traitors" and opponents of his regime, he's not concerned, he's "raring to go, raring to fly"; never give up the ship.

The two rivals within the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by the determined and much-bashed Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara have experienced their own problems, flailing about in disagreement about presenting a united front in facing next month's elections.

In so doing, indelibly bruising their own cause. And up comes the country's former finance minister, Simba Makoni, intent on traitorously unseating his president. Tossing him out of the Zanu-PF hasn't diminished his resolve, and he'll battle on. And he's got a good battle before him, to wage against those notoriously rigged polls.

What seems to be driving Mugabe even more insane than he already is, is the certain knowledge that Mr. Makoni has covert support from within Zanu-PF, and he doesn't know who they are. Nor do they have any intention of tipping their collective hand.

Understandably, since no one likes to bring to themselves the kind of attention that will guarantee them a speedy dispatch from this mortal coil. But the president remains confident nonetheless, that he will not be deposed.

The European Union, Britain, the United States are all waiting with breath bated, ready to pitch in and support and fund a new administration in support of political reform.

Not likely, it would seem, as long as the corruption-prone Zanu-PF becomes reinvigorated with a potential win on the part of Mr. Makoni; far more likely should Morgan Tsvangirai be successful, bringing his MDC party into governance.

All will be revealed.

California budget crisis

GROWING-ECONOMY
Dos and Dont's of Coping With State Budget Crises
The budget news is grim in some states. Twenty states face a combined budget shortfall of at least $35 billion for 2009, according to analysis by the Center on Budget Policy & Priorities (see CBPP graph below). Another 8 states will likely have budget problems next year or the year after.

The impulse by some state leaders is to slash state spending, but that could be disastrous for the economy if multiple states lay off state workers and cut-off help to those in need just as private spending is falling.
In fact, the right kind of revenue increases may be just what is needed for economic recovery. As Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, and Peter Orzag, now the director of the Congressional Budget Office, have emphasized, budget cuts during a recession will usually hurt state economies far more than tax increases, since cuts come dollar-for-dollar out of the economy, while tax increases, especially if targeted at the wealthy, often "reduce saving rather than consumption, lessening its impact on the economy in the short run."
This Dispatch is designed to be a primer on what states can do to ease the burden on working families in distress, while asking wealthier taxpayers and corporations to shoulder their fair share during tough times.
Read More
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/02/dos_and_donts_o.html

No you can't

School restructuring not working in California

Restructuring Gains Scant in California, Study Finds
By Linda Jacobson
In a report that raises questions about school restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act, a national research and advocacy group says that few of the hundreds of failing California schools that enter restructuring each year pull their test scores up enough to exit the process.
The Washington-based Center on Education Policy found that in the 2006-07 school year, only 33 schools—or 5 percent of the more than 700 schools that were in restructuring that year—made enough progress to leave what is known as “program improvement.”
The center, which has followed the restructuring process in California since 2004, is also monitoring such efforts in Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, and Ohio.
California, however, provides especially “useful lessons” on restructuring, the authors of the report say, because it has such a large number of schools in that phase—1,013 this school year. It also started implementing its standards-based accountability system earlier than most other states, and it even identified schools for improvement before the NCLB act became law six years ago.
“Federal restructuring strategies have very rarely helped schools improve student achievement enough to make [adequate yearly progress] or exit restructuring,” says the report, released Feb. 8. “Our findings in California point to the need to rethink restructuring across the nation.”
Titled “Managing More Than a Thousand Remodeling Projects,” the report comes as California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell prepares to present the state board of education with more details of a plan to intervene in 98 school districts that are facing sanctions under the law because they have not met student-achievement targets for at least five years.
During his State of the State address in January, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, announced that California would be “the first state to use its powers given to us under this No Child Left Behind Act to turn these districts around.”
He has laid out a “differentiated” approach that ranges from simply revising local-education-agency plans in some districts that came close to meeting their goals to what he called “abolishing” districts in the most extreme cases.
Menu of Options
The federal law seeks to hold schools and districts accountable for their performance by requiring annual student progress on tests of reading and mathematics and providing for a range of consequences for failure to meet achievement targets.
Under the law, schools that enter the restructuring phase have several options available to them, including contracting with an outside organization to run the school, becoming a charter school, replacing the staff, turning operation of the school over to the state, or following “any other major restructuring effort” that is likely to produce significant changes. The remedies for districts are similar.
California schools overwhelmingly are opting for that last choice, the Center on Education Policy study shows. During the 2006-07 school year, 90 percent of the schools in restructuring chose the option of “any other” effort. Such options might include adopting a new curriculum, having teachers reapply for their jobs, or beefing up technology.
At the state school board meeting next month, Mr. O’Connell is expected to provide more details of what he is calling “a system of triage,” which includes first assigning technical-assistance teams to the lowest-performing of the 98 districts.
The state’s involvement would build on some pilot intervention projects already taking place in districts across the state.
Questions about Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to step up the restructuring process are numerous, though. Some districts wonder why they are even among those on the list, and others doubt that money will be available to make the plan work when the state is facing a $14 billion deficit for fiscal 2009.
Turnaround Progress
Between the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years, the number of schools in restructuring in California increased to 1,013 from 701.
The percentage of suburban schools in restructuring is rising ‐ 35 percent this school year, compared with 26 percent during the 2005-06 school year.
The percentage of schools that leave restructuring is rising slowly‐ from 3 percent in 2005-06 to 5 percent in 2006-07.
No single federal restructuring strategy seems to be more effective than any other at raising student achievement.
Source: Center on Education Policy
“Who is going to do something, what is it, and who is going to pay for it?” said Merrill Vargo, the executive director of Springboard Schools, a San Francisco-based school improvement organization that has worked with some of the districts on the list.
The governor has said he plans to release $29 million in federal Title I money to help the districts—but until the legislature, which is in a special session, decides how to address the fiscal crisis, lawmakers can’t take action on other issues.
Local educators are hoping the paths chosen by the state for their districts don’t ignore progress already being made.
“We’ve gotten schools out of [program improvement] and we’ve kept schools out of [program improvement],” said Roger Gallizzi, the superintendent of the 22,500-student Palmdale Elementary School District in northern Los Angeles County. “We’ve seen marked improvements in instruction.”
Mr. Gallizzi was one of many superintendents from the 98 districts that recently had the chance to give state board members more of what he termed “qualitative” information about their districts in a series of forums held earlier this month.
His district, he said, has had significant turnover in both administration and the teaching staff. He said he appreciates that the governor’s approach is “not a one-size-fits-all” plan.
“We’re not all in program improvement for the same reasons,” Mr. Gallizzi said.
Hoping for Results
Interviews with district and school administrators conducted for the CEP study showed that most people believed their schools would eventually make their targets for adequate yearly progress, or AYP, a key measure of success under the federal law. Others said that they were using practices that had been successful in similar schools, and that they expected those strategies to help their students as well.
While state officials in California are focusing on restructuring districts, the CEP report offers a few recommendations for how the state could further help schools that have long been at that stage, including providing them with “more guidance on how to actually raise achievement.”
Ms. Vargo said she has found that school officials and teachers have become skilled at analyzing data, but tend to fall down on carrying out their plans.
“The question we ought to worry about,” she said, “is: Does somebody have a plan to help these schools better serve the kids who got up this morning and went to school there?”
Vol. 27 : Education Week. online. Feb. 14, 2008.

A New Country - Welcome!

What a furore has erupted over the self-proclamation of statehood for Kosovo. Albanian Kosovars are delirious with joy and triumphant accomplishment. Serbia, Russia, and Serbian Kosovars are apoplectic with anger. Russia and Serbia have been fulminating for months over the intentions of the provisional parliament proclaiming its intent, and seeking an independent seat for nation-recognition in the United Nations.

Both Russia and Serbia have warned, darkly, that this is an illegal act, not to be countenanced, and that were it to be accepted that Kosovo's claim to statehood be seen as a legitimate, sanctioned move, other countries hosting restive ethnic populations could expect to face demands for separation, just as Serbia has. That to give credence and to accept such a unilateral declaration would be tantamount to giving a broader acceptance to the separation aspirations of other groups within sovereign countries.

Well, it's done. Kosovo has declared itself a country, and is busy designing its own flag. It is, after all, comprised of 90% Albanian Muslims, as opposed to a mere 10% Serbian Christians; a sprinkling of others. The European Union had expected its 27-member countries to agree to a blanket welcome to the new country. Oops, there are five dissenting member-countries; unsurprisingly all of them have restively home-grown separatist movements. They agree: illegal.

Is it illegal? Well, it hasn't been authorized by the United Nations for one thing, and therefore is in violation of international law, the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Accords. Additionally, UN resolution 1244 which brought about the end of the NATO-led bombing of Serbia, affirms Serbia's sovereignty over Kosovo. Historically and culturally, Kosovo is considered the well-spring of Serbia's past.

The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 clarifies the principles of territorial integrity and state sovereignty alongside that of the inviolability of borders. The clear and concise message being that without the consent of the state involved - in this instance, Serbia - borders cannot be changed - in this case, to suit Kosovo's Albanian population who wish to be independent and sovereign in their own right.

Clearly then, under internationally recognized and agreed-upon legalities, this is an illegal act. But is it an immoral, an unethical act? Clearly not. Seen in the still-simmering hatred evidenced by the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic's attempts at ethnic cleansing against his-then Albanian population.

Russia, China, Spain, Romania, Cyprus, Greece and Slovakia, are among many countries of the world facing determined separatist movements at home, not to mention the many in south-east Asia and in African countries - and, of course, in Canada. They'd be shooting themselves in the solar plexus to welcome Kosovo into the fold of sovereign nations.

Yet here's the bulk of the European Union, France, Great Britain and the United States, all rushing to congratulate and defend Kosovo's move. Might there conceivably be another, underlying agenda at play here? Western nations anxious to demonstrate to Muslim countries that they are more than amenable to accepting and working on behalf of Muslims, to the detriment of some Christians.

See? The world is not witnessing an great global, political, social upheaval across religious lines at all. It's not the West against Islam, folks. We love you, truth to tell, but simply cannot abide the ruthless marauding bloodlust of Islamist jihadists.

They'll be the death of us.

Got it?

The Language of Faith

The most economically impressive, politically stable, socially integrated and universally powerful country in the world is as rent with religious affiliation and dogmatism as the most backward of the world's economically bereft, politically dangerous, socially unstable countries of the world. Isn't that a conundrum?

Not really; it's an expression of basic human need, and human proclivities. Yet for a country that boasts more Nobel laureates and greater scientific and technological break-throughs than any other on earth, one whose 17th Century founders deliberately determined there should be a separation between Church and State, there seem to be more churches in every town and city in the United States than there are libraries, post offices, banks and fire stations.

Only the ubiquitous presence of gas stations outnumbers that of churches, it would seem.

This is indeed a godly people. From moderates to born-agains, evangelicals to televangelists, the United States of America is representative of every mode of worship to the Divine that can be imagined, reflecting their diverse population, a multitudinous mix of peoples derived from countries around the world, gravitating to America to find their fortunes, live their dreams. Or, at the very least, escape the oppressive regimes from whence they originated.

Faith is in the very air that American breathe. Not necessarily the immigrant hordes, with their own quiet observance of foreign-to-America religions, but the old-time faith that the founding peoples brought with them and elaborated upon, giving them an authentic "made in the U.S." stamp. It's been said, and with reason, that anyone can become President of the United States; any of its people can aspire to that grave station.

Oops, atheists and agnostics need not apply. Forget other credentials, nothing, just nothing at all: Nobel award, elevated scholarship, mastery of the fine techniques employed in diplomacy, wizard of economic theory, sociologist extraordinaire; nothing can compensate, even remotely, for the lack of theistic embrace.

For the populace will not have it. Sans godliness there is nothing remotely tolerable let alone acceptable about any candidate for high public office, however talented, however blessed with genius. Talk about cheek!

Any candidate running for office in competition to rally support, must be capable of demonstrating his or her suitability for that post by indicating, unmistakably, their personal pact with God. The successful candidate will prevail upon the voting public by relating their personal and very deep and abiding faith.

Once that has been established, it's smooth sailing to proving to the electorate that their binding faith is superior to that of their opponents. The ability to emote charismatically cannot be overstated.

And here's Barack Obama sweeping the nation with his faith-inspiring call to change. "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

To those curious onlookers not swept off their feet by the sublime and sweet aura that Mr. Obama exudes, the thought might intrude that there is change, after all, each time a new administration sweeps to power with their unique agendas.

Mr. Obama promises a new kind of change, obliquely, without substance in reality, nor need for explanation; calling, like a true believer, for faith.

That skeptical onlooker might construe the statement "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.", to be trite prattle. What, exactly, does that mean? It has a mysterious, mythic, promising sound, an empowering premise, and as such wonderfully effective on a matter of faith.

It just doesn't parse so well as an intelligible statement of fact and reality. The messianic message of change; simply have faith, in the deliverer of the faith message, and all will be done as one would wish it.

It's the mass hysteria of born-again politics in a country whose population cleaves to the doctrine of Divine faith as the answer to all of the country's vexing problems, foisted upon them by an inadequate, albeit faith-filled administration.

Good luck.

How the University Works

From the blog site: http://www.howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress.com

Hitting The Brands

They're in business to make money and they don't care all that much how they do it, but they do squirm when their businesses' good names become besmirched by the charge that they're not behaving like good corporate citizens by selling garbage to kids. Which they've been doing for an awfully long time, without repercussions to either their bottom line or their reputations, until recently.

It has taken an obesity-among-kids revolution to turn the harshly-bright spotlight of public censure on purveyors of almost-food, designed to tempt kids' taste buds through the use of carefully researched chemical preparations. Nutrition? Well, it's food, it fills the gap to satisfy hunger, doesn't it? Some would say to excess. The tastebud-pleasing overuse of salt, sugar, and harmful fats have wrought their damage.

And look here: a children's advertising initiative brought forward from non-profit, self-regulating Advertising Standards Canada has extracted a shame-faced pledge from such food and beverage production and purveying giants as Kellogg Canada Inc., McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd., Nestle Canada Inc., Cadbury Adams Canada Inc. and McCain Foods Canada to cease advertising to children under age 12.

Henceforth all such advertising will be directed to their time-strapped, menu-clueless parents instead. With childhood obesity tipping the scales of public opinion, something had to give. Society cannot, after all, presume to impose upon the producers of ersatz food products conditions that would demand they design better foods, without tampering with the nutritional essence of whole-food products.

No money to be made there. It's where scientific invention transforms ordinary whole foods into almost-food products that tantalize and tease taste-buds of people long unaccustomed to eating good, wholesome foods - where the money is made, hand over fist. Undiscriminating food consumers who can't remember what fresh fruits and vegetables, unadorned fish and poultry sans chemical additives taste like; don't know what to look for in any event.

We don't have the time nor the inclination, let alone the experience and the knowledge to prepare our food properly in the belief that it's too difficult, too time-consuming, too boring. What will actually be accomplished by having corporate brands agreeing to pull in their hefty advertising horns is a moot point. Children will no longer be entertained by cute cartoons extolling the taste virtues of the foods they represent.

Instead their parents will be targeted, and the same types of virtues enticing their children, like taste and texture that bears no resemblance to the food stuffs from which they're derived will win over their parents. Because there's no preparation time, they're convenient, won't spoil, and tempt corrupted palates.

Unstoppable Obama?

Unstoppable Obama

Barbara Ehrenreich
February 14, 2008


When did you begin to think that Obama might be
unstoppable? Was it when your grown feminist daughter
started weeping inconsolably over his defeat in New
Hampshire? Or was it when he triumphed in Virginia, a
state still littered with Confederate monuments and
memorabilia? For me, it was on Tuesday night when two
Republican Virginians in a row called C-SPAN radio to
report that they'd just voted for Ron Paul, but, in the
general election, would vote for... Obama.

In the dominant campaign narrative, his appeal is
mysterious and irrational: He's a "rock star," all flash
and no substance, tending dangerously, according to the
New York Times' Paul Krugman, to a "cult of
personality." At best, he's seen as another vague
Reagan-esque avatar of Hallmarkian sentiments like
optimism and hope. While Clinton, the designated
valedictorian, reaches out for the ego and super-ego, he
supposedly goes for the id. She might as well be
promoting choral singing in the face of Beatlemania.

And, another view:
The attack of the liberals:
Interesting views on academic cultural myopia.

What's the Matter with Paul Krugman?

Scott Kurashige
Posted February 14, 2008 | 02:56 PM (EST)
The Huffington Post


On February 11, Paul Krugman touched off a mini
firestorm with his New York Times column, "Hate Springs
Eternal," which asserted that Obama supporters had been
infected with the disease of Clinton-hating spawned by
the right wing. "I won't try for fake evenhandedness
here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters
of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody," wrote
Krugman. Then, came the real fireworks: "I'm not the
first to point out that the Obama campaign seems
dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality."
While Krugman may not have been the first to compare the
Obama campaign to a cult (see this insightful piece by
Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News), being the first to do
so in the pages of the New York Times raises eyebrows.
This came on top of his assertion that it was not the
Clinton camp, but the Obama camp that was playing the
"race card."

Yes we can

Obama adopts populism on trade deals

February 13, 2008 8:22 AM
Smart Move: Barack Obama Goes Populist In the Home Stretch
In my nationally syndicated newspaper column last week, I outlined some of the difficult terrain Barack Obama faces in trying to both court working-class voters and avoid the media's racist characterization of power-challenging African-American leaders as race-centric radicals. This is a very, very difficult thing to do, and I sympathize with Obama in moving carefully up to this point.

But with the next round of states overrepresenting for the constituencies Obama has done most poorly among - working-class whites and Latinos - he knows he has to try to thread the needle. He has to try to offer up more full-throated, class-based populism. And indeed, that's what he's doing.

In his victory speech last night, Obama hammered the North American Free Trade Agreement, previewing a major economic speech today. Here are some excerpts:

"It's a Washington where decades of trade deals like NAFTA and China have been signed with plenty of protections for corporations and their profits, but none for our environment or our workers who've seen factories shut their doors and millions of jobs disappear; workers whose right to organize and unionize has been under assault for the last eight years...So today, I'm laying out a comprehensive agenda to reclaim our dream and restore our prosperity. It's an agenda that focuses on three broad economic challenges that the next President must address - the current housing crisis; the cost crisis facing the middle-class and those struggling to join it; and the need to create millions of good jobs right here in America- jobs that can't be outsourced and won't disappear.
For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America. I'm proposing a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years. This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars of additional infrastructure spending and generate nearly two million new jobs - many of them in the construction industry that's been hard hit by this housing crisis. The repairs will be determined not by politics, but by what will maximize our safety and homeland security; what will keep our environment clean and our economy strong. And we'll fund this bank by ending this war in Iraq. It's time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead...

It's also time to look to the future and figure out how to make trade work for American workers. I won't stand here and tell you that we can - or should - stop free trade. We can't stop every job from going overseas. But I also won't stand here and accept an America where we do nothing to help American workers who have lost jobs and opportunities because of these trade agreements. And that's a position of mine that doesn't change based on who I'm talking to or the election I'm running in.

You know, in the years after her husband signed NAFTA, Senator Clinton would go around talking about how great it was and how many benefits it would bring. Now that she's running for President, she says we need a time-out on trade. No one knows when this time-out will end. Maybe after the election.

I don't know about a time-out, but I do know this - when I am President, I will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for our environment and protections for American workers. And I'll pass the Patriot Employer Act that I've been fighting for ever since I ran for the Senate - we will end the tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas, and we will give those breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages right here in America."

This is really terrific stuff, and I say that as someone who has been critical of Obama in the past for his timidity on issues like trade - issues that make the Establishment particularly uncomfortable.

Politically, the benefits to Obama of voicing a populist message on trade are obvious. Recent polls in the Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine show that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to America's current lobbyist-written trade policy. While this trade policy may be popular on K Street, it ain't popular on Main Street. And as it relates to Obama's message of reconfiguring the political map and attracting Republican voters, a populist line on trade is perhaps the single most powerful tool to do just that. A post-2006 election poll for the Democracy Corps and Campaign for America's Future showed that among Republican voters who considered voting Democratic that year, the GOP's support for unfair trade deals was the top reason they considered switching. While Clinton insultingly says many "red states" Obama won are unimportant because they supposedly can't be won by a Democrat on election day, these numbers suggest a populist message on trade against a "free" trader like John McCain (R) could profoundly change the map.

Substantively, Obama certainly hasn't been as aggressive as many would like on trade, and my reservations about him on this issue will persist. However, this is undoubtedly an encouraging step and it's fair to say he understands the real-world impact of this issue. This is a person who represents Illinois and who talks about working in the shadows of shuttered steel mills. With the departure of John Edwards, Obama is a candidate whose top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, is the only remaining top presidential economic guru who acknowledges that our current trade deals are horrifying - rather than wonderful. And though we've seen people like Bill Clinton promise as candidates to get tough on trade and then as president do exactly the opposite, this is a different candidate and a different era - with a much more angry public.

True, Obama's a bit late to this - but as someone concerned more with movement building than with an individual candidate, I say better late than never. And, after all, the primary process is a time that can truly shape candidates in a genuine way. As just one example, Howard Dean was the moderate, near-DLC governor of Vermont, and had a very authentic and profound conversion into a more proud progressive populist during his 2004 presidential run. We should embrace that kind of transformation - and hold out the possibility that perhaps a similar dynamic is playing out with Obama on an issue like trade.

Sure, there's some opportunism here as well. Obama is likely trying to walk down the path John Edwards first courageously blazed in this race. He is looking out at the next cluster of primary states and knows that these are the ones that have been hit hard by NAFTA and other rigged trade deals. He looks at Ohio and sees Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) - a man who was elected in 2006 based largely on his opposition to our current trade policy. He also sees the New York Times report that former President Bill Clinton is going to be campaigning in Ohio - and knows that the best way to make that boomerang against his opponent is to remind Ohio voters that it was Bill and Hillary Clinton who jammed NAFTA down the Buckeye State's throat.

But opportunism isn't bad. If Obama sees his opportunity in voicing a progressive, populist message on trade, then that's a good thing. That means that we have a leading presidential candidate who sees being a populist and a progressive as a major opportunity. For the progressive movement, that's what success looks like.

Obama is sure to be berated by national pundits for going populist - it's precisely the kind of message that drives well-heeled Establishment propagandists across the partisan spectrum crazy. From Joe Klein to David Broder to David Brooks, questioning the economic elite is seen as the ultimate blasphemy. As Sherrod Brown told the Nation this week, when he ran in 2006, "I got one newspaper endorsement in the state of the big nine papers." Most opposed him because he dared to challenge the economic orthodoxy that says we must have trade deals that encourage corporations to eliminate jobs, destroy the environment and exploit workers, while legislating protectionism for patents, intellectual property, copyrights and other corporate profit shields.

But Brown didn't cater to elite opinion - he was talking directly to voters. If Obama can withstand the inevitable onslaught of scorn from the Punditburo, his new populism may deliver him the presidency.

Posted by David Sirota