unastronaut*

WRIGHT: We took this country by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arowak, the Comanche, the Arapahoe, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Granada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers, and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qaddafi’s home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock. We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children from school, civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

• Reverend Jeremiah Wright baselessly accuses the American government of introducing the HIV virus to black communities and cites some loose and some true examples of those trampled under the tread of America’s progress.  Wright is not allowed near the Obama campaign, he’s actually been distanced for some time as having the same ideas. Recently Obama has admitted Wright’s comments about speaking only as a politician at the National Press Club will strain even his relationship with a longtime family friend.

HAGEE: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans. Media Matters for America

• Pastor John Hagee (among others) blamed 9/11 on the City of New Orleans planning a gay pride parade, and allowing for sinful alternative lifestyles. John McCain has said he’s not wise to have sought his endorsement, but he happily accepts it in the same sentence.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So was it a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement?

MCCAIN: Oh, probably, sure. […]

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you no longer want his endorsement?

MCCAIN: I’m glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are, in any way, viewed as anti-anything. And thanks for asking. ThinkProgress

Someone remind me, do we still have the freedom to speak our minds?  Even if we’re stupid?  Does the First Amendment have any accuracy requirements?

And again, do we have any laws protecting certain groups from discrimination?  Now I realize it wasn’t “the Gays” applying for a job from Hagee, where anti-discrimination laws would apply, but which statement seems more baseless to you?

Note:  Wright has said more than this, but everything in context and he’s nothing more than any other fringe element. Having said that, Reverend Wright needs to shut up.  He is grandstanding, but he’s not saying anything at all that would draw criticism from the same people if he were associated with no political candidate.  It might garner some news, but commentators (thanks for the definition Bill O’Reilly, see below), are just stretching the crap out of this to either smear (Hannity, Stephanopoulos) or bring balance to their coverage of the Obama campaign.  

Technorati Tags: politics, obama, mccain, hagee, wright, rhetoric

When the byproducts of well intended efforts to help those suffering and bring security to the world are orphaned children and seeing a daily patrol of soldiers they only identify by a flag and a funny language, some may have ill will toward that flag and nation. That’s not to say it’s deserved, it is to anticipate. This is what people are burying heads in sand about now, and have been for quite some time. Tell me, couldn’t some better anticipation and intelligence collection have been the difference between preventing and merely reacting to 9/11? If not, what?

Good foreign policy can keep us safe, not to mention having our soldiers at home, happier and working and securing our homeland.  We don’t need a Department of Homeland Security, that’s the military’s job when unjust war is not being waged.  

…just not the 110th United States Congress. When President Bush passes the buck on the housing crisis, he sends a solar wave of hypocrisy through the nation strong enough to power every home in America for the year. Maybe that’s a bit idealistic, but we truly have a revisionist in the White House. This current housing crisis couldn’t possibly have been created by bank deregulation and bankruptcy reform of the 109th Congress.

When you sell office supplies and your boss is underqualified and only became manager because of personal connections, work can be a source of frustration. When your personal connections begin causing entire populations to be ignored in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, it becomes a much larger issue. Mike Brown, Michael Chertoff, Alberto Gonzales are only a few of the more well-known examples of Bush administration cronies, but they provide enough of an example of how ill-served the American public can be when cronies are appointed. This angers me no matter who is doing it, but by far the most gross example of overstretched qualifications are those appointments by the current faux-Republican, neo-Conservative administration. With recent comments exposing his lack of respect for humanity, one could put Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in that grouping as well.

Economic factors are always difficult to directly correllate and I have a feeling I may have overstretched this link. The 109th did deregulate banks and make it much harder for hard working families to file for bankruptcy. In some way this surely has affected the housing crisis, in lender’s attitude and consumer’s vulnerability. I’m just not convinced it’s a direct cause -> effect relationship, so don’t get the impression I’m blaming the entire housing crisis on the 109th or one piece of legislation.

Elizabeth Edwards has written a beautiful op-ed piece for the Sunday New York Times (4/27/08) imploring the media to do its job. It seems like it should go without saying, but the media has failed the American people and democracy in general for the better part of the last decade. The media is often referred to as the 4th branch of government, because a free press acts as a check on political power. If the truth is available, it’s much harder to be hoodwinked.

I’m really not even capable of talking much about this, but if you’re not aware of Sean Bell’s tragic death, you should certainly read this article.  Many may find it easy to overlook the tragedy and injustice in the entire situation because they will see protests in Harlem and Reverend Al Sharpton on the microphone and think there is something “the same” about this situation.  It’s not.  What this family has endured has been more than anyone should ever be subject to, and to be let down by the justice system is further insult to their injury.

This is the problem I have with the Reverend Wright controversy. It’s completely being spun by the media. If you ever see a 20- or 30-second clip, you should already know someone is presenting one side of an issue. It’s interesting how John McCain skates accepting the endorsement of John Hagee who flat-out, in-context said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for New Orleans planning a gay pride parade and a complete circus be made of the comments of Barack Obama’s pastor.

I understand why it’s not compared to Reverend Wright’s comments like “America’s chickens have come home to roost” and “not God bless America, God damn America“, because when put into full context they aren’t nearly as damning. Now I’m not a believer really, but I was raised on faith. I have a lot of respect for faith and religion, but I don’t make my decisions based on a translation of a translation of a 2,000+ year old collection of scriptures. That is not to disrespect the bible, only to offer why it’s not the how-to book I consult for everyday issues.

The media is ridiculously biased, and even with the 24-hour news cycle we are still stuck with Sean Hannity on skip for 3 weeks about Reverend Wright while the economy falls into recession and we reach the sad milestone of 4,000 American servicemen lost in Iraq & Afghanistan. It was interesting to see all of the pre-spin done for this interview on PBS, of all places. PBS has been speaking the truth when corporate henchmen can’t afford to say a word.  They also opened up on the New York Times article I discussed here earlier about planted propaganda puppets in the mainstream media.  All of the pre-release spin did for me was make me want to double-check to make sure my TiVo had me covered.

My hope is that people will watch this interview and make their own judgement, but publicly calling a man an anti-American hate monger is hard to back up when it is blatantly false. This isn’t even simply the far-left blogosphere coming to the rescue of Reverend Wright. Father Michael Pflegler was criticized by Fox News (after having previously contributed for them) for daring to come to the defense of Wright. Former minister and Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee has also publicly defended the pastor. It’s too much to think these otherwise respectable people have “turned”. The more plausible reality is that we may be being sold a lie. Jeremiah Wright is a former Marine and Navy corpsman who has served his community in ways most reading this have never approached.

Regarding the pre-release spin coverage seen on Fox News and CNN (among others, I’m sure), none of it even came close to approaching the general theme and course the actual interview took. If you only caught the pundits on Thursday evening or early Friday you might have gotten the impression he only went on TV to defend himself, against the wishes of the Obama campaign. You may have even gotten the impression Reverend Wright took shots at Senator Obama for his response to the issue, saying “he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician”. Barack Obama knows Reverend Wright far better than any talking head in the media, save for maybe Moyers, who showed a picture of both of them in earlier years, standing over President Johnson’s hospital bed. The Obama campaign didn’t urge Rev. Wright not to be interviewed until after the election. If anything he was told to go tell more of the truth. It’s obvious, without a full interview with a member of the press, he’ll only be heard through 20-seconds looped ad nauseam.

I highly recommend everyone watch the interview, I’ll link it here as soon as it’s posted. It is of special import if you have been exposed and influenced by the constant coverage of these comments. His personal recollection of the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 is particularly interesting, recalling Psalm 137 and warning we must not respond out of sheer revenge. The entire sermon was actually very poignant in saying we must first look to ourselves, and make sure we are righteous before we move into parts of the world and ask them to be righteous.

UPDATE: Here is the entire interview, in 4 parts. Thanks to RealClearPolitics.com for getting it on YouTube.

Is this how we support our troops?  Slap on the yellow ribbon magnet and off we go?  Ignoring their medical bills and the horrors they face in Iraq and Afghanistan on a daily basis hardly seems like supporting the troops. Claiming there were 790 suicide attempts among veterans last year, when the actual number was closer to 12,000 is simply reprehensible coming directly from the Veteran’s Affairs office.

History will not judge this administration kindly.

John McCain is on another speaking tour, this time talking about poverty. The It’s Time for Action tour, at least one major news outlet likens this tour to President Bush’s ‘compassionate, conservative campaign’. We now know what a sham that was. It’s not to say that he doesn’t have a few good ideas, it’s that he wants to talk about something he doesn’t - and couldn’t possibly - understand. This further calls into question one of the traditional roles of the First Lady, if he brings his heiress wife into that role. Their hearts may very well be in the right place, but every policy plan McCain rolls out reeks of true legislative elitism. Here is a snippet from the Think Progress story about his economic policy:

The Center for American Progress has the breakdown and analysis of Senator McCain’s economic plan and its impact on the poor. To say he’d be further forgetting these parts of America is an understatement. He’s spent the past year shattering every rational person’s view of him as an unabashed maverick and turned him into a true pandering Republican party loyalist. Partisanship is not what the American people need. Hollow claims of helping the poor is not what the American people need.

$8 an hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year yields $16,640 before taxes. If you don’t think there are single parents out there unable to find a better job, making this much stretch for two or more people. It happens. If you don’t know many people actually living on this much, you’d think it were impossible. You might even believe people who lived on this much did so by choice, or by some guilt of their own. It’s just not always a black-and-white issue.

A lot of the response I hear to things like this are that people are unmotivated, addicted, or otherwise prone to poverty. What I don’t hear is any honesty about the advantages given to those enabled to speak on the issue. I rarely hear people working face-to-face with people in poverty, telling them the low-down on why they are poor and will remain poor. I rarely have someone on the ‘front lines’ of this issue willing to dismiss the struggles of the suffering.

Senator McCain is highly capable and has spoken the truth on many occasions in the past.  He is still living up to that legacy in many respects.  He recently criticized the response to Hurricane Katrina, going so far as to point the finger at President Bush.

Asked at an outdoor news conference if he traced the failure of leadership straight to the top, Mr. McCain, who has vowed to campaign with President Bush, said, emphatically, “yes.”

John McCain can observe a problem and shed light on issues to more people, but as far as understanding this issue, he’s just never been poor or even close.   Many who have never experienced poverty have done great things to improve the quality of life for others less fortunate, and I have no doubt a McCain presidency may yield some benefits for those in poverty.  To offer welfare with no teeth is as cruel as offering nothing at all.  

The problem with poverty is that if you live in poverty, it’s all you see.  If you never live it, you’ll never see.  The subject itself breeds a discontent that makes the entire issue hard to discuss, but it must be done.  It must be done with people who live the experience.  Go ask a grandmother in the poorest neighborhood of your city what happened to her neighborhood.  Ask a worker who was laid off and saw his wife leave, taking the kids, why he might be more open to criminal activity.  This is not to justify behavior, it is simply to understand the problem.  

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A day’s work is a day’s work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day’s sustenance, a night’s repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman. - George Bernard Shaw

Fox News should probably be mentioning this.  They are, in fact, Fair and Balanced.  Right?  

Karl Rove does have an area of expertise, it’s just the corruption and dirty political tricks that dupe a nation into war.  The only thing this man can do is spin lies into a false reality for a large portion of the population.  People who don’t have any desire to make politics their entire lives shouldn’t be lied to for the hour a week they devote to election coverage.  Simply put, do not trust this man until he’s labeled as any other politician on TV to push their candidate’s agenda.  

Choke, one of the ten greatest works of American fiction, is well worth a read. I believe the movie comes out this July, but I could be wrong. I saw a lot of prank or dream teasers for other movies, but I don’t think any others besides Choke and (maybe) Lullaby are on way.

I’m not sure, I’ve heard rumors Lullaby will also be made into a movie. Who knows?

Here is a compilation of tunes I’ve been enjoying as of late. Some are new, some are classics reinvented by current events. I’ll make every effort to get every link perfect and keep all songs free, but some may be too good to avoid leaving you to buy or listen online. There’s no general theme for this one, just a list of music to expand your mental.

Download | Burn | Enjoy

That’s all I’ve got. I’ll try to keep more up to date with music as a topic on here. I may also try to evolve and organize the site better. We’ll see…

Senator Clinton is the guest of Keith Olbermann on Countdown tonight. She continues to make the race more divisive than she needs to, however this interview (obviously, given the show) didn’t spend time focusing on Barack Obama as unelectable. She did connect Senator McCain to our new 100 Year War and this tanking economy. He’s not going to be worse than George Bush, but he’ll be taking over when the country is already down and could deliver the knockout blow to the average American family.

Sen. Clinton pointed out a matter of her resume, saying consider this in her job application. If she’s ever lived in the real world, when you lie and inflate your resume, you lose the job. The media shattered her bold-faced lie about Bosnia with a 2-minute video clip, where Chelsea stands by her side as an 8-year-old reads her a poem. I don’t care about jokes of sniper fire, it was a lie, and the fact that you want to consider this a job application means you did something that would disqualify anyone else from any job.

With political discourse reduced to screaming contests and actual news eclipsed by exclusive and shocking footage of celebrities without makeup, we’ve become not only impatient with but downright opposed to the kinds of ideas that can’t be reduced to a line on a screen crawl or a two-sentence blog entry. Have you fallen into this trap?

read more | digg story

The ecosystem of political media has changed, with sound bites losing their authority. Consumers of news are less easily manipulated by the 24/7 barrage of bites and images (Hillary Clinton doing whisky shots, Obama bowling), which are dissected endlessly on cable. Voters search for their own context.

The important fact isn’t that my idea hasn’t been used, it is that things like this can actually happen today. The modern teenager has communicated with people in more countries than their parents. Over 1.3 million individuals have donated to the Obama campaign. We can’t allow that to be the only change that occurs, more voices must be heard in the White House. Every voice must be weighed when important decisions are being made. Everyone won’t get their way, but no one will be ignored.

Republican John McCain said Sunday that cutting taxes and stimulating the economy are more important than balancing the budget, and accused both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama of supporting tax hikes that would worsen the impact of a recession.

read more | digg story

Senator McCain thinks he’s going to reverse our $3 trillion deficit by cutting wasteful spending. That’s great, Mr. McCain, but after that $18 billion, what then? We’re 0.6% better-off. The “wasteful spending” he should target is the $500 billion/year war festering a cauldron of anti-American sentiment and making orphans out of Iraqi children. We can’t afford McBush, John McCain is a far better human being and more worthy than Bush to lead the free world, but that was in 2000.

Today he is too out of touch to be effective, associates far too often with Bush administration cronies and knows absolutely nothing about the biggest issue this election cycle: the economy. Sure, he can get advisers who understand the economy, but without some independent understanding he won’t even know who to pick as advisers. That’s a dangerous situation given what has happened to this country as a result of the neo-conservative hijacking of the Republican Party in the last 7 years.

I also noticed on CNN and MSNBC today he’s reportedly aiming for energy independence within 5 years. This is an admirable goal. I just keep thinking “who’s the one spouting empty rhetoric again?” It seems to me that because Senator McCain has been in Washington for a quarter century, he gets a free pass. Anything he proposes is assume to be a good enough idea and above careful scrutiny. A major goal for energy independence should be in 5 years, but to say a candidate can eliminate reliance on foreign oil in that short time almost reeks of corporate greed over the last 8 years.

If this is/were possible, we basically fought a war on a lie, helped our enemy gain footing in a new part of the world. Our true enemy had never been allowed or accepted within Iraq (and isn’t in Iran, for that matter). We’ve stayed 5 years, as long as McCain thinks it would take to gain energy independence. Over that time, only oil companies and corporate executives have benefited from any Bush administration policy.

As this administration destroyed the economy, it sends us $600 checks to make us feel like we’re not being ignored and our rights trampled. As this administration has needlessly put our servicemen in harm’s way, we’ve only heard fear mongering from the White House and most of the news media. As schools have become re-segregated, this administration has standardized tests, so that those with the fewest opportunities and resources are graded on the same scale as those in $100 million high schools.

This article also brings up William Ayers, 1960s-era (as in, when Obama was under age 10) radical who admitted to setting bombs. They were the most extreme part of the anti-war movement, and truly detracted from many of the ideas they tried to uphold. The interesting thing about this, however, is that this man is an English professor. He’s not in jail. I know some Americans read this and think, well WHY NOT? That is a perfectly natural reaction, but the simple fact is that he has not been convicted of a crime in a court of law. Why should Obama be guilty by association? He points out, when asked about Ayers, that he was 8 years old at the time. I believe he was living in Indonesia or Hawaii, far away from Ayers and the Weather Underground.

I’m no TV Guide, but any show with Sean Hannity will discuss this for the next 6 months. I’m also no psychic, but he’ll probably never mention McCain’s wife stealing drugs from her non-profit organizations, his absolute ignorance of economic issues and his utter confusion concerning our enemy. He thinks the way to fix our tax code is to build another, optional system and have it run alongside the current system. That will sure save money for our economy, bloat the government and tax code even more. Vote for a better economy and a safer America, pass on John McCain.

In the history of this country there has never been a higher ranking official so unqualified for their position as Mr. Alberto Gonzales.

He’s having trouble finding a job. What a beautiful thing to see, something positive! I don’t recall much about him, maybe this article from the Economist might address the issue. This video also illustrates his understanding of the Constitution. Keep in mind this is Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

He doesn’t know anything about terminated federal prosecutors, and he just knows “that they [Bush and Cheney] would not do that.” This is the wrong kind of moron crony, just like Mike Brown at FEMA, that puts this country at more of a risk than any terrorist threat.

Perhaps this partly explains why 61% of historians consider the Bush administration the worst in our history.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

A lengthy article by David Barstow of the New York Times brings yet another Bush administration scandal to light. It details just how the administration planted “experts” branded as military analysts on cable news and talk radio to sell the war and keep it going. This is disturbing to say the least. It’s still early, but the fallout should be interesting.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

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Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

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There were also ideological ties.

Two of NBC’s most prominent analysts, Barry R. McCaffrey and the late Wayne A. Downing, were on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an advocacy group created with White House encouragement in 2002 to help make the case for ousting Saddam Hussein. Both men also had their own consulting firms and sat on the boards of major military contractors.

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There’s a lot more, I just posted a teaser.

School vouchers, also known as scholarships, redirect the flow of education funding, channeling it directly to individual families rather than to school districts. This allows families to select the public or private schools of their choice and have all or part of the tuition paid.

Schoolchoices.org does a good job explaining what the aims of the voucher system are: redirecting funds to families, families then can make the choice about what school to attend. Makes perfect sense.

So what’s the big deal? I don’t see a problem with that goal.  Well, proponents of the voucher system ignore three key issues that turn this plan into swiss cheese.

Vouchers would put public funds into religious institutions.

Vouchers are the funds that would be going to school districts based on enrollment. Through this system, the money goes to families to decide where to send their children. If you consider the schools that would be the alternatives, you are looking at other public schools within the same or nearby districts or private schools. Many private schools also hold religious affiliation. At this point it’s very clear that vouchers would funnel tax dollars to private religious schools. This wouldn’t be the norm, but it would happen.

I love the guidance and positive works of religion in our culture, but America is great because we separate church and state. In many parts of the world, not being a believer is extremely dangerous. In America, people are free to use their expression and speech to denounce your wicked soul and move on with their lives. Furthermore it is these schools that struggle least for funding or performance. Are we trying to help education, or get a tax break for religious school.

Vouchers reward those who can or can almost afford private schools now, leaving anyone with little means at underfunded public schools.

Probably the most empirical arguments against vouchers are based on economics and de facto socio-economic segregation. First let me say, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m stating de factos and not concerning myself with assessing blame. Check out a sample from a Phoenix-area Catholic college preparatory high school tuition schedule for new students next fall.

You do the science. It’s hard to assume the $3,600-$4,000 states give the school districts per student would actually give students a true opportunity to attend these college prep schools. It would give those already able to afford tuition a nice break on their bill, and even give a few more of those on the bubble an opportunity. The state of the economy and the quality of all schools, not just those where property taxes yield a lot of revenue.

The laptop requirement is also nice, and honestly the best tool for education. I just can’t deny it wouldn’t last long in some of the neighborhoods where we actually need to fix education. It’s those most disadvantaged currently who would be marginalized under a voucher system. Anyone who has seen Lean on Me or heard Like a Rolling Stone knows those with nothing, risk nothing when they take to a life of crime. I’m in no way justifying it, but if you want to solve the problem you have to look at the facts. All of them

Vouchers weaken our current public school system while only offering the illusion of positive effects.

This brings me to my third argument, we’re ignoring the real issue. In America, the capitalist capital of the world. The land of opportunity, and competition. What do we do with our education system? Well, there is no real competition. Administrators and bureaucrats say schools compete with each other to have a higher graduation rate or percentage of students passing standardized tests. If you’ve worked in retail with some “fast, fun and friendly” managers, you know that the enthusiasm of the boss doesn’t always motivate the worker.

In my case it was counter-productive. Want me to attach warranties to calculators that will be lost before broken? No thanks. Criticize my “sales technique” when I don’t try and up sell an elderly lady on a computer she would use to write an email or two a week. I literally walked away from this sale proud of myself as a human being. I had found the right shoe for the foot. An absolute perfect fit. She was happy and trusted me for leaving her with my name and hours so she could call with questions. After all of this, I got a lecture on my sales technique.

Business leadership is constantly merging with leadership in education. It would be a good thing if education weren’t an outright monopoly. There are private schools, yes, but by law every child in the state of Arizona is required to attend school until age 16 and most (if not all) other states have similar requirements, even if the age is different. What we would create with a voucher system is an even more segregated system, along socio-economic lines.

Children in the inner-cities don’t pass up private school because they lack half of the tuition necessary, they pass it up because there’s no way they could afford it if all but $1,000 were paid by financial aid. They pass it up because they use public transportation and couldn’t get to an across town private school on-time every morning. They pass it up because, in many cases, they have never learned the value of education from their own parents. The same parents who would be staring at a voucher thinking it’s just another annoyance, like parent-teacher conferences. [I saw maybe 10-20 parents for every 120-150 students.]

Back to competition. We’re not even trying to compete, the bosses think we are, but the workers don’t take it seriously. To fix the situation and not just mask the problem with a band aid, one that will actually make the situation much worse, we must look at the problem in a whole sense and account for the challenges that will directly arise as a result of any corrective policy action. In a perfect world, this does mean even less influence from the federal government. The word ‘education’ does not grace the pages of the Constitution, and by the 10th Amendment, it becomes a state’s issue.

States can be more competitive than districts and administrators. States actually hold a more real sense of pride than simply aligning with those who live near you. Unless you have a homogeneous community, true pride in the school and district are nearly non-existent. Compare any high school rivalry with a college rivalry and they may appear similar at first, but under the surface, everyone between those schools competes. The researchers and professors work to publish and bring positive attention to the university. They collaborate and compete between schools. There’s hardly any true competition like this at a high school level, and it’s a shame.

Stop Department of Education redundancy, by eliminating the federal Department of Education and let states at the departmental level compete. Stop having one idea direct all of our kids, because when plans like that fail (as we see now) they all suffer. The voucher system is simply a local band-aid on a problem originating at the federal level. States should control their own education systems, they already fund the bulk of education budgets. Vouchers simply move funds around, when school funding is already lopsided (drastically, even within a district).

Students already have a choice, it’s called open-enrollment. It requires no new bureaucracy, no new paperwork. Transfer within district is already possible. We don’t have to change a thing about school choice to have school choice, and we maintain a fair separation of church and state. There is much more to do in regards to education, but the voucher system is definitely a distraction and not a solution.

UPDATE (09/03/08): According to Glassbooth.org, Barack Obama is against the voucher system (according to the quote), although it also states he is neutral on the voucher system. Here is a link to all of Senator Obama’s education-related positions.  Like Senator Obama, I also believe that until classroom resources and learning environments are standardized, tests should not be.

Senator McCain strongly supports the voucher system. Another major point of disagreement between the two on education are on renewing the No Child Left Behind Act (Obama opposes, McCain supports) which has obviously led to no American child being behind the curve of global competition, right? They also completely disagree on the value of standardized tests, something I like as a resource but hate as a requirement.  That is without considering the (would be) book-banning Mayor, now Senator McCain’s VP pick.

Calling your own grandmother names. It’s only a way to reveal your ignorance. Neither are above criticism, but neither are “un-American”. Labeling things unpatriotic or “un-American” is a tactic of fear mongers who wish to muddy issues and build up your emotions (not