The GOPâs reflexive instinct to defend Trump was expected. But itâs vilification of the FBI is sickening. And this is coming from Wrongo, a 1960s radical who has always distrusted them. Garrett Graff, writing in the NYTsaid this about the FBI:
âHistorically…the FBI has been arguably the most culturally conservative and traditionally white Christian institution in the entire US government. Itâs an institution so culturally conservative, even by the standards of law enforcement, that Democratic presidents have never felt comfortable â or politically emboldened â enough to nominate a Democrat to head the bureau.â
Maybe that should change. Wrongo is old enough to remember that the FBI twice torpedoed Hillary Clintonâs campaign in 2016. Heâs read excerpts of the FBI dossiers on James Baldwin (itâs 1,884 pages), and about its targeting of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
So, maybe Wrongo is the um, well, wrong person to defend the FBI. But that doesnât mean their execution of a search warrant approved by a federal judge is prima facie evidence that the FBI has suddenly become a tool of the Democrats. On to cartoons.
You donât have to be a detective to see the difference:
More hypocrisy from the GOP:
Polls are beginning to show that the GOP has some political weakness:
Teflon Don wins again:
Lindsay Graham and Rudy have to testify about the GOPâs Georgia voting mess:
Teachers leave the job in droves:
Unintended consequences of certain policies:
If Liz Cheney has political ambitions, she needs to become a citizen of a more compatible state:
Stormy view from House Mountain, Sedona, AZ – August 2022 photo by Ed Mitchell
Tens of thousands of teacher openings are unfilled as students head back to American classrooms. Thatâs prompting states and school districts to try everything they can to address the teacher shortage.
Except increase their pay. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has tracked teacher compensation for 18 years. Hereâs the headline:
â…teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their nonteacher college-educated counterparts, and the situation has worsened considerably over time.â
EPI tracks what they call the relative teacher wage penalty, the relative wages and total compensation of teachers compared to other college graduates. Here are the EPIâs findings:
Inflation-adjusted average weekly wages of teachers have been relatively flat since 1996. The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted for inflation) increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, while inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates rose from $1,564 to $2,009 âa $445 increase.
The relative teacher wage penalty reached a record high in 2021. It was 23.5% in 2021, up from 6.1% in 1996. The penalty was worse for men than for women. The penalty for men rose from 18.6% to 35.2%.
The great portfolio of teachersâ benefits used to be a selling point, but it hasnât been enough to offset the growing wage penalty. The teacher total compensation penalty was 14.2% in 2021 (a 23.5% wage penalty offset by a 9.3% benefits advantage).
The relative teacher wage penalty exceeds 20% in 28 states. Teacher weekly wage penalties estimated for each state range from 3.4% in Rhode Island to 35.9% in Colorado. In 28 states, teachers are paid less than 80 cents on the dollar earned by similar college-educated workers.
The EPI has a chart showing the relative erosion of teacher wages vs. other college graduates since 1980:
The EPI focuses on “weekly wages” to avoid the comparisons of length of the work year (i.e., the âsummers offâ issue for teachers).
Add to this the general decline in working conditions for teachers, and many who are eligible for retirement are leaving. Republicans in particular are politicizing education. Some are pushing the idea of “parental rights.” That is happening in Florida, Texas and in other states. Itâs clear that in some school districts parents want the right to censor whatâs being taught. Some Conservatives are pushing for a camera in every classroom across America. Tucker Carlson called for cameras in classrooms to âoversee the people teaching your children, forming their minds.â
This comes under the guise of âtransparency in the classroomâ, parents keeping an eye on teachers, so they wonât teach the dreaded Critical Race Theory (or groom kids to become trans, or gay). Teachers naturally bristle at the idea of video auditing.
Forcing teacher compliance with imposed politicized curricula wonât make these jobs any more desirable.
Some states are relaxing licensing requirements to make it easier for people to fill some of those unfilled jobs. Florida, which has about 8,000 open teaching positions, is allowing military veterans without a bachelorâs degree and no prior teaching experience to apply for a temporary five-year teaching certificate while they finish their bachelor’s degrees.
The biggest issues to solve are better public school funding, which can help end the teacher wage penalty. That requires towns to raise taxes. Second, the politicization of education is changing the amount of parental control in the day-to-day operations in some school districts. Thatâs making teaching an even lower-status job than it is now.
According to the BLS, there are currently 300,000 fewer teachers nationwide compared to before the pandemic. Part of this is job satisfaction. A survey from the American Federation of Teachers found that 74% of teachers were dissatisfied with their job, up from 41% two years ago.
If teachers and staff are underpaid, under-resourced and are now being second-guessed in the classroom, they’re not going to stay. So replacing them will become an even bigger problem.
Enough of this weekâs problems, itâs time for our Saturday Soother! Letâs put Trumpâs secrets and Liz Cheneyâs political prospects on pause. Weâre facing moderate drought conditions here in CT, so lawn mowing has ceased, and our grass is brown and crunchy.
But, itâs time to empty our minds, so that we can begin filling them up again on Monday. Start by grabbing a cold glass of lemonade and a seat in the shade.
Now, watch and listen to Antonin Dvorakâs â4 miniaturesâ, for 2 Violins and Viola, played here by the Musicians of Lenox Hill at Temple Israel of the City of New York in  April 2019:
(This is the last column for this week as Wrongo and Ms. Right are heading to France for ten days. Itâs our first international trip since 2019. Posting will be light and dependent upon internet connectivity. Â Try to behave yourselves and keep your tray tables in the upright and locked position until told otherwise).
Bullies always complain that theyâre the victim, not the ones who got the beating. We see this with Putin and Trump.
Another example of that is what Republicans in Florida are doing with public school curricula. Gov. Ron DeSantis says that heâs saving kids from imaginary indoctrination in their schools, but this week he issued a government edict that requires school indoctrination. From the Miami Herald:
âPublic school teachers in Florida will soon be required to dedicate at least 45 minutes of instruction on âVictims of Communism Dayâ to teach students about communist leaders around the world and how people suffered under those regimes.â
DeSantis’ bill makes Florida one of a handful of states adopting the designation. More from the Herald:
âIt is, however, the first state to mandate school instruction on that day, as Florida Republicans continue to seize on education policy while placing school curriculum at the forefront of their political priorities ahead of the 2022 midterms….It would require teaching of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as âpoverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speechâ endured under those regimes.â
So kids, we learned today that teaching Florida students about authoritarian fascist slavery in other countries is necessary and mandated. But teaching Florida kids about authoritarian fascist slavery in this country is nothing but divisive critical race theory (CRT) that makes white kids feel bad. It must never, ever be mentioned.
This is a part of the Republican Partyâs effort to make public education their top campaign messaging issue in the 2022 Midterms. Despite the reality that all of the education-related âissuesâ they are focused on are non-existent â like claiming that the teaching of CRT is everywhere, or that teachers who educate students about LGBTQ+ issues are âgroomersâ.
Normally, local school boards would be left to decide what is taught in the schools under their control, including curriculum, and health and safety standards. But under Republican radicals like DeSantis, the local community isnât able to do that, because it might interfere with his goal of becoming Americaâs next Trump.
The irony of dictating school policy from the capital isnât lost on anyone. It proves that DeSantis understands the basic concept that got the very regimes he hates going in an authoritarian direction in first place. They play up the victimhood â Iâm the one being oppressed! â and then get their voting base, those who carry grudges against the Other, to go along with it.
The only âcritical race theoryâ that DeSantis cares about is the race heâs running in to be president one day.
Since Wrongo is leaving you without any musical interludes for a week or more, letâs have a travel-appropriate tune to help propel you forward into the news jungle.
Listen, and watch for sure, Dierks Bentley do his 2014 song âDrunk On A Planeâ. If only airplane rides were really like this! The video won Music Video of the Year at the 2014 CMA Awards:
Cactus bloom, Tanque Verde, AZ – April 2022 photo by Bel Meader
Since last fall weâve seen headlines about the need for parental control of public school curricula. Itâs been a huge political weapon for Republican governors like DeSantis in Florida and Youngkin in Virginia. The argument is that the way race, gender and history are taught in public school classrooms is outside of the cultural mainstream in America.
A new national poll by NPR and Ipsos shows that those concerns are held only by a minority of Americaâs parents, while the majority express satisfaction with their children’s schools and what is being taught in them. The pollâs findings show that fewer than 20% of parents seem to be concerned about the culture wars, but they seem to be driving 100% of the conversation about K-12 education in America.
The poll surveyed 1,007 parents of school-aged children. Parents answered questions about the impact of the pandemic on their children, academically and socially, and about their schools’ performance:
âThis year’s responses showed positive trends as the nation continues to recover from the worst of the pandemic. Compared to 2021, a growing margin of parents say their child is “ahead” when it comes to math, reading, social skills, and mental health and well-being. Fewer parents say their child is “behind” in those areas. In fact, in 2022, almost half of parents, 47%, agree with the statement: “the pandemic has not disrupted my child’s education.” That’s up from 38% in 2021…â
However, that view is at odds with that of most education researchers, who see big disruptions in indicators like test scores, college attendance, and preschool enrollment. The Ipsos poll shows that parental satisfaction also included culture war topics. In the poll:
76% of respondents agree that “my child’s school does a good job keeping me informed about the curriculum, including potentially controversial topics.”
88% of respondents agree with the statement “my child’s teacher(s) have done the best they could, given the circumstances around the pandemic.”
82% agree “my child’s school has handled the pandemic well.”
Mallory Newall of Ipsos points out that:
“It really is a pretty vocal minority that is hyper-focused on parental rights and decisions around curriculum…. Just 18% of parents say their child’s school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their family’s values; just 19% say the same about race and racism; and just 14% feel that way about US history.”
Newall also said that there was a lack of partisanship in the responses:
âThe most partisan issue in our poll was gender and sexuality, but still only a minority expressed any concerns. Republicans are closely divided: 26% say schools are not teaching about gender and sexuality in a way that matches their family’s values, while 22% say schools are (the remainder don’t know or say schools aren’t addressing those topics).
The problem of course is that the vocal, 20+% of American parents are seeking total victory in the culture war. Republican-aligned groups like No Left Turn In Education and Parents Defending Education have continuously pushed these issues into the spotlight. And it’s working.
Ralph Wilson, a researcher who studies how partisan donors back the culture war, says these groups imply that they represent a silent majority of conservative-leaning parents. But that’s not necessarily the case:
“It’s definitely an incredibly small minority that’s being amplified with this large, well-funded infrastructure to appear larger and to appear to have more well-founded concerns than they do.”
The Ipsos poll found that about a third of parents say they “don’t know” how their child’s school addresses sexuality, gender identity, racism, or patriotism. Only 24% of parents believe they have too little say over what is taught or what books are in the library at their kidâs school.
Thatâs enough! Letâs leave the culture wars behind for the weekend. Itâs time for our Saturday Soother, where we gather ourselves for the week ahead. In northwest Connecticut, we canât escape cold weather, so our remaining yard work must wait for warmer nights before planting can start.
Instead, pour a mug of your favorite spice tea, grab a seat by a big window, and listen to âThe Banks of Green Willowâ by the little-known George Butterworth, who was part of the English pastoral idiom. Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams were close friends, and you may hear similarities in their music. Butterworth was killed in 1916 in WWI during the Battle of the Somme; he was just 31.
Here it is played by the  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Grant Llewellyn:
There are many urgent issues that the Supreme Court is considering, but whether a childrenâs book should address racism isnât one of them. At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the qualifications of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court, the curriculum at a private childrenâs day school in Georgetown was among the questions Republican Senators felt she needed to address.
This is more than simply a performative effort by a few Republicans to dog whistle to their supporters. Itâs part of a decades-long effort by conservatives to control public education.
Bob Oakes of Bostonâs WBURhad a report about how local Massachusetts school boards, like school boards across the country, have been facing angry questions about everything from Covid restrictions to the way schools teach about racism:
âWBUR found dozens of districts have faced criticism over how teachers discuss race and diversity in the classroom, as well as sex education.â
Oakes reported on the school committee at Dudley-Charlton, two small towns that share a school district and a high school. For years, local school committee meetings had focused on routine items such as staffing and trips by the marching band. More from WBUR:
â….that all changed last July when dozens of parents and residents packed a committee meeting to protest the school’s efforts to combat racism, including the hiring of a new diversity consultant.â
That led some residents to push unsuccessfully a recall of five school committee members over issues including Covid mask requirements and the hiring of the diversity consultant.
Jill Lepore has an article in the New Yorker about the history of efforts to control public education stretching back to the 1880s. She notes that for more than a century, from the teaching of evolution to anti-racism, parents have clashed over who gets to tell our origin story. She points out that community control began in the 1880s with the move to mandatory public education:
âSome families objected, citing âparental rights,â a legal novelty, but courts broadly upheld compulsory-education laws, deeming free public schooling to be essential to democratic citizenship.â
By 1916, nearly every state had mandated school attendance.
We have generally accepted that local and state school boards set curricula with the intention of having our students absorb a consensus-approved range of subjects which collectively tell a story about how we want our children to develop into adults.
This means teaching math and science, history and civics, the novels of Steinbeck and Toni Morrison in English class, along with the foundational myths we feel are important to the American story. All of this â the curriculum and the teaching â cohere to mold young citizens.
As Lepore notes, some Americans keep their children out of public schools because they donât believe in a community of interests. That isnât what they say of course. They put their children in charter and private schools, because they prefer their âquality.â What they wonât admit is how their search for a âqualityâ education also implies a question: What kind of information and what kind of child will their private school keep away from their children?
From Lepore:
âA few parents around the country may not like their children learning that they belong to a much bigger familyâwhether itâs a human family or an American familyâbut the idea of public education is dedicated to the cultivation of that bigger sense of covenant, toleration, and obligation. In the end, no matter what advocates of parentsâ rights say, and however much political power they might gain, public schools donât have a choice; theyâve got to teach, as American history, the history not only of the enslaved Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619 and the English families who sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620, but also….everyone. Thatâs why parents donât have a right to choose the version of American history they like best, a story of only their own familyâs origins. Instead, the state has an obligation to welcome children into that entire history, their entire inheritance.â
Parents trying to bully school boards into changing the curricula to suit their worldview is inherently wrong. The argument that âparents have the right to control what is taught in public schools because theyâre our kidsâ is un-American. The Supreme Court found that to be true in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, when the Court struck down a statute that required schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, saying it was a violation of the First Amendment.
The purpose of public school is to teach kids what society needs them to know. Itâs the parentsâ job to teach them what they WANT them to know.
Listen up Republicans: the âcustomerâ of the public school system is the entire community, not individual parents or specific political parties. Those parents arenât harmed, and they havenât lost any âfreedomâ when curricula are set by school boards.
They still have the right to send little Jason and Janey to the private school of their choice at their own expense.
Well, this was predictable. NPR reported that China’s ambassador to the US warned that the US could face a possible âmilitary conflictâ with China over Taiwan:
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the US, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”
It isnât a coincidence that China raises the specter of war while the US is focused on a possible threat by Russia in Ukraine. This week, 39 Chinese military aircraft flew near Taiwan, including two of China’s most advanced warplanes, their J-16D jets. Military analysts think that the J-16D has capacity to interfere with Taiwan’s defense radar systems and could make a huge difference in combat.
This is more evidence of how strategically fraught Americaâs legacy global policies are in a multi-polar world. Russia is threatening NATO and our Western allies, while simultaneously, China threatens our strategic position in Asia. We havenât fought a two-theater war in 77 years, and haven’t won a war since.
Itâs ironic that neither Taiwan nor Ukraine are formal mutual defense treaty partners with the US, yet US defense hawks think we should defend either or both. On to cartoons.
Surviving is difficult when you live in the wild:
Some voices on the Right support Russia:
Breyer retires, but opinions differ on who owns the right to replace him:
There seems very little Republicans can do to stop Biden from filling this seat, since thereâs no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. That was taken away by Mitch McConnell, during the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.
Mitch looks for a loophole:
The never-ending Republican hissy fit:
Art Spiegelmanâs Pulitzer Prize winning book, âMAUSâ, is a memoir about the Holocaust. It was banned last week by a school board in Tennessee. In the book, the cats are the Germans while the mice are the Jews:
Dawn, Zabriskie Point with Panamint Range in background, Death Valley CA – January 2022 photo by Rick Berk Photography
Various thoughts on a snowy Saturday in Connecticut.
First, in a turnaround from recent polls, a Marquette Law School nationwide survey of adults finds that Biden leads both Florida Gov. DeSantis and former President Trump in hypothetical 2024 matchups:
âIn a head-to-head matchup, DeSantis is supported by 33%, while Biden is supported by 41%. A substantial 18% say they would support someone else, and 8% say they would not vote.
In a Trump versus Biden rematch, Trump receives 33% to Bidenâs 43%, with 16% preferring someone else and 6% saying they would not vote.â
The survey was conducted between Jan. 10-21, 2022. It surveyed 1000 adults nationwide and has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points. There are always a few outlier polls. Could this be accurate?
Second, even before Justice Breyer announced his retirement, Republicans already had their usual hissy fit over Bidenâs decision to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court, implying that she would be an âaffirmative actionâ hire. Republicans on Twitter are prejudging any Black woman nominee as inherently inferior and underqualified.
Ilya Shapiro, a conservative lawyer who will soon teach at Georgetown Law, made it clear that he thinks being Black and a woman means the person is innately unqualified for the Supreme Court. In a since-deleted tweet, he lamented that since his preferred candidate for the job âdoesnât fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so weâll get a lesser black woman.â
Shapiro is the same guy who wrote in 2009 that Sonia Sotomayorâs nomination âconfirmed that identity politics matter⊠more than merit,â showing that this is who heâs always been. Wrongo is appalled that my alma mater just gave this guy a job.
George Washington Universityâs Jonathan Turley tweeted that Bidenâs pick will cause uncomfortable moments on the Court because:
â…when the justices will hear arguments on the use of race in [college] admissions, one member will have been selected initially through an exclusionary criteria of race and sex.â
He thinks it will cause uncomfortable moments for the White majority on the Court. This is from the same crowd that was fine with the White Catholic Amy Coney Barrett, who had never before been on the bench or even argued an appeal, being on the court.
Third, more about yesterdayâs discussion on education, in which we said that the Right-wing is using the slogan of âparental controlâ to rationalize imposing changes in school curricula and libraries. A school board in Tennessee voted unanimously to ban âMaus,â a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust from being taught in its classrooms because board members said the book contains material that was inappropriate for eighth grade students. Members also objected to a cartoon that featured a drawing of a “naked” mouse.
Wrongo has read âMausâ and recommends it to readers of all ages.
And thereâs this gem from Indiana: HB 1362 mandates that teachers adopt a posture of impartiality in any conversation about controversial historical events. It goes on to state that in the run-up to a general election, students must be taught that: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âSocialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are incompatible with and in conflict with the principles of freedom upon which the United States was founded. In addition, students must be instructed that if any of these political systems were to replace the current form of government, the government of the United States would be overthrown and existing freedoms under the Constitution of the United States would no longer exist. As such, socialism, Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems are detrimental to the people of the United States.â
Weâre now seeing a deadly combination against public education: parents plus legislators following the marching orders of a Right-wing media complex that spews disinformation.
Time for us to kick back and enjoy our Saturday Soother.
If you live in the Northeast, youâre not going to be driving or working outside today, what with the 50+ mph winds and the 1-2+ ft of snow. So start by brewing up a cup of Pearl District Blend ($17.00/12 oz.) from Portland, Oregonâs Cycletown Coffee Roasters.
Now grab a seat by a window and listen to Giuseppe Verdiâs âVa, pensiero“, also known as the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves“, from his 1842 opera âNabuccoâ. It recollects the period of Babylonian captivity in Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Here itâs performed outdoors in front of a large audience in Naples, Italy by the orchestras of the Theater of San Carlo, and the National Academy of Sainta Cecilia, in July 2009. Itâs not totally on point for Thursdayâs International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but itâs beautiful:
The WaPo reports that House Republicans are putting together policies to run on in the 2022 mid-terms, and at the top of their list is tapping into parental discontent at how local schools are managed. They plan to focus on parental control of school curricula and school closures.
The new strategy is based upon last yearâs gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin won in a purple state by promising that parents would have more say in their childrenâs education. Younkinâs win was seen as a political earthquake by both Parties.
Now Republicans plan to use public education as a national political wedge issue. The strategy behind this is based on polling by the Democratic polling firm Anzalone Liszt Grove Research (ALGR) which gained prominence following Youngkinâs victory when they surveyed 500 Virginia voters. In an NYT article based on that poll, the Times stated:
â…polling showed that school disruptions were an important issue for swing voters who broke Republicanâparticularly suburban white women.â
Rachel M. Cohen, writing in The New Republic, says that the school closure issue may be overblown. But she thinks there are many other reasons for Democrats to be worried regarding schools.
Parents were frustrated about the fallout Covid visited on school-age kids. Many parents were forced to work from home or to leave the workforce to supervise their kidsâ education, and to otherwise care for them when formerly, those kids would have been in school:
âBut outside Twitter and op-ed pages, many surveys and studies have shown that actual parents and voters hold much more nuanced views. They can hate the harms of distance learning….They can express frustration with their circumstances but maintain that not all problems have…clear villains.â
While Democrats did poorer politically in 2020 than expected, it isnât clear that it was because of school closures, as the questions surrounding schools changed almost on a weekly basis.
When kids returned to school in the fall of 2021, the Delta variant was circulating, kids were wearing masks, and individual classes were subject to rolling shutdowns after positive tests. However, the vast majority of children were physically back in school buildings full-time.
The University of Southern Californiaâs Understanding America Survey surveyed parents four times during the pandemic: from October 2020 when 29% had fully in-person school, through October 2021 when 93% were in person. They found that parentsâ concerns about their childâs learning declined significantly.
But public opinion shifted after the efforts by some on the Right to demonize the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) which examines the history of institutional racism in America. Since last summer, weâre seeing a widening of the Republicansâ war on CRT. Republicans have passed legislation in Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Idaho, along with Texas and others, placing significant restrictions on what can be taught in public school classrooms, and in some cases, in public universities.
Republicans are saying they must protect students from CRT, but they canât show examples of it actually being taught in schools. Once again, weâre seeing Conservatives pushing a concocted claim and the entire Republican Party playing along.
OTOH, Democrats must know that itâs impossible to win elections by telling voters that their concerns are imaginary.
In a nationwide poll conducted in early December 2021 by Global Strategy Group, researchers found just 13% of Democrats and 27% of independents described school closings as a âvery concerningâ issue compared to 60% of Republicans. However, slightly more Democrats and independents (17% and 39% respectively) were now saying that they were very concerned that Democrats were promoting Critical Race Theory in schools:
Opposition to CRT is now a proxy for the need for more parental input at schools. From Cohen:
âMario Brossard, a senior research vice president at the Democratic polling firm Global Strategy Group, who conducted polling in October on CRT, told me, âIt is clear that the discussion or the talking points around having parents have more input into the curriculumâ is being used as a euphemism for CRT. âThe folks who are anti-CRT are fairly well entrenched, and they hold those sentiments quite stronglyâ…â
Again, Virginia showed Republicans the way forward.  A Fox News voter analysis survey conducted by NORC polled over 2,500 Virginia voters right after the gubernatorial election. It found a stunning 72% of respondents said the debate over teaching CRT in schools was âan importantâ factor to them, with 25% calling it âthe single most importantâ factor.
This is the basis for the Republican move to politicize how schools are administered. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has released a âParents Bill of Rightsâ that would create new mandates for school districts. They would require that districts post curriculum and school budgets, as well as lists of books in school libraries. McCarthyâs document asserts that parents have a âright to be heard.â School boards almost uniformly allow for public comment, though recently many across America have shut down meetings because of public disruptions and threats of violence.
According to the WaPo, Newt Gingrich is advising McCarthy on the issues that will resonate with voters in the November election. Just when you think things can’t get worse, Newt makes a comeback!
For Democrats, the 10 months until the mid-term should be enough time to make it clear to voters that parental input into how their schools are managed has always been a cornerstone of Democratsâ local politics.
But nothing will change the now-deeply ingrained distrust of local officials on the part of many Americans.
Sunset, Herring Cove, Provincetown MA – October 18, 2021, photo by Karen Riddett
âMen must either govern or be governed.â   ̶ Elihu Root, 1912 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Wrongo has never cared for Bidenâs âBuild Back Betterâ slogan. He prefers âWeâd Better Build Back.â The focus should be on what could happen if we remain on the track favored by Sens. Manchin and McConnell, along with McConnellâs Republican colleagues.
We’d better build back from the wreckage of the Trump presidency. We’d better build back from the wreckage caused by Congressional inaction for the past 20+ years.
Wrongo is currently reading âWildland, The Making of Americaâs Furyâ by Evan Osnos, journalist at the New Yorker. Osnos says in the Prologue, (pg. 13) that September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021, were two cataclysmic events in American history, and that the intervening 20 years was: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…a period in which Americans lost their vision for the common good, the capacity to see the union as larger than the sum of its parts. A century and a half after the Civil War, America was again a cloven nation. Itâs stability was foundering on fundamental tensions over the balance between individual freedom and the protection of others, over the reckoning with injustice, and over a basic test of any political society: Whose life matters?â
Umair Haque makes the importance of building back clear in a way that only someone living abroad can:
âAmerica has the rich worldâs lowest quality of life, by a long way â after all, Americans will die 5â10 years younger than Spaniards or Germans, but even that understates the issue. It is uniquely a dismal life: nowhere else do we see opioid epidemics, kids massacring one another at schools, having âactive shooter drills…â
Haque points out that the fundamentals of a decent life: A living wage, universal access to healthcare, affordable education and housing, and a secure retirement are no longer within reach for the average American.
Thatâs why weâd better build back.
Step one is to deal with the threats to democracy. We will soon know if the Democrats can actually rouse themselves from their Republican-lite slumbers to pass the Freedom to Vote Act to help get this done.
Step two is to pass the Build Back Better Act, Bidenâs social spending bill. Itâs now clear that the bill will need to shrink in order to pass. And like the House and Senate, America doesnât agree on which of its big-ticket items are most important, but shrinkage is on the agenda.
The bill has remained popular in the polls. One thing thatâs clear from public surveys: People want to pay for the bill by taxing the rich.
AÂ Vox and Data for Progress poll, conducted between October 8-12, found that 71% of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans to pay for the bill. Eighty-six percent of Democrats and 50% of Republicans back that idea. Other tax provisions that could be included in the bill, like tax increases on corporations and capital gains, were supported by more than 65%. Increasing corporate taxes is Wrongoâs preferred policy approach to raising revenues.
Vitally important to the job of building a better country is the proposed new spending on health care, long-term care, childcare, and clean-energy jobs. These ideas are supported by 63% of voters in the poll.
The wisdom of the framers has given us an unrepresentative Senate. That unrepresentative Senate has given us the filibuster, which can be changed, but apparently not by our current Democratic Senators.
And despite its popularity, Bidenâs social spending bill wonât be passed in its present form until Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema get what they want removed from it. A real question is whether we have moderate Democrats or just mediocre Democrats who are willing to kill democracy as we know it for some phony principle.
But you can bet it’s not just Manchin and Sinema. There are at least 8-10 other Democratic Senators with substantial bases of wealthy contributors who feel the same pressures and are perfectly happy to have the whole package scaled down, delayed, and possibly killed.
This brings us to step three. Elect better Senators, but how? We were taught in school that in a democratic republic, you get the politicians that the voters (or at least those people who are allowed to vote) want.
This means we need better voters.
How do we get them? Itâs hard to know how to do that, except you know, PASS THE FREEDOM TO VOTE ACT!
Morning Glory Geyser, Yellowstone NP, WY – 2021 photo by Edwin Buske Photography. The geyser used to be blue, not green. Tourists throwing things into it have changed itâs color. The debris affected water circulation and lowered the geyserâs temperature. That caused a bloom of orange and yellow bacteria.
The Republicans wonât stop fighting Critical Race Theory (CRT), which examines the history of institutional racism in America. From Roll Call:
â…on Monday, GOP Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) sent a request to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee asking the panel to prohibit funding for instruction in critical race theory for service members in its fiscal 2022 defense spending bill. He argued that service members âshould not have to be subjected to discriminatory intersectional exercises that try to politicize our military.â
Itâs worth remembering that The Former Guy issued an executive order in September 2020 that restricted the federal government and its contractors from teaching CRT. And that Biden rescinded that order on the day of his inauguration.
This represents a widening of the Republicansâ war on CRT. In recent weeks Republicans have passed legislation in Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Idaho and Texas, placing significant restrictions on what can be taught in public school classrooms and, in some cases, in public universities.
Weâve seen this before. The CRT insanity is reminiscent of 2010 when Fox News and the GOP went berserk condemning the so-called Ground Zero Mosque being built in New York City.
Today, itâs the same thing all over again with CRT. Eric Boehlert via his indispensable âPress Runâ:
âWhen Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to ban critical race theory from classrooms in the Sunshine State, the Miami Herald reported, âSuperintendents across the state have said they do not teach critical race theory in their schoolsâ. But that did not stop the State Board [of Education] from considering the rule to ban it.â
Itâs the same everywhere: Republicans are saying they must make moves to protect students from CRT. But Republicans canât find examples of it actually being taught in high schools. Once again, weâre seeing conservatives pushing a concocted claim and the entire Republican Party playing along.
Letâs not mince words about what Republicans are doing. Theyâre passing laws that amount to speech codes. Theyâre trying to control public education by banning the free expression of ideas. Education is by its nature political. To try and âcleanseâ it from politics will give us citizens who lack civic knowledge and the civic responsibility that comes with it.
Censoring information makes informed choice impossible. It takes away the opportunity for people to learn and become mature and caring citizens.
When Christians were trying to add “Intelligent Design” into public school science curricula as an alternative theory to evolution, they often said schools should “teach the controversy“, implying an equivalence between the two. That failed, not because Creationism was debunked, but because it didn’t belong in the same category of knowledge as science.
At the time, nobody argued that Intelligent Design should be banned, just that it be discussed in its appropriate context: In comparative religion, not in biology class.
We can learn from the Christians this time though. If we frame Americaâs origin story as “teaching the controversy“, it might well be the best approach. Itâs the only one that retains the nuance, contradictions, and complications necessary to provide an understanding of America and the experiences of its peoples.
There will always be disagreement about our nationâs history. We should welcome that debate in our public schools. It would be a violation of our shared vision of America as a nation of free and open debate if we resort to using state governments to wall off that discussion.
Itâs impossible to create a neutral, non-controversial curriculum because real education aims to develop critical thinking. Critical thinking requires us to understand controversial viewpoints on the one hand, and the arguments for and against them on the other.
People have the right to get the education that they want for their kids, but that doesnât mean legislating CRT out of existence. Instead, why don’t we teach kids how to spot and critique propaganda?
Time to wake up America! We canât let one political party control our curricula. To help you wake up listen to Nina Simone perform âBacklash Bluesâ live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1976. The lyric of this song is the poem, “Backlash Blues” by Langston Hughes:
Resentment over the pace of the civil rights movement in the 1960s came to be known as white backlash, and itâs still with us today.
Cape Cod evening – 2022 photo by 
