W.W.J.D.?! (what would jennie do...???!!!)

Check me out on Examiner!

2009-06-13T00:07:00.001-04:00

In case you didn't know, I'm now writing for the Examiner as the Dade County Education Policy Examiner. Here's a link to my home page:
http://www.examiner.com/x-12824-Dade-County-Education-Policy-Examiner

I've got 5 articles posted now and will be continuing to post there. I will try to put some more current posts on this blog sometime soon as well...maybe this weekend?! I've been slacking off sorely. But I'm sure no one is missing me...!

Check out my articles and leave a comment...

Should the "pro-life" movement change its name?

2009-06-02T20:25:00.002-04:00

Anyone who doubts the extremist, terrorist nature of the anti-abortion movement should take a look at this website: http://www.armyofgod.com/

That's the extreme. But the mainstream? Just check out what Bill O'Reilly has to say about it:

So yeah. That's the take you get on it from Fox. After attacking Tiller since 2005, labeling him unrelentingly "Tiller the Baby Killer" and calling him a "mass murderer" with the "blood of thousands" on his hands, Tiller is finally killed, and O'Reilly "condemns" the murder while admitting that the victim was acting within the law, nonetheless sticking by his earlier comments.

Abortion is not one of my favorite topics. But when a doctor is murdered for doing something that is permitted by law, and some groups not only refuse to condemn it but actually defend it or even hail the perpetrator as an "American hero," it deserves discussion.

First off, let's take a look at the name the movement gives itself. "Pro-life." Need I say more? Is the hypocrisy not evident? You are in favor of life and of all having an equal right to live...yet all life is not valued. Just as anti-abortion activists are more often than not pro-death penalty, pro-preemptive war, etc., some of them (though fortunately not most) also operate on the rationale that, since they see doctors who perform abortions as murderers, and apparently believe that murderers deserve the death penalty, then it is on them to execute those murderers if the law will not do it. Vigilante justice. In this country, there is a right to free speech, just as there is a right to free thought; we are all entitled to our own opinion. But when the law is not in your favor, you are not justified in killing another human being, no matter what opinion you have of him/her. How can anyone seriously call himself "pro-life" when he believes that there is something justifiable in killing a living human being, for any reason whatsoever, much less for doing something that is permissible by law?

I think these Bible-beaters have overlooked the fact that "an eye for an eye" is in the Old Testament, and that Jesus tells them in the New Testament--their own holy book--that they should turn the other cheek. In other words, Jesus does not support revenge; he supports leading by example. Practicing what you preach. If you preach non-violence, you do not commit violence. If you preach that one should choose life...you should let live.

I can't help but laugh at this old article in the satirical newspaper, The Onion. It fits my sentiments to a tee. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/christ_kills_two_injures_seven_in

Ironically enough, you do not hear of anti-abortion activists murdering women going to get abortions. They do get harassed, yes, but they are not the ones targeted for endless harassment (by mainstream TV personalities as well as radicals), nor are they the ones to get shot to death. Why? If abortion is truly and literally murder, then wouldn't the woman going to get an abortion be committing murder, and therefore be a murderer? And so (following their logic) if she is indeed a murderer, and murderers deserve death, wouldn't it be their duty to kill her too?

They call the pro-choice movement the "pro-abortion" movement, as if anyone who did not believe abortion should be illegal were cackling, rubbing his/her hands together and plotting how to raise the number of abortions performed every year. I do not know anyone who "likes" abortion or thinks anyone should take it lightly. Like everyone else I know on my side of things, I think prevention is the best medicine, and that women (especially teenagers) wising up about the consequences of sex and about birth control is a much better alternative to abortion. I do not think of abortion as an acceptable method of birth control...like pretty much everyone I know.

The problem is, too many in the anti-abortion movement believe in things such as abstinence-only education, which has been proven ineffective. It has been proven that teenagers taking a vow of abstinence are just as likely as teens not having taken the vow to have premarital sex. So far, I have not met a single person in my generation or a younger generation who has not had sex before marriage. Are we all going to hell? Perhaps, if you believe in such a thing (I don't). Regardless of what you believe about the otherworldly consequences of sexual activity, the fact of the matter is, sex is an act that has the ability to create life. And "being old enough to have sex" does NOT make one "old enough to handle the consequences." Sorry. It just doesn't. Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds are more than capable of having sex. Are they more than capable of being good parents? I think few people would say they are.

So, my question: should the "pro-life" movement change its name? To, perhaps, oh I don't know...the "pro-fetus" movement? After all, the life of an unborn fetus seems to hold far more importance for many of them than the life of an already living, breathing human being. I guess they believe that, since those fetuses have not yet been born and therefore cannot yet have sinned, their "lives" are worth saving, while people already born and already having sinned are not worth saving, and are, in fact, worth killing.

I hope those "rescued" fetuses are taking note. As soon as they are born, and do something that displeases these holy followers of Jesus (I say that with all the sarcasm in the world, in case it is not clear by my caustic tone), their life too ceases to be valuable, and they too are subject to have their life taken away from them, with the implicit support of Bill O'Reilly among others.

Yes, please, let's kill all the sinners. That way, there will be a lot more room for the animals. And maybe global warming will finally get under control.

If you haven't watched the news like this, you haven't watched the news.

2009-05-29T22:29:00.002-04:00

Perspectives ARE unique and DO influence our judgment. Is this a bad thing?

2009-05-28T11:18:00.005-04:00

First off, I will not presume to be any sort of expert on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, or on any judges (or justices) at all for that matter; so, until or unless I do a lot of research into her legal opinions throughout her career, I won't be touting OR slamming her as a Supreme Court nominee. I can say that I sincerely hope that she is the best possible choice, considering that appointments are for life and, at 54, she could be around for quite some time yet. I am not knowledgeable enough about the subject (or her career) to speculate on whether she is the right pick or not; so that will not be the subject of this post.

What I do wish to discuss, in regards to Sotomayor and her nomination is the criticism of her nomination that has predictably gushed forth from the right (particularly the far right). So far, I haven't heard many compelling arguments against her nomination. Indeed, all the bashing seems to stem primarily from two soundbytes, taken out of context and repeated and repeated and repeated like a broken record, and one case where she upheld the judgment of the lower courts (the Newhaven case).

To discuss the quotes. I don't have the whole thing right in front of me, so I can't guarantee that I have the one they're using word-for-word, but it basically says that, "I would hope that a Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, make a better judgment than a white man without those experiences." (Forgive me, or feel free to give me the full quote, if I am mistaken and added something or left something out.) Granted, this could have been articulated better. However, the bottom line is, I do not think she means to say or even imply that white men cannot have good judgment or interpret the law as it's written. What she does mean to say, and what I personally take away from this (as do many other people I've heard and seen), is that the more experiences we have had throughout our lives, the more able we generally are to understand (and, to use that dreaded word, empathize with) others who are not like us and have not had the same experiences we have had; and therefore, as it pertains to a judge (or a Supreme Court justice), we are often better able to understand the implications and consequences of our decisions on the people they affect.

Conservatives get riled up and scream "reverse racism" (ahem, Rush Limbaugh and cronies) and try to say that she is saying that Latina women are smarter than white men (or anyone else for that matter) or are better suited to be judges. I don't see that at all in this quote (which is, of course, taken out of context, and while I have been unable so far to find the full quote, I have heard--correct me if this is wrong, and please provide the full quote if you have access to it, as I really want to see the whole thing). What I do see is someone remarking on the fact that, in a realm where there are very few women and even fewer minorities, some balance--a reflection of the diversity of cultures and experiences in today's America--is desirable, and could help render better judgments in the sense of interpreting the Constitution in such a way that it protects individual rights--everyone's rights.

Can a white man have good judgment and use it to make wise decisions as a judge? Of course. Can a white man have empathy and be conscientious of the impact his decisions will have on individual people, including women and minorities? Of course he can. We have proven that in the past, with decisions like Brown v. Board of Education... Roe v. Wade.

But all too often, decisions are made that favor the "rights" of corporations (as if these were individual people) over the rights of individuals. Right now, there are political forces that would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, who would like to see an amendment made to the federal Constitution (and upheld) to prohibit gay marriage, who would like to see our borders closed and prevent immigrants from enjoying the rights that American citizens enjoy, who want to make sure that Americans everywhere continue to carry around AK-47s, even into national parks. And when you get down to it, the Constitution was written well over 200 years ago. When it was written, these topics were not even on the radar. Does that mean we need to live, and interpret our Constitution, as if we were living in 1799 instead of 2009? Because the founding fathers never discussed gay marriage, does that mean we shouldn't, either? Before you answer yes, remember that some of our founding fathers, even as they wrote that all men were created equal, were slave-owners. Women didn't get the right to vote until 1920, and the last laws against interracial marriage were not struck down until 1967. The changes that have been made, more often than not through the Supreme Court, have been good ones; progressive ones; ones that recognize the humanity of minorities and the traditionally disenfranchised rather than rejecting their humanity in order to "conserve the law as it is written."

Empathy and compassion for individuals and underprivileged groups is a major part of making those kinds of progressive decisions. "Empathy" is not a dirty word. Without it, we might still talk about all men having equal rights even while trading slaves and denying women the right to own property or to vote. However upset some people may be that "traditional values" seem to be fading, any reasonable and well-intentioned person would have to admit that, overall, our laws have progressed in giving people rights and protection. The courts are part of the system of checks and balances and part of their role, a major part, is to protect the minority from the will of the majority when it endangers their rights and personal liberties. When we have people on the Supreme Court who can empathize with the "underdog," so to speak, we have better chances of continuing to overturn laws that hurt the minority in order to placate the majority.

And to deny that personal experience is or should be important when coming to decisions and making judgments beggars belief. The conservatives blare that a judge's job is simply to uphold the law according to the Constitution, not to "legislate from the bench," and that one's gender or ethnicity or personal background should play no part in this process. True, perhaps, that in an ideal world, it should play no part in the process. But who would deny that our world is far from ideal? I don't think it is inaccurate to say that we are "the sum of our experiences." It is our own background and experiences that provide us with our perspective on the world. It goes without saying that a white man raised in a middle- or upper-class family, who never had to go without, who had all doors open to him from birth through adulthood, will inevitably have a different perspective on life than a minority women who was raised in a housing project by a single mother and had to struggle to achieve her dreams. Does that mean that the woman is necessarily "smarter"? Of course not--no more than it means she's less "smart." But it does mean that she is aware of the struggles of the underclasses, and will be more likely to take them into consideration when judging laws and interpreting the Constitution. How is that a bad thing?

Those who scream the loudest that one's personal experiences do not, or should not, play a role in the decisions one makes or the way one perceives the law are almost always precisely those whose personal experiences show the least amount of hardship and struggle. When one has never known what it was like to worry about keeping the lights on or keeping food on the table, or not being able to go to college because of the high costs or because of the need to work to help support the family, it is very easy to say that everyone has equal opportunity in this country, and to claim that anyone who dares say otherwise is a "reverse racist".

...And all of this could sound funny coming from me, the WASP who was born and raised in a middle-class family. I never went hungry; my family was never homeless; I never worried about whether I could go to a doctor when I was sick or whether I would be able to go to college. Hell, I never even had to worry about whether I would have a car to drive. So where do I get off talking about personal experiences and struggle?

I sang the same self-righteous song as many conservatives are singing now for most of my life, at least throughout high school and part of college. After all, I grew up hearing that song; naturally I bought into it. Everyone has the same chances, it's a free country, the land of opportunity, and if people choose not to rise to the occasion, it's their own damn fault, and they have only themselves to blame for that. It's easy to believe that, when you have been given everything, and when the few things you've had to work for came easily because you grew up given the tools you needed to conquer those few challenges you would eventually face. It's hard to imagine not having those things, not having been given those tools.

But as I've written about before, having lived in other countries, and having been in numerous friendships and relationships with people from totally different circumstances, raised in totally different ways in families with totally different priorities, struggles and values, and exposing myself to other perspectives through travel, literature, film and communication with people from other walks of life, and finally working in a school with children from a background totally different from my own--all of this has changed my perspective. What I grew up in, and what I was given all my life, I can't erase that; it shaped my perspective before, and I have to fight to keep it from dominating my perspective now. But what my experiences with other people who grew up less privileged than me have given me, above all else, is empathy, compassion and a change in perspective. I am not so quick to judge or criticize as I used to be. Oh, I still judge people, and I still tend to be critical; it's something I struggle with every day. I think, "Why are these people like that? Why can't they just be more like me?" Then I have to remind myself that they come from circumstances different from my own.

How can I (or anyone else) say what I would or would not do, think, believe or say if I had been raised a different way, in different circumstances? Would I see the world the exact same way I see it now if I had been raised in a housing project by a single mother? I think not. It does not mean that someone who grew up in that situation necessarily has a wider or superior perspective; more often than not, their own perspective will be just as limited as someone who grew up with a silver spoon in mouth, though limited in a different way. Those people tend to be less aware of what else is out there, what other options are available, what they could do to improve their own lot or to influence the law.

But that's exactly why it is so important to have people who come from that type of background, but have beaten the circumstances and reached great achievements, to be on our Supreme Court, in all our courts and in the legislature for that matter...and in the executive branch. They will naturally have a much broader perspective, be more conscientious of what everyday people on all ends of the spectrum are dealing with and going through, and hopefully do their best to make sure that our laws help and protect those who are less represented among us.

Does it mean a white man cannot make these decisions or reach these conclusions? Does it mean a white man cannot empathize with their plights and help them? Of course not.

But having a court that reflects who Americans are, and where different experiences and perspectives are available and can help influence the empathy of those already on the court--that can only be progress.

No time like the present to end discriminatory policies.

2009-05-23T14:11:00.005-04:00

Let me start off with a disclaimer: I am not insensitive to the fact that our President has his hands full at the moment--to say the least. The recession/depression, failing banks, the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Guantanamo, trying mightily to push a health care package through this year before he loses steam; the list goes on and on. And I know that one person can only handle so many things at one time, and that certain things will inevitably get pushed onto the back burner.

That said, I still feel like, in spite of the entanglements we're in overseas--precisely because of our messy entanglements overseas, actually--there is no time like the present to end policies of blatant discrimination: in this case, namely, the military's ridiculous "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

First off, look at the side people rarely consider: the cold, hard financial stats. Military training is not cheap. It costs taxpayers an awful lot of money to train armed service members. So it just stands to reason that if you turn around and fire them (for no reason other than their sexual orientation), and new soldiers must be recruited, hired and trained in their place, we are losing money. The Palm Center organized a commission of military officers, a former Secretary of Defense, and experts in military law to study the financial costs of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They confirmed that implementation of the policy cost taxpayers, between the years of 1994 and 2003, $363.8 million. (http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/2006-FebBlueRibbonFinalRpt.pdf) That's a pretty hefty tab for some good, old-fashioned, homophobic discrimination!

There is a common misconception that "not that many" people actually get discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. In fact, in the last ten years, over 10,000 service men and women have been discharged under the law, including 322 translators of critical foreign languages needed for intelligence work such as Arabic, Farsi and Korean. All this, at a time when the army has notoriously been lowering its standards for enlistment due to a lack of qualified volunteers. Mired in an ugly, unpopular war of choice that a majority of Americans now admit we never should have gotten into in the first place, and from which we are now having a very hard time extracting ourselves, this is not a boom time for army recruiters. The suicide rate among service members serving in Iraq and recent veterans of the Iraq war is very high. Among those in active duty, the rate is about 18.1 per 100,000; among veterans of the "War on Terror," aged 20-24, the rate is between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000--between two and four times the rate of civilians their age. (See the full CBS news story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml) The allure of the G.I. Bill to pay for college post-service is obviously less brilliant when the prospects of coming back from the seemingly endless and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan seem so dismal...and when those coming back are so often either maimed or suffering from intense PTSD, only to find shoddy medical and mental health services available to them through their VA Hospitals. The Armed Services need more than "a few good men" right now...they need all the good men they can get, and then some...because it's pretty hard to get them in the current state of affairs. So they have lowered their standards for enlistment. (See the CBS news story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/30/eveningnews/main3115199.shtml) They are lowering or eliminating weight and health restrictions that used to bar individuals from service. They are lowering required standardized test scores. They are accepting more and more soldiers with prior felony convictions (in 2007, the Army admitted over 8,000 recruits with criminal records). Why? Not because the military really cares about giving individuals who have messed up a second chance. Just because they have to take pretty much anything they can get at this point.

Yet at the same time, dedicated, highly-decorated men and women in the service, often in critical operations positions, are being discharged for no reason other than their sexual orientation. If you don't believe the raw numbers (over 10,000 in ten years), just look at one prime example: Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who served honorably in the Air Force for 18 years (and was only 2 years away from retirement), who has 2180 flying hours, nine Air Medals (including one for heroism) and five Air Force Commendation medals, and has served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002-2003 and in the Balkans in 1999, was notified of his discharge two weeks before his scheduled overseas deployment. His "offense"? Being gay. (Read his story on Military Times at http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/05/airforce_fehrenbach_052009w/)

So, yeah. Basically, we'll take whatever we can get, including idiots and criminals; anyone, anyone, anyone except homosexuals.

This policy makes no sense at all. It is not supported by the American public (79% of Americans think it should be repealed; 91% of Americans aged 19-31) or even by most men and women in the services (over 50% believe it should be repealed, and 3/4 said they did not feel uncomfortable working around homosexuals). There is exactly no evidence to support that having gays in the troops affects morale. This is just a purely discriminatory policy based on good old-fashioned homophobia.

And if I were in the military (which, thank God, I am not), I think I would be insulted by the very premise of the policy. It seems to assume that most men in uniform are homophobic bigots who would be so queasy at the very idea of a "faggot" among their ranks that they would be unable to effectively perform their duties. Naturally it is also very insulting to gays (beyond being just one more form of blatant discrimination limiting what jobs they are "allowed" to hold): it implies that they are all sleazy, promiscuous and out-of-touch, their raging hormones and perversions so out of control that they would be unable to perform their duties to the military without trying to, presumably, cop a feel here or there, or, who knows, molest someone in their unit at the first opportunity...in the showers, in the trenches, in a tank. What the hell?

Men and women serve side-by-side in the military now. Cases of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior are dealt with (sometimes better than others) through normal channels. If indeed a homosexual said or did something inappropriate to another service member, those normal channels would still be there to deal with those words or actions just as they do between men and women. Why on earth do we need a law prohibiting those individuals from serving, simply because of their sexual orientation? Just as it would be a joke to say that all heterosexuals knew how to behave themselves around people of the opposite sex, it is just as much of a joke to say that no homosexuals know how to behave themselves around people of the same sex.

I was just wondering aloud yesterday (and the day before) about how America managed to make monumental changes through this whole Civil Rights Movement, supposedly providing for equal opportunities for all, whether in education, voting rights, marriage, employment opportunities, military service, public services, private services, etc., etc., etc., and yet we somehow find a continuous stream of excuses to deny those same basic rights and freedoms to homosexuals. How did the gay community get excluded from benefiting from the Civil Rights Movement?

My friend's boyfriend pointed out that this discrimination continues precisely because too many people still view homosexuality as a "choice," and a perverted one at that. So, according to their logic, because these people are sick and perverted, and "choose" to live a lifestyle that they personally find unappealing, or that their Holy Book (and, more importantly, preacher) tells them is an abomination, they are not entitled to those same civil rights. All they have to do is "quit being gay," and they will enjoy the same rights as everyone else.

Yet all research indicates that sexual orientation is genetically determined. A gay person can no more "quit being gay" than a black person can wish away the color of his skin--"quit being black." Sure, he or she could retreat back into the closet (or never leave it in the first place), and pretend. Plenty of people do that. They go years and years, sometimes their entire lives, pretending. They even get married, have children, have grandchildren. Yet their "gayness" never goes away. It is part of them. I have many gay friends. Some of them lived in the closet for years, going through the motions: having girlfriends (or boyfriends, if they are lesbians), one or two even going so far as to get married and have kids; others never pretended, never went through the "closet" phase, and "came out" at puberty. Regardless of which path my friends personally took, all of them tell me that they knew from puberty at the very latest--and often before, in early childhood even--that they were "different." As soon as sexual feelings began to manifest themselves and come into focus, they understood what that difference was. Some of them fought it for a long time, refusing to admit it to themselves or anyone around them, hoping it would just go away if they tried to be "normal." Others (usually those with very supportive families) were able to accept themselves as they were. But not a single one of them ever "made a choice" to be gay. Not one of them was a regular old heterosexual, enjoying fulfilling romantic and/or sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex, who just woke up one day thinking, "Hmmm. I'm tired of this. I think I'll try being gay for a while."

And honestly--why would anyone make that choice, if indeed it were something one chose, like which shirt to put on for a party? Why would anyone choose to be gay, knowing that it would expose them to discrimination in just about everything they did? Knowing they would not be able to marry the person they loved; knowing they would not only not be able to procreate naturally with that person, but would almost certainly be refused the right to adopt; knowing that in many states there are no laws to protect them from being discriminated against for employment or housing; knowing that some three-quarters of the Protestant churches in the country (and close to 100% of the Evangelical ones) would be preaching against them; knowing that they would become prime targets for hate crimes, including violent crimes; knowing, very often, that they would lose acceptance in society and sometimes even within their own families because of it? What incentive would there be for anyone to make that "choice"? To use an only slightly exaggerated analogy, it would be like someone "choosing" to be born black during the days of slavery--or at the very least, during the days of segregation and institutionalized racism. There were plenty of wonderful things going on within the black community during those times, and lots of unity, just as there are plenty of wonderful things going on within the gay community and lots of unity now; but how many people would purposely "choose" to belong to a group that would find itself consistently ostracized, discriminated against and denied basic civil rights?

I have blogged before about why gay marriage bans are nothing more than blatant, institutionalized discrimination. "Don't ask, don't tell" is the same, only worse, in the sense that it really and truly hurts everyone. At a time when our military needs ALL the "good men and women" it can get, and is settling for some who are NOT so "good," it cannot afford to go firing anyone for the simple crime of being gay. On top of that, the nonsensical and discriminatory policy costs taxpayers tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

3/4 of service men and women say they are not uncomfortable working with homosexuals. I guess that means that 1/4 are? So how about this? Instead of discriminating against gays, to protect the delicate sensibilities of that 1/4 who are so offended by anyone who dares be gay, how about let's make a policy of not allowing openly homophobic people in the armed services? If you are not homophobic, or can control your homophobia enough to do your job efficiently, you may enlist. If you are such a bigot that you cannot stand the idea of working alongside someone who does not share your sexual orientation, then maybe you shouldn't be in the military anyway.

Maybe you should go back to driving monster trucks and cow-tipping. Or find your vocation as the pastor of an Evangelical megachurch.

It's time to reform the seniority system in public education.

2009-05-18T09:45:00.005-04:00

Congratulations to me on my stellar end-of-the-year evaluation today! I give myself a pat on the back, even though I feel that I know better how much learning has gone on in my classroom this year than any administrator who has stopped by--I've had only one formal observation this year, and a principal or assistant principal has dropped in my room for thirty seconds (usually for some other purpose than to observe me) maybe two or three times all year. I am not complaining--it would definitely stress me out if I had administrators in my classroom every other day, like some teachers and especially at some other schools--but I honestly wouldn't mind if they did pass by more often. After all, I do my job. I teach; my students learn. Some days are busier than others, some more productive than others, some better than others. That goes without saying. But I feel that I am a good teacher and that most of my students--the ones who give a damn--are learning. It is nice to hear it from an outside source, particularly the ones responsible for giving you a job, but I would believe it nonetheless.

So I was very pleased to sit down with the assistant principal in charge of my department and hear great things about myself and my teaching. That my students were engaged, that we had great interaction, that it was clear there was learning going on and that the students liked me, that we had good lines of communication open, that I was more than proficient in my level of French, that the class was well-organized and planned. All of that I expected, but was happy to hear from my superior nevertheless.

What upset me at the meeting was some news I got about what's happening to some other teachers even as I write. The A.P. was running about 15 minutes late for our meeting, because, as he told me when he came in, our principal asked him to be present for the surplus meetings they were having with certain teachers from our school who aren't coming back next year. I asked, half-kidding, half-dead serious, "I hope it's not me..." He assured me that no, I still had my job for next year, but that they had just had to meet with someone from my department who didn't, and that it was terrible, that they just hated having to do that, etc., etc. I certainly will not name any names on this website, but when I found out who was getting laid off for next year, it really upset me.

This individual is a friendly acquaintance of mine; he has always been very nice to me, we get along well. But that is not what disturbs me about his being laid off. After all, there are plenty of teachers who are friendly to me or even friends, who are lousy teachers and I know it. What disturbs me is that this is a good teacher. From everything I've heard from his students, he teaches, and they learn; he's kind of tough, as in they have to work to make a good grade in his class. They learn. My A.P. confirmed this--that he is a great teacher, that he had a very good evaluation, but that the numbers just weren't there for next year, and what with the budget cuts, they were going to have to let him go.

If all the other teachers of that subject were good, I would have to (regretfully) understand. He was the "new kid on the block"--he started either the same year as me, or the next year (I can't remember now, but I think it was the year after me). That's the way the seniority system works. Last to come in, first to leave. The thing is, he is, at least from what I've heard from students, probably the best teacher of that subject. Of the three teachers teaching it, there are two who are good, and one who does nothing. The one who does nothing has been teaching at our school for something like thirty years now. Well over twenty anyway. He's just putting in his time to retire, so he can make more during his retirement. But apparently that's not the only reason he does nothing in his classes. I have colleagues who were students here years ago, and they say that even back then, his classes did nothing. They watch American movies in English. They dance salsa. They play cards. They might learn a few words here and there...that's about it.

Yet he stays. First in, last to leave.

I have been willing to listen to suggestions for reforming the seniority system for quite a while, but this is the final straw. This is the nail in the coffin for me. What kind of sense does it make? While it's true that, for a good teacher--one who cares about teaching, cares about his/her subject area, cares about the students--experience does add to his/her value. Unless something changes drastically in my attitude toward my job in the years to come, I think I will deserve to be paid more the longer I am here, because experience will make me a better teacher. I think I was a relatively good teacher my first year; last year, I was better; this year, I am much better. So it's true. And, I think, those are the grounds upon which the seniority system rests.

But there's a major flaw in that system, and that is the assumption that all teachers will improve with years of experience, and that an experienced ("veteran") teacher is always and automatically preferable to a less experienced one. Because while, as I explained above, it is undoubtedly a good formula for dedicated teachers, it ignores the fact that sometimes (probably quite often) mediocre to bad teachers slip in and, mostly thanks to this system, stay in. So a lousy teacher who was hired many years ago, who was never much good to begin with and only grew lazier with time, just waiting for Fridays to collect his/her paycheck and waiting for the years to pass so he/she can retire in happy comfort, gets to keep his/her job while a younger, more dynamic, more enthusiastic teacher gets laid off as soon as the budget gets cut. It seems to mock the professed goal of public education: to ensure that all students, regardless of their parents' income or their background, have access to a quality education.

Public education was created, and exists, for that purpose. Or does it? Is it really just a government bureaucracy whose whole raison d'etre is to provide secure jobs for some people? I have to believe in the mission of public education in order to do my job and do it well. But when things like this happen all around you, you begin to waver in your faith in the system. If there were any justice--if public education's real goal was to educate all children, and they did everything in their power to make sure that goal was met--then the teacher they laid off this morning would be coming back next year, and the old "dead wood"--the one who's been here for 30 years and hasn't taught the whole time--would be gone. In fact, he would have been gone long ago.

Let me clarify a few things. I am a member of the union and in most matters, I do support the union. Like I've said before, they fight for our salaries and our benefits and our working conditions. Without them, we would be at the mercy of the School Board and/or the administrators at our school, with little or no recourse other than filing lawsuits on our own. I'm certain that our salaries would be even lower than they already are; that we would be even more overworked than we already are; and that our benefits would have hit the chopping block this year, if not long ago. I've watched our union fight for all of those things, and I am grateful for them, and that is why I pay $40 out of every meager paycheck to them--to show my support, and to make sure that they can keep fighting for those things so essential to my life.

But on this point--the tenure system--I will have to disagree with them. The nature of a union means that, sometimes unfortunately, they have to fight for all teachers, all members--even ones who don't do their job very well. Because that is the job of the union. Their support is fantastic when the teachers they support are good teachers doing their job. It's unfortunate that they have to defend bad teachers as well. It is a shame that they continue opposition to performance-based pay and to reforming the tenure system. Their defense of mediocre teachers means that administrators rarely dare to try to oust a teacher after the third year (or often even before), once tenure kicks in. It requires loads of paperwork to do it, and often years. They have to show documentation that they have done everything they possibly can to help that mediocre teacher become a better teacher, and that all of those efforts have failed. That requires hours and hours of observation, where they must document the teacher's shortcomings in the classroom, frequent meetings with that teacher, coming up with an improvement plan for the teacher, documenting how the teacher does not make progress on that plan, etc., etc. It is a lot of work to fire a teacher for poor performance. And even if they manage to document their case and fire the individual, very often that individual will come back with union lawyers to challenge the dismissal. Administrators are (like teachers) overworked as it is--especially now, when budget cuts have slimmed down their numbers as well as those of teachers. They don't have time to go through the long, stressful, time- and effort-consuming process of documenting the case to fire a teacher because he or she is a lousy teacher. So, instead, the dead wood stays. And when the budget gets the ax, as it has this year, and heads have to roll, rather than making a case to chop down the dead wood, they do what is easiest, and what is required by the union: they chop off the new, green branches. No matter if those new, green branches are sprouting fresh leaves while the old dead wood is rotting from the inside out.

Next year, I intend to get more involved with the union at my school to try to put in my voice towards changing this system. I have no doubt that it will be hard, if not impossible; my voice is not all that loud when we're talking about the union as a whole, thousands of members across Dade County. Nor do I think firing a teacher should be at the pleasure of one principal or administrator; it would almost certainly be abused. But why could we not come up with a system of firing ineffective teachers without the prohibitive long hours of paperwork? For example, having every administrator sign off, plus having peer review from several teachers or guidance counselors (who have nothing to gain or lose from that individual keeping or losing his/her job). While it can certainly happen that a teacher will have personal issues with one particular administrator, it does not happen nearly so often that a teacher will have personal issues with all administrators, plus their peers chosen at random. The only teachers I know with whom adminsitrators and most peers have problems are ones who truly are lousy teachers, don't do their jobs, and are unprofessional in their work ethic.

And they deserve to get fired.

Solidarity among teachers can only go so far. If a teacher is not doing his or her job, and students are not learning in his or her class, then that individual needs to find another profession.

We are here for the students. The students need to learn. And in order for them to learn, they need us to teach.

Enough is enough. Your rights end where my nose begins. So quit infringing already!!

2009-05-17T10:39:00.003-04:00

I've been sitting here for about half an hour, flipping through the newspaper, checking my e-mail, contemplating what to "blog" about today. My original goal was, you'll recall, to write a post every single day. Obviously I am falling short of that goal, for various reasons...being busy, being lazy, not feeling like discussing anything...but I definitely want to maintain several posts a week, and since it's Sunday and I'm not really doing anything else, it seemed a propitious occasion to write.

Several topics have crossed my mind this morning...and I should make notes to myself to discuss them more in-depth in later posts. But what keeps overrunning all the individual topics is this disgust for all the social issues the conservatives keep parading about, because it seems to infiltrate into so many different areas. While I profoundly (and vigorously) disagree with those who fight to maintain the status quo when it comes to health care, who advocate lowering taxes over government intervention into business (tried and proven to fail under Reagan and Bush, incidentally), and it often enrages me, I can at the very least understand, usually, where they're coming from. They either have their own interests to protect (i.e., they or the corporations they represent or both--usually both--are making money, or seeking to make money, what is truly unjust to society as a whole, in undermining the good of the public), or else, if they are not part of a large corporation, lobbying for one, or in the pocket of one--if they are truly a Joe Schmoe on the street with nothing to gain personally from those positions (and everything to lose)--then chances are they simply watch too much Fox News and maybe even listen to Rush Limbaugh or his cronies, and somehow manage to take all that malarkey. I can almost feel sorry for them, even though their views threaten the greater good, because they are somehow ignorant enough or gullible enough to believe that somehow these positions they support are going to help them or someone they love, rather than just lining the same fat cats' pockets several times over, while they themselves get poorer and poorer...and fall into bad health and go bankrupt trying to cure their ailments. But at least I have an idea where the ideas are coming from. It's Reagan's ingenious "trickle-down" strategy in action. The ideas start at the top, with the executives and higher-ups who stand to lose from any significant change in the status quo, but stand to gain if they can get their own agenda of further corporate tax cuts and deregulation through. Then, since they have trouble (understandably) packaging their agenda into something that would be appealing to middle-class or working-class voters, they invest much more time, energy and money (especially money) into repackaging what the other side is pushing for into something terrifying: usually wrapping it up in a big package we Americans have been taught to fear above all else, labelled socialism or, better yet, communism (though it appears people finally aren't falling for the latter quite so easily anymore). "They want to socialize medicine," they hiss. "Watch out! You won't be able to pick your own doctor anymore. You'll be waiting months to get your throat examined. Your doctor will not have a high school diploma. They will operate on you without anesthesia. WE WILL ALL DIE!!!" Or, in the case of corporate taxes (or taxes on the rich), they will say, "They want to put small businesses out of business! They want to tax businesses so much that they will shut down and you will all lose your jobs! If they raise taxes on businesses, they won't be able to pay workers' salaries, and there will be massive lay-offs. You will all be unemployed!!" These are the usual scare tactics-propaganda, only slightly exaggerated. Their efforts to convince you of their soundness is usually just repeating the trickle-down philosophy--that if you make the rich richer, that wealth will eventually trickle down and everyone will be richer--but in today's economy, it's harder and harder for them to make that argument. They've been touting it for going on 3 decades now, and so far it has not worked. Quoting from www.commondreams.org, with statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (and quoting the same figures as CNN), "CEO compensation swelled from 85 times what workers earned in 1990, to 209 times in 1996, and 326 times the following year. In 1999, CEO pay surged to a record 419 times the average worker's wage, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gap then declined, to 282-to-1 in 2002, before surpassing 300-to-1 the following year, according to the research and advocacy group United for a Fair Economy (UFE). Comparable figures for other wealthy nations generally do not exceed the double digits."

There has been no trickling down. In 2004, salaries of CEOs rose an average of 12% compared with the 3.6% rank and file workers saw their own salaries rise. Is that "trickling down"? The truth is, the rich get richer, but they get no more generous. If anything, they feel the need to hoard their riches ever closer, guarding them ever more ferociously. Perhaps the most outspoken of the conservative advocates for lowering or even eliminating taxes on businesses and the rich, Rush Limbaugh, makes $33 million a year. I'm not sure I could spend that much money if I tried. Yet he is infuriated by any attempt to tax that stockpile that he works so very hard to earn, with so much sweat, blood and tears. Oh, the poor thing, he works so much harder than those lazy, unambitious people working in factories day in and day out and still worrying about keeping the lights on. He deserves every penny, right. God forbid he should pay more in taxes than the family with a household income of $40,000 or less. So unfair. But, well, maybe I'm the one being unfair? After all, I guess that $33 million is just enough to support his OxyContin habits, and his trips to Dominican Republic for Viagra-fueled hooker parties. If he had to pay more in taxes, maybe he couldn't hire quite as many hookers at a time.

But I digress ever more. This was not the point of my post today. My point was, those at the top have something to gain or protect by pushing their economic agendas, and those at the bottom who support them are ignorant, misled, or both. I hate it, I disagree with it, but at the very least I can understand where it comes from. What I simply cannot understand, or stomach, are the positions on the social issues.

This was brought about this time, I think, by the anti-Obama protests at Notre Dame. He is their commencement speaker, and a minority of Catholics are against him speaking because he is pro-choice. I do believe that everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, and everyone has a right to assemble and express their opinions in a public place in a peaceful manner. I simply cannot understand why people spend so much time, energy and emotion on issues that, more often than not, just don't affect them or their personal rights or freedoms.

Abortion is a tricky subject, of course, one that has to be plodded through with care. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, then it is easy to see how one would think that abortion is murder, and be against it. These are not my personal beliefs, of course, but I can at least conceive of how people can hold that position. My qualm with these individuals is not so much their message but their methods. I think intimidating women who are already in the difficult position of having to choose an abortion is just wrong--let's face it, this is just not something most women take lightly or do for "fun" or out of sheer convenience, but because of necessities such as income, living situations, age, physical or emotional problems that would prevent them from caring adequately for a child, the list goes on and on. Threatening doctors who perform abortions is also uncalled for. Parading about with posters that use gory graphics to convince the beholder that a first-trimester abortion is tantamount to killing a fully-developed baby is misleading at best, downright deceptive at worst. Indoctrinating small children, who don't even know how babies are made yet, to protest against something they don't understand, especially something as difficult and complex as abortion, is criminal.

But my other qualm with them is consistency. If someone who claims to be "pro-life" (i.e., anti-abortion) is also against the death penalty (in all cases), against war (especially "preemptive wars" like the one we waged in Iraq), in favor of gun control (in light of the inconvenient truth that guns kill family and friends far more often than some threatening outside force), and in favor of universal health care (since access to health care for everyone, regardless of their income or work situation, saves lives), then I can accept their anti-abortion position, even accept their claim to be "pro-life"--because they would be showing that they are actually in favor of allowing people to live, no matter what their income or what they have done in their lives.

But when someone says they are "pro-life," but then supports the death penalty (as they almost always seem to do), supports Bush and his war (as they usually do, or at least did until the war become so unsupportable that there are just a few ralliers left to bolster it up), carries a gun (or attacks anyone who questions one's constitutional right to carry around an AK47), and decries "socialized medicine," their position on abortion seems hypocritical at best. You mean to say, you value the life of a fetus not only not even born, but not even developed--a ball of cells--over the life of someone who is already alive?

It is ridiculous, but they will, almost across the board, lean back on the Bible--that mishmash of human testimonies from thousands of years ago, often contradicting each other, and very few of the major stories or characters having any verifiable base in real history--to support and justify their stances. I'm not sure where in the Bible it talks about abortion--if you find that passage, show it to me, by all means--nor where it says in the Bible that one should carry around an AK47 at all times--but they will justify their positions with the Bible nonetheless. Never mind that the Ten Commandments say "Thou shalt not kill"--we should play God anyway and kill anyone who kills someone else, or does something we don't like, or breaks into our house. And as for bombing civilians in Iraq...well, these people seem to see those people as something less than human, anyway--they're Muslims. They have the mentality of the Crusades. It complements the jihadist mentality quite nicely, actually. If there were somewhere these people could go to face off and fight it out to the finish--bets on God? on Allah? anyone?--and not kill or maim any innocent men, women or children who do not seek holy war but seek merely to exist--then I would say, more power to them. Let them go fight it out. But the sad fact is, each side crusades, and more innocent people die. For what? What has anyone gained by any of this?

Pro-life, huh? Whose life are you really "pro"?

...And don't even get me started on the whole "gay marriage" issue. I simply cannot conceive of why anyone would be so passionately against gay marriage that it would trump issues such as a terrible failed, costly, deadly war; economic policies that have bankrupted working American families; a failed health care system so bad that the World Health Organization rates us #37--right between Costa Rica and Slovenia. Why, when everything else is crashing and burning around us, things that affect every single one of us either directy or indirectly, why the hell would you even care if two people who love each other get married?

I have not yet heard one claim for a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage that makes a lick of sense. Many religious groups claim that to legalize gay marriage is to, somehow, violate their "freedom of religion". I have been trying to get my head around this one for quite some time now, and still can't figure it out. So let me try to get this straight...Your religion tells you gay marriage is wrong. (Actually, it doesn't--nowhere does the Bible talk about gay marriage at all, and its only mention of homosexuality is passing and its condemnation of homosexuality is much milder than its condemnation of divorce, and in the seeming basis for the condemnation, we see that in order to prevent that abominable homosexual act it is somehow better for our hero to offer up his daughter to be raped by the town. But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that they can find a verse somewhere in the Bible where Jesus says, "Thou shalt not marry someone of the same sex.") Therefore, if a gay couple is legally allowed to marry (not even by your church, but just in general, by the state, at city hall), but your religion tells you this is wrong, then...oh, yes, I get it now! Your religion says it's wrong; state or federal law says it's OK; oh my God, you're right! Your freedom of religion is being impeded upon! You're no longer being free to have your own beliefs, if something your religion disagrees with is legal! OK, it's all clear to me now...

So that's one argument. I totally see the logic in it now.

The other common argument is that gay marriage is somehow a threat to heterosexual marriage. That makes a great deal of sense, too. I totally get it. For example, I know that if they legalized gay marriage in my state tomorrow, I would have to run out and marry another woman. I would instantly become gay. How could I not, if it were legal? What a slippery slope! Once gay people are allowed to marry, it's all straight downhill from there. Why on earth would any man and woman want to stay together, if they were legally allowed to go out and marry someone of the same sex? And hell, while they're at it, why stay married to someone of the opposite sex if they could marry, say, a goat? I mean, I know for one that the only reason all my romantic relationships have been with men is because I knew that they were the only ones the law would allow me to marry. If I had known that I could marry another woman, or a goat, or a cat, or a cockroach, I would have been involved with those all along...all at the same time, why not?! So, OK, yeah, I get it. Gay marriage definitely threatens heterosexual marriage...or heterosexuality in general!

Then there's the argument that the purpose of marriage is procreation; therefore, since two homosexuals cannot naturally conceive a child, there is no logical reason for them to marry anyway. Well, that's a damn good argument. Every couple I know marries solely for that one purpose and no other. We should also fight against marriage anyone too old to bear children; God obviously does not approve of that marriage, and thus neither should we. Oh, and while we're at it, let's require a fertility test for both parties in any marriage, and if either one is deemed infertile, then we should immediately deny their application for a marriage license. After all, if natural reproduction is not on the table, there is no purpose for their marriage. And a fully-functional heterosexual couple who chooses not to have children? Marriage should be annulled with two years if no children are produced. No sense in that marriage.

Obviously, not a single one of these main arguments against gay marriage holds a drop of water in today's society. Nobody's "freedom of religion" is being infringed upon, because nobody is going to be forced to marry anyone they don't want to. Nobody's sexual orientation is going to magically change because gay marriage is legal--though perhaps some closeted individuals will be more willing to come out and pursue their own happiness once they feel more accepted for themselves in society (God forbid). And having children is only one of many reasons for people today to get married; most people marry someone they are in love with (or believe they are in love with) because they want to share a life together. And maybe children are in that future they foresee, maybe they're not; but nobody requires them to make that decision before granting them a marriage license, or even before marrying them in a church, of any denomination. And anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure all of this out; it doesn't take a rocket scientist.

So what is this really all about? I'll tell you.

It's about intolerance. It's about prejudice. It's about hate. Just as interracial marriage was once illegal in many states, bigots fight, now just as they did then, against rights for any group who dares to be different from them (and never mind that one cannot control his or her sexual orientation any more than one can control the color of his or her skin). While the Civil Rights movement won rights for racial minorities, those rights apparently do not extend to homosexuals. Once again, a segment (far larger than it should be in the 21st century) of our population feels that in order to maintain their own position in the world, it is necessary to repress others.

These are just two social issues where the opposing view perplexes and revolts me with their ignorance, hypocrisy and prejudice. I try to understand, but I have a lot of trouble. I was always taught in school growing up, "My rights end where your nose begins." In other words, I am a free person, but as soon as my so-called "freedom" begins to harm you or infringe upon your freedoms, it is no longer freedom, it is persecution...and it is wrong. Can we please be the nation where all men (and women) are created equal, and we all enjoy the same rights...to freedom of expression, to privacy, to religion (or lack thereof), to pursue happiness--when it is not hurting anyone around us?

Or must we really crawl out of the Middle Ages once again?

I feel so violated...yet I voted to rape myself.

2009-05-14T16:46:00.004-04:00

As I left the woodshop where I cast my ballot with the union, my bitterness burned like bile in the back of my throat. I had just cast a vote that I did not like, which I almost abstained from casting--and finally decided to, at the last minute, choose between what seems to be the lesser of two evils. But is it really? Is voting "yes" to dock my own salary next month, by $400 (it will be significantly more for teachers at a higher step/pay rate than my own), in exchange for a handful of promises that may or may not be kept by the district (at their pleasure and their leisure, mind you), really better than having them dock my salary on their own terms and despite my vote of "no"? I voted, but I am still deeply undecided in my heart.

Maybe I should have abstained from voting. After all, if you are asked to vote between forced suicide ("yes") and the electric chair ("no"), either way, you are going to die. If I vote "yes," am I legitimizing the whole sham of a procedure? Am I pretending to actually vote for something, in order for the school board to be able to say, "Congratulations, you did the right thing," knowing damn well they would have gone ahead with it on their own regardless of the outcome of the "vote"? Isn't what I just did a bit like actually voting in an election in a totalitarian nation where there is only one name on the ballot, or where the other name will never actually be allowed to win, but where the election is contrived to give a facade of democracy to the whole thing?

Or perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic. But that is what it feels like, in many ways. If you read my blog from the 12th (if you didn't, catch up now!), or if you're a M-DCPS teacher, then you know what I am talking about. As I explained in Tuesday's post, after UTD has fought the school board for months on the issue, during which time the district has put out propaganda and even columnists for the Miami Herald have accused the union of being "greedy" and "petty", it is down to the wire: we are presented with the choice of voting "yes" to screw ourselves, or voting "no" so that we can get screwed anyway. They tell us, "If you vote yes, you'll get a kiss before the d*&^ up your a**." (Forgive my narrowly dodged profanity; I feel in a cursing mood at the moment.) "If you vote no," they continue, "then you'll just get a d&^* up your a**." And, of course, not voting at all is the same as voting no...or voting yes, if the majority of members vote yes...and what difference does it really make, because the "choice" we are given is no choice at all, and the outcome will, essentially, be the same. We will get screwed out of pay for 2 days of work, and we may or may not get repaid in (they say) October (maybe).

So yes, I am bitter. Like I said in Tuesday's post, I rely on every penny from every paycheck just to make ends meet. I don't go out clubbing. I don't go on shopping sprees. I don't eat at Ruth's Chris every night, or ever, for that matter. On the other hand, unlike the AIG execs (whose contracts were held so sacred that every performance or retention bonus or raise promised within had to be upheld, regardless of the fact that those people are responsible for the collapse of the economy that is a major factor in the bankruptcy of Florida's education system), I have been doing my job, consistently and more than satisfactorily, all year. I'm not asking for a retention bonus. I'm not asking for any bonus at all--no millions, no thousands, no hundreds, not even a dime, though it certainly would be nice to feel appreciated. All I'm asking is to get paid for work I have already done, and done well. Apparently, that is too much to ask, and when we ask for it anyway, we get called "greedy" by Myriam Marquez in the Herald. We get told we should be making "sacrifices."

Well, guess what, Ms. Marquez. I already am making sacrifices to do what I do. I'm smart, I made great grades in school; I could have done pretty much anything I wanted to do. I could have gone to law school and become a trial lawyer so I could drive a Porsche and live in a mansion in Golden Beach. I could have gone into advertising (as was my first plan in my first year of college) and made a lucrative career out of brainwashing gullible consumers into buying more crap they don't need or even know they want until they see the commercial. I could have done a lot of things that would have given me license to be rich...and greedy. And it would have been defended on a large public scale as "capitalism at work." But guess what. I wanted a career where I felt like I was actually doing something good, bringing value into people's lives and into society as a whole, and where I didn't feel like I was exploiting others or being exploited just to make some quick cash. Sure, it's nice to be able to buy the things you want, but I realized quickly that driving around in a Jag would feel pretty rotten (for me, at least) if I did not feel proud of where that money had come from, or what I'd had to do (or whom I'd had to screw) to get it. I don't want to play martyr, either; there are definite advantages to my job...good benefits (though they've tried to strip us of those, too); plenty of time off; significant job security when compared to jobs in the private sector. But the bottom line is, I do my job because I enjoy it; because I like feeling that I am giving more than I am taking from society; that I am making a difference in someone's life, maybe not every kid's--I'm sure not every kid's--but a few. And those few are going to feel just a little better about themselves at the end of the day, and then who knows what they may go on to accomplish. I think my job is pretty freaking important, and that it contributes much more to the greater good than selling derivatives--whatever that means--or suing people, or working to scam the general population or exploit the vulnerable--the things that seem to go on endlessly in the corporate world.

And again, I'm not threatening to quit if I don't get some multi-million dollar retention bonus. I don't think I'm that important. But I do think I am important enough to be paid for the work I do, and to be paid enough that I can live comfortably and do what I do without having to worry about how I'm going to pay my bills.

But you know us teachers. Always so greedy. Just take, take, take. Hands always in the taxpayers' pockets. Building stadiums with public money, that's just fine. Some capitalist will always be there to say, "But that will bring in revenue!" Never mind that that is not always true...they will say it anyway. They will try to claim that building stadiums contributes more to society than education. And there seem to be certain things that just cannot be considered when debating how to fund education...for example, closing corporate loopholes. Did you know that ZephyrHills, among others, bottles their water for free in Florida? When I say for free, I mean for free. The same water that you and I and everyone else pays for, they get for free; then they bottle it up and sell it to you. But your friendly Republican legislature, always looking out for your best interest, proposed taxing the consumer who buys the bottled water rather than the bottler...(or not even taxing the bottler; just making him pay for the water he's bottling). People who buy yachts in Florida pay ridiculously low amounts of tax on them; yet they want to raise the sales tax on everyone. And anything, anything but creating a state income tax; God forbid we should tax the people who can afford to be taxed, rather than spreading it out over everyone through a sales tax, where the burden inevitably falls heaviest on those who can least afford it.

Why the hell do we want so badly to keep all those rich people in this state, anyway, when they obviously have no interest in giving back to the state?

But I digress. The point of this post was the vote I cast today, of which I am pretty ashamed. I did it with the vague idea that it was probably in my best interest, but knowing deep down that nobody really gives a damn about my best interest in this district or in this state. Since you're determined to screw me anyway, do it as gently as possible, with a kiss and a few sweet nothings in my ear. When I wake up tomorrow and you're nowhere to be found, your unfulfilled promises ephemeral as a dream, I'll still feel just as violated...only now, I'll have myself to blame, not only you.

Congratulations. You achieved your goal. You convinced me that it was in our best interest to lie still and quiet during the rape, rather than kicking and screaming.

Miami Teachers: Between a rock and a hard place.

2009-05-12T19:56:00.004-04:00

This post will deal with a local issue a bit more personal to me: what's going on with Miami-Dade County Public School employees, the district and our union. I can't say that I'm happy with either of the latter two right now. Let me explain why. If you're a M-DCPS teacher, and have checked your e-mail today, you should probably already understand.

The district is bankrupt. They have not honored the contract they signed with our union, the United Teachers of Dade, last year for our hard-fought cost-of-living raises. They tell us they can't afford to pay even the salaries we are currently making (less than they agreed to pay us). Now they ask us to accept being furloughed for 2 teacher planning days this year (though there is only one left...?), promising to "pay us back" for it in the next fiscal year (beginning July 1). Our Superintendent tries to guilt-trip us into agreeing to this by bringing up other places where unionized workers have voluntarily accepted furloughs in order to help keep their colleagues from losing jobs. Up until now, UTD has taken a pretty hard-line stance on the subject, offering suggestions for ways the district can cut spending in other areas (including administration) to keep from cutting into our already deficient salaries. Suddenly, today, I find out that the union is basically encouraging us to vote "yes" to the new "deal." If we vote yes, we are told, we will lose 2 paid days this year, but the district promises to pay us back next year without working extra days for it; they promise not to make any further layoffs until the service has been repaid; they promise to reopen negotiations for our step increases. If we vote no, we are told, they will likely take those days away from us anyway, but without being bound to any sort of guarantee or agreement.

So here we are, once again, teachers stuck between a rock and a hard place. No matter what I vote, I am essentially (or potentially, anyway) screwing myself. The fact of the matter is, our salary is really not up-to-date with the extremely high cost of living in South Florida, and I for one happen to live paycheck to paycheck. Administrators, more veteran teachers, they might be able to handle being furloughed 2 days this year and repaid for it next year. They probably have some money in the bank. I am a 3rd year teacher with a Master degree. My salary of $42,000 might serve me well in a less expensive city or region, but in Miami, it doesn't get me all that far. I depend on every single penny in every single paycheck to make ends meet, to pay my bills on time, to eat well, to maintain a comfortable (though far from extravagant) lifestyle. Let me be clear. I go out to eat rarely; at expensive restaurants, almost never, unless someone else is footing the bill. I do not go out clubbing or bar-hopping. My biggest shopping "splurges" in the past 4 or 5 months have been at Target, stocking up on $5 T-shirts. I put the $20 pants back on the rack because I can't afford it right now. That is what my situation is. I am not crying to anyone. I knew when I took a job as a teacher that I was not doing it for the money, and that I would never be rich. I also knew that I could take the same job in another city, region or state and live more comfortably. So there were definite conscious decisions involved there, for which I do not blame anyone. And I am OK with cooking at home (I still eat well); I am OK with buying my T-shirts at Target, and spending my Saturday nights on the couch reading a book or watching a DVD. My point is not that I think I should be earning six digits by now. My point is simply that I do live paycheck to paycheck (in a very unextravagant lifestyle) and I need every penny I earn, and for the district to tell me they'll "pay me back" next year...I don't have the luxury of telling the electric company that I will "pay them back" next year. I can't tell my landlord, "Sorry; I'll have to pay you the rent after July 1, the school district is flat out of cash." Those are luxuries I do not have. If I have to pay what I owe, why does the district not have to pay what they owe me for work I have done?

There is only 1 teacher planning day left this year. They say they are taking away 2 days. I have worked those days. I fulfill the requirements of my contract, and then some. I often spend my lunches in my classroom sponsoring the French Club (for which I am not paid this year), administering make-up tests, or simply helping students with things they need help with. I usually stay after school anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half catching up on grading and lesson planning that I simply do not have time to do during the day (since I believe in spending classtime actually teaching). The district is telling me, once again, that my work is not valuable to them, and asking me to wait to be paid for it--a luxury I cannot afford.

And I am now disappointed in my union as well. I do understand that for them to encourage us to accept the offer, they probably feel that for us not to will not be productive--that the district will do this anyway, with or without our consent, and that at least this way we get some promises in return. But frankly, I am sick of the district's promises. They have already proven that they have no interest in upholding our contracts. They were all too quick to shelf the raises they agreed to when the budget came up short, while they were still buying themselves Expeditions on the company dollar. What makes us think that they will honor these new promises? The court sided with them--that they do not have to give us the contractual raises because they don't have the money for them. It seems a bit ironic, doesn't it, when the excuse for the AIG "retention bonuses" and "performance bonuses" was that they were written into the contracts. Taxpayers paid bonuses out to people who brought our economic system crashing down. Yet teachers, who settle for salaries a fraction of what they might make in the private sector in order to do a job they feel is valuable and important, well, taxpayers don't have to honor their contracts. Screw the teachers. They'll take it. And because they care about the kids, they won't quit their jobs. They'll keep doing what they do. They'll keep coming back for more.

There was no money to pay me the club sponsor supplement for sponsoring the French Club. So what am I going to do? Sure, I could tell the kids who came to me asking me to sponsor it, "No, I can't, the school isn't going to pay me for it. Sorry." But what kind of teacher would that make me? What kind of person would that make me? On the contrary, I was all too happy to see their enthusiasm, to hear their ideas. I am more than happy to sponsor the French Club for free on my own time. It just shouldn't be that way.

But I took that on of my own initiative; I will not lay blame there. But my contract. My contract? There are plenty of "deadwood" teachers, unfortunately, who give teachers everywhere a bad name. It is regrettable, and I am all for making reforms that would make it easier to fire bad teachers (without giving a carte blanche to vindictive or difficult principals), and for performance pay, if they can find an equitable system for assigning it that is not based primarily on standardized test scores. I am in favor of those things because I know that I am a good teacher. My students love me, at least 95% of them. The administration loves me. My students learn. I see the progress every day. They come to me not speaking a word of French, and by the end of the first year, they understand what they hear, they are writing 3-paragraph essays entirely in French. I know that the ones who put forth the effort (and some of those who don't) are learning. So I don't fear getting fired for low performance. If there is an equitable performance pay initiative, I am fairly certain that I would get my fair share. Fix those things, by all means. I am ready.

But in the meantime, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, you made a contract with us, with me. You are not honoring that contract. You already shunned it at the beginning of the year, when you told me I would not get my promised step increase. Now you're shunning it even further--mocking it--by telling me that regardless of how I vote on the proposal, I will have my salary docked by $400 this year...$400 that I cannot afford. I am asked to vote on this. I am asked to vote to screw myself, because whichever way I vote, it looks like I am losing $400 this year. I may or may not get it back next year. I may or may not eventually get my promised salary raise. Hell, I may or may not get laid off. Because, though the district talks like this is being done to save jobs, they don't deny that jobs will still be lost.

I love my job, but the district is killing it for me. No, I seriously doubt I'll quit my job if they do this like they say they're going to. But I can say for sure that if the present trend continues, and if in a few years I am not making more than I am making right now, despite my years of experience and good performance, I will have to start considering all my other options--including moving somewhere less expensive or with better pay, or changing careers. Which is a damn shame, because I love my job. I love what I do. I love the kids; I love watching them learn; I love being responsible for that learning; I love watching them grow. I don't do this job for the money; I do it for the kids. But I cannot afford to do it as volunteer work. I just can't. And the lawmakers--and taxpayers--of Florida should not expect me to. When you invest in education, you are investing in the future of the state, the country, the world. When you do not invest in education, the rich still get educated--they can afford to send their kids wherever they want--but the poor only get sucked further into the cycle of poverty. This will come back to haunt everyone in our society, not just those at the bottom of the food chain.

I wish teachers could strike. It's against the law, but if every teacher in the district (or state) went on strike at the same time, what could they do? Fire us all? It's already hard enough for them to get (and keep) quality teachers in the classroom. They can't replace thousands of teachers at once. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear we can get the support or momentum among the teachers, and if it's only a few, it won't work. (Sigh.)

Between a rock and a hard place. Should I even bother to vote? Give me your input. I really don't know at this point.

2009-05-09T15:39:00.001-04:00

In times of crisis (like these), all options should be on the table.

2009-05-09T11:22:00.006-04:00

Ah, Saturday. Lazy, glorious Saturday, full of free time. The unplanned ones are often the best...the most relaxing, anyway. Feels like the perfect time to sit down and finally write my long-brewing piece about health care in the good ol' U.S. of A.!

This issue feels so personal to me in so many ways that you would think it had actually touched my life much more deeply than it has (yet). Until perhaps six or seven years ago, I never really thought that the American health care system was broken. In fact, to be honest, I just never really thought that much about it at all. I didn't have to. See, I was--always have been--one of the lucky ones, one of those who didn't get the short end of the stick in our system. I was blessed on two counts: one, to have always had near-perfect health, no terminal or serious recurrent conditions, not particularly prone to getting sick, in short, no real health problems; and two, to have been born into, and raised in, an upper-middle-class family that always had good insurance, and enough money to pay the copays and prescriptions on those rare occasions when they were needed. I never had to think twice about going to the doctor, though I hardly ever went--I hardly ever needed to; but if I did need to, I was taken, and there was never any concern about paying for it. Furthermore, what I always heard from my parents at home (and kids tend to take what their parents say for granted up until a certain age; some do forever) was that if you were really poor, the government paid for your insurance anyway, and if the government didn't then you could afford health care, if your job didn't provide it for you (and I was under the impression that most jobs did).

So my personal experience with what could happen without health insurance was limited to that of a couple of friends, whose families were not as well-off as mine and who were not covered. One night my best friend spent the night at my house, and I was up with her in the middle of the night as she moaned and sobbed hysterically in pain from a toothache, so much so that I had to wake up my mother and ask for some prescription painkillers to help her out. The simple response to the situation was, "She needs to go to the dentist tomorrow." The problem was, she didn't have insurance (of any kind, much less dental) and going to the dentist for a toothache like that would likely cost hundreds of dollars that she, at 16 or 17, did not have, and that her parents, working hard every day to pay the rent and bills, did not have either. I still remember that incident as a first glimpse of the reality of not having insurance for some people who were less fortunate than myself. It began to dawn on me that the system didn't treat everyone equally. Yet it did not become something that preoccupied my mind all that much. For one thing, I was in high school, and had more important things to worry about, like boys, going out, parties, what everyone else thought of me, trying to circumvent my parents' rules and not get caught. And for another, while we can certainly experience empathy as children or adolescents, or even as adults, if the experience is not one happening directly to us, we tend to shelve it pretty fast.

Several years later, after college, I spent about eight months in Lille, France. I was twenty-one, still pretty much self-absorbed but beginning at long last to take some baby steps toward maturity; that year was by and large an awakening to the fact that my own experience in the world was not everyone else's, brought home by being alone in a foreign country, living, working and socializing among people from another culture with another worldview. I spoke the language, having majored in French in college, and thought I knew something about French culture when I arrived, but I was very much aware of my "otherness" there, and it gave me a self-consciousness that was entirely different from the one I'd lived with my entire life. Before, I was always very concerned with what the people around me thought of me personally--I wanted them to like me, admire me, respect me, find me attractive, find me amusing and entertaining, all of those things that add up to personal popularity, a quality that was very elusive to me throughout my childhood and adolescence, up until my early to mid-twenties. Now, in France, I became increasingly conscious of my cultural identity--and I struggled with it. Part of me was desperate to defend everything American--the culture of conspicuous consumption, the arrogant foreign policies, the isolation from the rest of the world, the overwhelming sense of cultural superiority that comes from being totally ignorant of other cultures. At the same time, I became more and more aware of those very traits that I felt some need to defend, and wanted to distance myself from them, show these people that even though I came from there and could speak up for those things, I was not of them; I was not like that; that was not me.

I should mention here that I did not feel "attacked" as an American. It has always irritated me to hear, over and over again like a broken record, that "the French hate Americans" and that I would be reviled in France. That was not my experience in the least. While yes, I did encounter a few rude Parisians here in there, generally in very touristic areas, my overall experience with the French was very positive. Maybe this was because I did speak the language, and was therefore able to communicate with people, make friends, and consequently explore not so "touristy" places where the attitude was different. My experiences in other parts of France, outside Paris, also tended to be better on the whole from the social standpoint; especially in Lille, and in smaller towns, what automatically qualified me as a "tourist" to be treated with vague disdain in Paris was simply fascinating. Those places are not on the tourist's path and they don't see many Americans; that seemed to lend me something of a movie-star allure, particularly among the teenagers in the high school where I worked in Lievin, a rather desolate little town in the poverty-stricken Pas de Calais region just south of Lille. Even adults were more often than not intrigued by that "otherness." Overwhelmingly, people were friendly, curious, not harsh or judgmental or snooty. Though this sidebar is not related to health care, I do feel the need to set that record straight: I never felt that "hatred for Americans" people here love to rant and rave about. I felt more than welcome there, for the most part, certainly just as (or more) welcome as any French person staying in the U.S. would feel.

Indeed, that need to defend those negative qualities of Americans stemmed not so much from a feeling of being attacked as an American as from a newfound awareness of their very existence. It is true that the French tend to talk politics much more readily than Americans do (on the whole), and they generally do not hesitate to criticize American policies, just as they criticize their own policies and those of other countries around the world: they tend to be outspoken about their political beliefs. On the rare occasion that I would start feeling particularly defensive in a political dialogue, I was quickly reminded: "There's no need to get defensive. We're not attacking you or even Americans. We're just saying we disagree with those policies." I had to take a step back, try to put things back into perspective, distance myself from the political criticisms, and start over.

All of this just to explain that my political sensibilities first started to come into focus during this time. I did not leave France with fully-developed political ideas when I came home in the summer of 2001, but I had definitely become aware that there were very real, very pressing problems within my own country that did have political solutions that were not being explored. I was not entirely ready to disown every idea I had been brought up to believe, but I was beginning to question many of them, and the wide array of answers to those questions often leading far away from what I had been told was right began to trouble me profoundly. My curiosity had blossomed.

The American media confines political debate to a very limited sphere, something I realized during my various stays in Europe and for which I am finding detailed explanations right now as I read Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's masterpiece study Manufacturing Consent (highly recommended). Watching the TV news, reading newspapers and magazines and talking to people in European countries showed me complete other sides to familiar stories that I had been totally unaware even existed. The Israel/Palestine conflict is one example. I had never had an overwhelming curiosity about that region of the world, and therefore knew only what I had heard in the news in the U.S., all of which, even the most "liberal," has a striking pro-Israel bias. I truly believed that Israel was the underdog and that the Palestinians were terrorists. That's what the media had told me, and due to lack of fundamental curiosity for the subject, I had not bothered to explore it further. In Europe and in relationships with Europeans my views came to turn nearly 180 degrees, as I saw the other side of the story that had never been revealed to the masses in the U.S. Health care is another example. The propaganda against "socialized medicine" has been so consistenly strong in the American media that outside of highly educated and often academic circles, it is very rare to hear anyone speak in favor of it, at least until recently. In fact, systems such as those in France, Canada and Great Britain were held up as threats: do you really want us to end up like them? We were inundated with horror stories about interminable waits for operations and procedures, terrible bureaucracy and red tape, warned that such a system would all but turn us into a communist country. Mass media never showed us the other side of the coin, never explored the advantages of those systems, and certainly never showed any opinion polls of people living in those horrible, horrible socialist countries. Had I not spent 3 years (at different times) living in Europe and had I not developed relationships with many Europeans and Canadians, I might never have come to the realization that single-payer systems can work, are fair and equal, and are popular where they have been put in place.

The simple fact is that not one of my European or Canadian friends or acquaintances has expressed the slightest inkling of jealousy of the American health care system. On the contrary, they are generally astounded and horrified by it. How could such a rich country not provide basic medical care for all of its residents? It blows their minds. They do more for their citizens in poor countries than we do here, in the country with the most resources in the western world. I have been asked more times than I could count by my European friends: Why? Why don't Americans want to fix the system?

When you look at what we Americans are so accustomed to through the eyes of someone from a country where everyone is provided with good health care, regardless of their income or employment status, it is astounding and horrifying. It was only after spending time in Europe that I started looking at those collection jars on the counters at stores and gas stations, raising money for life-saving operations and transplants, with new eyes. Instead of just feeling pity for the poor individual needing to raise thousands upon thousands of dollars in order to save his or her own life, or the life of his or her child, I started feeling anger, disgust, revulsion. Not at the individual, obviously, but at the system, here in the biggest superpower in the world, that forces low-income and even sometimes middle-class people to literally beg for their lives. You would never see such a thing in Europe. You would never see somone denied a life-saving operation because they did not have the money to pay for it.

Recently at the high school where I teach, a student died in a terrible car accident. He was in the hospital on life support for several days before they decided that the brain damage was so severe that he would never regain consciousness. His family did not have insurance. Their home was in foreclosure; the student had been selling candy on the sly at school to take home money to his parents to help keep the lights on. So, on top of losing their teenage son, they are also hit with thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills, not to mention funeral costs--at a time when they already could not afford to stay in their home and keep the lights on, when they were having to choose which bills to pay which months. Our students, lovely compassionate souls that they are, managed to raise over $5000 in donations among the student body, faculty and staff of our school. Their love and generosity are truly heartwarming. Nonetheless, I felt, and feel, that same revulsion toward a system where a hard-working family mourning the loss of their adolescent son must also be made destitute by the costs of trying to save their son's life, and then of burying their son.

Yet popular thought in our country tends to blame the victims. If they don't have good medical insurance, it is their own fault. They should budget for it (never mind how when their wages already don't pay the rest of their bills...). Or, better yet, they should have worked harder or gone to school longer so they could have a job that provided insurance. I have a friend whose beliefs are usually the complete opposite of my own who tried to convince me of this one night not too long ago. I asked him, "What of working-class people, janitors, hairdressers, cooks, waiters, maintenance men, who don't get health care coverage through their jobs and who don't make enough money to buy insurance for their families, but make too much to qualify for Medicaid?" His response was (I kid not), "Well, they're just not ambitious enough. I see people in jobs below mine all the time who are just lazy. If they cared a little more, if they worked a little harder, they could have a better job and get health insurance. Why should I have to pay for their medical care? I've busted my ass to get where I am today and to make as much money as I'm making, and I don't want to share it with anyone."

I am not going to deny that he has worked hard. He graduated from college, he got a job in the entry-level in his field and worked his way up. Granted. My problem is not with how hard he has or has not worked, but with the assumptions he starts out on. He seems to presume an equal footing from the start line. His attitude is that everyone else out there was born into the same type of family as he was (middle-class) and afforded the same opportunities (good schools, the chance to go to college). He ignores the fundamental inequalities in our society that profoundly shape the direction people's lives take.

And perhaps I shouldn't criticize him too much, for his attitude is very similar to the one I had for years until I became more culturally aware. I remember feeling somewhat offended by things like need-based college scholarships, minority scholarships, the very idea of affirmative action. I felt I was a living example of why none of that was necessary. After all, I went to college for free with the scholarship I got for National Merit, based solely upon my PSAT scores and regardless of my parents' income. If I could do it, what was stopping anyone else? I felt entirely deserving of every opportunity that fell in my lap. That was all thanks to my own brains and my own hard work (I grimace as I think this now, considering how very little work I actually did in high school). And if my parents had more money than other people's parents, well, that was because they had earned that, too. They went to college, they got good jobs, they worked, they deserved everything they had, and that somehow made me automatically deserving too.

It was only years later that I became aware of how our beginnings in life shape our lives. I liked to boast that it was my own initiative, my own brains and hard work, that had gotten me everything I had; my parents hadn't given me anything, I had earned everything. I think of that now as quite a joke. I was born and raised with advantages most people never have, and not just materially. My parents' income assured that I never wanted for anything, that is true. We always had a nice home in a safe neighborhood, food, clothes, transportation, all of that. But I also enjoyed other advantages that are not quite as obvious at first glance. My success in school, for instance...can I truly give myself full credit for that? To do so is preposterous and arrogant. Yes, I am of above average intelligence, and other than genes, that is not something my parents could influence too much; I am pretty sure that you are born with the intellectual capacities you are born with, regardless of who your parents are or how much money they make. But there are plenty of extremely intelligent people out there who end up in entirely different walks of life. My success in school was not due entirely to my intelligence; it was, in large part, due to my parents' fostering of it. One thing I will always give my parents credit for is the high expectations they always maintained for me. Both of them were college-educated, and understood the fundamental importance of education in having a successful life, so from early childhood on, education was a priority. My mother always read to me and I started learning how to read and write before kindergarten. Throughout my years in school, I was expected to bring home the best grades on my report cards, and consequently I never made a "C" on a report card until my first semester of college (when I got two: the first and last I would ever make in my life). My mother is an English teacher herself, always reading, and her love of reading was passed on to me from the time I was old enough to listen, much less read for myself. I was expected to go to college; there was never a doubt about that. There was never any question of what I would do after high school, if I might look for a job, take a year or two off, choose a career. That was true for both my sister and my brother as well. All of us were expected to go to college. What would have happened if we hadn't done that? If one, or all, of us had chosen a different path? Probably nothing; my parents would most likely have been disappointed, but reluctantly supportive. But I remember feeling at the time, especially in high school, as if choosing not to go to college would have been treason, something worthy of getting disowned. And the fact of the matter was, there was never any question about paying for it. My parents had a college fund for each of us. They "bribed" me to get a scholarship by telling me that if I got a full scholarship, they would spend my college fund on a new car for me. This motivated me to study for the PSAT and score highly enough to win National Merit--which I did--and they did indeed use my college fund to buy me a new car (which I drove until January of last year, incidentally). But in my life, the question was never if I would go to college, or even how I would go to college; it was, rather, where I would go to college, if I would get a scholarship, what I would study once I was there.

I have several friends who are intelligent like me, but who came from families where education was not the priority; working families, where the parents were too busy trying to pay bills to worry too much about pushing their kids to succeed in school. These parents loved their kids just as much as my parents did, but things were different for them. In some cases, they hadn't finished high school themselves, much less gone to college; it was never in their minds that their children absolutely must go to college. Sure, they could, and they would be happy about it; but it was never a given, and there was certainly no money in the bank for it. If they wanted to go that route, they would have to find their own way to pay for it: scholarships, loans, grants, a job. And while all of those things are out there for the student industrious enough to seek them out, it does require quite a bit of motivation. For your average eighteen-year-old who was never particularly in love with school in the first place, and whose parents are not pushing him or her to go to college, it is a lot to ask them to do, and many are simply unaware that those opportunities are even there for them.

Of the individuals I know coming from this type of home environment, a few did end up going to college, either right away (out of personal motivation) or after a couple of years off working, during which they realized that they did not want to struggle the rest of their lives in a low-paying, dead-end job, which is the typical outcome for someone with no college degree or vocational training. Others never went, and are now, years later, trying to gain the skills or experience needed to establish a real career. They are all making their lives their own way, and all of them are doing OK right now--but it has definitely been more of a struggle for all of them than it was for me, and I have to recognize now that that is not because of any personal intellectual or moral superiority on my part, but simply because I was given opportunities that they were not, and felt a need to live up to expectations that they did not. And when I think about how I was as a kid--smug, slightly arrogant, self-righteous, somewhat lazy know-it-all--there was nothing superior about me in any way. I was a perfectionist, and always wanted to be the smartest one in the class. At the same time, I generally did not challenge myself all that much: I chose to take regular classes at my school rather than being in the magnet program, because I could make great grades while doing less work. I was a good student, I made straight A's, but I also slept through my classes quite a bit, skipped quite a bit of school (particularly my last year), and I don't remember ever doing homework at home (though I did get it done--during other classes). I didn't study. I made good grades by taking relatively easy classes (too easy for me, anyway) and because good grades came easily, so I did a bare minimum (e.g., doing my homework during other classes) to ensure that the grades stayed high. I was anything but extraordinary. I look at some of my students now, taking 6 Advanced Placement classes for college credit, maintaining straight A's in those classes, doing community service, serving as officers in multiple clubs at school, and some of them working on the side as well, and I realize my own mediocrity as a student. I was so smug then, so sure that I was just smarter than everyone else and that's why I was doing so well. How stupid I was. The point of this tangent being this: How on earth can I presume to know what I would have ended up doing had I not had well-to-do, educated parents pushing me from childhood on? Had I grown up in a house where my parents were often at work and where I had little supervision or direction; where my parents did not particularly value education over other interests, or where they perhaps even expected me to get a job and help the family rather than go to college; where, if I had chosen to go to college despite their lack of interest in it, I would have been on my own to come up with the money needed for it? How could I really sit here and say I would have done things the exact same way, that things would have worked out for me the same way? Who am I to say I would have been different from my friends, just as intelligent as me, who are just now trying to catch up?

(And this relates back to health care how...???) I think my point in this long, long tangent is simply that blaming the poor for being poor is simply too easy. It is easy to point fingers at the "welfare moms," but when you get down to it, there just aren't that many of them. There are far more "working poor"--people slaving away, often at two or more jobs, well over forty hours a week, who are still coming up short on their rent and bills, who are having to choose between food and doctor's visits or prescriptions. How can my friend, making something like $80K a year now, single without kids, say with a straight face that his hard work has earned him his salary (which he should not have to share with anyone) and his benefits, and that those people cleaning toilets sixty hours a week, they are less deserving of health care than he is because they are just lazy? How can anyone make such a claim and still look themselves in the eye? How can you call someone who does manual labor fifty hours a week lazy? Furthermore, what would we do without people to do those jobs? At the end of the day, we depend on those people cleaning offices, scrubbing toilets, mowing grass, washing windows, filing papers, etc., etc. We need them to do the job they're doing; businesses don't want to pay them too much to do it; and somehow we think they don't deserve health care for themselves or their families.

And little surprise: our media, as well as our government, are in the pockets of the health care industry. Insurance companies and the medical field have lobbyists working night and day to make sure that a single-payer option is never put on the table. Media works along with them to ensure that the general public believes that somehow our broken, backward system that only values the lives of those with the money to pay for it is actually beneficial to them, and that they'll get better care under our current, for-profit system.

This is fundamentally a moral issue. Are we a country that lets citizens, including hard-working men and women, children, and the elderly, die because somehow we don't feel that they're worth saving (since they can't afford to feed the health care industry's profits)? Is it really acceptable for us to allow the health care industry to be for profit anyway? Why should saving lives be about making profits? After all, the insurance industry seems to find overwhelmingly that it is more profitable to deny claims than to honor them, and thus more profitable to let people die or fall into ill health than to help them. Does everything in this country have to be about how much money businesses can make? Can people finally take enough interest in their own self-interest to make our government come up with an equitable solution that does not bow down to the profit margins of the health care industry? Can the American people finally get the information they need to realize that becoming more like Canada, France or Great Britain in that respect is not a bad thing? When I look around at our society and the way government works, everything is aimed at helping corporations be more profitable. They try to tell us every day that the more profitable corporations are, the richer our citizens will be. It takes a blind man not to see that that is simply a lie. The executives have gotten richer and richer and richer; the middle-class and the working poor have simply gotten poorer. We are told that the quality of our health care will go down if it is made available to everyone. We are told this so that the health care industry can keep making their profits. Maintaining the status quo is in no one's interest except the health care industry.

All options need to be on the table...including, and especially, single-payer. The only Americans who don't want it are those who are profiting off other people's misfortune...and those who are ill-informed enough not to know any better.

Let's hope we can trust his judgment.

2009-05-04T18:57:00.007-04:00

I took a brief hiatus there (3 days, I think?) but I am back. The big news (aside from the slowly dying swine flu scare, no pun intended) seems to be the news that Justice Souter is retiring after this session, meaning Obama will very soon be putting in his first Supreme Court Justice. Let's hope we can trust his judgment.

There is all sorts of speculation about whom he might pick and why. Will it be a woman? A Latino? A Latina? Some other minority? Does it need to be? As with every issue, there are two sides (or more), and I won't claim any kind of supreme knowledge on this one. I don't know much about appellate judges, nor am I privy to our President's "short list." I really can't say whether it is "necessary" to appoint a minority or a woman, though I must say that if he/she is highly qualified, adding diversity to the court certainly can't hurt. Then the question, will he/she be a political activist, an "extremist," who will try to legislate rather than interpret constitutional law? Conservatives fear yes--though they certainly want their own "activists" in there to overturn cases like Roe v. Wade, and/or rubber stamps.

Our government was set up by the founding fathers to provide checks and balances for power. The Supreme Court is the most powerful check, in that they are supposed to be politically impartial and interpret the legislation passed by Congress, deciding whether or not it is constitutional. Our Constitution was written before civil rights ("all men are created equal" but that really meant all land-owning white men, certainly not minorities or women), automatic machine guns, internet or the sexual revolution. A lot of issues are, and will be, difficult to define based solely upon the Constitution. Does that mean laws restricting things like accessing child pornography are an invasion of privacy? That, because of the Second Amendment (written at a time when the British army were occupying colonists' homes at their leisure and the founding fathers wanted to assure that these Americans had a right to protect themselves and their families from these invasions), it should be as easy for anyone eighteen or over to buy an automatic weapon capable of firing hundreds of rounds per second as it is for them to buy a cheeseburger? Let's face it. The world has changed a lot since the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, both for better and for worse. We no longer tolerate slavery or even segregation. We guarantee all people equal rights--men and women, of every race, color, ethnic background, religious background and sexual orientation. We no longer tolerate the exploitation of children in sweatshops (within our borders--though we certainly tolerate it from other countries, when it means we can buy a product for $3 instead of $10...but more on that topic at a later date). Our interpretation of the Constitution has to be flexible, and has to take into account changes that have taken place since its creation--good and bad changes alike. The Constitution has to be a living document--and that means open to modern interpretation in light of social, scientific and medical progress. We want to uphold the principles the country was founded upon, but we do not want to take our country back to all the mores and values of the 18th century. We want to be a country that looks (and moves) forwards, and strives to guarantee both more freedom and rights and more protection to its citizens--particularly those most vulnerable to be abused or exploited by the majority.

I cannot say that I want a politician on the Supreme Court, even if it is one whose ideology I agree with. That would set a precedent that could absolutely come back to bite me in the ass one day. But I have to agree with the President when he says that he wants someone pragmatic but empathetic. Law cannot be interpreted only in the black and white manuscript of white men who lived and died hundreds of years ago. Just as our world and country have changed, the laws have changed and adapted, necessarily. We should not be afraid to make necessary adjustments in the Constitution as well. I am sure plenty of conservatives and even many centrists and those left of center would blast me for this, but I would be very much in favor of eliminating or, at the very least, adjusting the Second Amendment. I believe the circumstances for which it was written no longer apply, and that if the founding fathers could see the devastating effect that having such "freedom to bear arms" has had on our country, especially in comparison with other western countries who wisely decide NOT to grant such unlimited freedoms to their citizens, they would turn in their graves and fall over one another to scratch those lines out of the Constitution.

We also have to go back to recognizing and supporting the rights, freedoms and privacies of individual citizens over those of corporations. Though people seem to believe today that the capitalist system and our Constitution are inseparable, they are not. It is shameful and reprehensible that today the courts side more often than not with corporations, even when said corporations are trampling employees, consumers and competition. The free market is not a moral system or one that is inherently good. It is simply one of many models of economics, and if looking at what its influence in the world today is doing to more vulnerable populations is any indication, it is not the fairest or even the most free. We need a Supreme Court that is willing to stand up for individuals, especially those most often overlooked or slighted, and to recognize that corporations are not people. They should not automatically be granted the same rights that are guaranteed to individuals. If Republicans try to stir up a fear of "big government," I am far more afraid of big corporations. They exercise vastly more power in our nation today, at all of our expense, and at the expense of countries and populations around the world.

Appointing a Supreme Court Justice is one of the most important, if not the single most important, decision a President has to make. These judges are for life, and cannot be voted out of office if we are unhappy with their rulings. We need a strong justice who will represent individuals (and not just rich ones), who will analyze the ways that laws affect common people, and who will value individuals' rights and liberties over those of the corporate world. This does not necessarily mean an "extremist" judge--but one who interprets the Constitution and the laws with empathy?

I will second that, President Obama.

...and let the fearmongering begin!...(again)

2009-04-29T17:40:00.005-04:00

As you know (if you know me), I am a high school teacher. This morning, I was standing next to a colleague's desk toward the end of one of her classes; students were milling about, getting ready to go to lunch. One student was standing next to her desk and I overheard him telling her how scared he was of the swine flu. "I'm going to buy one of those masks," I heard him saying.
Even though it was not my conversation, I couldn't help but interject that those masks do not block the swine flu virus and therefore do not prevent contamination or apparently serve any useful purpose, other than making people feel better (i.e., a placebo effect). The student sniffed, "Well, it'll make me feel better." I just raised my eyebrows, thinking, What an idiot. Placebos are only supposed to work if you don't know it's a placebo! Meanwhile, another student is adding, "I heard a baby in Texas died!" I had to point out that babies can also die of human flu virus, too. A baby somewhere is dying of something every hour. None of this is enough to make me panic and run around in a little blue surgical mask in a state where as of today, no cases have even been reported.

But this is the typical hysteria, and it really irritates me. It's the usual fearmongering. The media has some subject they want everyone to be scared of all the time. Crime, terrorism, epidemics; products from China, tainted dog food, salmonella outbreaks. Don't get me wrong. Obviously any disease that the CDC claims could have pandemic potential is a cause for concern and something to keep an eye on. But with 68 cases so far in the entire U.S., most of them concentrated in New York, and to date no deaths in the U.S. (until the baby died, assuming that is a confirmed swine flu casualty--I have not confirmed this myself yet), I personally feel no great sense of urgency here, and certainly no cause for panic.

The fearmongering would be almost laughable, if only it weren't so dangerous. It's the same old thing they use all the time, usually to achieve somebody's political ends. After all, the fear of terrorism propagated by the Bush administration, with the full cooperation of the media, led to wide public support for an unnecessary and unwarranted war and the usurpation of many civil liberties that came along with it. We're still paying the price for those terrible decisions years later. Mention al Qaeda and Iraq often enough in the same sentence, and eventually the sheep will flock to the idea of bombing that country. Shoot first, ask questions later.

As Michael Moore so astutely ascertains in his film Bowling for Columbine, it is the same fearmongering and "culture of fear" cultivated by the evening news that inspires middle-class Americans in low-crime suburbs to stock up on guns and ammo that are (I believe the statistic is) ten times more likely to kill or injure a friend or family member than to be used in self-defense. People see nothing but murders, drive-bys, robberies and kidnappings on the news, and thus get an exaggerated idea of how dangerous the community they live in is, and arm themselves to the teeth. Not only do their children find their guns and either accidentally hurt themselves or others with them, but in a few tragic circumstances they also take those guns to school and intentionally cause enormous harm. Even more frequently, burglars steal those guns and ammunition and sell them on the streets...and not to fine, upstanding, tax-paying citizens.

And now the fearmongering has begun once again. Everyone is running scared. Swine flu, swine flu, swine flu. Unsurprisingly, the fact that it seems to have originated in Mexico is serving as fodder for the xenophobic right-wing anti-immigrant movement, with talking heads decrying the illegal immigrants carrying the disease across our borders. They ignore the fact that the first U.S. case appears to have been a Catholic school student in New York returning from a vacation in Cancun. They ignore the fact that the epidemic seems to have originated at a pig farm in Mexico run by an American corporation. Why bring any of that up, when the fact that the disease sprang up in Mexico is the perfect vehicle for revving up the xenophobe machine? Close the borders! Send all those wetbacks back! We told you they'd be the death of us! First they take our jobs, now they give us diseases!

I, for one, refuse to give in to the fearmongering. I refuse to be scared of something until there is adequate reason to be. I'm not stupid; I'm not going to travel to that pig farm in Mexico and dance around in front of the sneezing swine. As it is, I try to wash my hands several times a day, especially when I'm at my school, to avoid catching common colds, stomach bugs and the like. And I try to remember to lock my car doors when I'm driving through neighborhoods known for frequent carjackings, robberies and other such crimes. But I'm not going to carry a gun. I don't need one, and if I ever had one in my face, I'm sure that criminal would know how to use it much better than I would. I refuse to fear terrorists. And I'm sure not about to start wearing a blue surgical mask today.

For whom the bell tolls...?

2009-04-28T20:41:00.004-04:00

I want to keep it short and sweet tonight. The big news of the hour is that Arlen Specter has "crossed the line"--officially. He shed his Republican affiliation once and for all and is now a Democrat.

His reasons are political, of course, as they usually are. He was sure he was going to get beaten in the Pennsylvania Republican primary by conservative Pat Toomey, and independents apparently do not win general elections in Pennsylvania. And, despite the support of the President, he might still have a run for his money in the Democratic primary. Labor will not look kindly upon his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

The implications, regardless of whether it is Specter or another player who wins the Democratic primary, are much broader than these individuals. The G.O.P. has just lost one of its only remaining moderates, at a time when the country is leaning further left than it has in decades. It does not even matter that his switch is largely for political reasons...those political reasons are very telling about the state of the Republican Party. The hardcore conservative base will flock to Toomey in the primary, but he would almost certainly lose the general election. Republicans continue to pander ever more to that extremist base--especially the religious right--and lose more and more moderates. In the latest poll only 21% of Americans identified themselves as Republicans. The more centrist Republicans that disappear from the ballots, the fewer Americans will identify themselves as such. It is the Incredible Shrinking Party.

The Democratic Party cannot and will not stay on top indefinitely. There will be a shift in public opinion, as there always is. But whether or not the Republicans as they are presenting themselves now can make themselves a viable competitor is a whole different ballgame. Prior to the 2008 election, I was getting increasingly fearful of the power of the religious right in politics--I don't plan on having an abortion any time soon, but I will certainly defend a woman's right to choose; I am not gay, but I absolutely support gay rights, including the right of any person to marry any other consenting adult they so wish; as a teacher in a public school and an atheist, I have no desire to impose my own beliefs (or lack thereof) on my students, but I also could not stomach the idea that any religious group should be able to. I was really starting to fear the direction of the country. The 2008 election shook all of that up, and finally gave me some hope and confidence that Americans were not really that crazy, ignorant and backward after all. Now, what becomes ever more apparent is that there is this minority, this fringe, that really and truly is crazier and more ignorant and backward than even I would believe possible--but, thankfully, they really are a minority, and they are basically out of power...at least for the time being.

The crumbling of the Republican Party is good news for those of us out here who want to see actual progress. I'm sure it will come back eventually--or a replacement--but let's hope that this experience in losing power teaches them, sooner or later, that when the country moves left, moving as far right as they possibly can is not the best policy.

For now, they don't seem to have gotten the memo.

Shame on all of us...but don't blame the unions.

2009-04-27T18:40:00.005-04:00

Union-bashing has long been a national pastime, and the fervor and frenzy of the bashing has only accelerated with the current crisis in the American automobile industry. "It's all the union's fault," they scream from the right, the center and even from some on the left. "With all their demands for health care benefits, pensions and salary, they have bankrupted the auto industry." So, though we have to honor the insane bonuses promised to AIG executives in their sacred contracts, the auto industry should not have to honor the contracts with their workers...in fact, no industry, business or department need really honor union contracts. Those greedy, greedy union contracts, always seeking to bleed the executives dry for their greedy, lazy workers.

Yes. Damn the unions! What good do they do us? All they do is make us less competitive in the world, when we're talking about industry and business. Due to their crazy, unreasonable demands, industries are left with no choice but to outsource labor to third-world countries in order to keep a comfy profit margin that will allow the executives to keep their fleet of Lamborghinis and private jets.

At first glance, they might seem to have a point. It appears to be true that health care and pension costs are such a heavy burden on industries that, in order to stay profitable, they fare better by moving labor overseas. And let's be fair; not all of the countries they move labor to are third-world, either. Lots of American cars are made in Canada, for example.

But to concede at that point that the unions are to blame is to fall utterly short of following the argument through to its logical end. So let's follow it through. Let's just assume that the unions are effectively busted. The American people have had it with their greedy demands. Bye-bye unions. OK. Now, with no organization behind them to fight for their salaries, wages inevitably fall. Health care benefits, far too expensive for the industry to maintain, are scrapped. Vacation time? Pensions? Forget about it! Who needs it? None of that is guaranteed by any law; nobody's forcing businesses to provide those luxuries. So, out of their already decreased wages, workers now have to either foot their family's health insurance costs all by themselves, or else risk going bankrupt the first time any sort of emergency, accident or illness strikes. That certainly doesn't leave much left over to put in a retirement fund, so when they're too old to work, all they're left with is social security, which all of us acknowledge does not realistically cover the costs of living independently throughout one's retirement. That creates either an indigent elderly population (of people who worked hard their entire adult lives, mind you) or else a huge financial burden on their families, who have to make up the difference.

Is that type of life consistent with the idea of the "American dream"? The idea that if one works hard, one can achieve a comfortable life for one's family? That is exactly what would happen without the union. If you want a concrete example, just take a look at Wal-Mart. (I highly recommend the documentary film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price: http://www.walmartmovie.com/.) Wal-Mart aggressively prevents the unionization of its workers. The result? As they drive smaller corporate stores and especially small local businesses under, they offer the lowest wages in the field with almost non-existent benefits for their workers, and even go so far as to encourage their employees to go on welfare. According to Wal-Mart's own reports, 46% of their associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured. This costs taxpayers $456 million nationally each year. Communities also must foot the bill to construct roads and clear land for Wal-Mart centers--often conveniently placed in areas where they do not have to pay local taxes. Reports show that Wal-Mart has actually driven the take-home pay of retail workers down by $4.7 billion dollars annually! Why? Because they are not allowed to unionize. Employees suspected of trying to organize are routinely sniffed out, harassed and fired. Stores can show employees anti-union movies and make them attend anti-union meetings on the clock, but union supporters cannot distribute union materials during work hours. This is what happens when unions are not allowed to exist. Is anyone really so naive as to believe that businesses, particularly large corporations, would voluntarily pay comfortable living wages and offer benefits if there were no pressure on them to do so? Wal-Mart is a dramatic example, and it amply illustrates what would almost certainly happen in the auto industry were the auto workers' union to back down or disappear. Our workers deserve better than that. This country deserves better than that. The largest economic power in the world can afford to offer its workers a fair day's pay for a hard day's work. We have seen in recent years how executives' pay has skyrocketed even as lower-level workers' pay and benefits have steadily diminished. Reagan's "trickle-down economics" don't work. Or rather, correction: they work only for the rich. They work beautifully for those on top. For those closer to the bottom, waiting mouths open wide for the drops to trickle down...they just keep on waiting.

So the union is doing its job. It's fighting hard, against very tough odds, to protect American workers. Who is going to look a worker who has been working long hours every day in a factory for years and tell him he doesn't deserve the wages he takes home, that he doesn't deserve health care, that he doesn't deserve to retire without worrying about being able to eat?

Yet acknowledging that the union is just doing what the workers need it to do does not solve the problem that it has become, from business's perspective, too expensive to keep labor in the U.S. It doesn't solve the problem. In the corporate world, all must bow down to the almighty profit, and let's face it, it is obvious that health care costs in the U.S. are a huge drag on industry's profit. Why should they keep their manufacture here, when they can move it elsewhere and increase their profit margin? Corporations are not altruistic entities, after all, and while I do believe that we should create legal restrictions on businesses outsourcing to countries that do not respect human rights and workers' rights (e.g., China), I cannot say that businesses should not be allowed to manufacture in, say, Canada. So what gives?

Why would they want to outsource to Canada? I cannot imagine that Canadians work for significantly lower wages than Americans. Canada is not a starving third-world country where citizens will take any job they can get under any conditions for any pittance of a wage just to fill their children's bellies. Yet labor is cheaper to corporations in Canada than it is in the U.S. And Japan can offer high-quality cars at lower prices than American car corporations can--but not because the Japanese work at starvation rates (for the uninformed, Japan, unlike China, is a developed nation). A huge part of it comes back to health care, every time. Paying health care benefits to employees and their families is too expensive in the U.S. In Canada, Japan, and every other developed country out there (as in most developing countries as well, to the extent their resources permit), health care coverage is universal. The industry doesn't have to foot the bill, and therefore, even if wages are the same or maybe even higher, the overall cost to the industry is far lower, and therefore, outsourcing to those countries is more profitable.

The solution does not lie in smashing unions and turning our workers into their third-world counterparts (though, to be fair, with less health coverage). The solution does not lie anywhere within the union, or even within the auto industry. The solution is a political one, and the responsibility for it lies within each and every one of us. Public pressure amounts to political will. We as Americans have to quit listening to the garbage anti-socialized-medicine propaganda fed to us on a regular basis by conservative politicians and the insurance industry. As Michael Moore points out in his enlightening documentary film Sicko, we are plenty "socialized" in many fields--education, law enforcement, emergency management, to name a few that we see every day and which no reasonable citizen would claim we should do without, or have privatized. So why this obstinance to institute a system that would provide the same level playing field to all Americans that our education system, for example, is meant to provide? It's all thanks to the right-wing politicians and talking heads, who, naturally, are sticking up for the health care industry, which is making quite a meaty profit on our health. They want us to be scared, and it appears to work. I recently heard a person say, very seriously, "I don't have health insurance right now, but I'll tell you one thing--I sure don't want the government taking it over." Are people really that brainwashed, that they would rather risk bankruptcy because of an accident or illness or even pregnancy, than have universal coverage through the government? A high school student once told me about a minor accident he had while visiting Italy, and commented, "Socialized medicine at 4:00 AM is not much fun." I had to point out that an American emergency room at any time is not much fun either--but at least in Italy, he didn't end up with a bill for thousands upon thousands of dollars for his hours of waiting. Where does this idea come from, that "socialized medicine" (ooooh, scary!!) is the enemy, and a system where corporations make a profit off denying claims and where many people even with health insurance avoid going to a doctor when they should because their deductibles and co-pays are too costly? America has bought into the propaganda for too long, and people have died because of it; many more have gone bankrupt because of it. And for all the right-wing talking heads' warnings of us "turning into France," France happens to have the #1 health care system in the world. I happened to live in France for two years, and never once spoke to a French person who envied the American system. Quite the contrary: I was routinely asked how on earth a rich, developed country like the U.S. could deny basic medical coverage to its citizens? It was beyond their realm of comprehension. Even in more conservative nations like Great Britain, it is considered radical to wish to dismantle the national health system. It's an idea that only the very rich even entertain, and among them, pretty few. It is really not controversial at all in Europe; nor is it in any country that already has it, which is, like I said, every developed country, and many developing ones as well.

So now that people are finally starting to come around to the idea (having been pushed to it by the ever-skyrocketing cost of health care) that it might be nice not to have to worry about losing one's insurance if one loses one's job, they want to scare you with the cost. Too expensive, too expensive, they're going to raise your taxes, they're going to raise your taxes, OH MY GOD WE'RE GOING TO TURN INTO EUROPE!!!!! I could only dream we should be so lucky! With universal health care, the pool is enormous; risk is balanced out because there are so many young, healthy people insured who cost very little to insure. The industry is not seeking to make a profit, so costs are significantly decreased. The amount spent on the totally unnecessary Iraq war would have more than paid to start the system--yet nobody seemed to balk at that. Is securing oil fields really more vital than securing the health of our citizens? A lot of people would have you believe that. Taxes are higher in Europe, but not as much as they would have you believe, and the residents--all the residents--reap the benefits on a daily basis. They don't have to pay premiums or co-pays to go to the doctor. They don't have to worry about getting hit with thousands in hospital bills after getting sick, getting in an accident, or having a baby. Education is free--preschool to college. No selling one's future to student loans, graduating from college owing more than one can reasonably expect to make in the next two years of working. Public transporation is fast, easy, cheap and reliable. Salaried workers are guaranteed five weeks of paid vacation a year--they actually get to enjoy their lives a little bit. Their retirement is secure. America should be so lucky, to turn into Europe!

And in the immediate, it would help stop the constant migration of jobs to countries that do provide their residents with health care, as well as keeping American workers from having to sacrifice those essential benefits--or a living wage--in exchange for keeping their jobs.

I personally have health insurance, and pretty good health insurance at that. But I really do not like the idea that if I were to get laid off tomorrow, I would lose that coverage. I am young, healthy, not pregnant, not expecting anything major to happen anytime soon. But you never know. And my debts are already enormous; I do not need to add that to them. And I can't stand talking to my uninsured friends who refuse to go to the doctor when they are sick because they can't afford it. These are people who work, by the way, not people sitting at home on their asses. They work all day, pay their bills, but cannot afford health care on top of those bills.

Don't blame the unions for jobs disappearing or moving overseas. We don't need starvation-wage jobs, or jobs that offer no health insurance in a country where one hospital stay can throw a family into debt they cannot get out of. If you have to blame someone, blame American voters. Blame the health care industry and the politicians who try to scare you into voting against your own best interest in order to increase corporate profits, at your expense. This is not a union problem. This is a political problem. This is an American problem. And if we want our labor to be competitive among developed nations, if we want to keep well-paid jobs here, we really don't have a choice. We need universal health care, and we need it now. With unemployment growing exponentially by the day, the insured becoming instantly uninsured, small businesses crumbling under the burden of providing their employees with insurance, and corporations moving their operations abroad, we can't wait. We can't dilly-dally and pussyfoot around it anymore. The scare tactics have gone far enough. They want you to be afraid of a system that will do nothing but benefit you. They are against it because it will benefit you--and not corporate profits. Could Americans please, just once, stand up for what is not only fair, but for their own good??!! Why are we so afraid of becoming one of these countries where people
can actually afford to get sick, instead of being afraid of the country we already are??? What the hell are we so afraid of???!!!!!!!

I'm not sure...but it sure as hell shouldn't be the unions.

Liberty and justice for all...well, with a few exceptions.

2009-04-26T10:19:00.000-04:00

So...I have made the decision that I will try to write at least (approximately) one post a day, and will try to focus (unless otherwise inspired) on some issue or current event that is "big in the news" that day or week. (Seems rational enough, right?) This week's news and political shows have been heavy with talk of torture, what defines or constitutes torture, whether or not what our military and CIA were doing for several years there was torture, whether or not those "enhanced interrogation techniques" were actually legal or not, whether or not torture produces the desired results, who should or should not be held accountable for those practices (the people at the bottom of the food chain actually carrying out the orders, the higher-ups ordering them, or the people at the very top of the food chain requesting and creating bizarre legal opinions to justify them), etc., etc., etc. It seems only fitting that my first "opinion post" sh0uld pertain to that touchy (no pun intended) subject.

I have to admit that I was a little disturbed this morning, as I read the Miami Herald over my coffee and English muffin, to learn that a recent poll found that "about half of all Americans, and 52% of independents, said there are circumstances in which the United States should consider employing torture against terrorism suspects." I probably should not be surprised, much less shocked and appalled. After all, this is a country where the death penalty not only still exists but is still used regularly and still enjoys the support of a popular majority; where a vast majority of those who proclaim so vociferously that they are "pro-life" are also pro-death penalty and pro-preemptive wars that kill and maim countless civilians, including women and children; where one's "right to life" (including access to health care, even emergency health care) is largely dependent upon one's ability to pay for it. Oh yes, Americans value life, all right, but only certain lives, and certain people simply are not deserving (we say) of human rights.

Have we really not yet moved past the medieval mindset of the angry, vengeful mob arriving at the town square with fistfuls of stones, ready to throw them at the convict as he is being drawn and quartered? Either you are for torture or you are against it. Either you are for human rights or you are against them. There can be no in-between, there can be no middle ground, no "well yes I am but in certain cases..."

Naturally there are many people standing far to my right who would read this (well, they probably won't read it, but let's just pretend for the sake of argument that they would) and cry out triumphantly, "Aha! You see? Another lefty terrorist apologist! They all think we should just turn our country over to terrorists and become an Islamic nation like Iran! They think we should bow down to the terrorists, surrender!" This is the typical rallying cry for those who are more interested in imperialism than in the concepts of liberty and justice this country was founded upon; who are more interested in making sure that America stays at the top of the global food chain than making sure it remains a role model to developing countries who have not yet fully adopted, or indeed adopted at all, human rights.

The Eighth Amendment was put into the Constitution for a reason. The reason is, precisely, cases like the one we see today. It is not, and must not be, a question of whether the people being tortured are guilty or innocent, nor of what. That is a separate matter, and should be dealt with in a court of law, following the American laws and judicial procedures. This is not me (or anyone else) saying that what they may or may not have done is "OK". We are supposed to be a country of principles. If we do not follow our own principles, how on earth can we expect other countries to follow them? This idea that, as the United States and as the leading world economic power, we are above international laws, treaties and conventions is absolutely preposterous...and extremely dangerous. In the short term, we are setting a very ugly and risky precedent, and providing easy and quite logical justification for countries that might capture and torture our citizens. "It's not torture when you do it; why is it torture if we do it?" What shall we argue to that? "No, no, because you are not Americans, and those people were terrorists!"? "Terrorist" is one of those loose terms we like to stick on any person or government we do not agree with or support; it has also been stuck on us, for our intrusive actions in other countries, especially the Middle East. We could argue all day on who is or is not a terrorist; at the end of the day, it still would not matter. Our founding fathers upheld, rightly, the idea that we would not torture under any circumstances. The Eighth Amendment does not say, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, except in the case of terrorists." When we grant certain political entities the discretion to decide who is or is not worthy of human rights, we do ourselves, our country, our principles and the entire world a grave disservice.

This is the only issue here. The issue is not whether or not torture works (it appears that most evidence shows that it does not work, often eliciting inaccurate confessions and destroying any chance of building the sort of rapport that could lead to useful intelligence). Even if it worked like a charm, it would still be morally wrong and ILLEGAL. There is a reason why confessions obtained by police from suspects under harsh conditions are thrown out. Should we hold our leaders and our judiciaries to a lesser standard?

This "ticking bomb" scenario keeps coming up--shouldn't we be able to do it if we know this prisoner knows something, he won't talk, and a huge attack is about to take place? It's ridiculous. First of all, these people are trained to be, and are psychologically prepared to be, suicide bombers. They are ready to die for this cause they believe in, regardless of what we personally think about their cause. If they are willing to crash an airplane into a building, or strap a bomb to their chest and walk into a public place, why would we believe that torturing them might get them to crack? When dealing with individuals who already have such a low opinion of what we represent that they are willing to blow up hundreds or thousands of civilians to prove their point, all torture would do is reinforce those ideas and strengthen their resolve. Furthermore, assuming that for some reason the torture could succeed in obtaining some kind of information, and that that information was not a blatant lie in an attempt to stop the torture, the intelligence would already be dated by the time it was obtained. Only current, up-to-the-minute intelligence from the field would really help stop an imminent terrorist attack. And still, even if we put all of this aside and made the gross leap of faith that it COULD get accurate intelligence that COULD help stop a terrorist attack, it is morally wrong, ILLEGAL, and sets a precedent for our country and an example for the rest of the world that we WILL live to regret.

Our leaders should know this. That the American public is divided on it attests more than anything else to the same vengeful nature that demands "an eye for an eye" (forgetting that in the New Testament Jesus tells them to "turn the other cheek," in other words, follow your principles of non-violence and serve as an example). Americans, more than any other country in the Western world with which I have experience or insight, like and want revenge. But the leaders of our country--the President, his cabinet, the Vice-President, the Attorney General, our Supreme Court justices, any other member of Congress involved--they are all legally trained. They know what the law is. They know that calling something by another name does not change its substance. They must be held accountable.

I commend Obama for releasing the torture memos. However, I will be bitterly disappointed--and worried for the future of our country and our world--if his administration does not pursue an effort to determine the whole truth about this affair and hold the perpetrators accountable. I keep hearing people fretting about what image of the U.S. this will present to the rest of the world. The truth of the matter is--and everyone should know this already--the rest of the world already knows what we have done. They knew it long before the exact details were released in the torture memos. None of this is brand new information. What they are waiting and watching for is to see what we are going to do about it. Are we going to sweep it under the rug and say, "Well, we don't do it anymore, so let's just forget about that whole ugly chapter of American history and move on"? Or are they going to say, "This was a travesty of justice, it goes contrary to American principles and the United States Constitution, and to prove that we refuse to condone torture we will hold accountable those responsible for it"?

And screw public opinion. Whether polls say Americans are for or against getting to the bottom of this and prosecuting where necessary--who cares? Do we use information gathered from polls to decide criminal court cases? No. We have a judge and a jury and they decide, based on the evidence presented, not whether or not they like the individual on trial, not whether or not a conviction will "blemish" their town, but whether or not a law has been broken, which one, and what the consequences should be. We love to say in this country that no one is above the law. It is now time for Obama, Attorney General Holder, the rest of the administration, the judicial system, and this country as a whole to prove it. If no one has broken any laws, then no one will be prosecuted. But if laws have been broken--and all evidence suggests they have--then in the interest of justice and upholding our example as a country that respects human rights and honors international laws, treaties and conventions, we have a duty to investigate and prosecute...regardless of what Americans say about it in ABC polls.

Who why when where how...what??!

2009-04-25T10:58:00.001-04:00

This is my first entrance into the "Blogosphere." I don't really know anything about how to do it, and I don't really know whether I will manage to maintain it sufficiently. I certainly don't know if anyone will read it--and if so, why. It's just a crazy idea I had last night, that I actually started last night, got distracted by a phone call, forgot about, went to bed, woke up this morning, saw the page still up on the computer where I'd started, and lo and behold, here I go. Before breakfast, even. And I'm hungry. And badly want my coffee. This is amazing for me.

So...the who? Call me Jennie. Why? I don't know. Ask me again later. When? Now, I guess. Where? Miami, or thereabouts. How? Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I don't know anything about blogging. What? I think I'll probably share a lot of political opinions (something I have no shortage of) and opinions of current events and issues, as well as personal and private observations, and maybe the occasional tidbit out of my own life. We'll see. We'll see if anyone even reads it! All remains to be seen...