Teachers, what are they good for?

“Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. . . . Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense.”

Wanna take a shot at who said that? Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute. Did you guess Barack Obama? Wrong. Franklin Roosevelt? Nope. John Kennedy? Nice try.

No, the above quote is from Mr. Sam Seaborn, otherwise known as Rob Lowe on The West Wing.

The amount of times I have to reference this show when trying to come up with an example of how I wished politicians acted and spoke increases every year, and becomes more frustrating each time. But this one hits a little closer to home because my wife is a teacher.

In the recent attacks on public workers in states across the country, teachers seem to bearing the brunt of the abuse. And, thanks to the lazy and/or corporate media (I vacillate back and forth which it is each day), any real representation of what teachers face in 21st century America is absent from the discussion. It doesn’t matter that the governor of Wisconsin sought fit to give tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, both of which donated heavily to his campaign, while at the same time calling for the elimination of collective bargaining with the intent on gutting wages and benefits of public sector workers.

Now, some of those attacking teachers would have you believe that teaching is a cake walk. See, teachers get their summers off, and barely work eight hours a day, and are basically just high paid baby sitters, which is funny, because the turnover rate for teachers is this: 50% quit within the first five years.

Let that sink in: 50% in the first five years. Because it’s easy? Because it’s well paid? Hell, the military doesn’t even hit 15% of wash-outs. So what is this really about, this right wing assault on teachers and public sector workers?

Well, obviously, unions. The right wing hates unions. The idea that parasitic “workers” have any rights disgusts them to no end, which is why Ayn Rand is a hero to so many of them, regardless of the fact that her economic policies are proven failures.

The second, less obvious reason, is that the right despises the very concept of “public.” In their demented world, everything is privatized and unregulated, left to the “market” to magically manage. Police departments? Private. Say hello to your friendly, neighborhood Blackwater, excuse me, XE Services LLC, security force. Never mind the fact that they are mass murders, this is about business. And if there is one truism in conservative America, BP and Transocean ignore safety regulations and blow up their workers without a single criminal charge, but try the same thing as an individual citizen. Do not pass Go, report directly to Jail, owned and operated by Wackenhut for a nice profit.

You might have guessed that I don’t support unregulated capitalism, total privatization and various other wet dreams of the right, and you’d be… right. To which I’ll end with two thoughts, one short, one long.

There isn’t a single Fortune 500 CEO or Blackwater mercenary that is doing a job that is 1/100th as important of that of teacher. No one will look back and fondly remember your name the way that I look back on my high school English and Newspaper teacher Mr. May who taught me to explore my interest in writing, even when it got me in trouble with my fellow students for speaking my mind in the high school paper, and ultimately helped me decided to pursue journalism in college.

Like Sam said above, teachers should make six-figures, and schools should be palaces. And those who don’t believe that betray their true feelings about the importance of education, knowledge, free thought, reason and fact.

Second, for any right wing/conservative/tea bagger trolls who may stumble upon this, I leave you with this.




In other words, you are, always have been, and always will be, on the wrong side of history. Enjoy.

Predictions 2006, A Review

As I mentioned in a previous post, Democrats had five big races to target in Ohio this election - Governor, Senator, Secretary of State, 15th and 18th Districts. Four of the five went to the Dems, with one (the 15th), at least at this point, appearing to stay Republican, but with a recount to come. These were not predictions so much as expectations and hopes. Predictions got made on the Donewaiting messageboard in this post, and I’m not ashamed to say that in seven state races (Gov, SoS, AG, Treas, Aud, Supreme Court seats) I got five right, I picked three out of four issues correctly, and in the House races I went 18 for 18. Here’s the bigger prediction that I’m rather proud of - that the Dems would gain 5-6 Senate seats (6 actual), 25-27 House seats (29 actual) and 2-4 Governor races (6 actual), and that they wouldn’t loose a single seat to the Republicans. My numbers were optimistic but not too high, and they were exceeded, and my caveat about not loosing a single seat ended up coming true.

For comparison sake, I decided to check out some right leaning blogs to see what their pre-election predictions were. Here’s a round up.

Right Angle Blog/Steven J Kelso Jr - Predicted Republicans would win House by 2 and Senate by 1, that Blackwell would lose by 5 points, Dewine would hold his seat with a 5-10 point win, Issues 2-3 would fail but 4-5 would pass, Montgomery would win AG, too close to call on Auditor, Brunner would win SoS, Cordray would win Treas, and that all House races would come out as they did but that the 18th was too close to call.

Analysis - Wow, that’s worse than Artie Lange picking NFL games. Basically, except for House races, whatever Kelso picks, go oppo.

The Redhawk Review/Ben - Predicted Republicans would control Senate 52-48 and pickup 17 House seats, Dewine would win by 2 and Strickland by 8, Brunner would win SoS, Montgomery AG, Cordray Treas and Taylor Auditor. Picked Cupp and O’Donnell for OSC, picked House races 1-3 correctly and Issues 2-5 correctly.

Analysis - While doing better with the local stuff, the attachment to holding onto the Senate and limiting Dem gains in the House didn’t stack up with the reality of multiple pre-election polls. Professional, non-partisan pollsters like Chuck Todd and Larry Sabato saw this coming, why couldn’t they?

Reflections

Original posted at PeopleHaveThePower.org

There’s a lot of talk about the various factors that went into the Democrats not only winning in Ohio, but across the country to retake the House and Senate. There is no single reason why this happened - the GOP imploded with corruption and scandal, the failure of the Bush administration to properly respond to Hurricane Katrina, the “fear factor” card no longer as viable as in ‘02 and ‘04, the quagmire that is the Iraq war, plus regional and state issues. Here’s a few things:

1. Economic Populism and Social Justice Won, not “Real Conservatism”
In six states, minimum wage increases passed, and that’s almost as important as the sweep the Dems had in Congress. It also doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots between Sherrod Brown and Heath Shuler. Brown, about as liberal as they come, and Shuler, a social conservative on many issues, both share the common beliefs in tying economics and social justice together. You can’t be a “compassionate conservative” if you don’t give a damn about the poor, about working people’s wages, about healthcare, about education, etc. For a long time the Republicans have tried to balance the business and religious sides of their party. Well, money talks, and the Dobson crew walked. Dems picked up Evangelical voters, and my guess is the message of true compassion and justice has started hitting home with some people, and the game of “we’ll promise to do this, but won’t really do it” has worn thin with certain members of the religious right.

2. Karl Rove is a lucky bastard
George Bush was lucky to get into the White House in 2000. He lost the popular vote, and thanks to a number of events, snuck in the back door. Nine months after inaguration, 9/11 happens, and Bush’s brain has two election cycles to play the fear and terror cards. Well, that got old after the people saw what happened when Bush got his “mandate” - everything backfired. His Social Sercurity tour crashed, his Terri Schiavo intervention looked foolish and intrusive, he ignored a Gold Star Mother and let the media make a story out of it for a week, he lost an entire city to a natural disaster and then sat around for a week before doing anything, and most importantly - he refused to take responsiblity for Afghanistan, the failure to catch Bin Laden, and the hell that is Iraq and demanded that we “stay the course.” When Rove had to actually do something beyond having Tom Ridge bump us up to orange alert, he failed miserably. No doubt Rove is evil, he’s just no evil genius. His skill at being the scummiest of the scum certainly came in handy for a while, but he’s done.

3. Voinovich will be Toasted by his Own Party
The “real conservatives” blame the election slaughter on the RINOs - Republicans In Name Only - like Lincoln Chafee and Mike DeWine. Of course, what RINO actually means is having a spine and an ability to think for oneself. That however, is not what conservatives demand of the Republican party, the opposite of the Democrat “big tent” philosophy that includes people as diverse as Bob Casey, Russ Feingold and Jon Tester. George Voinovich is probably a good guy, but he has, at times, expressed differences of opinion with the Bush administration. Voinovich will, no doubt, face an ultra conservative wingnut in a primary challenge, backed by either religious based Dobson crew or the economic freaks from a place like Club For Growth. He may even survive the primary, but like Lincoln Chafee, the primary fight will leave him battered and bruised for the general, and Dems will be ready for the fight.

Off the to the OH-2

Originally posted at PeopleHaveThePower.org

Me and the Grey Goose (below) are heading to the OH-2 early Monday morning. For the final 48 hours of the race, I’ll be shuttling canvassers, door knockers and getting people back and forth from the polls. The on-line grass roots community has been amazing for the Hackett campaign, generating over $380,000 at roughly $52 a donor.

I’m bringing my laptop, hope to do a roundup from the ground of what’s going on, but we’ll see. The odds are Jean Schmidt is gonna get her one year in Congress and that Paul Hackett isn’t Doug Flutie vs. U. of Miami. Maybe so, but the real victory here is the realization that, when presented with a strong, intelligent, authentic Democratic candidate, the reddist of red Ohio Congressional districts is not a cakewalk.

Whatever the outcome, the Ohio GOP and national Republican party especially was forced to bleed a little bit here (to the tune of roughly a million bucks from the NRCC). Keep punching, keep drawing blood, and sooner or later, the underdog gets the knockout. The scandal-plagued Ohio GOP and the over-reaching, out-of-touch, bow-to-extremists-and corporate-lobbyists national Republican party has tanked on every major national issue of Bush’s second term (Schiavo, Social Security, the Iraq war, stem-cell research funding, the Bolton nomination, etc. etc. etc.), setting themselves up for a complete reversal of the 1994 mid-terms that gained them power.

To quote RatM from their pretty much awful third album:
It has to start somewhere.
It has to start sometime.
What better place than here?
What better time than now?