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What They've Thought
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What They Thought April 30, 2006 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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On May 26, a movie — “An Inconvenient Truth” — will debut at a theatre near you starring a man who introduces himself these days as the man “who used to be the next President of the United States.” That man is Al Gore who, since losing his bid in 2000 to lead this country, has given us all cause to thank a merciful God for sparing us his unflagging lunacy. This is the same Al Gore who, on January 15, 2004, when the weather in New York reached a near-record chill, delivered yet another loopy lecture on his obsession with global warming. Gore lays ownership to an encyclopedia of bizarre notions available to anyone who reads his book “Earth in the Balance” published in the early 90s. Gore, like most seriously committed environmentalists (who probably should be committed someplace where they can’t do any harm) believes that the human race is responsible for ruining the Earth. Early in his book he speaks of “humankind’s assault” on the Earth. Back in 1997 when Gore was still Vice President, the White House hosted a hundred television weathermen at a global warming conference. His solution to the planet’s problems was to put an end to over-population in developing nations by ramping up Third World birth control information. I suspect that Gore would favor even more drastic ways of reducing population if he thought it would “save” the Earth. Gore has been talking up global warming since the environmental loonies switched their tune in the 1980s from a coming Ice Age to an effort to reverse the Industrial Revolution with the warming theory. He has steadfastly ignored any scientific evidence that it is not happening and insists that thousands of scientists worldwide support the theory. So Gore will be back, this time with a film. Dare we call it a documentary? The problem is that most of the facts it will present either have been or will be refuted by a growing number of climatologists and meteorologists who no longer want to be lumped in with those whose “science” is based mostly on government salaries or foundation grants. It should amaze and anger people that the U.S. government has spent $18 billion on climate research since 1990, three times as much as any other nation. None of it has demonstrated that the global warming theory has any validity. In 2000, Gore was advocating a $150 billion fund “to help develop clean new technologies.” Nothing is ever going to be clean enough for Gore and the Greens. The movie will no doubt show pictures of melting glaciers so that he can predict that most of the East Coast will be under water if dire conditions continue. His problem is that there are no dire conditions. Seasonally, parts of glaciers do melt, but neither the North nor South Pole is melting. There is no planetary emergency no matter how many scary pictures he shows. Another problem with Al Gore’s refusal to go away and grow tobacco on his Tennessee farm is his unremitting hatred of those he calls “the polluters.” For Gore, pollution is everywhere. The “polluters” all seem to represent aspects of the world’s providers of energy, whether it is oil, coal, or natural gas. He’s on record opposing nuclear power as well. Gore wants “alternative, sustainable” forms of energy that, if they worked, would be in use. Solar and wind power are simply insufficient to the energy needs of the modern world. To get a sense of just how nuts Al Gore is, in his book he advocated“the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say a twenty-five year period.” And suffice it to say that he would put the solution of all the world’s problems in the hands of the United Nations, the single most corrupt international institution on the face of the Earth. This is the man who came within a handful of votes of being President of the United States of America. If that doesn’t scare you, then nothing will. Worse yet, one suspects that Al Gore thinks this new movie and his inane television channel will be the platform for his candidacy at some future point in time. The real inconvenient truth is that, when the movie comes out, Al Gore is going to be interviewed by a fawning mainstream press, repeating all of his irrational notions in an effort to get us all to abandon our cars with their awful internal combustion engines, to stop using air conditioning, and generally go live in the woods somewhere. With summer just around the corner, at least he has picked the right time of year this time to warn us once again about global warming. |
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How is it that we have reached the point where we can’t even be honest with ourselves? That seems to be the root of our problem these days. Well not really, it’s just another symptom. I’ve discovered and rediscovered many times over that the use of euphemisms is so firmly rooted in even our corporate culture that our politicians can’t use honest words anymore. When we speak of illegal immigrants we tend to use some rather cautious words lest we appear to be too judgmental. At the moment they are a group of people who have fled their country because it is hopeless where they came from. There is little short of a full-scale revolution that will straighten that place out. If there were a revolution at this time that country would got straight to communism. But they have decided there is no need to start communism in their country when they can just do it here. This is but another one of the fine things Teddy Kennedy has sponsored over the years. When he sponsored the bill that changed the immigration law in 1965 he opened the door that has been flooding our country with cheap unskilled labor ever since. One thing is going to be quite clear on May 1st and that is who is in favor of violating the law and who is, in some cases, attempting to create a collection of people with whom they can network in order to bring down the United States. Remember Khrushchev saying they would be present at our funeral? One other thing that is quite interesting in the day they have chosen. May 1 is also the day that the various communists in the world like to celebrate their cause. They call it May Day. Those who are supporting this will be out and refusing to work tomorrow. Remember who they are and don’t do business with them again. Maybe some of our kids who need work can go out and take some of those jobs back. It sounds cold and heartless but anyone who isn’t paying attention right now had better start paying attention. What you are watching is the start of a new offensive against the west and if you can remember back two paragraphs you will remember that Kennedy sponsored it. One of the rules for starting a revolution is to find someone who is maybe not completely happy. Right now none of these people are very happy about the possibility that we’re actually going to enforce our laws on immigration. The nerve of us! What they are doing at the moment is making demands. I think they’ve made an egregious error by waving Mexican flags around but that’s their choice. They aren’t thinking. They are feeling. Feelings are the breeding grounds for all revolutions. These people are siding with criminals now and are demanding that we do the same. And nothing has been done to stop the flood of illegal immigrants. Right now they are carrying Mexican flags. In a few years they will finally switch over to American flags but they will be setting them on fire. All you have to do is spend a little time at a few of the online haunts for the cominterns such as Revolution #45, May 1, 2006 or CPUSA Online. These are but a few of the sites that will help you understand the talking points of the left as we enter this next election cycle. Even if you don’t understand them, you will at least know where they were pulled from. Now back to that protest they are going to have, or probably will have had by the time this is published. I hope everyone went shopping. I hope we spent more money than we normally do for Christmas. And most of all I hope the people have started to notice that the radical Muslims, the communists and the illegal immigrants are starting to become one against us. We are heading for trouble and nobody seems to be capable of admitting it. I guess I’m not diverse enough or I wouldn’t have noticed any of it. As spring blows in this year, so does another attempt to cause a revolution in this country. The inability of our people to recognize it has been brought on by our universities and corporate policies. What is amazing to me is that it seems like it is okay to be a ranting xenophobe as long as you’re against this country. If you’re a ranting xenophobe in favor of this country you’re paranoid, or a redneck, or any one of the other mean and hurtful things they throw at us. Oh, the pain of it all… Yeah right. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Should I consider it weird how none of my friends have ever joined the army? In and of itself, I suppose this feat is nothing exceptional. I know lots of people who’ve never done lots of things. Like racecar driving or becoming an astronaut. After September 11th, however, lots of my friends talked about enlisting like they were all but a shaved head and a new pair of boots away from doing it. Yet, to date, none of them ever did. There are a number of reasons why this might have happened. For example, my friends could all be liars. But I don’t necessarily think that’s the case here. The way I figure, it’s only natural for young men to consider enlisting after such a massive attack on their homeland. So when my friends all swore they were going to enlist after 9/11, I think they meant it. They were ready to sign up and defend their country. The problem was, it soon became clear the war on terror would take place in other countries. This changed everything. Suddenly it was a lot more appealing to root for the troops from the comfort of your couch. I think this example proves an important point. And it’s not that I hang out with a bunch of loud-mouthed cowards. It’s that, generally speaking, people don’t like to be invaded. This probably sounds like a simple statement, but with the possible exception of the French — who have strange fetishes — I’ve got to believe it’s a universal truth. When Americans went to bed on September 11th, a lot of us thought a full-scale invasion of our country had started. At that point, no debate about going to war was needed, because we believed the enemy was marching down our streets. Americans would’ve fought back against an invading army. I don’t have any doubts about that. My friends’ idle talk about joining the military only summed up the national sentiment back then. If there was going to be an invasion, it was going to be over our dead red, white, and blue bodies. To some extent or another, this is probably the only foreign policy any country really needs. There’s a reason why wars on foreign soil — particularly preemptive wars on foreign soil — rarely enjoy this sort of clarity. It’s because, without the enemy knocking down your door, it’s hard to know if a war on foreign soil is even necessary to begin with. For that reason, for every military action abroad, there is usually an equal and opposite reaction back home. When Washington believes it must invade or attack a foreign country, it becomes necessary to convince the American people the mission is urgent or just. The upshot to this is that we live in a country where the government cares enough about our opinions to at least pretend like it cares about our opinions. The downside, however, is that wars are government programs. And like all government programs, they’re usually based on hasty decisions, false logic, and outright lies. The Iraq War is a perfect example, though it’s far from the only one in American history. Three and a half years ago, many Americans genuinely believed U.S. cities were threatened by Iraqi WMDs. Now, though, we realize the Bush administration didn’t even necessarily believe that itself. The Downing Street Memos, amongst other documents, confirm the intelligence was “fixed around the policy.” We don’t need to waste our time re-arguing the motives of the Iraq War. But even if we were to say, for the sake of argument, that the war happened for entirely noble purposes, the point that our leaders kind of, sort of misled us into it remains the same. You can choose to deny this if you wish (if you’re that incredibly stubborn and/or afraid of admitting you were wrong). But considering how wars — even just wars — have massive consequences, it would be a lot more helpful to look at the lessons of Iraq and… well, learn them. In the coming months, it seems likely that our country will debate using some kind of force against Iran. According to the New Yorker, the U.S. is considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons on Iranian nuclear facilities. Whether Washington decides to use tactical nukes — which is to say, decides to use nukes — remains to be seen at this point. But just the fact that we’re having this discussion says volumes for the likelihood of it happening. After all, if my friends’ reactions to 9/11 prove anything, it’s that the truly urgent, necessary wars don’t usually need to be debated. They’re obvious, because they place enemy soldiers on your front lawn. All other wars are essentially optional. Last weekend, I was talking to someone about rising gas prices when they happened to tell me, “Yeah, it’s just a shame we have to go to war with Iran.” I thought this was interesting. Since when do we “have to” do anything? The U.S. once staved off nuclear war with the Soviet Union. You mean to tell me we can’t do that again? “This is different,” I was told. “These people” — the Iranians — “can’t be reasoned with.” If that’s our attitude, then I’m not so sure we can be reasoned with, either. Don’t buy the hype. A war with Iran is most certainly not inevitable. Nor is it a good idea. Beyond the costs in lives and treasure (and the generally disconcerting precedent that using tactical nukes would set), a war in Iran would assuredly feature domestic components. So far in the war on terror, we’ve seen widespread domestic spying programs, the inclusion of anti-war groups on Pentagon watch lists, so-called “free speech zones,” and an ever widening gap between politicians and the American people — physically, as well as in terms of accountability. We’ve seen the selective use of intelligence to create threats that didn’t exist. We’ve seen leaking to smear war opponents, and we’ve seen investigations into leakers who managed to smear the war. What kind of fun stuff will the next major theater bring? Washington’s tactics in the war on terror serve to silence dissent and create artificial support at least as much, if not more so, than they serve to actually fight the war in the first place. This has been so in the war on terror in general, and it’s been so in the unnecessary Iraq War. It will be so yet again if we attack Iran in any capacity. So don’t buy into it. Don’t be swindled. And don’t believe a war in Iran is anything less than a war on the American people. Sadly, in a real way, that’s exactly what it is. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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President Bush has been under pressure to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom many view as the architect of a failed approach in Iraq. Even many ardent war hawks are unhappy with the Secretary for not having more troops on the ground in Iraq, and for conducting the war less aggressively than they would like. But the issue is not who serves as Secretary of Defense, the issue is how, when, and why the United States uses military force. It makes no sense simply to replace Mr. Rumsfeld with someone else who holds the same view, namely that it’s the job of American soldiers and U.S. taxpayers to police the world. We should be debating the proper foreign policy for our country — utopian nation building vs. the noninterventionism counseled by our founding fathers — rather than which individual is best suited to carry it out. I happen to agree with Mr. Rumsfeld on the matter of downsizing the military as a whole and remaking it to reflect modern realities of warfare. A swifter, nimbler military would be better suited to tracking individuals like bin Laden who do not operate under the flag of any particular nation or army. The war in Iraq shows that we’re trying to adapt our military to fit our foreign policy, rather than the other way around. For all our high-tech advantages, we are mired in a simmering urban civil war that does not play to the true strengths of our troops. The old model of warfare, based on invading and occupying whole nations, is unsustainable. Both financially and in terms of manpower, American simply cannot afford any more Koreas, Vietnams, or Iraqs. Many people in the Pentagon understand that America’s armed forces are not trained in occupation, policing, and nation building. The best way to support the troops is through a sensible foreign policy that does not place them in harm’s way unnecessarily or force them into uncomfortable, dangerous roles as occupiers. It’s interesting to note that our founders warned against maintaining standing armies at all, both because of the taxes required to do so and the threats to liberty posed by a permanent military. Consider the words of James Madison, often considered the father of the Constitution: “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home…” Madison continues: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few..... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” In other words, Madison understood that large military forces can become the tools of tyrants, and can bankrupt the nations that support them. Instead of debating who should be Secretary of Defense, we should be studying the writing of our own founding fathers. Perhaps then we will question the wisdom of an open-ended, vague war on terror and the realities of trying to remake whole societies in our image. Rep. Ron Paul Web Site Back to Top |
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On February 16, 2006, the president of the Milwaukee School Board, Kenneth L. Johnson, spoke at the Illinois School Choice Initiative’s second monthly Educational Choice Speaker Series luncheon. His dialogue reflected the idea that parents must be considered customers of our schools. Background Johnson, who has a BA in Education and is studying for his MBA, was born and raised in Milwaukee. He is a product of the Milwaukee Public Schools, a general electrician, the father of a teenager in MPS, a strong Baptist, and a lay leader for his pastor. As a speaker, he is able to offer a unique perspective because of his involvement with local unions as well as his role in advancing educational choice. School Choice is a Philosophy Beginning his presentation, he explained school choice is a philosophy, not just a program in Milwaukee. In 1999, he was elected to the Milwaukee School Board as one in a slate of five candidates, even though they didn’t run together and no one knew the others. Actually, these were five individuals who agreed the system had to be reformed within the climate of school choice. In other words, MPS must improve and compete for students in a system where parents could choose whether to attend the public schools or some other program; charters or private schools within and outside of a school choice program. His job would be to improve MPS, but he didn’t perceive other programs as a threat; rather, he looked at them as partners. As a member of the school board, his obligation was to advocate for the education of every student in the city of Milwaukee. Nowhere did the Constitution say it had to be for just public schools, everyone was his constituents. Environment of School Choice Operating where parents had an option to choose something else and walk away from MPS meant that children aren’t held accountable to the system, the system is supposed to be held accountable to them. It used to be that if the system isn’t responsive, with education in America, you get what you get. Will public education do what you need it to do? In Milwaukee, the parents and students are customers. They have to do what is necessary to keep those customers. Funding Johnson has been criticized for saying not to give the system more money until it can use what it has well, that way the consumer will know what whether it is a sound investment. Logic dictates that money shouldn’t be given to people who aren’t investing it well. There haven’t really been complaints for more money. It is amazing what they have been able to afford using a customer driven model. Instead, they created efficiencies in bureaucracy by decentralizing the budget system. Governance councils of local schools control the budget and they approve of the education plan for that school. Councils made up of an educated populace; parents, business people, work well in a climate of customer service. It is their budget, their school, so they spend wisely. There is plenty of money to recapture. The Sky didn’t Fall School choice presented an opportunity for the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) system to change. MPS wasn’t destroyed, there wasn’t chaos. The public schools remained the primary educators of children in the urban school district, working alongside the independent and religiously affiliated private schools. No private school system in this country could take over a public school district. By competing against other schools, MPS reformed themselves and drew engaged and responsible parents in. “Dance of the Lemons” One particular reform ended what they called “the dance of the lemons.” Teachers had been transferring in and out of schools based on tenure, which was destroying learning environments. For example, a bilingual school had a transfer who doesn’t speak Spanish and who bumped a Spanish speaking first year teacher, recruited from Costa Rica. The complaint was that the board wouldn’t allow schools to select their own people. Yet, it was just a matter of the union and Superintendent signing a form allowing for a change. Johnson said that the board let the strength of the union members fight for what they thought was necessary for the schools. Pressure and debate showed teachers where the true issue was and soon the Language Immersion Schools, Art Schools, Montessori Schools, and other specialty schools petitioned to select their teachers. As a result, local schools became empowered to make decisions about populations they serve and how they would deliver. Interesting Exodus Teachers that didn’t perform well would transfer to other schools to avoid upcoming reviews. Up to nine years of seniority is what often allowed those folks to bump better qualified teachers. Now they couldn’t use their seniority that way. This helped to maximize student learning. School Choice, by allowing the ability for people to choose something else, sparked that. Special schools, which never had enough seats or teachers to fill them, multiplied when opportunities to work in them were posted. Teachers were quick to fill in and specialize, creating specialized climates. This is the catalyst for MPS increasing enrollment. They started to give parents what they were asking for. What can board the do? Not fight against school choice but meet the ante and up it, meet the ante and up it. TEAM The Teacher Evaluation and Mentoring (TEAM) program was bred out of the previous story of the selection process. TEAM provides assistance to poor performing teachers. Teachers can request mentoring on their own accord or be referred by administrators or colleagues. Sometimes teachers do not want to respond to recommendations and resign. Teachers as a group, have a vehicle to do something about slackers. Though they fire almost no one, there are a lot of resignations. By thinking of parents and students as customers and competing for them, the Milwaukee Public School system has a growing enrollment and has been able to implement comprehensive educational reform without breaking their budget. Instead of perceiving their competition as a threat, other educational systems serve to drive MPS to offer the best education at the lowest prices. They certainly understand that rather than customer being a bad word, the customer is always right. Nancy
Salvato
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