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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Crises, culprits deliberately made ─ Baghdad to BP BREAKDOWN USA

BP in Iraq

Manufactured of 
failure to uphold common good at home and abroad
By Carolyn Bennett


I was listening today to the February 25, 2013, Pacifica Evening News (I listen a day later because I’m on the east coast and this is more convenient for me) and in hearing the BP story and speculation of billions of dollars to be paid out or not for the human, economic and environmental devastation done by this company and its subsidiaries and contractors, I again reflected on my country's calculated undoing. My thoughts went to prior causes and underlying fissures: regulatory, sovereignty, constitutional concerns.
BP in North  America

I
Without regulation
 f the William Jefferson Clinton/Albert Gore government, taking up from the Reagan administration, had not accelerated the disestablishment of government and its responsibilities to the people, the public good of this country, the United States and its people would not constantly find themselves behind another rolling boulder of crisis. U.S. officials create crises by their failure to do their jobs, uphold the constitution, on behalf of the public good.
Air Pollutionwithout
regulation
 
The BP hype is like Drug-“Kingpin” arrests or hunting and capturing another twin towers’ culprit or “al-Qaeda” operative. It is cruel theater, political grandstanding, waste in government time, waste of money on appointees, contracting lawyers, nonprofits, NGOs.

Not Upholding U.S. Constitution
Paid to highest briber: Deregulation, BREAKDOWN
Burning waters
without
regulation

Mine blast
without
regulation
It seems to me that the compelling issue here is the matter of sovereignty ─ together with constitutional protections of the common defense and general welfare.
Victim of
landmine explosion
Breach of
International Convention
Protection of this nation’s sovereignty requires the continuous monitoring and regulation of all industries (foreign and domestic) operating within its borders

Government officials have no problem militarizing, committing continuous aggression, against people at home and abroad on behalf of weapons and war-making industries who regularly line officials and politicians’ pockets. They have no problem selectively monitoring and meddling in the affairs of other nations.

Upholding Moral principle, Constitutional guarantees
Providing for Common Defense, Promoting General Welfare ─
Not domestic, global warfare 

P
rotection through regulation and monitoring should be required of government service, without partisan or ideological conditions ─ whether business operations or individuals are or affect health and safety; oil and gas, mines and mining, aviation; food, water, air, wildlife, lands; housing, shelter, residential and commercial real estate; transportation, roads, highways, tolls, signals and signs, vehicle registration and operation; finance, investment, banking; airwaves and telecommunications; athletics and sport; sales and use of weaponry; labor and treatment of workers, common products, enterprise and services; all that critically affects and makes up the environment and habitation must be independently monitored and regulated for the public good.

People may or may not ultimately receive some “washing-hands” payment from BP and its subsidiaries and contractors.

But THINK about this: What is the $ worth of hundreds and thousands of wildlife and waters, lives and livelihoods? 

What is the $ worth of Pakistani, Afghan, Yemeni, Somali, Iraqi children and adults massacred by UAVs, U.S. missiles, ground personnel? 

No one can count that high!  These cannot be measured in any country’s monetary currency!

T
he pervasive problem facing the United States (and too its ethos in foreign relations) ─ the problem not addressed by government officials, mass media or people generally ─ is the moral issue and also the statutory issue: the breakdown of U.S. constitutional guarantees, the breakdown in government service to the United States of America and its people.




BP case in news reports

The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays, for February 25, 2013 - 6:00pm, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/89283

The Guardian UK
“Deepwater trial: U.S. lawyers say BP ignored warnings on ‘well from hell’ ─ As 11 teams of lawyers deliver opening statements in trial over 2010 disaster, judge sets out a three-month timetable (Dominic Rushe in New Orleans, The Guardian-UK), February 25, 2013 17.38 EST,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/25/deepwater-trial-justice-bp-warnings

Global Post
“U.S. considering offering $16b plea deal to BP ─ The U.S. government is considering offering a deal to BP ahead of a scheduled civil trial placing blame for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill” (Kaitlin Funaro), February 24, 2013 13:02, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/130224/us-considering-16b-plea-deal-bp

New York Times
“Battle Lines Drawn for BP’s Day in Court ─ HOUSTON — Unless the Justice Department and BP reach a last-minute settlement, the British oil company will return to court on Monday to face tens of billions of dollars in civil claims from the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that could cripple the company for years to come” (Clifford Krauss), February 19, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/battle-lines-drawn-for-bps-day-in-court.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Guardian Express U.S Las Vegas
COMMENT: “BP Predicted To Be Severely Punished in Civil Trials ─ ‘Make BP Pay, Make BP Pay’” Added by James Turnage on February 26, 2013, Guardian Express Las Vegas
http://guardianlv.com/2013/02/bp-predicted-to-be-severely-punished-in-civil-trials/


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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Serving image of Empire “profoundly disturbing” U.S. aggression devastating soldiers, civilians ─ Fetzer

Child death
U.S. war on terror
Afghanistan/Pakistan border
Global stretch: astonishing child deaths, 1.4 million “demoralized” 
U.S. "war on terror"
Editing, excerpt by
Carolyn Bennett

2012
U.S. Army – 182 suicides
U.S. Marines Corps – 48 suicides
U.S. Navy – 60 suicides
U.S. Air Force – 59 suicides

Framing numbers ─ U.S. Troops stationed abroad

The U.S. military includes only about 3 million personnel distributed over five services -- the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and, taken separately, the Marine Corps, which is now part of the Navy.

Pakistan soldier deaths
U.S. war on terror
U.S. soldier deaths
U.S. war on terror
Roughly half of the 3 million make up a reserve force, says former U.S. Marine James Fetzer. This does not mean, he says, that reservists are called into active duty; but publishing the staggering figure of 1.4 million is an indication of ongoing efforts "to fulfill Neo-cons’ conception of an American Empire worldwide."

Pentagon figures show that about 1.4 million soldiers are currently on active duty around the world and of this number, about 200,000 (or one fifth), crossing continents, have placed their boots on the soil of at least 150 countries. The deployed troops have been found to be “grossly demoralized by the kinds of activities they are engaged in.”

Human costs, heavy burden
Suicide
Suicide Bomb

American forces performing aggressive actions ─ invasions and occupation, the killing of many innocent men, women and children, many deaths resulting from the U.S. government’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or extrajudicial killer drones) ─ is deeply troubling for American soldiers themselves.

In the first nine months of the past year, compared with 222 who died in alleged combat incidents ─ 247 U.S. military personnel took their own lives.

James Fetzer spoke yesterday with Press TV.

Suicide
Soldier
self-inflicted death
A retired University of Minnesota Duluth philosophy professor, James Henry Fetzer has written on the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Two of his most recent books were on the evolution of intelligence and philosophical aspects of ‘the Christian Right's crusade against science.’

The former Marine Corps officer (b. December 6, 1940, in Pasadena, California) has been described as a ‘conspiracy theorist.’

Fetzer terms the global deployment of U.S. military, the framing of numbers in service to Empire, the use of remote, extrajudicial warfare and human costs across the board a “profoundly disturbing situation.”


Sources and notes

“U.S. soldiers becoming grossly demoralized: James Fetzer” Interview with James Fetzer,  February 23, 2013, http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/02/23/290478/us-soldiers-are-grossly-demoralized

See also

“Will Sen. Lindsey Graham Be The Next Republican To Face A Primary Challenger?”(Tamara Keith), February 23, 2013, http://keranews.org/post/will-sen-lindsey-graham-be-next-republican-face-primary-challenger

It seems Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has done his best in recent weeks to get as much ink as possible, talking about things that play well with the conservatives in his home state of South Carolina, like Benghazi and gun rights.  Graham also held up the nomination of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary to get more answers about what happened in Benghazi, even as he admitted Hagel had nothing to do with it. But his opposition might have more to do with home state politics than the nomination itself.”

“U.S. Military suicides continue to climb, reaching record in 2012” (Truther reported January 16, 2013), http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/health/intentional_death/news.php?q=1358623283

“The U.S. Military’s suicide rate grew a startling 15 percent in 2012. … Suicide now accounts for more deaths of U.S. soldiers than battlefield conflict. U.S. military suicide rate 2012:

U.S. Army – 182 suicides
U.S. Marines Corps – 48 suicides
U.S. Navy – 60 suicides
U.S. Air Force – 59 suicides


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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Arundhati Roy Re-imagines world sans expedient “morality”

Imagine
a world without war
From Common Dreams' article “Decolonize Consumerist Wasteland: Re-imagining a World beyond Capitalism and Communism”

Excerpt from excerpt, 
further editing by Carolyn Bennett

“The first step toward re-imagining a world gone terribly wrong [is to] stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination –

An imagination outside capitalism, outside communism,

An imagination with an altogether different understanding of the meaning of happiness and fulfillment

This philosophical space, Arundhati Roy says requires ceding sufficient physical space for the survival of those who might appear to be keepers of the past but are perhaps guides to the future. Achieving this changed ethos and its benefits to all, leaders must be asked:

Can you leave the waters in the rivers, the trees in the forest?

Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain?
Arundhati Roy

If their answer is no, then they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their wars.

Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy has authored many works including these 
Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy (2009);
The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy (2004);
War Talk (2003)
Power Politics (2002)
The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002)
Collection of essays: “The End of Imagination,” “The Greater Common Good,” “Power Politics,”  …,”War is Peace,” “Democracy,” “War Talk,” “Come September” (2002)


Sources and notes

The article “Decolonize the Consumerist Wasteland: Re-imagining a World Beyond Capitalism and Communism” published on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, by Adbusters at Common Dreams was excerpted at that site from Arundhati Roy’s latest book, Walking with the Comrades. © 2013 Arundhati Roy, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/19
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Friday, February 22, 2013

Super PACs are corrupt and corrupting whether liberal or conservative, Party A or Party B


Good government, Big money mutually exclusive
Editing, re-reporting, commentary by 
Carolyn Bennett

Left-Right buyers, sellers of policy

America the corrupt

T
here’s nothing wrong with power ─ every individual needs and possesses power ─ but inordinate power, absolute power, unchanging, entrenched, unchecked power corrupts. It corrodes possibility. Destroys creative imagination and all that is or might be good, progressive, and generally in the public interest. This is why the people of the United States must sweep clean federal Washington’s inordinate concentrated and tentacled power.

Press TV is reporting today on America’s corrupt governance that is created and sustained by big moneyed interests, foreign and domestic, that buy elections, determine winners and losers, seat certain personalities in positions of power. “To the extent that concentrated non-corporate wealth corrupts policy and distorts the fairness of elections… simply overturning Citizens United (corporations as people whose speech is protected under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment) will not go deep enough in uprooting corruption at its core, Press TV quotes the self-styled “progressive liberal lefty” American Prospect magazine.

In early 2010, Today’s Insight News referenced the case in “One sided with people & democracy ─ Justice Stevens: From David Hoffman’s “The Greatest Threat to America” and from Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

I
n his dissent in CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said:

“In a democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules.

“The majority’s rejection of this principle ‘elevate[s] corporations to a level of deference which has not been seen at least since the days when substantive due process was regularly used to invalidate regulatory legislation thought to unfairly impinge upon established economic interests.’ …

“At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.

“It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

W
hat is required at this point to bring policymaking under the control of a true democracy, Press TV continues its quote of the American Prospect, is “a more thorough rethinking of political corruption, if not a different understanding of the First Amendment in the context of ‘democratic’ elections.”

A case of inordinate power corrupting governance
 Sky’s-the-limit Super PAC facts and figures Press TV cites

Though they are required to make monthly or quarterly reports of their donors to the Federal Election Commission and are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates (Open Secrets), Super PACs (Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees), unlike traditional PACs, are permitted to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals. Then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.

2012 Super-PACked presidential elections
(Original source: Mother Jones)

31 percent of $1.03 billion spent by outside groups in final cycle of last election was ‘dark money”: who gave the money or where it came from was concealed from public review

Dark money funded 50 percent of outside groups’ television spending on the presidential race (huge portions backed attack adverts)

Thirty-two (a mere 32) giant Super-PAC donors matched the total single-small-dollar donations ─ roughly (donors giving under $200 are undisclosed) 3.7 million people giving $313 million ─ to the combined campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Sixty percent of all Super-PAC donations in the 2012 campaign season came from 159 people ─ a sliver of the U.S. population

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic consisting of fifty states and a Federal district.

Population: 313,914,040 (2012)

Voting-age population (2010): 219,553 – 234,564

Percentage voting in 2010: 37 percent

1,319 groups organized as Super  PACs ─ as of today, February 22, 2013 ─ have reported in the 2012 cycle. (Original Source: Open Secrets)

Total receipts of $838,085,167
Total independent expenditures of $631,470,703

H
ow many public schools and teachers could be funded, how much shelter and health care  for the homeless, how much eradication of diseases, how many returning soldiers could be healed, how much peaceful diplomacy instead of endless wars could be funded with a fraction of this waste that subverts democratic government and funds bad governance in perpetuity?
 
Corruption crossing political spectrum
Super PACs

In today’s “Liberal Super PAC: Death to Super PACs!” report, Press TV shows up what has been clear to me and no doubt many others for a long time: the “liberal-conservative-progressive” or “Republican-Democratic-Independent” labels are distinctions without any real difference in values, ethos, attitude, practice.

U.S. assassination
drone wars
Killing sovereignty and
civilians for sport
If your tribe does it, it is okay. An ethics of expediency does nothing to rout or remove corrupt governance.

A liberal group hopes to convince voters in California to rebuke the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling, which paved the way for outside campaign spending groups known as Super PACs”; but, the Press TV article astutely observes, “There is only one problem: the group is itself a Super PAC.” In the 2012 election season, CREDO Mobile/CREDO Super PAC reportedly spent “$830,999.”

The company’s website says CREDO was founded in 1985 and has since that time grown and matured “with a clearer focus on mobile phones,” resulting in “better service to our members” and “greater impact in our fight for social change.” In 2007, the company says it “rebranded as CREDO Mobile, a subsidiary of Working Assets” and has “raised $72 million for nonprofit groups working hard for social change.”

B
ut a Super PAC is still a SuperPAC doing what Super PACs do: subvert self-governance, government of, by and for not only political elites.

Is the thought of “government of, by and for the people” just another cliché in a culture in which moneyed corporations and organizations plan product obsolescence; where issues and institutions are permanently funded but never fixed; and where all things are traded and trashed, consumed and market driven?  

What if money were banned from politics all together? What would happen if a nonpartisan, well-educated (not merely degreed), socially sensitive, honestly caring, domestically, internationally, politically-engaged population governed cooperatively for the common good?

Wouldn’t that rout the corrupt, end the status quo, and change the world for the better?



Source and notes

“Liberal Super PAC: Death to Super PACs!” February 22, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/290297.html

Article notes: Forbes estimates casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s fortune at “$20.5 billion,” Press TV notes in today’s article; and to match his $91.8 million (0.37 percent of his net worth) election spending would require “322,000 middle-income Americans: the entire population of Anaheim, California, minus a few thousand folks, giving 0.37 percent of their net worth.

Citizens United has been opposed by more 350 cities. Eleven U.S. states have called on Congress to overturn the ruling (Other sources: Public Citizen and Raw Story).

“One sided with people & democracy ─ Justice Stevens”  Posted by Bennett's study at Today’s Insight News, Wednesday, January 27, 2010; From David Hoffman’s “The Greatest Threat to America” and from Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 08–205. Argued March 24, 2009— Reargued September 9, 2009––Decided January 21, 2010,
Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) Opinion of STEVENS, J. , SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES , No. 08–205, CITIZENS UNITED, APPELLANT v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA , [January 21, 2010] , JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, concurring in part and dissenting in part. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

USA: Government: Dominant-party system, Constitution, Democracy, Federal republic, Presidential system, Two-party system, Republic, Federation, Constitutional republic

 U.S. Census report: Table 398 Resident Population of Voting Age and Percent Casting Votes—States: 2000 to 2010 [219,553 represents 219,553,000. Estimated population, 18 years old and over. 2010 based on 2010 Census as of April 1. Includes Armed Forces stationed in each state, (noncitizens), and institutional population] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0398.pdf

CREDO Mobile says, “Every time our members use our services, we donate a percentage of their charges to the progressive nonprofits that we fund.” And among the groups it says it will fund 2013 are these 40:

Civil Rights
Alliance for Justice
Center for Constitutional Rights
ColorOfChange
Drug Policy Alliance
Medical Students for Choice
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Planned Parenthood (affiliates)
United We Dream

Economic & Social Justice
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Democracy Now!
Mayors against Illegal Guns
Ms. Foundation for Women
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Physicians for a National Health Program
Sentencing Project
Social Security Works

Environment
350.org
Clean Water Fund
Defenders of Wildlife
Environmental Working Group
Ocean Conservancy
Pesticide Action Network
Rainforest Action Network
Union of Concerned Scientists

Peace & International Freedom
China Labor Watch
Grameen Foundation
Human Rights Watch
Mercy Corps
Partners In Health
Pathfinder International
Ploughshares Fund
Women for Women International

Voting Rights & Civic Participation
AlterNet
Free Speech For People
Green Corps
Media Matters for America
Mother Jones Investigative Fund
Progressive Congress
Project Vote
Wellstone Action

http://www.credomobile.com/mission/nonprofit-donations-current.aspx
http://www.credomobile.com/mission/history.aspx

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Commission lays out damning domestic, international, moral challenge ─ failed U.S. education system

Findings, recommendations unrepresentative of Federal Education Dept’, another exercise in appearing to do something while doing nothing to actively address crisis?

Excerpt from report, editing, re-reporting, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

In America, we believe fate is not fixed by circumstances of birth,” the Equity and Excellence Commission said in its report. “The surest guarantor of this ideal is educational opportunity—the birthright of each and every child. [But] for so many children today ─ and many more to come ─ these American values are made hollow by [the country’s] failure to ensure equity and excellence throughout the system of public education.” 

Few challenges are as critical or as fundamental, the Commission report said. “The achievement gaps described [in the report] weaken the country internationally, economically and morally.” 

E Pluribus Unum
CRISIS of neglect in U.S. education
“For Each, Every Child: a strategy for education equity and excellence” (challenge)

“In 1983, A Nation at Risk [Education report] famously spoke of the ‘rising tide of mediocrity’ that threatened [U.S.] schools,” recalls a report this month by the Equity and Excellence Commission to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. “Nearly 30 years later, the tide has come in—and we are drowning.”

The Imperative for Educational Reform is the title of a 1983 report by U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education.

Its publication (‘A Nation at Risk’) is considered a landmark event in modern U.S. educational history. Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing (and still present) sense that American schools are failing.  (Wikipedia note)

T
aken as a whole, said this latest report “For Each and Every Child: a strategy for education equity and excellence,” the United States “fails [the] nation and [fails] too many… children.”

PressTV image with reporting on
Education report
U.S. leaders “decry but tolerate disparities in student outcomes that are not only unfair [but] socially and economically dangerous.” Commitments “to academic excellence are often eloquent [in words but in practice and policy] “… insufficient in addressing educational challenges at home and abroad.”

The United States, the report said, “cannot continue to leave unexamined the traditional structures of schools, systems, and spending.” The nation cannot afford complacency in light of past achievements.

WHAT TO DO
E Pluribus Unum (? sloganeer)

E Pluribus Unum
Schools in the United States “must do more than ensure future economic prosperity,” the commissioners said.  Schools “must foster the nation’s civic culture and sense of common purpose and create the unified nation” celebrated in the motto: E Pluribus Unum (Latin for ‘Out of many, one’; alternatively translated as ‘One out of many’ or ‘One from many’)

“So much depends on fulfilling this mission:

Shared ideals that enable the U.S. governmental system to hold together even in the face of fractious political disagreements;

Strength of American diversity;

‘Domestic tranquility’ referenced in Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and

Ability to maintain influence as example and power projected in the world
 
In the minds of citizens and immigrants and in the imagination of billions of people worldwide, the United States is built on the principle of great and equal opportunities. Facing enormous demographic change and international competition, the urgent task is to remake our education system to meet the demands of justice and the tests of competition.”

U.S. wars
Americans neglect these principles and expectations “at our peril,” the commissioners warn.  “Officials, administrators and constituents at all levels of government must attack the failings in U.S. education ─ as a moral and economic imperative.…

Leaders must “develop policies that give states and school districts incentives to pursue legal and feasible means to promote racially and socioeconomically diverse schools” (the federal government should continue supporting diversity as part of a broader equity agenda) because racially diverse schools benefit all students and help them prepare for life and productive work in a diverse society.
U.S. killer drone wars


Equity is essential to shoring up the entire nation’s standing in the global economy,” the report said. “We must avoid a future that continues to consign millions of poor children to inadequate schools lacking the great teachers and principals they need. Any goal of competitiveness and excellence must start with equity, or be doomed to failure. … Policy details are important,” the report said, but “moral and political determination is vital.…

We cannot have a strong democracy without an informed and engaged citizenry. A strong public school system is essential to a strong democracy.

The Equity and Excellence Commission said of its findings and recommendations: “We hope to kindle a sense of urgency that is both passionate and compassionate, keeping eyes on the prize” … instead of “distracting” with searches for “villains” to vilify and “heroes” to celebrate.

Neglected and worsening crises

1983
“In America, we believe fate is not fixed by circumstances of birth,” the commission said. But the statement is untrue on its face and I expect the commissioners or whoever wrote the statement knew full well that it is false. Members of the commission are listed below; make your own judgment.


A
merica’s chronic problems are like curable diseases and deliberate ignorance. Americans just refuse to cure them.  Instead of taking into account the whole, they go shopping. Warning after warning is met with avoidance as if Americans see themselves as separate and apart from other people, from the world, from the planet. 

2013 Report by the
Equity and Excellence Commission:
“For Each and Every Child:
a strategy for
education equity and excellence”
Will this report make a difference? Or is it, as I suggested at the top, just another exercise in appearing to do something while doing nothing to actively address a man-made crisis? 

Will Americans commit for the long term to ending another of resolvable domestic and international crisis? Or will Americans continue to do what they usually do ─ ingest a temporary “feel-good” and camp out on the couch?








Sources and notes

Report by the Equity and Excellence Commission: “For Each and Every Child: a strategy for education equity and excellence”; A Report to the Secretary of Education of the U.S. Department of Education, February 2, 2013, http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/eec/equity-excellence-commission-report.pdf

The Equity and Excellence Commission (the Commission) is a federal advisory committee chartered by Congress, operating under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA); 5 U.S.C., App.2.

The commission’s charge was to provide advice to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education on the disparities in meaningful educational opportunities that give rise to the achievement gap, with a focus on systems of finance, and to recommend ways in which federal policies could address such disparities. The findings and recommendations of the commission do not represent the views of the department, and this document does not represent information approved or disseminated by the Department of Education.

Foreword by the Commission Co-Chairs: by Christopher Edley, Jr. and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar

Democracy Now headlines February 20, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/20/headlines#2207

“Dept. of Education Panel Says School System Burdening Low-Income Children ─ A federal commission has found U.S. education policies are burdening students from low-income families. In a new report, the Equity and Excellence Commission concluded: ‘No other developed nation has inequities nearly as deep or systemic; no other developed nation has ... so thoroughly stacked the odds against so many of its children.’

“The panel goes on to call for greater investments in public education, better training of teachers, equality in allocating funds, and a new push for more ethnically diverse schools.

“The commission was created by the Department of Education, but its findings largely reject the department’s bipartisan education reform effort, saying the focus on charter schools and standardized testing has been ‘poorly targeted.’”
  
Wikipedia note

E Pluribus Unum?

E Pluribus Unum included in the Seal of the United States; one of the nation’s mottos at the time of the seal’s creation

Latin for ‘Out of many, one’ (alternatively translated as ‘One out of many’ or ‘One from many’ — is a phrase on the Seal of the United States, along with Annuit cœptis and Novus ordo seclorum, and adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782.

Never codified by law, E pluribus unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H. J. Resolution 396) adopting ‘In God We Trust’ as the official motto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum

See also

Exhibition Hall is home to E Pluribus Unum - Out of Many One, the only exhibition in the world dedicated to telling the story of the United States Congress and the U.S. Capitol.

Exhibition Hall features original documents and artifacts, videos, touchable models, computer inter-actives and two small theaters providing visitors with an in-depth look at how Congress works; the history of the Capitol and Congress, as well as information on Representatives and Senators. http://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/index.html


A
s America grew from the early 1800s, “so did the government, and by 1850, it had outgrown the [earlier] building, and construction started again.

“The new architect faced the daunting task of expanding both wings of the building and creating an even more imposing central dome. The House of Representatives moved to their new chamber in 1857 and the Senate moved in 1859.

“When the Civil War began in 1861, the dome had not yet been completed and most construction temporarily ceased. The building … briefly served as a barracks and hospital for the union. In 1863, the Statue of Freedom was placed on top of the Capitol dome. At a height of 19 feet and 3 inches, the bronze cast weighed almost 15,000 pounds and its placement signified the completion of the building; it became a symbol of the country.

“Until 2000, when the Capitol Visitor Center was commissioned, the building remained much like it did when it was completed in 1863, with no large additions to the main structure.”
http://www.nyu.edu/brademas/pdf/Racine_Brademaspaper.pdf
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.sm1850.650180/default.html

Member Commissioners of the February 2, 2013, education report “For Each and Every Child: a strategy for education equity and excellence”; A Report to the Secretary of Education of the U.S. Department of Education, February 2, 2013:

This report reflects the consensus of the commission. It does not reflect the full scope of each commission member’s views with respect to the issues discussed in the report. To elaborate on some of the dialogue and ideas discussed by this commission, a number of us have submitted, and some have collaborated upon, independently authored materials for a compendium which can be found in Appendix C.

The Equity and Excellence Commission (the Commission) is a federal advisory committee chartered by Congress, operating under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA); 5 U.S.C., App.2.

Russlynn Ali The Emerson Collective
Cynthia Brown Vice President, Education Policy Center for American Progress
Mike Casserly Executive Director The Council of Great City Schools
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Stanley Morrison Professor of Law Stanford Law School
Linda Darling-Hammond Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Stanford University Sandra Dungee Glenn President and Chief Executive Officer The American Cities Foundation
Christopher Edley, Jr. Dean of U.C. Berkeley Law School University of California at Berkeley
Eric Hanushek Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution Stanford University
Karen Hawley Miles President and Executive Director Education Resource Strategies
Kati Haycock President The Education Trust
Benjamin Todd Jealous President, Chief Executive Officer The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
John B. King, Jr. Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York
Ralph Martire Executive Director The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
Matt Miller Columnist, The Washington Post Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Marc H. Morial President, Chief Executive Officer The National Urban League
Michael A. Rebell Professor, Executive Director The Campaign for Educational Equity Teachers College, Columbia University
Ahniwake Rose (Cherokee) Executive Director National Indian Education Association
Jesse H. Ruiz Partner, Drinker Biddle & Reath Vice President, Chicago Board of Education
James E. Ryan Matheson & Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia School of Law
Thomas A. Saenz President & General Counsel Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
David G. Sciarra Executive Director The Education Law Center
Robert T. Teranishi Associate Professor of Higher Education New York University
Jacquelyn Thompson Director (retired) The Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services Michigan Department of Education
José M. Torres Superintendent School District U-46, Elgin, Illinois
Dennis Van Roekel President The National Education Association
Randi Weingarten President American Federation of Teachers
Doris Terry Williams Executive Director The Rural School and Community Trust


"United States education system hit by dire crisis: Report," February 20, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/20/289975/us-education-system-hits-dire-crisis/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Golden oldies’ sun must set says rising new party leader, SA physician Ramphele

Women changing Africa
Mamphela Ramphele
right end 
“Wake-up Call”
Editing, re-reporting by
Carolyn Bennett

Renowned academic and anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele launches new party, political platform “Agang” ─ meaning “build” ─ to stand in South Africa’s 2014 elections and unseat the “corrupt.” 

The devaluation of the African National Congress’s moral leadership is clearly evident throughout the country, reads an article this week at South Africa’s News 24. Their traditional power base’s “crippling apathy” in making their mark and making their voices heard during every election “further deepens the hole in which we are being dragged down,” the article said. 

Ramphele entry into the fray a wake-up call

“Credentials are everything,” News 24 said, “[and] Mamphela Ramphele has them. The ANC had them.

Mamphela Ramphele 
“Ramphele is a former activist in the mold of the Black Consciousness Movement. She is highly educated and has taught at one of South Africa’s premier universities. She has led the World Bank, chaired one of the largest boards of mines in the country; all no easy tasks. Compare this to the majority of ministers and leaders in government circles,” News 24 says. “The comparison is deafening and other parties would be short-sighted not to see Ramphele as a genuine threat to their votes ─ ANC very much included.

“This is a new era and it is time for liberation heroes to step aside. Their contributions were invaluable to the democracy in South Africa but the ones clinging on in power now are unraveling all that hard work.”

T
hough the road for her newly established Agang Party SA and its platform is bound to be rocky, Mamphela Ramphele’s entry into the sphere of politics “can be seen as a breath of fresh air,” News 24 said. She is “a worthy player.”

Today’s Deutsche Welle article on this story reports, “The renowned author, economist and business woman commands a lot of respect from academics and civil society across the country.”

Hers has been a “long walk to politics,” DW writes. “Born in 1947 at the Bochum District of the Limpopo Province in the northern part of South Africa, in her early years active in the student movements that fought the oppressive Apartheid regime, Mamphela Ramphele is one of the few South African women who have had a major impact on South African public life.” 


Mamphela Ramphele 
Profile in brief

P
hysician, academic and businesswoman, Mamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African who was an activist against apartheid. Dr. Ramphele was also a managing director at the World Bank and a vice chancellor at the University of Cape Town. This month, Mamphela Aletta Ramphele announced the formation of a new political party, Agang (in Sotho, it means ‘Build’). The new party will challenge South Africa’s African National Congress or ANC.

Ramphele completed her medical credentials in the early 1970s at University of the North and Natal Medical School (now the Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Medical School). And though the apartheid government banished her to the town of Tzaneen (1977-1984) and put her under constant security police surveillance, she worked continually with the rural poor, formed the Isutheng Community Health Program, and set about empowering women.

She did medical internships at Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital and Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth. In the 1980s, she worked with the South African Students Association (SASO) and held research positions at University of Cape Town (UCT) and worked with Professor of Economics Francis Wilson at the South African Development Research Unit (SALDRU) and Livingstone Hospital.

C
Mamphela Ramphele
ontinuing her academic studies, Ramphele took her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Administration at the University of South Africa as well as diplomas in Tropical Health and Hygiene and Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand. In the 1990s, Ramphele was deputy vice chancellor at the University of Cape Town and a visiting scholar at the U.S.-based Kennedy School of Government. She has authored and edited several books. Among them:

Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the transformation in South Africa (2008)
Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader (1996)
Mamphela Ramphele - A Life (autobiography 1995)
A Bed called Home (1993) based on Ramphele’s Ph.D. thesis The Politics of Space dealing with life in the migrant labor hostels of Cape Town (Social Anthropology)
Restoring the Land (ed., 1992) dealing with ecological challenges facing post-apartheid South Africa.
Bounds of Possibility: The Legacy of Steve Biko (co-ed., 1991)
Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge (co-author, 1989, received the 1990 Noma Award, an annual prize given to African writers and scholars whose work is published in Africa) drawing together research conducted by the second Carnegie inquiry into poverty and development in South Africa.



Beyond the entrenched and corrupt

Ramphele has reportedly labeled South Africa’s current rulers “unaccountable” and “corrupt.” Though there were glimpses of “a liberation movement transforming itself into a democratic governing party … during the (Nelson) Mandela administration,” she says, “the rest of the ANC …, from the very beginning, was more about taking control and … stepping into the shoes of the former colonizer.”

The approach of her developing party, she says, is based on a “consultative process”: an approach that goes “from village to village, township to township, young people, old people, rich people, poor people ─ because the country belongs to all of us.”

M
edical doctor turned business woman, renowned academic and anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele proposes a fully fledged political party based on “intensive consultation with South Africans across the divide.” Her party and political platform Agang (translated “build”) plans to stand in her country’s 2014 elections.

Mamphela Ramphele
Mamphela Ramphele argues,“the golden oldies must go into the sunset.”




Sources and notes

“Ramphele aims to capitalize on social media,” February 18, 2013, http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Ramphele-aims-to-capitalise-on-social-media-20130218

“Mamphela Ramphele - a worthy player in SA politics.” February 19, 2013, http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Mamphela-Ramphele-a-worthy-player-in-SA-politics-20130219

“Agang funded locally, says Ramphele,” February 19, 2013, http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Agang-funded-locally-says-Ramphele-20130219

“South Africa’s new party set to challenge ANC,” February 19, 2013, Deutsche Welle, http://www.dw.de/south-africas-new-party-set-to-challenge-anc/a-16608322

“South African businesswoman set to threaten ANC’s dominance” (by JOHANNES MYBURGH), Wednesday, January 30, 2013, http://www.africareview.com/News/S-African-businesswoman-set-to-threaten-ANC-dominance/-/979180/1679456/-/gi4o5oz/-/index.html

Wikipedia note
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamphela_Ramphele

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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