Letters to the Editor
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@ ondelette
I share the sense of outrage you so eloquently expressed in that last paragraph. As we all know, though, our public schools, by and large, resemble those in the last season of The Wire more than we'd like to admit.
For this we all bear some share of responsibility. You can't blame it all on underfunding, as we tend to do, or on the entrenched interest group represented by teachers' unions, as the right does.
As a parent confronting it over the years, I've identified all sorts of bad ideas, and a wide assortment of culprits, from overly ideological parents to undereducated and underpaid teachers. I remember a school librarian of many years experience lamenting to me that by the time the left got rid of Huckleberry Finn, and the right got rid of Judy Blume, she had hardly anything left on the shelves.
At the heart of all these manifestations of failure, I've come to believe, is the lack of a unified cultural narrative which at the same time includes the experience of all Americans, not just those who were an absolute majority at the end of the Civil War. We've wrestled with this for a long time, with more heat than light so far. Is it to be the melting pot; is it to be cultural diversity?
Now that Europe is finally wrestling with similar issues, perhaps some helpful suggestions may be found there, where school systems are smaller, and cnsequently better-funded, and school administrations are more centralized (not that centralization is a good in itself; in fact it is often the opposite, but I would argue that it makes controlled experiments easier to conduct and assess.)
We shall see -- sooner, I hope, rather than later.
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@WT
I agree. The frustrating part, and the reason I chose the age of 10, was that we were taught about it at the age of 10, so I know it can be done. As for the 1680 part, well, I grew up in Massachusetts.
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Karen
about that piece of paper (really parchment)
I also remembered that it was about the Constitution, but that the quote was "It's just a g*ddamned piece of paper!" In fact, I was surprised that the quote was cleaned up here.
Here's a link to an article that decides that it probably wasn't true. I don't know. I remember when this came out from the not very reliable Capitol Hill Blue. I read someone who convinced me that it wasn't true. I don't remember who, or why they were the most convincing. The only reason I brought it up is because if we don't have the facts straight, that's not good. That's all.
http://omnipotentpoobah.blogspot.com/2005/12/great-big-cup-of-mea-culpa.html
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On the politicization of justice
Justice has always been politicized in the small sense, from prosecutors looking to build a reputation ahead of a run for office, to jurors who are incapable of understanding the life experience of a defendant, and thus are not truly his peers, or to the police officers who hand out jaywalking tickets only to anti-war demonstrators when other violators are also present.
What's going on in Washington these days, however, is not just a difference in degree, but in kind. The so-called permanent Republican majority of Karl Rove, et al., which is so clearly a revolt against long-term demographic trends, requires the subversion of all our institutions, not just governmental institutions. Its goal is to replace the political process with a unified series of ideological litmus tests applied at all levels of our society.
That is why some of us have compared it to fascism, or to Soviet communism, or to the court of the Sun king. It is profoundly anti-democratic, and destructive as only attempts to replace reality with an ideal abstraction can be.
We should resist it wherever is manifests itself, but we should also be aware of what is driving the manifestations, and couch our resistance in terms which call the sometimes hidden ideological agenda to the attention of those we are trying to persuade.
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Re: On the politicization of justice
What's going on has been called -- for good reason -- a radical revolution, or a counter-revolution, in that its perpetrators seem intent on undoing the historic American Revolution altogether. And they are doing it through secrecy, main force power grabs -- most of which they get away with -- and by subversion of long-standing institutions, which they are also mostly getting away with.
They are getting away with it because there is very little real opposition among the opinion leaders and power centers in this country, regardless of Party. They may (or may not) have concluded that Bush is a bust (it would seem that the dozen or so Rs who counseled with the Busheviks on Tuesday, and told them they have no credibility, have had it with the Regime), but the Bushevik principles of government, what I call an Autocracy, are intended to live on, no matter who occupies the Throne, er, White House.
Yes, eventually habeus may be (partially) restored, and the Justice Department may regain some measure of independence from the Politburo. But when and if that ever happens, the nature of our government will have changed so radically and profoundly, there will be no going back.
The kinds of changes that have been going on are not what The People signed up for, but The People are easily led according to the brightest lights of our neo-totalitarian overlords. These elites may be having a hard time of it at the moment, but that's only because they're not trying hard enough. As long as they have the stomach for the fight, they'll prevail eventually. At least according to them.
The People have been trying to call a halt to this madness from the outset, and they have gotten almost nowhere (despite the election of 2006), in part because the Mass Media misreports (or doesn't report at all) The Peoples' anger and demands. Congress listens to that Media and to its corporate backers; it long ago stopped listening to The People themselves, except when it is expedient for election purposes. We can do all the political work (as I have) that you recommend, and still we will be disappointed in elected officials.
We didn't sign on for an Autocracy, but that's what we're getting. Is that something we want? Nobody asked, and they didn't because they don't think they need to. The People are relatively passive, and as long as they can be kept that way, it doesn't matter what we think. Every now and then a bone may have to be thrown to the masses, but over all, nothing need intervene in the onrush to Imperial Greatness...
If only our Overseas Acquisitions would stop misbehaving. Everything would be fine.