Political Theatre category archive

Must see.

All seriousness aside, wingnut “history” is dangerous.

Persons who do not understand–indeed, who intentionally misinterpret–the past have no hope of dealing with the present nor of preparing for the future.

Via The Richmonder.

Must listen.

Via Hanlon.

As a follow-up to this post, here’s a pointer to Monday’s Radio Times, which spent an hour discussing the Stanford report on charter schools. From the website:

Since 1997 when Pennsylvania first authorized the establishment of charter schools, over 70,000 students in grades K-12 have enrolled in one of 135 “bricks and mortar” charter schools and a dozen cyber charter schools state-wide . In Philadelphia, one out of four students attends a charter school and the numbers are growing. Charter schools are created by parents, teachers, community leaders, and education management organizations. And while they have become a centerpiece in the school choice movement their very existence is the source of considerable debate. A new study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes reports mixed results when it comes to student learning. Have Pennsylvania’s charter schools fulfilled their promise? Our guests include the report’s author DEV DAVIS , ROBERT FAYFICH of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, and education researcher GARY MIRON of Western Michigan University.

Here’s a bit from the comments of Gary Miron at the 22 minute mark:

It’s time to revisit the original goals of the charter school reform. I’m one of those who argues that the charter school idea is a very good idea. Unfortunately what we are seeing implemented today and the growth of charter schools today being fueled by for-profit companies, is a very different reform and I’ve suggested that we use a different term for it. Let’s call this “corporate schools,” let’s call them “franchise schools.”

The charter school idea is a good idea but unfortunately we are not pursing that idea right now. We’re pursuing something different in the name of charter schools.

Follow the link to listen or listen here (mp3).

H/T to Cassandra M for tipping me about the episode.

Via TPM.

Steve M. explains why right wing zombie lies never die:

Mainstream journalists are never going to put heat on right-wing politicians for spouting policy nonsense because (a) they think it’s their job not to take sides, even in a contest between truth and lies; (b) they, as refs, are effectively worked by the liberal-baiting right, which increases their timidity; and (c) the right regularly floods the zone with untruths, sophistry, and superstition produced by seemingly “respectable” people, so the only way for non-right-wing journalists to seem objective is to run every story as they-said/they-said.

Via Bob Cesca.

Andy Borowitz reports:

“Michele Bachmann is a staunch believer in the theory of Intelligent Design,” he said. “However, Intelligent Design cannot explain Michele Bachmann.”

But Dr. Logsdon added that Rep. Bachmann remains an attractive candidate, especially for those Republican voters who find former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin “too cerebral.”

Via Bartblog.

TomDispatch looks at how words about war have been redefined.

Here’s a sampling. Follow the link for all nine of them and the reasoning underlying his definitions:

• Enemy: Any super-evil pipsqueak on whose back you can raise at least $1.2 trillion a year for the National Security Complex.
• Covert War: It used to mean secret war, a war “in the shadows” and so beyond the public’s gaze. Now, it means a conflict in the full glare of publicity that everybody knows about, but no one can do anything about. Think: in the news, but off the books.
• Withdrawal: We’re going, we’re going… Just not quite yet and stop pushing!

Via Asia Times.

Via Bergman and Ossman.

Via Oliver Willis.

No doubt konservative kool-aid is on the menu.

Republican politicians were gathering near Vail on Sunday for a semiannual retreat aimed at promoting business-friendly policy.

The meetings are organized by two of the nation’s most powerful conservative political donors, Charles and David Koch of the privately held energy giant Koch Industries. Their brother, William Koch, who on Saturday paid $2 million at a Denver auction for a tintype image of Billy the Kid, also is a conservative political donor, but he does not participate in his brothers’ activities.

Having been raised Southern Baptist, I have found the Southern Baptist Convention’s veer towards wingnuttery over the past three decades to be most distressing. (It is no coincidence that the trend started when Texans took over the leadership of the SBC, altered the structure of governance, undermined basic Baptist tenets, and attempted to enforce autocratic rule.)

I know it also distressed my father, who was descended from generations of Baptists. Indeed, the little Baptist Church in which I was raised stood on land donated by one of my ancestors shortly after the Revolutionary War, when persecution of Baptists by the colonial government came to an end (in the Virginia colony, the Church of England was the established church,; supported by tax dollars; others, including Elijah Baker, who founded my father’s congregation, were persecuted).

Anyhoo, the path of the SBC troubled my father so much so that he sometimes wondered whether the congregation would do better to leave the SBC and join the Yankee Baptist Church American Baptist Association. As a practical matter, the congregation ignored Nashville as much as it could and went its own way.

Now comes a hint of Christian charity from the SBC.

Not much more than a hint, but still a hint. Cynthia Tucker reports in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A nugget:

Last week at its annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Convention called for “a just and compassionate path to legal status” for the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented workers. The “messengers,” as the convention delegates are called, also denounced bigotry and harassment toward those who are here illegally.

The resolution was hotly debated, and it carries no imprimatur of authority for the millions of Southern Baptists across the country, whose churches take pride in their autonomy. They have no hierarchy — no pope or bishop to enforce adherence to church doctrine.

Furthermore, the clause in the resolution that dealt with legalization barely survived, with just 51 percent of the messengers supporting it in an early vote, according to the Baptist Press.

The delegates later added an amendment which noted that the Baptists were in no way endorsing “amnesty,” a hot-button term without any precise meaning.

It is telling that Christian charity squeaked by with a margin of one percentage point.

I am more and more leaning to believe that the charter school movement is one more Trojan Horse for raiding public funds to stuff private pocketbooks.

Elmer Smith of Philly dot com cites a study that is pushing the lean even farther:

Do you know where your children are?

They may not be where you think. If they are among the 40,000 students enrolled in one of the city’s 71 charter schools, chances are they are in no better place today than they were when you transferred them.

If they are one of the 3,460 Philadelphia kids who are enrolled in cybercharters, they are at best in limbo and probably lost in cyberspace.

That may be the most sobering finding in the data released last week in a Stanford University study of charter schools across the country. The report by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes asserts that students in cybercharters are performing far below students in traditional district schools.

In reading and math, cybercharters performed below average in comparison with district schools at every grade level tested. That was without exception.

(snip)

That may be the best business model in all of education. But at a time when the state is claiming that it can’t afford to provide for basic education subsidies, paying the same rate for cyberschools as for brick-and-mortar schools is an unconscionable waste.

Afterthought:

No, charter school grasshopper, “Trojan Horse” did not originate as a computer term.

Date: Saturday, May 28th.

Special Guest Speaker: Edith “Pat” Harrington from “Voter Registration.”

Location: Bubba’s Deli & BBQ, 3600 Dam Neck Rd, Virginia Beach (Map).

Cost: Adults $10.00, Under 12 $6.00 for all-you-can-eat buffet (it’s a good value for the price).

More information here.