And it comes with a mechanic, too! :)
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Out of the closet she comes!
Out of the political closet -
Don't expect an organized essay here. I'm upset. Call it a first draft rant.
For quite a few years, I've had a closet habit: In addition to daily reading of the New York Times online, to find out what I think, just as my dad did, I've also started to read conservative blogs and commentary. I'm still on Moveon.org's mailing list. I'm still on Organize for America's list. I'm still on the Planned Parenthood lists. I voted for Obama the first time. I still read Media Matters and Politico and others. I believe in the rights of each to search for truth, to become all each is capable of becoming. I am against violence. (Seriously, who is FOR violence?) I've marched against wrongs, I've carried signs, I've spoken my truth.
Gradually, with new experiences, new communities, new readings, new facts, I've discerned gaping holes in logic, vast seas of propaganda, and intolerant dismissiveness to alternate views among "my" people, the liberal left. (For older members of my family, the strategy is to just get louder if your argument is challenged, but the younger ones just get snarky.)
But the most disconcerting part for me: I was afraid to speak out,
fearing not just social ostracism, but Big Brother looking over my shoulder. It was the IRS harassment of conservative groups, so similar to Nixon's Watergate, and the subsequent "missing emails", six conveniently trashed and recycled computers (defying a court order to hold and copy the information!), and the arrogant replies to questions that finally shifted my perceptions of government's trustworthiness.
And press complicity in cover-up.
If this had occurred with Bush in charge, I know what "my people" would have said.
I didn't know what I didn't know. As I read and listened to Bill Whittle, Michael Medved, David Horowitz, Victor Davis Hanson, Jonathan Tobin, Richard Hernandez, even Bill Bennett (whose book I derided mercilessly years ago), American Thinker essays, National Review editorials, The Hill, Foreign Policy Review, the Conservative Treehouse, and others, I perceived that while I didn't agree with all they said, I saw points of view I'd never heard. Never! I thought David Brooks was the only conservative I needed to read. Imagine! I thought the New York Times covered it all. I thought all the other newspapers and magazines were practically comic books. I believed the evening news shows, especially CBS. After all, they had exposed Nixon! I had watched Watergate Summer as a pregnant and unemployed graduate of an M.S. program at SUNY Albany.
So I had trusted that the media could ferret out government sleaze. I had enormous respect for news reporters, thinking it was all a terribly honorable profession. Secretly, I believed that anyone outside of New York, Chicago, DC, or California just needed an education, so they wouldn't be so stupid. Certainly, nothing intelligent came from the south, or the west, nor the mid-west (except Chicago), but of course, I'd never actually said it out loud, as I recently heard a Cuomo outburst re-hashed. (Some sort of, "If you don't agree, get out of New York" remark.)
I feel guilty for misleading students. A lot. I didn't want students to use any conservative sources for their research papers. I was slanting the picture. Everything they used had to have an "edu" after it, for the most part.
I once marked down a freshman comp paper because he'd used "The Heritage Foundation" as a source. "Not a legitimate source!" I had scrawled across the works cited page. He had disagreed with me on gun control, you see. It wasn't POSSIBLE that areas with tough gun control laws had MORE gun deaths than those with more relaxed gun ownership policies.
Indeed, it is true that in areas where people can protect themselves with guns, there are fewer gun deaths. One armed and trained teacher in that Connecticut classroom? Maybe a tragedy averted. Gun training for teachers became free in Sarasota after that tragedy. Resource officers were finally added to elementary schools.
One legitimately armed citizen in that theater? Consider the possibility, at least. Our news outlets NEVER cover successful citizen gun interventions, except to report that charges against those who dare defend their fellow citizens are pending. Do the research. There have been many tragedies prevented in this way. Our news outlets made Trayvon Martin out as an Emmett Til (most of Trayvon's real life was hidden by the press) , and George Zimmerman a gun-crazy, racist white vigilante. It fit the gun control, race-baiting narrative. The President weighed in, and the Justice Department made it the poster case for racism. A jury found the narrative of the Justice Department was just plain false. (This same Justice Department hid its authorization to let guns flow over the border to cartels, despite gun store owners' and DEA officers' protests and urgent pleas, killing many Mexicans and at least one border patrol agent.... "Fast and Furious", it was labeled. Look it up.)
I once marked down a veteran's grade because he thought the Gulf War was a good idea. (I picked other reasons, you understand, but the prejudice was there.) I showed Fahrenheit 911 in class, and cringe now to think about it. A memo went around to "cover" the other rebuttal film, and I did - sort of.
I instructed a whole generation of kids using the Southern Poverty Law Center's materials on what a miserably intolerant country we are, one bad story after another, and none about the miracle of what we HAVE accomplished here in this great historical experiment. So confident was I that they needed to know all the bad stuff, that I continued my slant despite objections from parents occasionally, and from my boss, often. It's a matter of emphasis. I had to be sure they knew all the bad. I had learned NONE of it in high school, and of course, that was wrong, too; I resented the patriotic flag waving, having been taught at university that patriotism was ignorant and dangerous. It's what Hitler did.
I believed any reasonable person would believe in re-distribution of wealth, for example. If everyone shares in the resources, it is a happier society. Right? I proclaimed that it would be of no consequence to me if more were taken from my paycheck so that others would have enough. The end result of this strategy of more coming out of my paycheck while others "in need" received help, in practical terms, has been huge and wasteful government bureaucracies, corruption, bonus contracts to cronies of the power brokers, and a permanent and growing dependent class.
I've met some of them. They believe what they've repeatedly been told: the "system" is rigged against them, and they might as well wait for their checks. What's the point of trying? For a person who's devoted her entire life to the belief that WE SHALL OVERCOME (with effort and a little help), protested and written and carried signs and fought for the rights of the downtrodden, it's been a sad and demoralizing shock. (Don't worry, I've had some heart-warming successes too, and I'm not giving up.) The educational system just keeps paying big corporations to make more expensive tests and materials, bureaucratize the classroom, and denigrate the curricular input of teachers in classrooms. Don't even get me started on the time taken from real learning to administer these tests.
Recently, a former student of mine was marked down in a university health care delivery class for writing "Obamacare" instead of "The Affordable Care Act" in his 3 paragraph homework assignment (not a formal paper.) While he was telling me this, I happened to be driving past a downtown banner that read, "OBAMACARE: SIGN UP HERE", in a makeshift storefront operation, people with no credentials whatsoever given huge sums of money to help people sign up for whatever it is that we're getting for free. Everybody calls it "signature legislation", "Obamacare." Why points off on the homework assignment? The student had the audacity to question Obamacare in his homework response, that's why. Our universities do not encourage divergent thinking if it diverges away from "progressive" or "liberal" views, I'm afraid.
Confession is good for the soul. I taught my students what I had been taught in public education: our shameful history. Intolerance, exclusion, imperialism, conquest, war, genocide, slavery, theft, and the monster Capitalism, creator of all the world's misery. I didn't know what I didn't know. Why this narrative in my consciousness that excluded all that is good about this incredible, experimental idea, America, land of liberty and opportunity? I really was made ashamed of my country. I hated Capitalism, because of all those evil rich people who wouldn't share with the poor. I didn't understand wealth creation, because I lived in public employment my entire life, and so did my parents. I didn't know that wealth isn't a pie to be divided. I'm truly sorry.
Teaching in Florida for many years after leaving New York, I observed what I had not seen in my limited view of the country in upstate New York: Vast abuses of all systems, at huge expense, for little gain. School systems and states purchase packaged materials, developed to profit corporate agendas -
then force the political and educational systems into place. Pearson-world. The horror. Follow that rabbit into the whole back to the 60's, and the massive fraud that's been perpetrated upon us chills me to the core. (another blog) Don't get me started on Common Core, that Stalinesque re-education program that makes some people very, very rich, indeed, while forcing ever more standardized tests. You can rally some teachers behind it if you threaten to withhold their paychecks otherwise, and brainwash them in endless, required training sessions. Or, require it of them and give no training. It is a terrible and costly mistake. I plan a lot of separate blogs on that alone.
Immigration: I love immigrants, and I believe we are enriched by most immigrants, legal or otherwise. I have myself actually made up social security numbers on adult education forms so that I could continue to provide services to illegal immigrants. (Years ago - Rwandans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans) I have falsified that information just as the VA and the schools and the social systems have done for years, or just left it blank, and hoped nobody would notice. I taught illegal immigrants in our prisons, too. However, with no border control, the ones who've come here illegally and are not so desirable - say, the Mohammad Attas, or Boston Bombers, or MS13 gang members, for example - are free to come and go as they please while border patrol agents are babysitting.
We now have federal education department laws making it impossible for localities to financially protect themselves from the onslaught of hundreds of illegal children in schools. Hospitals have always gone ahead and treated illegals. Now, they have mounds of red tape to handle as well. Churches and social systems in our country have generally been enormously generous and benevolent in this way. Yet I know bright, productive, creative business people from the European Union and elsewhere denied the right to stay here. We need them, too. And the Chamber of Commerce wants to bring in an endless supply of cheap workers, and we need them, too. Do we need Indonesian school teachers because American teachers cost too much and Is there no rational policy possible? Go ahead and blame Congress, but if there's no leadership, no stated policy other than "Come one, come all!", we've lost our country. If our borders don't mean anything, what's the point of a nation?
But what about the rights of people in any community when busloads of illegals (we are no longer allowed to call them "illegals"-language control) are secretly "dumped" into makeshift housing, with no financial support? It's ok unless it's in your backyard, right? Are you willing to set up camps in your neighborhood? Most Americans want to help, of course. But who is coming in? What ever happened to border security? I'm not a security nut, but it seems sensible to me to have our borders protected from rivers of people defying our rules; the people who live there have a right to be outraged. Imagine having to wear a weapon just to go get your mail at the end of the driveway? Imagine having your home invaded day after day? The single greatest task of a federal force is maintenance of secure borders and treaties with other nations. Otherwise, we might as well be feudal, and protect our own neighborhoods only. And 3.8 billion dollars to "process" them - not one dime to send them back safely, in all that, nor any money to strengthen the borders! How does that discourage the river of humanity from flowing in? ("Dear Dad, I just got drunk and wrecked your car hitting a line of children crossing the street. Could I have some money for that new Ferrari I saw in the store window?" "Sure, son, but be careful, ok?")
Our country is a grand, wonderful experiment in providing opportunity and equal rights for each of its citizens. It is a country that has, like all countries, made horrific mistakes, and it's taken a long time to be as inclusive as we are. But there is no place else I'd want to raise my family in the whole world. Apparently, since few citizens are running in the other direction to other countries, the experiment is working, if we can repeat what has made us successful and strong.
The communist experiment imploded. Do we all remember that it is equal opportunity we seek, and not everyone MADE equal? Think about places that have had decades of Democratic management and social engineering : just in New Jersey alone, my birth state, think Camden, Paterson, and Newark.
and read this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html
and
this: http://neoneocon.com
July 19th discussion of the Obama "snark" at Romney about how Russia was a problem of the '80s.
and this:
The conservative treehouse article of July 18 about what "faith based groups" really are: taxpayer funded slush funds, with neither parishoners, congregations, nor churches, ministers, pastors, priests. High administrative fees and salaries. Find out about the lies behind the narratives. Who is Kevin Dinnin? Why are my tax dollars paying him 417,000 a year for helping people who continue to arrive here illegally? (Please, I am NOT anti-immigrant.) What is "faith-based" about this organization? Why has he received 270 MILLION tax dollars this year? I know. What's a few million here and there if it's for the children. (Couldn't the children use some of that huge salary he gets? And what sort of oversight is there?)
and sign in to PJ Media…watch a few Bill Whittle videos, listen to his reasoning. Just consider a few alternatives, and know that if you're like me, you've lived in a liberal bubble your whole life without benefit of really seeing over the fence around your mind. I'm still socially liberal. But "eat the rich" isn't going to get us anywhere. They pay most of our taxes and create ideas, jobs, growth. If I have to be an outcast, so be it.
Don't expect an organized essay here. I'm upset. Call it a first draft rant.
For quite a few years, I've had a closet habit: In addition to daily reading of the New York Times online, to find out what I think, just as my dad did, I've also started to read conservative blogs and commentary. I'm still on Moveon.org's mailing list. I'm still on Organize for America's list. I'm still on the Planned Parenthood lists. I voted for Obama the first time. I still read Media Matters and Politico and others. I believe in the rights of each to search for truth, to become all each is capable of becoming. I am against violence. (Seriously, who is FOR violence?) I've marched against wrongs, I've carried signs, I've spoken my truth.
Gradually, with new experiences, new communities, new readings, new facts, I've discerned gaping holes in logic, vast seas of propaganda, and intolerant dismissiveness to alternate views among "my" people, the liberal left. (For older members of my family, the strategy is to just get louder if your argument is challenged, but the younger ones just get snarky.)
But the most disconcerting part for me: I was afraid to speak out,
fearing not just social ostracism, but Big Brother looking over my shoulder. It was the IRS harassment of conservative groups, so similar to Nixon's Watergate, and the subsequent "missing emails", six conveniently trashed and recycled computers (defying a court order to hold and copy the information!), and the arrogant replies to questions that finally shifted my perceptions of government's trustworthiness.
And press complicity in cover-up.
If this had occurred with Bush in charge, I know what "my people" would have said.
I didn't know what I didn't know. As I read and listened to Bill Whittle, Michael Medved, David Horowitz, Victor Davis Hanson, Jonathan Tobin, Richard Hernandez, even Bill Bennett (whose book I derided mercilessly years ago), American Thinker essays, National Review editorials, The Hill, Foreign Policy Review, the Conservative Treehouse, and others, I perceived that while I didn't agree with all they said, I saw points of view I'd never heard. Never! I thought David Brooks was the only conservative I needed to read. Imagine! I thought the New York Times covered it all. I thought all the other newspapers and magazines were practically comic books. I believed the evening news shows, especially CBS. After all, they had exposed Nixon! I had watched Watergate Summer as a pregnant and unemployed graduate of an M.S. program at SUNY Albany.
So I had trusted that the media could ferret out government sleaze. I had enormous respect for news reporters, thinking it was all a terribly honorable profession. Secretly, I believed that anyone outside of New York, Chicago, DC, or California just needed an education, so they wouldn't be so stupid. Certainly, nothing intelligent came from the south, or the west, nor the mid-west (except Chicago), but of course, I'd never actually said it out loud, as I recently heard a Cuomo outburst re-hashed. (Some sort of, "If you don't agree, get out of New York" remark.)
I feel guilty for misleading students. A lot. I didn't want students to use any conservative sources for their research papers. I was slanting the picture. Everything they used had to have an "edu" after it, for the most part.
I once marked down a freshman comp paper because he'd used "The Heritage Foundation" as a source. "Not a legitimate source!" I had scrawled across the works cited page. He had disagreed with me on gun control, you see. It wasn't POSSIBLE that areas with tough gun control laws had MORE gun deaths than those with more relaxed gun ownership policies.
Indeed, it is true that in areas where people can protect themselves with guns, there are fewer gun deaths. One armed and trained teacher in that Connecticut classroom? Maybe a tragedy averted. Gun training for teachers became free in Sarasota after that tragedy. Resource officers were finally added to elementary schools.
One legitimately armed citizen in that theater? Consider the possibility, at least. Our news outlets NEVER cover successful citizen gun interventions, except to report that charges against those who dare defend their fellow citizens are pending. Do the research. There have been many tragedies prevented in this way. Our news outlets made Trayvon Martin out as an Emmett Til (most of Trayvon's real life was hidden by the press) , and George Zimmerman a gun-crazy, racist white vigilante. It fit the gun control, race-baiting narrative. The President weighed in, and the Justice Department made it the poster case for racism. A jury found the narrative of the Justice Department was just plain false. (This same Justice Department hid its authorization to let guns flow over the border to cartels, despite gun store owners' and DEA officers' protests and urgent pleas, killing many Mexicans and at least one border patrol agent.... "Fast and Furious", it was labeled. Look it up.)
I once marked down a veteran's grade because he thought the Gulf War was a good idea. (I picked other reasons, you understand, but the prejudice was there.) I showed Fahrenheit 911 in class, and cringe now to think about it. A memo went around to "cover" the other rebuttal film, and I did - sort of.
I instructed a whole generation of kids using the Southern Poverty Law Center's materials on what a miserably intolerant country we are, one bad story after another, and none about the miracle of what we HAVE accomplished here in this great historical experiment. So confident was I that they needed to know all the bad stuff, that I continued my slant despite objections from parents occasionally, and from my boss, often. It's a matter of emphasis. I had to be sure they knew all the bad. I had learned NONE of it in high school, and of course, that was wrong, too; I resented the patriotic flag waving, having been taught at university that patriotism was ignorant and dangerous. It's what Hitler did.
I believed any reasonable person would believe in re-distribution of wealth, for example. If everyone shares in the resources, it is a happier society. Right? I proclaimed that it would be of no consequence to me if more were taken from my paycheck so that others would have enough. The end result of this strategy of more coming out of my paycheck while others "in need" received help, in practical terms, has been huge and wasteful government bureaucracies, corruption, bonus contracts to cronies of the power brokers, and a permanent and growing dependent class.
I've met some of them. They believe what they've repeatedly been told: the "system" is rigged against them, and they might as well wait for their checks. What's the point of trying? For a person who's devoted her entire life to the belief that WE SHALL OVERCOME (with effort and a little help), protested and written and carried signs and fought for the rights of the downtrodden, it's been a sad and demoralizing shock. (Don't worry, I've had some heart-warming successes too, and I'm not giving up.) The educational system just keeps paying big corporations to make more expensive tests and materials, bureaucratize the classroom, and denigrate the curricular input of teachers in classrooms. Don't even get me started on the time taken from real learning to administer these tests.
Recently, a former student of mine was marked down in a university health care delivery class for writing "Obamacare" instead of "The Affordable Care Act" in his 3 paragraph homework assignment (not a formal paper.) While he was telling me this, I happened to be driving past a downtown banner that read, "OBAMACARE: SIGN UP HERE", in a makeshift storefront operation, people with no credentials whatsoever given huge sums of money to help people sign up for whatever it is that we're getting for free. Everybody calls it "signature legislation", "Obamacare." Why points off on the homework assignment? The student had the audacity to question Obamacare in his homework response, that's why. Our universities do not encourage divergent thinking if it diverges away from "progressive" or "liberal" views, I'm afraid.
Confession is good for the soul. I taught my students what I had been taught in public education: our shameful history. Intolerance, exclusion, imperialism, conquest, war, genocide, slavery, theft, and the monster Capitalism, creator of all the world's misery. I didn't know what I didn't know. Why this narrative in my consciousness that excluded all that is good about this incredible, experimental idea, America, land of liberty and opportunity? I really was made ashamed of my country. I hated Capitalism, because of all those evil rich people who wouldn't share with the poor. I didn't understand wealth creation, because I lived in public employment my entire life, and so did my parents. I didn't know that wealth isn't a pie to be divided. I'm truly sorry.
Teaching in Florida for many years after leaving New York, I observed what I had not seen in my limited view of the country in upstate New York: Vast abuses of all systems, at huge expense, for little gain. School systems and states purchase packaged materials, developed to profit corporate agendas -
then force the political and educational systems into place. Pearson-world. The horror. Follow that rabbit into the whole back to the 60's, and the massive fraud that's been perpetrated upon us chills me to the core. (another blog) Don't get me started on Common Core, that Stalinesque re-education program that makes some people very, very rich, indeed, while forcing ever more standardized tests. You can rally some teachers behind it if you threaten to withhold their paychecks otherwise, and brainwash them in endless, required training sessions. Or, require it of them and give no training. It is a terrible and costly mistake. I plan a lot of separate blogs on that alone.
Immigration: I love immigrants, and I believe we are enriched by most immigrants, legal or otherwise. I have myself actually made up social security numbers on adult education forms so that I could continue to provide services to illegal immigrants. (Years ago - Rwandans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans) I have falsified that information just as the VA and the schools and the social systems have done for years, or just left it blank, and hoped nobody would notice. I taught illegal immigrants in our prisons, too. However, with no border control, the ones who've come here illegally and are not so desirable - say, the Mohammad Attas, or Boston Bombers, or MS13 gang members, for example - are free to come and go as they please while border patrol agents are babysitting.
We now have federal education department laws making it impossible for localities to financially protect themselves from the onslaught of hundreds of illegal children in schools. Hospitals have always gone ahead and treated illegals. Now, they have mounds of red tape to handle as well. Churches and social systems in our country have generally been enormously generous and benevolent in this way. Yet I know bright, productive, creative business people from the European Union and elsewhere denied the right to stay here. We need them, too. And the Chamber of Commerce wants to bring in an endless supply of cheap workers, and we need them, too. Do we need Indonesian school teachers because American teachers cost too much and Is there no rational policy possible? Go ahead and blame Congress, but if there's no leadership, no stated policy other than "Come one, come all!", we've lost our country. If our borders don't mean anything, what's the point of a nation?
But what about the rights of people in any community when busloads of illegals (we are no longer allowed to call them "illegals"-language control) are secretly "dumped" into makeshift housing, with no financial support? It's ok unless it's in your backyard, right? Are you willing to set up camps in your neighborhood? Most Americans want to help, of course. But who is coming in? What ever happened to border security? I'm not a security nut, but it seems sensible to me to have our borders protected from rivers of people defying our rules; the people who live there have a right to be outraged. Imagine having to wear a weapon just to go get your mail at the end of the driveway? Imagine having your home invaded day after day? The single greatest task of a federal force is maintenance of secure borders and treaties with other nations. Otherwise, we might as well be feudal, and protect our own neighborhoods only. And 3.8 billion dollars to "process" them - not one dime to send them back safely, in all that, nor any money to strengthen the borders! How does that discourage the river of humanity from flowing in? ("Dear Dad, I just got drunk and wrecked your car hitting a line of children crossing the street. Could I have some money for that new Ferrari I saw in the store window?" "Sure, son, but be careful, ok?")
Our country is a grand, wonderful experiment in providing opportunity and equal rights for each of its citizens. It is a country that has, like all countries, made horrific mistakes, and it's taken a long time to be as inclusive as we are. But there is no place else I'd want to raise my family in the whole world. Apparently, since few citizens are running in the other direction to other countries, the experiment is working, if we can repeat what has made us successful and strong.
The communist experiment imploded. Do we all remember that it is equal opportunity we seek, and not everyone MADE equal? Think about places that have had decades of Democratic management and social engineering : just in New Jersey alone, my birth state, think Camden, Paterson, and Newark.
and read this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html
and
this: http://neoneocon.com
July 19th discussion of the Obama "snark" at Romney about how Russia was a problem of the '80s.
and this:
The conservative treehouse article of July 18 about what "faith based groups" really are: taxpayer funded slush funds, with neither parishoners, congregations, nor churches, ministers, pastors, priests. High administrative fees and salaries. Find out about the lies behind the narratives. Who is Kevin Dinnin? Why are my tax dollars paying him 417,000 a year for helping people who continue to arrive here illegally? (Please, I am NOT anti-immigrant.) What is "faith-based" about this organization? Why has he received 270 MILLION tax dollars this year? I know. What's a few million here and there if it's for the children. (Couldn't the children use some of that huge salary he gets? And what sort of oversight is there?)
and sign in to PJ Media…watch a few Bill Whittle videos, listen to his reasoning. Just consider a few alternatives, and know that if you're like me, you've lived in a liberal bubble your whole life without benefit of really seeing over the fence around your mind. I'm still socially liberal. But "eat the rich" isn't going to get us anywhere. They pay most of our taxes and create ideas, jobs, growth. If I have to be an outcast, so be it.
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