Excellent piece from Smart Money; should be shared widely.

http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/10-things-charter-schools-wont-tell-you/?page=all

10 Things by Sarah Morgan (Author Archive)

10 Things Charter Schools Won't Tell You

(single page view)

1. We're no better than public schools.

For all the hype about a few standout schools, charter schools in general aren’t producing better results than traditional public schools. A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford found that while 17% of charter schools produced better results than neighborhood public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and the rest were no different. (Not that public schools are perfect, as many parents know. See our earlier story, “10 Things Your School District Won’t Tell You,” for more.)
A host of other studies on charter school outcomes have come up with sometimes contradictory results. As with traditional public schools, there are great charters – and some that aren’t so great. “There’s a lot of variation within charter schools,” points out Katrina Bulkley, an associate professor of education at Montclair State University who studies issues related to school governance. “In fairness to organizations that are running high-performing schools, many of them are very frustrated with the range of quality, because they feel that it taints charter schools as a whole,” Bulkley says.
2. Our teachers aren’t certified.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, charter-school teachers are, on average, younger and less likely to hold state certification than teachers in traditional public schools. In a 2000 survey, 92% of public school teachers held state certification, compared to 79% of charter school teachers. A 2008 survey found that 32% of charter school teachers were under 30, compared to 17% of traditional public school teachers. Charter schools often recruit from organizations like Teach for America that provide non-traditional paths into the profession, and more-experienced teachers who already have jobs in traditional public schools may have little incentive to give up the protection of tenure.
Relying on relatively untrained, inexperienced staff may have a real impact in the classroom. “A lot of them don’t have classroom management skills,” says May Taliaferrow, a charter-school parent.
3. Plus, they keep quitting.
As many as one in four charter school teachers leave every year, according to a 2007 study by Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University, and other researchers at the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. That’s about double the typical teacher turnover rate in traditional public schools. Charter schools typically pay teachers less than traditional public schools do, and require longer hours, Miron says. Meanwhile, charter school administrators earn more than their school-district counterparts, which can also make teachers feel underpaid, he says. The odds of a teacher leaving the profession altogether are 130% higher at charter schools than traditional public schools, according to a 2010 study by the National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt University. That study also found that much of this teacher attrition was related to dissatisfaction with working conditions.
Higher turnover is inevitable with a younger staff – and the ability to get rid of ineffective teachers, says Peter Murphy, a spokesman for the New York Charter Schools Association. “There needs to be more turnover in district schools,” Murphy says. “Instead, what you have is this rigid tenure system where teachers are not held accountable, and children suffer.”
4. Students with disabilities need not apply.
Six-year-old Makala was throwing regular tantrums in school, so her mother, Latrina Miley, took her for a psychiatric evaluation, eventually ending up with a district-mandated plan that stated the girl should be taught in a smaller class where half the students have special needs. The charter school’s response, Miley says, was to tell her she could either change her daughter’s educational plan, or change schools. She moved Makala to a nearby public school – where, she says, teachers have been more effective at managing her daughter’s behavior issues. The school says it can’t talk about specific cases.
Critics say charter schools commonly “counsel out” children with disabilities. While a few charter schools are specifically designed to serve students with special needs, the rest tend to have lower proportions of students with special needs than nearby public schools, according to a review of multiple studies conducted by the University of Colorado’s Education and the Public Interest Center. Charter schools also appear to end up with students whose disabilities are less expensive to manage than those of public school students. A Boston study, conducted by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, found that 91% of students with disabilities in the city’s charter schools were able to be fully included in standard classrooms, compared to only 33% of students with disabilities in the traditional public schools.
5. Separation of church and state? We found a loophole.
Charter schools are public schools, supported by public tax dollars. But among the thousands of charters nationwide are schools run by Christian organizations as well as Hebrew and Arabic language academies that blur the line between church and state. “What would not be tolerated in a regular public school seems to be tolerated when it’s a charter school,” says Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University and the author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” Even if these schools aren’t explicitly teaching religion, “it’s potentially segregation by religious preference,” Bulkley says.
6. We don’t need to tell you where your tax dollars are going.
An investigation by Philadelphia’s City Controller earlier this year uncovered widespread financial mismanagement among the city’s charter schools, including undisclosed “related party” transactions where friends and family of school management were paid for various services, people listed as working full time at more than one school, individuals writing checks to themselves, and even a $30,000 bill from a beach resort charged to a school.
Financial scandals have come to light in schools around the country, but what’s more troubling, says advocate Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in New York City, is that charter schools have opposed state audits of their finances. The New York Charter School Association won a lawsuit against the state comptroller last year, with the court ruling that the legislature had violated the state constitution when it directed the comptroller to audit charter schools. Charter schools in the state are already overseen and audited by at least two other agencies, Murphy says. “We have never objected to being audited, being overseen, and being held accountable. In fact, this organization has come out in favor of closing low-performing charter schools,” he says.
7. We’ll do anything to recruit more kids…
Walking around New York City, it’s impossible to miss the ads on buses and subways for the Harlem Success academies, Haimson says. The school is legally required to reach out to at-risk students, and it has been opening new schools over the past couple of years. However, some schools elsewhere have gone beyond marketing. A charter school in Colorado gave out gift cards to families that recruited new students, and another school in Louisiana gave out cash.
8. …but we’ll push them out if they don’t perform.
The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools have been criticized for high rates of student attrition, in part because it’s the struggling students who are more likely to leave schools mid-year – so if more students leave charters, that churn could boost a school’s scores. A KIPP study released in June found students leaving at rates comparable to the rate at which students leave traditional public schools – but, according to Miron, that study ignored the fact that KIPP schools don’t then fill empty slots with other weak, transient students the way traditional public schools do. “Traditional public schools have to take everybody,” Miron explains. “Charter schools can determine the number they want to take and when they want to take them, and then they can close the door.”
Miron found there was a 19% drop in enrollment in KIPP schools from grades 6 to 7, and a 24% drop from grades 7 to 8. Some charter schools lose 50% of a cohort each year, Miron says. And in some cases, students can be explicitly pushed out of a charter school for failing to meet the school’s academic or behavioral standards – an option that’s not available to a traditional public school.
9. Success can be bought.
Some of the most successful charter schools are also some of the wealthiest. Harlem Children’s Zone, for example, had over $193 million in net assets at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, according to its most recent IRS filing. The organization’s charter schools spend $12,443 per student in public money and an additional $3,482 that comes from private fundraising. That additional funding helps pay for 30% more time in class, according to Marty Lipp, spokesman for the organization.
It’s great to see schools that have the resources to spend lavishly to help children succeed, Bulkley says, but it’s difficult to see how those schools can then be models for traditional public schools largely constrained by traditional public budgets. “All schools should get what they need,” Lipp says, but adds, “You give two people $10 and they spend it different ways, so it’s not simply about money.”
10. Even great teachers can only do so much.
Much of the public debate over charter schools focuses on teacher performance and the ability to fire ineffective teachers – something that’s more difficult at a traditional public school where teachers are typically union members. While it’s true that teachers represent the most important in-school factor affecting student performance, out-of-school factors matter more, Ravitch says. “The single biggest predictor of student performance is family income,” she says. “I certainly wish it were not so, but it is.” Children from higher-income families get a huge head start thanks to better nutrition, a larger vocabulary spoken at home and other factors, she says. The narrative that blames teachers for problems that are rooted in poverty “is demoralizing teachers by the thousands,” Ravitch says. “And you don’t improve education by demoralizing the people who have to do the work every day.”

Read more: 10 Things Charter Schools Won't Tell You - Spending - Rip-offs - SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/rip-offs/10-things-charter-schools-wont-tell-you/#ixzz17OJJHhBn

What Does Unity Like Groups Do if They Lose an Election?

While retired UPC union officials draw pensions of $100,000 and up... UPC attempts disruption of December 1 House of Delegates meeting with falsified financial figures

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1816&section=Article

Zulma Ortiz and Carrie Maxwell - December 04, 2010
At December 1, 2010 Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates meeting, members of the United Progressive Caucus (UPC), who just lost last spring’s CTU election, handed a flyer out to attendees as they entered the building for the meeting. According to the UPC, current officers and staff at CTU are earning more than $100,000 per year. In fact, it is many UPCers (including one who participated in the leafleting) whose pensions are over $100,000 per year. And these pensions, combined with an soon to be released analysis of union finances, show what was really happening to the finances at CTU between 2004 (when UPC came back into power) and July 1, 2010 (when CORE's winners took office at CTU). During the last six years UPC was in power, union staff salaries were the highest ever. [See final paragraphs of this article for some of the UPC pension details].


Chicago Teachers union field reps (and UPC people) Molly Carroll (left) and Jerald Siegel (right) waited above for the speakers to be called at the April 2006 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. During the time Marilyn Stewart was head of the CTU and the UPC, staff salaries and benefits were enhanced significantly over those received under Stewart's predecessor, Deborah Lynch. When Stewart lost the election in June 2010 and Karen Lewis took office, salaries of top staff were adjusted (downward) to reflect the union's true financial position. Both Carroll and Siegel took retirement in the summer of 2010. Carroll is now drawing a pension of $9,758.42 per month ($117,101.04 per year). Siegel's pension is $8,088 per month ($97,058 per year). Substance archive photo by George N. Schmidt. The December 1, 2010 UPC flyer outlined the so-called salaries of the current CTU leadership, accusing them of getting paid extremely high salaries (all more than $100,000 per year). This accusation was false in every instance cited in the flyer, according to those who were named in the document.




And the people who were distributing it continued distributing it even after some of those mentioned in the flyer pointed out that it was false. But the UPC did not provide any sources to back up their claims, the only conclusion one can come to is they are still stewing over their loss in the recent election and making up facts as they go along.



Among those observed distributing the flyer before the House of Delegates meeting were retired field rep Jerald Siegel, retired teacher Thelma Perkins, and former CTU staffer Marc Wigler.





So what is UPC trying to accomplish with this tactic? UPC members don't usually talk to Substance reporters, so we have some questions.



Do they want to break the union?

Are they trying to create discord among union members?




Or are they trying to get back into power at CTU so that they can pay themselves and their cronies salaries (with benefits) that total much much more than $100,000 per year (and in the case of one of them, more than $200,000 per year)? At a time when all teachers are being attacked the last thing the number one teachers union in the nation needs is people making false claims about our leadership. By handing out their flyer before the HOD meeting, UPC essentially shifted delegates' focus from the important issues at hand to unsubstantiated claims about the leadership.





The HOD meetings are designed to discuss and brain storm the important issues confronting the union, teachers and other union members, and public education so we can go to the bargaining table prepared to win. A number of delegates noted to Substance that we do not need unnecessary distractions that take away from that fight. It’s time for all parties to set aside their agendas and get to work to protect all teachers before the last threads of our profession unravel before our very eyes.




Following the meeting, one of those named in the leaflet, Nate Goldbaum, went to the UPC members who were at Connie's Pizza and told them that factually his pay is the same as he would have been earning as a teacher had he remained at Whittier Elementary School, where he was teaching before being offered a staff job at CTU. Other officers and staff recounted the same facts to Substance. But UPC hasn't tried to correct the record.




If was impossible for any member of the union to contact UPC at any rate. The leaflet, which was signed "UPC" was anonymous, without any contact information. The UPC website was not even listed.




Six recent CTU officials have taken their pensions since July 2010, when UPC officially left office. Substance received a current list of all teacher pensions from the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) under a Freedom of Information Act request. Here are the numbers:




Marilyn Stewart, former CTU President, is now drawing a pension of $10,251.26 per month ($123,015.12 per year!).




Mary McGuire, former CTU Recording Secretary, is now drawing a pension of $10,143.20 per month ($121,718.40 per year!).




Ted Dallas, former CTU Vice President, is now drawing a pension of $11,226.96 per month ($134,723.56 per year!).




The former officers are not the only ones now getting pensions in six figures (or very close to six figures). The salaries of the union's staff during the final years of the UPC's most recent power have also done very well, because their pay during those years was so high.




Molly Carroll, former CTU Field Rep (who was also serving in other positions while she worked at CTU), is now drawing a pension of $9,758.42 per month ($117,101.04 per year!).




Nick Cannella, former CTU Field Rep, is now drawing a pension of $9,154.52 per month ($109,854.24 per year!).




Jerald Siegel, former CTU Field Rep, is now drawing a pension of $8,088.19 per month ($97,058.25 per year!). Siegel was one of the UPC members distributing the December 1, 2010 leaflet. The pensions of other retired UPC leaders, including some who have been retired since 2001 (when the UPC lost to Deborah Lynch and PACT) are also well above the pensions being received by teachers (including UPC loyalists) who retired during those same years.




The retired teachers who still do much of the work for the UPC are earning pensions that amount to less than one-third of the pensions being paid to the retired officers and field reps. 

Parents and Educators Hold RED Thursday Rally to Show Outrage Over Steiner's Approval of Waiver for Cathleen Black as NYC Schools Chancellor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                           
December 2, 2010
CONTACT:         info@denywaiver.com    www.denywaiver.com
Noah Gotbaum   917-658-3213
Mona Davids       917-340-8987
Lisa Donlan         917-848-5873
Chris Owens      718-514-4874

Parents and Educators Hold RED Thursday Rally to Show Outrage Over

Steiner's Approval of Waiver for Cathleen Black as NYC Schools Chancellor

The DENY WAIVER COALITION (DWC) gathered hundreds of parents, elected officials, educators, and community leaders to the steps of the Tweed Courthouse this afternoon -- the headquarters of the New York City Department of Education -- to denounce the appointment of Ms. Cathleen Black as Chancellor of the New York City public schools.  They came together to express their outrage, both moral and legal, over the decision of New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner to grant Ms. Black a waiver, despite her lack of qualifications for the position, and despite Mayor Bloomberg's failure to conduct a rigorous and transparent search. They demanded an experienced educator be appointed to the position, with a record of success in improving schools.

Their message was clear: Parents and educators oppose the appointment of Ms. Black, question the legal grounds upon which the waiver was granted, and will not be silent.  For eight long years, their children have endured the destructive education policies of the Bloomberg Administration, and the time has come for a parent and educator-led movement to fight for and protect the educational opportunities of New York City's 1.1 million public school children.

Elected officials who addressed the rally included New York State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem, New York State Assembly member Inez Barron from Brooklyn, and City Councilmembers Robert Jackson (Washington Heights), Charles Barron (East New York, Brooklyn), and Jumaane Williams (East Flatbush / Flatbush, Brooklyn).  In addition to Mr. Owens and Assembly member Barron, other Brooklyn Democratic District Leaders in attendance included Jo Anne Simon from Brooklyn.

Said Julie Cavanagh, a special education teacher from Brooklyn and member of the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), "The recent actions regarding the Cathleen Black appointment are a thinly veiled attack on the teaching profession and on our public education system.  The forces who seek to corporatize and privatize our public education system must understand that parents and educators reject that vision, and we will no longer remain silent.  The overwhelming majority of parents and educators, the actual stakeholders in education, oppose this appointment.  It is time for educational policymakers to listen to the people they are charged with serving.  We stand united together in our efforts to bring democracy back to education in our great city and we will pursue every option available to us to protect our children and our public schools."

Mona Davids, a parent from the Bronx, a founding member of the DWC, and President of The New York Charter Parents Association, stated:  "The advisory panel convened by Commissioner Steiner unequivocally concluded that Cathie Black is unqualified to be Chancellor.  The Commissioner's backroom deal with Mayor Bloomberg to circumvent Education Law shows that Steiner put his career before 1.1 million public school students - district and charter.  This was a high stakes decision for him; unfortunately, Commissioner Steiner chose to placate our billionaire bully of a Mayor rather than the urgent need for our schools to be led by an experienced, quality educator."

Lisa Donlan, a parent from Manhattan, founding member of DWC, and President of Community Education Council District 1 (Manhattan), added:  "Would someone without a pilot's license be allowed to fly a large passenger plane, even if there was a co-pilot by his or her side?  No!  So why should the Mayor be allowed to put at risk the future of 1.1 million NYC children?  Are their lives - the lives of our children -- any less important?"

Chris Owens, Brooklyn parent, former Community School Board 13 member and President, and Democratic District Leader of the 52nd Assembly District and Member, said: "Mayor Bloomberg dismisses our outrage at Ms. Black's appointment as politics.  Mr. Mayor, maybe people who send their children to boarding schools surrender their right to be directly involved with their children's education, but we public school parents do not.  These are our children, not political footballs."

As Noah Gotbaum, President of the Community Education Council in District 3 in Manhattan: concluded: "Cathleen Black's appointment and waiver approval is yet another demonstration that our Mayor is completely out of touch; that Mayoral Control is out of Control.  We parents and educators are here today, red with anger, to make it clear that it is no longer all right for one man - by himself and accountable only to himself - to transform our public schools into yet another one of his businesses. Our kids are human beings to be wholly educated, not test-taking widgets; our public schools must be community learning centers, not franchises to be opened and closed at will; and parents and educators should be partners in that education, not competitors to be crushed." 

The DWC has retained noted civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel to explore legal options in challenging the commissioner's approval of a waiver for Ms. Black.  
 The DENY WAIVER COALITION and our allies:
        DECLARE, collectively and individually, that the Steiner waiver is an immoral, unethical and illegal action.
        REPRESENT a broad spectrum of New Yorkers who profess diverse opinions on matters pertaining to education policy and practice.  However, we are united in the conviction that the largest public education system in this nation deserves to be led by a true educator and that Ms. Black should decline her appointment and waiver. 
        DEMAND a comprehensive, rigorous and transparent search both within and outside of New York City to find the best possible Chancellor candidates. Such candidates must have proven track records as great educators and strong managers with a deep knowledge of urban public education, view our children as more than test-taking widgets and our public schools as worthy centers of community life in need of investment, and embrace our parents and teachers as vital partners in the successful education of ALL OF OUR CHILDREN.

        CALL UPON Mayor Bloomberg to stop using our children as political footballs and to act as a responsible municipal leader should.  These are our children and they represent New York City's future.

# # #

This email was sent to mdavids@nycharterparents.org.

Progressives Must Promote the Alternative to Austerity

There is a way to fund public education and other services!  Lisa N.

Subject: Progressives Must Promote the Alternative to Austerity

After Deficit Panel Deadlock, Progressives Must Promote


the Alternative to Austerity





By John Nichols


The Nation


December 3, 2010





http://www.thenation.com/blog/156831/after-deficit-panel-deadlock-progressives-must-promote-alternative-austerity





The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and


Reform [1] failed to produce a mandate for assaulting


Social Security, undermining Medicare and Medicaid and


generally balancing the budget on the backs of working


Americans.





But that hasn't stopped its co-chairmen from claiming a


sort of victory for their plan to make Main Street pay


for Wall Street's failures.





Their goal is obvious. Commission co-chairs Alan


Simpson and Erskine Bowles want to spin a win they did


not achieve in order to foster the false impression


that their ominously titled " Moment of Truth [1]"


proposal is the only real alternative to fiscal ruin.


That's not the case. There are better proposals-such as


the detailed alternative to austerity outlined by


commission member Jan Schakowsky [2]. But this is a


critical juncture, and progressives need to be


conscious that an effort will be made to narrow the


range of options and impose key elements of a bad plan


that failed to gain required support.





Let's start by getting a few things straight:





The commission was given a clear charge when President


Obama cobbled it together in February-after failing to


win congressional support for the formal launch of the


project.





The commission was to come up with a plan address


deficits, debts and the challenge of maintaining a


federal government at a point when revenues are not


sufficient to keep paying for every war, bailout and


boondoggle that comes along.





Proposals for what could be radical, and in many cases


painful, change had to attract broad support, so the


president said that at least fourteen of the eighteen


members of the commission would need to back an


initiative before he would promote it. Senate majority


leader Harry Reid and House speaker Nancy Pelosi


promised to hold votes this year vote a consensus could


be reached.





On Friday, the commission co-chairs failed to get to


fourteen [3]. Only eleven members of the commission


voted "yes," while seven voted "no." And the seven "no"


votes came from precisely the members whose votes were


most needed if this plan was to have legitimacy. Three


House conservatives-incoming Budget Committee chair


Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin; incoming Ways and Means


Committee chair Dave Camp, R-Michigan; and incoming


Republicans Conference chair Jeb Henserling, R-


Texas-voted "no" because they did not think it went far


enough in calling for tax cuts and the gutting of


entitlement programs.





Two key House Democrats, Xavier Beccera, D-California,


and Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, voted "no" because, as


Schakowsky explained it, the proposed benefit cuts


would have meant that "those who have not joined the


prosperity party the last couple years are being asked


to pick up too much of the tab."





Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, D-Montana,


also voted "no," as did former Service Employees


International Union president Andy Stern.





Opposition from the right and the left-including that


of the legislators who will chair the House Budget and


Senate Finance committees in the new Congress-is


significant, as is the opposition of the most clearly


identifiable representative of working Americans on the


panel.





But commission co-chairs Simpson and Bowles, who went


rogue last month and started promoting a proposal that


lacked broad backing, were going to claim a mandate no


matter what vote their got. Bowles declared victory,


claiming that the panel had opened an "adult


conversation" about cutting the deficit. Simpson, the


former Republican senator from Wyoming who was the


driving force on the commission, chirped: "I will walk


home proudly, with my head held high [4]."





Simpson is proud of his plan, and of the fact that he


and Bowles won some unexpected votes for


austerity-including that of the number-two Democrat in


the Senate, Illinois's Dick Durbin. But what they


aren't highlighting is the fact that Durbin announced


that he was voting for the plan in order to "to kick-


start an adult debate [5]," not because he thought it


was sound.





Pointing out that opposed many of the proposal's


provisions and would not necessarily have backed it if


it came to a Congressional vote, Durbin explained that:


"I want progressive voices at the table arguing that we


must protect the most vulnerable."





So what is the progressive alternative?





Stern offered a credible plan on Wednesday, calling for


substantially larger tax increases than Simpson and


Bowles proposed, along with a shift in government


spending toward infrastructure investment.





But the strongest alternative is a detailed plan


advanced by Schakowsky. [6]





The Congressional Progressive Caucus member and key


ally of outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-who has


dismissed the Simpson-Bowles approach as a non-


starter-has been the sanest voice in the commission's


debate about how to balance budgets, reduce debt and


grow the economy.





"Lower- and middle-class Americans did not cause the


deficit. Just ten years ago the federal budget was


generating a surplus as far as the eye could see. That


surplus was turned into a deficit due to massive tax


cuts-mainly to wealthy Americans; two wars paid for by


borrowed money; and a major recession caused by the


recklessness of the big Wall Street banks. Over the


last decade the incomes of middle-class Americans have


actually shrunk, while those of the wealthiest 2


percent of the population have exploded," argues


Schakowsky, who says, "The middle class did not benefit


from the Republican economic policies that led to the


current deficit-they were the victims-they should not


be called upon to pick up the tab."





As such, Schakowsky has rejected the Simpson-Bowles


scheme, which would weaken Social Security, Medicare


and Medicaid while cutting taxes for multinational


corporations. "The president's Fiscal Commission has


been given a concrete goal: to achieve primary budget


balance in 2015, ensuring that all spending is paid for


except for interest on the national debt," she


explained after the co-chairs laid out their plan.


"Their proposal," she explained, "would have serious


consequences for lower- and middle-class Americans, and


that is why I cannot support it."





But Schakowsky did not just say "no."





She presented an alternative plan to reduce the deficit


by $427 billion over the next five years, far


surpassing the target proposed by President Obama, and


she would do it with an eye toward protecting the poor


and the middle class and strengthening the economy.





"Fixing the federal deficit is not an end in itself.


The goal of budget policy should be to assure long-


term, widely shared economic growth," explains


Schakowsky. "Economic growth is not just good for


businesses and families-it will reduce the deficit.


Sustained, long-term economic growth requires that we


end the trend of concentrating more and more wealth in


the hands of the rich and less and less in the hands of


a middle class that can then afford to buy the products


and services that will sustain economic growth."





Notably, Schakowsky preserves Social Security and other


programs that protect and serve working Americans.


Instead of undermining the program, she would assure


its long-term solvency by eliminating the wage cap on


the employer side and raising it to 90 percent on the


employee side, applying FICA to all wage income below


the cap and establishing a modest legacy tax on


wealthier Americans.





This is part of a broader plan from Schakowsky, which


has five key elements:





1. Increased economic stimulus to spur growth in the


immediate term





 Provide $200 billion to invest over the next two


years in measures to create jobs and spur economic


growth, including passing the Local Jobs for America


Act; and funding for education and law enforcement;


Unemployment Insurance, Federal Medical Assistance


Percentages (FMAP) and Supplemental Nutrition


Assistance Program extensions; and infrastructure.





 Adopt the president's proposals to eliminate overseas


tax havens and incentives for outsourcing





2. Smart, targeted spending cuts





 Non-defense discretionary-$7.55 billion in savings


through increased efficiency and cuts to programs that


benefit large corporations that don't need assistance.





 Defense discretionary-$110.7 billion in cuts from the


2015 defense budget, including efficiency savings,


reducing our troop levels, cutting weapons systems we


don't need and scaling back the wartime increases in


the size of the military.





3. Mandatory spending cuts





 Healthcare-at least $17.2 billion in savings by


implementing measures to bring down the cost of


healthcare to the federal government and lower


healthcare inflation overall.





 Other-$7.7 billion in savings by cutting agriculture


subsidies in half, and redistributing federal support


to offer greater benefits to small family farms and


reduce subsidies to large corporate agribusiness.





4. Reductions in tax expenditures





 Raise $132.2 billion by closing tax subsidies for


companies that ship American jobs overseas.





5. Increases in revenues





 Raise $144.6 billion in revenue through progressive


reforms to the estate tax, treating capital gains and


dividends as regular income, and enacting a cap-and-


trade proposal that includes protections for lower-


income people.





 Enact President Obama's budget proposal to let the


Bush tax cuts for the top two brackets expire and


return to 2009 estate tax levels.





 Nontax revenue-raise $7 billion by addressing places


where the private sector is currently underpaying.





The plan that Schakowsky has produced is not the final


word on how progressives ought to approach debates


about fiscal policy, debts and deficits. There needs to


be more consideration of the role that the trade


deficit plays in destabilizing the US economy and the


financial health of the federal government, as Ohio


Congressman Marcy Kaptur has noted. There should be


consideration of the proposals by Oregon Congressman


Peter DeFazio for taxes on speculation and financial


transactions. And there should be new approaches to how


the Federal Reserve manages bank funds, as economist


Robert Pollin has suggested.





But Schakowsky has provided the essential framework for


the coming debate.





Simpson and Bowles can claim their hollow "victory."





But when the real debate about deficits and debts gets


opens, progressives can say there is an alternative to


austerity [6]-an alternative, presented by Jan


Schakowsky, that balances budgets, reduces debt, serves


working families rather than Wall Street CEOs, protects


Social Security and expands the economy.

Here's what the charge against Assange of Wikileaks actually is/He may be a cad, but he's no rapist

Arrest Warrant for "Sex Crimes" Against Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Is for "Sex Without a Condom", NOT Non-Consensual Rape Using Force

Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for "sex crimes".
Everyone assumed it was for rape.
But it turns out it was for violating an obscure Swedish law against having sex without a condom.
As Newsweek wrote in August:

A Swedish lawyer representing two women whose allegations triggered a sexual-misconduct investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has given [Newsweek column] Declassified the first on-the-record confirmation of the allegations that led to the issuance—and then rapid cancellation—of a warrant on a rape charge and to a parallel investigation into alleged “molestation." Claes Borgstrom of the Stockholm law firm Borgstrom and Bostrom, who is representing two women who said they had sexual relationships with Assange, said his clients complained to the police of Assange's reluctance to use condoms and unwillingness to be tested for sexually transmitted disease.
***
Borgstrom said that specific details about the the allegations had not yet appeared in Swedish media. But he acknowledged that the principal concern the women had about Assange’s behavior—which they reported to police in person—related to his lack of interest in using condoms and his refusal to undergo testing, at the women’s request, for sexually transmitted disease. A detailed, chronological account of the women’s alleged encounters with Assange—which in both cases began with consensual sexual contact but later included what the women claimed was nonconsensual sex, in which Assange didn’t use a condom—was published on Tuesday by The Guardian; a Declassified item included a more explicit reference than The Guardian to Assange’s declining to submit to medical tests.

Similarly, the Daily Mail reported in August:

'When they got back they had sexual relations, but there was a problem with the condom - it had split.
'She seemed to think that he had done this deliberately but he insisted that it was an accident.’
Whatever her views about the incident, she appeared relaxed and untroubled at the seminar the next day where Assange met Woman B, another pretty blonde, also in her 20s, but younger than Woman A.
***
The [second] woman admitted trying to engage her hero in conversation.
Assange seemed pleased to have such an ardent admirer fawning over him and, she said, would look at her ‘now and then’. Eventually he took a closer interest.
***
What he did not tell her was that the party was being hosted by the woman he had slept with two nights before and whose bed he would probably be sleeping in that night.
***‘The passion and attraction seemed to have disappeared,’ she said.
Most of what then followed has been blacked out in her statement, except for: ‘It felt boring and like an everyday thing.’
One source close to the investigation said the woman had insisted he wear a condom, but the following morning he made love to her without one.
This was the basis for the rape charge. But after the event she seemed unruffled enough to go out to buy food for his breakfast.

Today, a former attorney for Assange - James D. Catlin - has confirmed that the charges are for having sex without using a condom. He notes that:

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.

He also accuses the prosecutors of "making it up as they go along", and said that Sweden's justice system is destined to become "the laughingstock of the world" for pursuing the case against Assange.
And Assange's current London attorney - Mark Stephens - told AOL news that he doesn't even know what the charges against Assange are, but that they are not rape:

Stephens, told AOL News today that Swedish prosecutors told him that Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called "sex by surprise," which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715.
***
"We don't even know what 'sex by surprise' even means, and they haven't told us," Stephens said, just hours after Sweden's Supreme Court rejected Assange's bid to prevent an arrest order from being issued against him on allegations of sex crimes.

"Whatever 'sex by surprise' is, it's only a offense in Sweden -- not in the U.K. or the U.S. or even Ibiza," Stephens said. "I feel as if I'm in a surreal Swedish movie being threatened by bizarre trolls. The prosecutor has not asked to see Julian, never asked to interview him, and he hasn't been charged with anything. He's been told he's wanted for questioning, but he doesn't know the nature of the allegations against him."

The strange tale of Assange's brief flings with two Swedish women during a three-day period in mid-August -- and decisions by three different prosecutors to first dismiss rape allegations made by the women and then re-open the case -- has more twists, turns and conspiracy theories than any of [Swedish novelist] Stieg Larsson's best-sellers.

So Assange might be a cad for sleeping with 2 women within a couple of days, and he might be irresponsible for having sex without a condom and then failing to submit to HIV tests afterwards.But he has not been accused of rape under any traditional meaning of that term.
Of course, if numerous people hadn't publicly called for Assange's assassination (and see this and this), this wouldn't be so surreal.
As Reuters notes:

Stephens said Assange was willing to meet Swedish prosecutors but they did not want to meet him.
"We are in a very, very surreal situation at the moment it's like a Swedish fairytale."

2 comments

The Fed "Used The Vagueness In The Wording Of The Law To Weasel Out Of Fulfilling Their Duty To The American People"

The Fed released a lot of data yesterday.
But as Bloomberg points out, the Fed still held back a lot of information:

The Federal Reserve withheld details on individual securities pledged as collateral by recipients of $885 billion in central bank loans, denying taxpayers a measure of the risks they faced from its emergency aid.

***

July’s Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to disclose the names of borrowers, the size and interest rates of loans, and “information identifying the types and amounts of collateral pledged or assets transferred.” For three of the Fed’s six emergency facilities, the central bank released information on groups of collateral it accepted by asset type and rating, without specifying individual securities. Among them was the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, created in March 2008 to provide loans to brokers as Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
“This is a half-step,” said former Atlanta Fed research director Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. “If you were going to audit the facilities, then would this enable you to do an audit? The answer is ‘No,’ you would have to go in and look at the individual amounts of collateral and how it was broken down to do that. And that is the spirit of what the requirements were in Dodd-Frank.”
*** It is “specifically impossible” to know how much risk taxpayers were taking by looking at pools of collateral grouped by asset class and rating, said Sylvain Raynes, a principal at R&R Consulting in New York and co-author of “Elements of Structured Finance,” published in May by Oxford University Press.
“I need to know the individual composition because a $2 billion pool can be one asset of $2 billion, which would be very risky, or 2,000 assets of $1 million each, and that’s not risky at all,” Raynes said. “The spirit of Dodd-Frank was not respected, and they used the vagueness in the wording of the law to weasel out of fulfilling their duty to the American people.”
***

The central bank also omitted details on individual securities pledged as collateral under its Term Auction Facility and its Term Securities Lending Facility, which was announced on March 11, 2008, as the first program under which the Fed planned to lend to non-bank dealers.

And the Economic Policy Journal notes:

[The Fed released] no data [concerning Maiden Lane] prior to Sep 30, 2008 (ML was funded in June, 2007). It remains to be seen, then, if BlackRock was simply stuffing the SOMA.

What's the Fed hiding? Why no purchase and sales numbers for the Maiden Lane transactions? Why no Maiden Lane data at all for the period June 2007 to September 30, 2008?

0 comments

From the "Wealth of Nations" to the "Debt of Nations"

As everyone from Paul Krugman to Simon Johnson has noted, the banks are so big and politically powerful that they have bought the politicians and captured the regulators (and see this).
But it's not just a question of regulatory capture and corruption. It's actually a loss of sovereignty.
As Damon Vrabel wrote in July:

It seems ridiculous to point this out, but sovereign debt implies sovereignty. Right? Well, if countries are sovereign, then how could they be required to be in debt to private banking institutions? How could they be so easily attacked by the likes of George Soros, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs? Why would they be subjugated to the whims of auctions and traders?
A true sovereign is in debt to nobody and is not traded in the public markets. For example, how would George Soros attack, say, the British royal family? [Vrabel is presumably referring to Soros' currency speculation against the British pound and other currencies.] It’s not possible. They are sovereign. Their stock isn’t traded on the NYSE. He can’t orchestrate a naked short sell strategy to destroy their credit and force them to restructure their assets. But he can do that to most of the other 6.7 billion people of the world by designing attack strategies against the companies they work for and the governments they depend on.
The fact is that most countries are not sovereign (the few that are are being attacked by [the big Western intelligence services] or the military). Instead they are administrative districts or customers of the global banking establishment whose power has grown steadily over time based on the math of the bond market, currently ruled by the US dollar, and the expansionary nature of fractional lending. Their cult of economists from places like Harvard, Chicago, and the London School have steadily eroded national sovereignty by forcing debt-based ... currencies on countries.
We long ago lost the free market envisioned by Adam Smith in the “Wealth of Nations” [the book widely considered to be the foundation of modern economic theory]. Such a world would require sovereign currencies.... Only then could there be a “wealth of nations.” But now we have nothing but the “debt of nations.” The exponential math of debt by definition meant that countries would only lose their wealth over time and become increasingly indebted to the global central banking network.

An obvious example of a nation which has lost it's sovereignty and gone from the "wealth of nations" to the "debt of nations" is Ireland. The Irish bailout won't really help the Irish people, but will help the big banks which invested in Ireland. See this and this. Ironically, German banks may actually be more at fault for the Irish crisis than the Irish banks themselves. See this, this and this.
And the EU is now arguably trying to tell Ireland what to do (while using pleasantries and niceties to appear not too pushy), and somewhat ignoring Ireland's status as a sovereign nation. See this, this and this.
Similarly, Americans - without their knowledge or consent - are bailing out banks all over the world . See this, this and this.
Of course, there is no bright line between private and central banks, since big banks own the Fed, and the world's central banks - in turn - own the BIS.
Central bankers are not elected by - or accountable to - the people of the nations in which they sit, nor are the IMF or World Bank. The IMF often loans money to countries and then imposes draconian austerity packages.
Sure, Irish and American politicians were irresponsible and corrupt, and both peoples were spendthrifts.
But - as I've repeatedly pointed out - the game has also been rigged in favor of the banks and against the sovereign nations.
For example, economist Michael Hudson points out that debt grows exponentially, while the economy only grows in an s-curve. So the amount of debts will always surpass the size of the real economy. If private banks have the power to create debt, then the biggest banks will always eventually win out over the sovereign nations, especially when the amount of credit which can be created (i.e. the size of the monetary base) is not limited by real assets, but is simply based on a system of fiat currency.
As I wrote in October, in a post entitled "The Founding Fathers' Vision of Prosperity Has Been Destroyed":

The ability for America and the 50 states to create its own credit has largely been lost to private bankers. The lion's share of new credit creation is done by private banks, so - instead of being able to itself create money without owing interest - the government owes unfathomable trillions in interest to private banks.
America may have won the Revolutionary War, but it has since lost one of the main things it fought for: the freedom to create its own credit instead of having to beg for credit from private banks at a usurious cost.

And see this.

But - whatever one thinks about public banking or paper currencies - one thing should be clear to everyone: the giant banks are rapidly chipping away at the sovereignty of virtually all of the world's nations.

2 comments

If you're being confused about the latest WikiLeaks . . .

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership"

World-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky discusses the release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks.

November 30, 2010  |  

 

  

LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?

Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Civil Liberties headlines via email.

 

 

 

AMY GOODMAN: For reaction to the WikiLeaks documents, we’re joined by world renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of over a hundred books including his latest Hopes and Prospects. Forty years ago, Noam and Howard Zinn helped government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg edit and release the Pentagon Papers that top-secret internal U.S. history of the Vietnam War.

Noam Chomsky joins us from Boston. It is good to have you back again, Noam. Why don’t we start there. Before we talk about WikiLeaks, what was your involvement in the Pentagon Papers? I don’t think most people know about this.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Dan and I were friends. Tony Russo, who also who prepared them and helped leak them. I got advanced copies from Dan and Tony and there were several people who were releasing them to the press. I was one of them. Then I- along with Howard Zinn as you mentioned- edited a volume of essays and indexed the papers.

AMY GOODMAN: So explain how, though, how it worked. I always think this is important- to tell this story- especially for young people. Dan Ellsberg- Pentagon official, top-secret clearance- gets this U.S. involvement in Vietnam history out of his safe, he Xerox’s it and then how did you get your hands on it? He just directly gave it to you?

NOAM CHOMSKY: From Dan Ellsberg and Tony Russo, who had done the Xeroxing and the preparation of the material.

AMY GOODMAN: How much did you edit?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, we did not modify anything. The papers were not edited. They were in their original form. What Howard Zinn and I did was- they came out in four volumes- we prepared a fifth volume, which was critical essays by many scholars on the papers, what they mean, the significance and so on. And an index, which is almost indispensable for using them seriously. That’s the fifth volume in the Beacon Press series.

AMY GOODMAN: So you were then one of the first people to see the Pentagon Papers?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Outside of Dan Ellsberg and Tony Russo, yes. I mean, there were some journalists who may have seen them, I am not sure.

AMY GOODMAN: What are your thoughts today? For example, we just played this clip of New York republican congress member Peter King who says WikiLeaks should be declared a foreign terrorist organization.

NOAM CHOMSKY: I think that is outlandish. We should understand- and the Pentagon Papers is another case in point- that one of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population. In the Pentagon Papers, for example, there was one volume- the negotiations volume- which might have had a bearing on ongoing activities and Daniel Ellsberg withheld that. That came out a little bit later. If you look at the papers themselves, there are things Americans shouldhave known that others did not want them to know. And as far as I can tell, from what I’ve seen here, pretty much the same is true. In fact, the current leaks are- what I’ve seen, at least- primarily interesting because of what they tell us about how the diplomatic service works.

AMY GOODMAN: The documents’ revelations about Iran come just as the Iranian government has agreed to a new round of nuclear talks beginning next month. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the cables vindicate the Israeli position that Iran poses a nuclear threat. Netanyahu said, "Our region has been hostage to a narrative that is the result of sixty years of propaganda, which paints Israel as the greatest threat. In reality, leaders understand that that view is bankrupt. For the first time in history, there is agreement that Iran is the threat. If leaders start saying openly what they have long been saying behind closed doors, with can make a real breakthrough on the road to peace," Netanyahu said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also discussed Iran at her news conference in Washington. This is what she said:

HILARY CLINTON: I think that it should not be a surprise to anyone that Iran is a source of great concern, not only in the United States. What comes through in every meeting that I have- anywhere in the world- is a concern about Iranian actions and intentions. So, if anything, any of the comments that are being reported on allegedly from the cables confirm the fact that Iran poses a very serious threat in the eyes of many of her neighbors and a serious concern far beyond her region. That is why the international community came together to pass the strongest possible sanctions against Iran. It did not happen because the United States said, "Please, do this for us!" It happened because countries- once they evaluated the evidence concerning Iran’s actions and intentions- reached the same conclusion that the United States reached: that we must do whatever we can to muster the international community to take action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. So if anyone reading the stories about these, uh, alleged cables thinks carefully what they will conclude is that the concern about Iran is well founded, widely shared, and will continue to be at the source of the policy that we pursue with like-minded nations to try to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Secretary to Hillary Clinton yesterday at a news conference. I wanted to get your comment on Clinton, Netanyahu’s comment, and the fact that Abdullah of Saudi Arabia- the King who is now getting back surgery in the New York- called for the U.S. to attack Iran. Noam Chomsky?

NOAM CHOMSKY: That essentially reinforces what I said before, that the main significance of the cables that are being released so far is what they tell us about Western leadership. So Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu surely know of the careful polls of Arab public opinion. The Brookings Institute just a few months ago released extensive polls of what Arabs think about Iran. The results are rather striking. They show the Arab opinion holds that the major threat in the region is Israel- that’s 80. The second major threat is the United States- that’s 77. Iran is listed as a threat by 10%.

With regard to nuclear weapons, rather remarkably, a majority- in fact, 57–say that the region would have a positive effect in the region if Iran had nuclear weapons. Now, these are not small numbers. 80, 77, say the U.S. and Israel are the major threat. 10 say Iran is the major threat. This may not be reported in the newspapers here- it is in England- but it’s certainly familiar to the Israeli and U.S. governments, and to the ambassadors. But there is not a word about it anywhere. What that reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership and the Israeli political leadership. These things aren’t even to be mentioned. This seeps its way all through the diplomatic service. The cables to not have any indication of that.

When they talk about Arabs, they mean the Arab dictators, not the population, which is overwhelmingly opposed to the conclusions that the analysts here- Clinton and the media- have drawn. There’s also a minor problem; that’s the major problem. The minor problem is that we don’t know from the cables what the Arab leaders think and say. We know what was selected from the range of what they say. So there is a filtering process. We don’t know how much it distorts the information. But there is no question that what is a radical distortion is- or, not even a distortion, a reflection–of the concern that the dictators are what matter. The population does not matter, even if it’s overwhelmingly opposed to U.S. policy.

There are similar things elsewhere, such as keeping to this region. One of the most interesting cables was a cable from the U.S. ambassador in Israel to Hillary Clinton, which described the attack on Gaza- which we should call the U.S./Israeli attack on Gaza- December 2008. It states correctly there had been a truce. It does not add that during the truce- which was really not observed by Israel- but during the truce, Hamas scrupulously observed it according to the Israeli government, not a single rocket was fired. That’s an omission. But then comes a straight line: it says that in December 2008, Hamas renewed rocket firing and therefore Israel had to attack in self-defense. Now, the ambassadorsurely is aware that there must be somebody in the American Embassy who reads the Israeli press- the mainstream Israeli press- in which case the embassy is surely aware that it is exactly the opposite: Hamas was calling for a renewal of the cease-fire. Israel considered the offer and rejected it, preferring to bomb rather than have security. Also omitted is that while Israel never observed the cease-fire- it maintained the siege in violation of the truce agreement- on November 4, the U.S. election 2008, the Israeli army invaded Gaza, killed half a dozen Hamas militants, which did lead to an exchange of fire in which all the casualties, as usual, were Palestinian. Then in December, Hamas- when the truce officially ended- Hamas called for renewing it. Israel refused, and the U.S. and Israel chose to launch the war. What the embassy reported is a grossfalsification and a very significant one since- since it has to do the justification for the murderous attack- which means either the embassy hasn’t a clue to what is going on or else they’re lying outright.

AMY GOODMAN: And the latest report that just came out- from Oxfam, from Amnesty International, and other groups- about the effects of the siege on Gaza? What’s happening right now?

NOAM CHOMSKY: A siege is an act of war. If anyone insists on that, it is Israel. Israel launched two wars- '56 and ’67- in part on grounds its access to the outside world was very partially restricted. That very partial siege they considered an act of war and justification for- well, one of several justifications- for what they called "preventive"- or if you like, preemptive- war. So they understand that perfectly well and the point is correct. The siege is a criminal act, in the first place. The Security Council has called on Israel to lift it, and others have. It's designed to- as Israeli officials have have stated- to keep the people of Gaza to minimal level of existence. They do not want to kill them all off because that would not look good in international opinion. As they put it, "to keep them on a diet." This justification, this began very shortly after the official Israeli withdrawal. There was an election in January 2006 after the only free election in the Arab world- carefully monitored, recognized to be free- but it had a flaw. The wrong people won. Namely Hamas, which the U.S. did not want it and Israel did not want. Instantly, within days, the U.S. and Israel instituted harsh measures to punish the people of Gaza for voting the wrong way in a free election.

The next step was that they- the U.S. and Israel- sought to, along with the Palestinian Authority, try to carry out a military coup in Gaza to overthrow the elected government. This failed- Hamas beat back the coup attempt. That was July 2007. At that point, the siege got much harsher. In between come in many acts of violence, shellings, invasions and so on and so forth. But basically, Israel claims that when the truce was established in the summer 2008, Israel’s reason for not observing it and withdrawing the siege was that there was an Israeli soldier- Gilad Shalit- who was captured at the border. International commentary regards this as a terrible crime. Well, whatever you think about it, capturing a soldier of an attacking army- and the army was attacking Gaza- capturing a soldier of an attacking army isn’t anywhere near the level of the crime of kidnapping civilians. Just one day before the capture of Gilad Shalit at the border, Israeli troops had entered Gaza, kidnapped two civilians- the Muammar Brothers- and spirited them across the border. They’ve disappeared somewhere in Israel’s prison system, which is where hundreds, maybe a thousand or so people are sometimes there for years without charges. There are also secret prisons. We don’t know what happens there.

This alone is a far worse crime than the kidnapping of Shalit. In fact, you could argue there was a reason why was barely covered: Israel has been doing this for years, in fact, decades. Kidnapping, capturing people, hijacking ships, killing people, bringing them to Israel sometimes as hostages for many years. So this is regular practice; Israel can do what it likes. But the reaction here and the rest of the world of regarding the Shalit kidnapping- well, not kidnapping, you don’tkidnap soldiers- the capture of a soldier as an unspeakable crime, justification for maintaining and murders siege... that’s disgraceful.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, so you have Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Children, and eighteen other aide groups calling on Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade of Gaza. And you have in the WikiLeaks release a U.S. diplomatic cable- provided to The Guardian by WikiLeaks- laying out, "National human intelligence collection directive: Asking U.S. personnel to obtain details of travel plans such as routes and vehicles used by Palestinian Authority leaders and Hamas members." The cable demands, "Biographical, financial, by metric information on key PA and Hamas leaders and representatives to include the Young Guard inside Gaza, the West Bank, and outside," it says.

NOAM CHOMSKY: That should not come as much of a surprise. Contrary to the image that is portrayed here, the United States is not an honest broker. It is a participant, a direct and crucial participant, in Israeli crimes, both in the West Bank and in Gaza. The attack in Gaza was a clear case in point: they used American weapons, the U.S. blocked cease-fire efforts, they gave diplomatic support. The same is true of the daily ongoing crimes in the West Bank, and we should not forget that. Actually, in Area C- the area of the West Bank that Israel controls- conditions for Palestinians have been reported by Save The Children to be worse than in Gaza. Again, this all takes place on the basis of crucial, decisive, U.S., military, diplomatic, economic support; and also ideological support- meaning, distorting the situation, as is done again dramatically in the cables.

The siege itself is simply criminal. It is not only blocking desperately needed aid from coming in, it also drives Palestinians away from the border. Gaza is a small place, heavily and densely overcrowded. And Israeli fire and attacks drive Palestinians away from the Arab land on the border, and also drive fisherman in from Gaza into territorial waters. They compelled by Israeli gunboats- all illegal, of course- to fish right near the shore where fishing is almost impossible because Israel has destroyed the power systems and sewage systems and the contamination is terrible. This is just a stranglehold to punish people for being there and for insisting on voting the wrong way. Israel decided, "We don’t want this anymore. Let’s just get rid of them."

We should also remember, the U.S./Israeli policy- since Oslo, since the early 1990’s- has been to separate Gaza from the West Bank. That is in straight violation of the Oslo agreements, but it has been carried out systematically, and it has a big effect. It means almost half the Palestinian population would be cut off from any possible political arrangement that would be made. It also means Palestine loses its access to the outside world- Gaza should have and can have airports and seaports. Right now, Israel has taken over about 40% of the West Bank. Obama’s latest offers have granted even more, and they’re certainly planning to take more. What is left is just canonized. It’s what the planner, Ariel Sharon called Bantustans. And they’re in prison, too, as Israel takes over the Jordan Valley and drives Palestinians out. So these are all crimes of a piece.

The Gaza siege is particularly grotesque because of the conditions under which people are forced to live. I mean, if a young person in Gaza- student in Gaza, let’s say- wants to study in a West Bank university, they can’t do it. If it a person in Gaza needs advanced medical training or treatment from an East Jerusalem hospital where the training is available, they can’t go! Medicines are held back. It is a scandalous crime, all around.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the United States should do in this case?

NOAM CHOMSKY: What the United States should do is very simple: it should join the world. I mean, there are negotiations going on, supposedly. As they are presented here, the standard picture is that the U.S. is an honest broker trying to bring together two recalcitrant opponents- Israel and Palestinian Authority. That’s just a charade.

If there were serious negotiations, they would be organized by some neutral party and the U.S. and Israel would be on one side and the world would be on the other side. And that is not an exaggeration. It should not be a secret that there has long been an overwhelming international consensus on a diplomatic, political solution. Everyone knows the basic outlines; some of the details you can argue about. It includes everyone except the United States and Israel. The U.S. has been blocking it for 35 years with occasional departures- brief ones. It includes the Arab League. It includes the Organization of Islamic States. which happens to include Iran. It includes every relevant actor except the United States and Israel, the two rejectionist states. So if there were to be negotiations that were serious, that’s the way they would be organized. The actual negotiations barely reach the level of comedy. The issue that’s being debated is a footnote, a minorfootnote: expansion of settlements. Of course it’s illegal. In fact, everything Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. That hasn’t even been controversial since 1967.

[ ... ]

AMY GOODMAN: I want to read for you now what Sarah Palin tweeted – the former Alaskan governor, of course, and Republication vice presidential nominee. This is what she tweeted about WikiLeaks. Rather, she put it on Facebook. She said, “First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop WikiLeaks’ director Julian Assange from distributing this highly-sensitive classified material, especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? Assange is not a journalist any more than the editor of the Al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine “Inspire,” is a journalist. He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?” Noam Chomsky, your response?

NOAM CHOMSKY: That’s pretty much what I would expect Sarah Palin to say. I don’t know how much she understands, but I think we should pay attention to what we learn from the leaks. What we learned, for example, is kinds of things I’ve said. Perhaps the most dramatic revelation, or mention, is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government – Hillary Clinton, others – and also by the diplomatic service.

To tell the world– well, they’re talking to each other- to pretend to each other that the Arab world regards Iran as the major threat and wants the U.S. to bomb Iran, is extremely revealing, when they know that approximately 80% of Arab opinion regards the U.S. and Israel as the major threat, 10% regard Iran as the major threat, and a majority, 57%, think the region would be better off with Iranian nuclear weapons as a kind of deterrent. That is does not even enter. All that enters is what they claim has been said by Arab dictators – brutal Arab dictators. That is what counts.

How representative this is of what they say, we don’t know, because we do not know what the filtering is. But that’s a minor point. But the major point is that the population is irrelevant. All that matters is the opinions of the dictators that we support. If they were to back us, that is the Arab world. That is a very revealing picture of the mentality of U.S. political leadership and, presumably, the lead opinion, judging by the commentary that’s appeared here, that’s the way it has been presented in the press as well. It does not matter with the Arabs believe.

AMY GOODMAN: Your piece, Outrage Misguided. Back to the midterm elections and what we’re going to see now. Can you talk about the tea party movement?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The Tea Party movement itself is, maybe 15% or 20% of the electorate. It’s relatively affluent, white, nativist, you know, it has rather traditional nativist streaks to it. But what is much more important, I think, is the outrage. Over half the population says they more or less supported it, or support its message. What people are thinking is extremely interesting. I mean, overwhelmingly polls reveal that people are extremely bitter, angry, hostile, opposed to everything.

The primary cause undoubtedly is the economic disaster. It’s not just the financial catastrophe, it’s an economic disaster. I mean, in the manufacturing industry, for example, unemployment levels are at the level of the Great Depression. And unlike the Great Depression, those jobs are not coming back. U.S. owners and managers have long ago made the decision that they can make more profit with complicated financial deals than by production. So finance – this goes back to the 1970s, mainly Reagan escalated it, and onward- Clinton, too. The economy has been financialized.

Financial institutions have grown enormously in their share of corporate profits. It may be something like a third, or something like that today. At the same time, correspondingly, production has been exported. So you buy some electronic device from China. China is an assembly plant for a Northeast Asian production center. The parts and components come from the more advanced countries – and from the United States, and the technology . So yes, that’s a cheap place to assemble things and sell them back here. Rather similar in Mexico, now Vietnam, and so on. That is the way to make profits.

It destroys the society here, but that’s not the concern of the ownership class and the managerial class. Their concern is profit. That is what drives the economy. The rest of it is a fallout. People are extremely bitter about it, but don’t seem to understand it. So the same people who are a majority, who say that Wall Street is to blame for the current crisis, are voting Republican. Both parties are deep in the pockets of Wall Street, but the Republicans much more so than the Democrats.

The same is true on issue after issue. The antagonism to everyone is extremely high – actually antagonism – the population doesn’t like Democrats, but they hate Republicans even more. They’re against big business. They’re against government. They’re against Congress. They’re against science –

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we only have thirty seconds. I wanted ask if you were President Obama’s top adviser, what would you tell him to do right now?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I would tell him to do what FDR did when big business was opposed to him. Help organize, stimulate public opposition and put through a serious populist program, which can be done. Stimulate the economy. Don’t give away everything to financiers. Push through real health reform. The health reform that was pushed through may be a slight improvement but it leaves some major problems untouched. If you’re worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it is almost all attributable to military spending and this totally dysfunctional health program.

Noam Chomsky is an author and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, where he taught for over half a century. He is author of dozens of books. His most recent is Hopes and Prospects.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!.

Polokow-Suransky's Job was to cook the books

From the New York Sun article:

"Mr. Polokow-Suransky isn’t much of an educator. His current job at the Department of Education, deputy chancellor for performance and accountability, was previously filled not by an educator but a lawyer.  …Mr. Polokow-Suransky hasn’t been working with curriculum or instructional techniques and strategies, the jobs of the educational professional. He has been spinning the stats…  The post of chancellor should go to a person with top education credentials…. Instead we have a chancellor with no education credentials who will have by her side a person who has been facilitating the cooking of the books using bogus test scores."

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/a-chimera-emerges-at-the-helm-of-new-york-schools/87156/

A Chimera Emerges at the Helm of New York Schools

Two-Headed Monster Is Apt Metaphor for New Arrangement

By ANDREW WOLF, Special to the Sun | November 28, 2010

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/a-chimera-emerges-at-the-helm-of-new-york-schools/87156/

Whatever one can say about the state education commissioner, David M. Steiner, Solomon he’s not. He split the baby in half, and he has satisfied no one. But skip that analogy. One would have to go to Greek mythology to look for what he has produced — a two-headed monster, part lioness, part goat, which is known as a chimera and has come to connote an unrealistic dream. Which is apt enough, as the gains are going to prove chimerical.

Cathleen Black may have the waiver needed to get the title of schools chancellor, but she got the less important part of the job. Mayor Bloomberg has suffered his worst political embarrassment since the defeat of his bid for non-partisan elections. As for those who believe that the issue here is substance, they got the short end of the stick.

The way to understand this fiasco is to bear in mind that the most important matter facing the schools is the curriculum. That’s the substance. Who gets to control the schools, how much the teachers are paid, what the ratio is between students and teachers, how long the day is, what the test scores are, these are not the top issues. The top issues are the curriculum, and the methods used to convey it to students. This is instruction, a topic that never was the priority at the Tweed Courthouse.

This is an issue where one needs a real educator, a teacher, someone paying attention to what is being taught. Ms. Black is way out of her depth here. She lacks the credentials to so much as teach a class, which puts her below the qualifications possessed by the actor Tony Danza, who taught but a single class (one fifth the usual class load) in a Philadelphia high school for a year as part of a television reality show. Mr. Danza was required to have an actual licensed educator mentor him for the full year.

If Ms. Black’s mandated deputy, Mr. Polokow-Suransky, is supposed to be the chief educator, shouldn’t he be the chancellor, and shouldn’t the technocrat, Ms. Black, get a title like chief operating officer? Mr. Steiner’s plan has this reversed. Certainly one doesn’t want the educational policy emanating from the administrative office. Are we deciding the way we are teaching children to read or do math to conform to some management imperative?

On top of that, Mr. Polokow-Suransky isn’t much of an educator. His current job at the Department of Education, deputy chancellor for performance and accountability, was previously filled not by an educator but a lawyer. In September, Mr. Polakow-Suransky disclosed the nature of his current work with the Department of Education at a meeting with the president of the Bronx, Ruben Diaz, Jr., and the Bronx member of the Board of Regents, Betty A. Rosa.

Attendees at the meeting were concerned by Mr. Steiner’s admission that his predecessors at the state department of education had been inflating the scores of the tests administered to children in grades three through eight. This was bad news for the city, which saw the “historic gains” boasted of during the mayor’s reelection campaign last year evaporate overnight.

Mr. Polokow-Suransky traveled to the Bronx to explain the situation to an angry Mr. Diaz, who was upset that children in his borough were harder hit than others in the city. Mr. Polokow-Suransky off-handedly admitted that the city was aware of the problems with the test results at least a year before last year’s mayoral election, but did nothing to sound the alarm that something was amiss. Ms. Rosa was outraged.

“Imagine if your bank deposited $100,000 in your account in error,” recounted Ms. Rosa to me, paraphrasing her comments to Mr. Polokow-Suransky. “You may have done nothing wrong, unless you turned around and spent the money you knew wasn't yours. That’s what was done in last year’s mayoral election. The scores that the city knew were inflated were used to give an impression of success that was misleading and even fraudulent. And that was wrong.”

As the city played dumb, Ms. Rosa at least demanded last year that the suspicious test results be withheld. That plea, made before Mr. Steiner’s arrival, fell on deaf ears. The New York Times has noted that 57% of voters who made education their top priority voted to re-elect the mayor, who won by just 5 percentage points. Had just 2.5% known the truth and switched sides, the outcome of the election might have been very different.

So Mr. Polokow-Suransky hasn’t been working with curriculum or instructional techniques and strategies, the jobs of the educational professional. He has been spinning the stats, which remain the biggest question confronting the mayor’s claims on education. And now Mr. Steiner has caved in to the mayor. The brief euphoria in serious education circles, when on Tuesday evening it looked like the state education commissioner would deny Ms. Black her waiver, was just a mirage.

The post of chancellor should go to a person with top education credentials, a distinguished figure up to whom everyone in New York — and the rest of the country — can look as having substance. Instead we have a chancellor with no education credentials who will have by her side a person who has been facilitating the cooking of the books using bogus test scores. What is there in the way of educational substance in his resume to make New Yorkers believe that he will be able to stand up to Ms. Black and the Mayor? As I say, a chimera.

Mr. Wolf is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.