Ed Deform and Neoliberalism

People are comparing Egypt and Wisconsin. The link? Neoliberalism. Tattoo the word on your arm. Look at the entire ed deform program in the context of neoliberalism. Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is the bible ed deform resisters. Paul Krugman on Friday referenced Klein's groundbreaking work. Now if only Krugman would tie the  string to the ed deforms and tell people that charter schools are the battering ram of neoliberal assault on the public school system. Leonie Haimson's husband, Michael Oppenheimer, teaches at Princeton with Krugman. Michael should whisper sweet anti ed deformer words in his ear.

Confused about the Democratic Party support for ed deform? The Clintons are classic neoliberals and the rest of the party is in step.

Confused about why the UFT/AFT/MulGarten crew won't put up a defense? They too are neoliberals, who are close relatives of neocons. That was why Vera Pavone and I titled our review of Richard Kahlenberg's "Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal" Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon. We could easily have called it "Ruthless Neoliberal" but didn't want to confuse people who think neolineral is a modernized version of classic American liberalism when it is exactly the opposite.

Union leaders like Weingarten differ from the anti-union neoliberals in that they feel unions should exist - naturally - but in limited format - in support of the government/corporate state more than the membership. But of course they support the concept of unions - look how well they have done as leaders who misdirect the energies of the members. That is why Weingarten is helping find ways to get rid of teachers. See NYC Educator: A Fine Day for a Sellout

With the myriad of anti-teacher crap pervading the headlines, AFT President Randi Weingarten thinks it's a good time to discuss faster ways to fire us

If things ever get sticky just watch where they stand.

What is neoliberalism?

Yves Smith at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/al-jazeera-on-egypts-revolt-against-neoliberalism.html  has the links:

In his Brief History of Neoliberalism, the eminent social geographer David Harvey outlined “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.”

Neoliberal states guarantee, by force if necessary, the “proper functioning” of markets; where markets do not exist (for example, in the use of land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution), then the state should create them.

Guaranteeing the sanctity of markets is supposed to be the limit of legitimate state functions, and state interventions should always be subordinate to markets. All human behavior, and not just the production of goods and services, can be reduced to market transactions.

And the application of utopian neoliberalism in the real world leads to deformed societies as surely as the application of utopian communism did…..

KRUGMAN ARTICLE BELOW THE FOLD

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

By PAUL KRUGMAN



Published: February 24, 2011

Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all. Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.


As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.
Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.
In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor’s budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers. Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state’s fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.
What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.
And then there’s this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”
What’s that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”
If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?
The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage — aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the State Senate, who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum — has slowed the bum’s rush. If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled. And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.
But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.

Another Texas "Miracle" Dashed

 Ed activists have been on the case of the Houston so-called miracle that vaulted Rod Paige into the national spotlight under George Bush only to find out that there was massive cheating going on. It's too bad that Paul Krugman, who with every column nails the scams and crooks running their jive through the political economy doesn't make the connection to the ed scam artists.

Today he gets closer but doesn't close the deal in an article about the Texas economic "miracle."

These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas.
Wait — Texas? Wasn’t Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn’t its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that “we have billions in surplus”? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.
And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.
How bad is the Texas deficit? Comparing budget crises among states is tricky, for technical reasons. Still, data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up to New Jersey levels.
The point, however, is that just the other day Texas was being touted as a role model (and still is by commentators who haven’t been keeping up with the news). It was the state the recession supposedly passed by, thanks to its low taxes and business-friendly policies. Its governor boasted that its budget was in good shape thanks to his “tough conservative decisions.”
Oh, and at a time when there’s a full-court press on to demonize public-sector unions as the source of all our woes, Texas is nearly demon-free: less than 20 percent of public-sector workers there are covered by union contracts, compared with almost 75 percent in New York.

Krugman concludes with:

Right now, triumphant conservatives in Washington are declaring that they can cut taxes and still balance the budget by slashing spending. Yet they haven’t been able to do that even in Texas, which is willing both to impose great pain (by its stinginess on health care) and to shortchange the future (by neglecting education). How are they supposed to pull it off nationally, especially when the incoming Republicans have declared Medicare, Social Security and defense off limits?
People used to say that the future happens first in California, but these days what happens in Texas is probably a better omen. And what we’re seeing right now is a future that doesn’t work.

Read it all here

If we could only get Krugman to take a hard look at how the future of ed deform won't work either before there is barely a shell of teacher unionism left.

And let me say right here, no matter how deep my criticisms of the people leading our union I feel teacher unions could be the major defense against the onslaught against children - yes, policies that keep kindergarten children from being allowed to play. That is why my hostility towards teacher union leaders is so great - they have walked on the other side of the line.

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Krugman and Carr Columns in NY Times: Did Zombies Eat Waiting for Superman Director Guggenheim's Brain?

“I think so many people are seeing business and how it is conducted in the abstract that they have no idea about how these decisions play out.” - From David Carr's column, NY Times

This quote could also be applied to the abstract concepts being pushed by the ed deformers - I must have heard the word "choice" a hundred times at last week's PEP (I'm still working on the video) over  PS 20K being undermined by allowing Arts and Letters to expand from a middle school to K-8, thus competing for the same kids PS 20 serves in the very same building. So what if PS 20 kids have to eat lunch at 10:30?

My favorite NY Times columnist Paul Krugman (When Zombies Win) and business columnist David Carr in (A Lesson on Wall Street Failure) have two interesting and intersecting articles in the NY Times today that touch on many of our core issues.

First Krugman:

When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever.

Krugman is talking economics, not education. Wouldn't we love for him to take a hard look at the free-market fundamentalist ed deformers. The zombies with their vast propaganda machine lined up against teachers certainly seem to be winning (though once we have our film "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" out the tide will turn- I'm always the optimist.)

Carr touches on one of the Zombies in chief, Davis Guggenheim who made the propaganda film we are responding too.

It’s awards season again, and critics and the academy members are deciding on their top film picks of the year. But in many corners of the business community, the issue is already settled: “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” is the year’s must-see film.
On Wall Street and on Silicon Valley office campuses, in hedge fund boardrooms and at year-end Christmas parties, it seems you can’t have a conversation without someone talking about the movie that finally lays bare America’s public education crisis. [Sure David Carr - don't let the Zombies eat your brain by believing the manufactured chrisis.]
“Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” is one thing that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg agree on, Rupert Murdoch talks about to anyone who will listen, David Koch of Koch Industries promotes, and Paul Tudor Jones and many of his hedge fund brethren work to support. 

More Krugman extracts (with my notations linking to ed deform)

people who should have been trying to slay zombie ideas have tried to compromise with them instead. And this is especially, though not only, true of the president.  [Obama has gone way beyond zombie ideas on ed deform.]

...President Obama, by contrast, has consistently tried to reach across the aisle by lending cover to right-wing myths. [CHECK]

...And how effectively can he oppose these demands, when he himself has embraced the rhetoric of belt-tightening? [Ed Deform is all about belt tightening - go after teacher salaries and disparge class size as a factor.]
Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to zombie ideas. When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain — and quite possibly your economy too.  [And eating your public education school system too.]

Back to Carr

“Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” follows five children and their parents as they run a gantlet to gain access to high-performing charter schools because the alternative — the public system — is a complete disaster. The film has caught the imagination of the business community because it represents a reckoning for public education and its chronic failures, making the very businesslike case that large school systems and the unions that go with them must be replaced by a customized, semi-privatized education in the form of charter schools. 

 Carr echoes Krugman when he says:

Which is odd when you think about it. If you are looking for an American institution that failed the public, made resources disappear without returning value and lacked accountability for its manifest sins, the Education Department would be in line well behind Wall Street.

By now, the notion that business is a place built on accountability and performance should be as outdated as the one-room schoolhouse. Ask yourself, what would happen if American public schools were offered hundreds of billions in bailout money? [HMMM- maybe lower class size to match private schools?] One outcome is not in the cards: its leaders would not end up back at the trough so quickly, sucking up tens of millions in bonuses as Wall Street has.
If the captains of American business are looking for a holiday movie, I have another suggestion for them. I’m not talking about “Inside Job,” which is a scabrous take on the well-documented story of how the American economy was nearly tipped over by business greed and incompetence [We must try to get the director, Charles Ferguson, to look at the ed deformers].

Nah, I’d buy them a bucket of popcorn and sit them in front of “The Company Men,” a moody and elegiac feature film starring Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper as businessmen who have a moment of clarity about how American business lost its soul.

As executives at GTX, a fictitious multinational corporation involved in the transportation business, among other endeavors, they watch as many of their colleagues are laid off to meet inflated earnings targets and as numbers get ginned up to keep the stock price growing and potential acquirers at bay. And then their turn comes.

At that point, “The Company Men” becomes a film about the loss of privilege: Porsches are sold and driven away, access to the private golf club is denied and suburban mansions go on the market. But the movie delivers, over and over, a message that far from being a center of American know-how and ingenuity, much of modern business is now preoccupied with goosing the share price and tricking up the year-end bonus — about getting over by getting by. 

all the energy and resources go into the kind of financial engineering that creates quarterly numbers that Wall Street buys into.

“They are responding to the needs of the market, to the institutional investors — the large mutual funds, the money market funds,” he said. “And when you think about it, that implicates all of us because we are all investing in the market one way or another.” 

 And the takeaway is:

“I think so many people are seeing business and how it is conducted in the abstract that they have no idea about how these decisions play out.”

 But Carr doesn't make a strong connection between the bullshit of WfS with the rest of the on-target stuff he is talking about.

Both Krugman and Carr articles are at Norms Notes: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

The Verdict is in: Obama is NOT FDR - How About Hoover? Or LBJ?

A Hooverville from the 1930's

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

Some think of this as a hackneyed expression.

I live by it.

(Actually, Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," a statement that can be applied to world and personal histories.)

As a history major in undergrad and grad school my sense of current and future events is rooted through links to what I understand about the past. Having studied the Great Depression of the 30's, I have always been worried about The Big One hitting again, probably one of the reasons I have always been very fiscally conservative waiting like some spinster for deflation to strike once again.

But all those years I was reassured that it couldn't happen again - Glass-Steagall and all that stuff, you know. But with the complicence of the free-market Democrats - Clintons and the rest of the skunks - in the 90's, and the Bush/Chaney crew this century, we may be getting into the same territory.

I monitored the lost decade and beyond in Japan. How the nikkei - the Japanese Dow - was once close to 40,000 in the late 80's and is less than 10,000 today. People in Tokyo were walking away from their highly priced apartments as the real estate market crashed.

When the crisis here hit in 2007/8 and the market tanked, followed by a supposed recovery, I was remembering my history lessons. That after the 1929 crash, the market rebounded. The full depression didn't hit until 1932. So by my accounting, we are somewhere in 1930 or 31.

So whenever I get into big political arguments - mostly with my wife's family, many of whom will vote for Sarah Palin over Obama no matter how much they protest - and they talk about coming threats of inflation (Obama will just print money they say) - I always say I'm holding onto my cash - or rather continue to sleep on whatever I can stuff into my mattress.

I'm a very big fan of Paul Krugman, who always makes sense to me and Monday's column (The Third Depression) made a lot of sense. He is predicting that with the world-wide retrenchment in lieu of stimulus spending, we are headed for what he calls the third really deep depression. He feels that the deficit can be solved while a deflationary spiral cannot. He reminds us that as the FDR spending spree began to bring us out of the depression in 1935/6, FDR was worried about the Republican attacks for the 1936 election and was also convinced it was time to deal with the deficit. So spending was cut- and whammo - right back into the much by 1937. It took WWII to bring us out of it.

When Obama was elected in the midst of an economic crisis - the major reason he won - I wrote:

Will Obama turn out to be a great president or a failure? An FDR or a Herbert Hoover, who had an even lower approval rating than W? It could go either way. When you think of great presidents, they seem to emerge only in times of crisis. Think there are just a few lurking? FDR ran for president with a very different agenda than he ended up enacting due to desperate times. He showed the kind of flexibility that was needed. Policies that had a major impact for generations.

The only thing I have to fear is fear of Obama's dependence on the same old, same old Clinton people, who come out of places like Goldman Saks when we need some truly radical thinking.

Well, that THAT question has been answered and we know he is certainly no FDR. If Krugman proves to be right, Obamavilles will spring up all over the nation - similar to those shantytowns of the 30's (there was one in Central Park). At least Obama is calling for more stimulus spending, so he will not be looked at in the same exact light as Hoover, who was fiscally conservative.

Obama may be more LBJ than Hoover: Will he run in 2012?
In addition to the possibility of a depression, we can't expect a war to bring us out of it. Because we are in a war. And have been for 9 years. A war that is doomed to fail. Vietnam-like quagmire, anyone?

LBJ was elected overwhelmingly in 1964 and was viewed as a shoo-in for 1968. Let's view the 2012 election in that same light.

Obama is much weaker than LBJ at a comparable time after the election. We are still in 1966 territory. So let's project this scenario:

• Democrats get smashed in 2010 mid-term elections.
• We sink into economic crisis ala Krugman.
• The war gets worse and worse as Obama removes some troops for political purposes and body bags accumulate. The right attacks him for being weak. The left is totally disgusted.
• It becomes pretty clear he cannot win in 2012.
• Sarah Palin kicks Mitt Romney's ass all over the place and looks to be a real possibility to be the Republican nominee.
• Rampant fear races through the nation at the prospect she will be president.
• Enormous pressure is put on Obama to withdraw.
• Hillary Clinton comes to the rescue and becomes the Democratic nominee.
• Election 2012: Palin vs. Clinton.

How much more fun can a politcal junky have?

That is if you are observing from your new residence in Canada.