Obsessing About Conspiracy

by **proldic** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:51 pm

Listen, I read what you wrote originally in yr defense of Gatto and I judged it at undercover racism, not that you hate minorities, just that your assumptions about them are racist. And then I said it. If you can't figure out why someone would think they were examples of racist thinking on your own, I can't help you. Nor do I think it's worth trying to explain in detail why working in the city dealing w/ the lumpen and such on a day-to-day basis would make someone biased. This is just a reality, whether you accept it or not. Maybe Dreamsend could engage in some role-playing and try to explain?

by **ZeroHaven** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:14 pm

I'd like add to that "education theory" issue because one of my best friends teaches 2nd grade, and I asked her directly about it. Another friend teaches high school and I asked him about it. The "it" is - What's the problem? The 2nd grade teacher says her hands are tied. Up until last year she was only allowed to teach certain things in a very specific way. She admits some students get passed without having learned basic skills. She had a class do an innocent project studying the trees and plants around the schoolyard. She got reprimanded for going outside the curriculum. Since last year she's been forced to "teach to the test". Apparently there is some new mandatory testing for the 2nd grade which is used to determine school funding. If the students score poorly the school gets less money. That makes a lot of sense! The high school teacher can't do much at all because he's being handed illiterate students. He is forced to proceed at an exceedingly slow pace because of these students, and some years never finishes all the required topics. The 'brighter' ones get bored of covering the same material all week and then begin to cut classes and some proceed to worse behavioral problems. He wishes the tracking program still existed so that the smarter kids could have a chance to learn, and the slower kids could get the attention they need. Both of their answers show one big problem, teachers are not being allowed to teach in a way that benefits the students. The reasoning behind it is purely administrative. This implies that the administrators are intentionally setting school policies that keep the students from getting a truly beneficial education. On the point about drugs and stuff, let me tell you something first-hand. A LOT of the kids who do drugs aren't the poor dumb delinquents. They're the bright kids who are so freakin BORED of it all they're looking for a distraction from the miserable situation they see around them. One guy I knew put it well. "You drop some acid, Beavis and Butthead are hilarious." Really. <img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/ZeroHaven/tinhat.gif"/>

by **robertdreed** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 6:15 pm

that's what passes for counterpoint, for a vulgar Marxist. Not only are you still presuming that I'm hostile to black people, you're also assuming that cab drivers develop hostile attitudes from "working in the city dealing w/ the lumpen and such on a day-to-day basis"... Look. I work the night shift. You obviously don't know my clientele. Granted, it sometimes includes poor people- who I don't by any means hate, and have generally good relations with, incidentally. I live in a decent city. All the while, somehow in there, you're neglecting the fact that I am a member of the "working class." And what do you do for a living, when you aren't conjuring fantasies about what cab drivers do from movies that you've seen? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/26/05 4:17 pm

by **sunny** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:18 pm

Public education is presently in the process of failing so miserably- especially in low-income, immigrant, and minority communities- that it's time to cut the losses and do some triage. And no excuses. So what are poor people supposed to do? Will we be better off making no effort at public education? I say let's throw money at the problem, scads and scads of money. After all, that's what wealthy districts do and look at their schools, with plenty of books and computers and comfy rooms conducive to learning-Columbine notwithstanding, I think that was entirely the fault of inattentive parents (weapons in their rooms, for crying out loud!)Yes, public education is failing, but let's pay some decent teachers, and not abandon the effort and end up with an even more ignorant and desperate populace. The elites would like nothing better, of course. Diagnosis: terminal lack of funding Treatment: lot's of money

by **proldic** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:33 pm

Robert: "Public education is presently in the process of failing so miserably- especially in low-income, immigrant, and minority communities- that it's time to cut the losses and do some triage. And no excuses." Ex 1: “And no excuses”. Assuming that these minorities are making excuses for themselves is an ex of undercover racism bud. I’ve never met a more self-critical ethnic-group. “Gatto isn't responsible for the effects of his observations on parents with children in the public schools. If the public schools were resistant to his critique, there wouldn't be a problem.” Ex 2: Assuming that the admin and the parents are one in the same. The reality is that the parents are at war w/ the admin. I see hundreds of pissed off parents at school meetings in the progressive urban areas I know in the northeast. They have about 4 cops to keep them from lynching the admin. This is not “resistant to critique”. Where are you? They could use your (white face) support. You just wrote off 20+ million parents and kids. "Gatto is also on the record as supporting public school reform, because as a practical matter, that's where most of the action is. He isn't a hidebound Libertarian ideologue, although his criticisms are so acute that he often comes off like one." That’s unadulterated bs. I followed your self-admitted "guru" Gatto. I read him. I saw him speak in person. I saw how he did the unitarian circuit and the fundamentalist circuit at the same time.I heard him being pushed 24-7 on NPR for 2 ½ yrs. I saw his real-world effect. His sole purpose on this earth is to destroy the socialist concept of a free public education in the minds of "thinkers" like you. "At least some of the problems in public schools have to do with modernity itself- there's so little "community" in many school districts in the USA that there's very little to build on. Parental involvement is often a joke. ( "proldic", you were at a PTA meeting that actually drew 12 people? Knock me over with a feather... )" I know that where you and dreamsend live there’s no community, but don’t assume that’s true everywhere. I repeat – hundreds of parents. In my specific community, it was the 12 smart lefty parents w/ money and time who split to form a free school for their kids, leaving a whole bunch of us screwed. "There's also the problem that the "middle" or "junior high" grades are where the student body encounters the presence of the Retail Drug Markets engendered by Zero Tolerance Prohibition, which are staffed by their peers. Oft times, making Adult Money. It's oft noted that even children with above average learning skill in the elementary grades get undone by the "pressures of adolescence"- for that, read "initiation into the underground drug economy", more often than not. Not a problem that public school teachers can solve- or any other fix-the-problem-at-the-wrong-end government bureaucracy, for that matter. For that, a radical solution is REQUIRED- some form of incorporation of the illegal drug markets into the aboveground economy. For adults. Regulated." First of all, my experience is not bullshit. Drug dealers, although thugs, came for an education that was opromised to them, and they worked just as hard as the others. It wasn’t some gang hell-hole. In fact, many of them were the brightest students, and of course the most entrepenurial as well. I remember a protest where all the drug dealers came back after graduating and went up w/ us to the capital to protest the funding cuts and giveaways to charter schools, w/ their beepers and gold and all. Where were you. The idea that dealers don’t care about their community is a joke. It has so much to do with simple funding and facility issues.Oh yeah, I guess black kids should do just fine w/o computers, after all it was good enough for John Coltrane and Abe Lincoln. Sounds a bit racist to me. Second, I was heavily involved in the drug and criminal justice reform movement for close to 6 years. I sponsored the first public heroin maintenance conference in New England in '00, where were you? Plus I'd love to discuss why I now think that was a big lie being pushed as well. "Then so long, suckers." People’s Court cased closed. Verdict: closet racist Btw, I didn’t say that all cab drivers are racist. Neither are all cops. Or ghetto-grocery store owners. All I said was that dealing on a day-to-day basis w/ the most down-and-out would make anyone less empathetic. And that could lead to closet racism, yes. Oh yeah, btw, in most east coast cities blacks couldn’t even buy medallions all the way up through the ’60’s. Just an aside. And I haven’t been to a movie in the theater since Blair Witch in ‘98, ok Travis?

by **artemesia** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:53 pm

I write to chime in as one of those 'lefty' parents (though hardly influential) who chose to create alternatives for 'schooling' my own children. This involved a fair amount of soul-searching and indeed, a good friend of long standing, who is a marxist-feminist activist, stopped speaking to me for good over this issue. My own issues with public school were threefold, first the level of learning being offered was deficient. When I looked back at my own excellent public school education I was appalled at how much school has 'dumbed down' in my own lifetime. I was given long summer reading lists of thoughtful, provocative and classic literature. My children were offered make-work worksheets. Second, the social pressures to conform are tremendous, and the I found the 'party line' to be the corporatist ideal. The activity of 'shaming' that Gatto discusses is so built into the institution that true individual expression or inquiry is squashed in a flurry of belittlement and one-upsmanship. And most importantly, in the years that I attempted to participate in schools, both as a classroom volunteer and in personal discussions with the staff, I felt that I was unable to make any headway at all in terms of influence. I came to agree with Gatto in my perception that the institution itself, that is- federally funded public education, is rigid and hidebound, a tool for social engineering into world that I am sure I don't want to inhabit. The argument was put forth that I needed to stay in the system and work for change for all of the children. But it was not working. Nothing was changing. There is very little local control. Many teachers I found to be burned out and not in any condition to consider new ideas. The administrators I met were entrenched in the institutional imperatives. I was ultimately not willing to participate in a program to mainstream my own kids into the rat-race, and still deeply believe that as creative, free-thinking, and self-fulfilled individuals they are in a better position to be a positive force What works for me in many situations is to create alternatives. Not being the rich, white, suburbanite that you decry, I participated in the creation of a couple of successful charter schools, and spent years implementing a home school unschooling program. I do not agree with Gatto in all things. I have met the man and do have some reservations. But I think he's right on in the quote above. My preference would be to see the school system decentralized and a great variety of all kinds of schools flourish, all under local control. Addressing the issue of racism in this argument is an important point. However it is equally a racist assumption that white lefty parents have to stay involved so that the poor children can have a better school. That's kind of a patronizing attitude, I think. I lived all during the kid's school years in a southern town with a real multicultural population, including a large African American community. I found these parents to be extremely active in school issues, PTA, and even the creation of charter schools for smaller classrooms and more academic rigor. In fact a consortium of local black community leaders has called for a return to community schools, and an end to the big regional schools. Back then the program of education was superior, and more importantly, community values were more easily empasized.

by **Dreams End** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:00 pm

Hey man, I have to confess something... You tend to reply to topics I have interest in, and in order not to seem as if I'm "baiting you" I have sometimes refrained from making my own comments. IN this case, it JUST SO HAPPENS that the very hour I consider the idea of pulling my daughter out of public school and homeschooling her, since my own work situation might allow it, I ran across this post. The other thing that happened was that I saw your post and saw that, as you sometimes do, you went into a kind of ad hominem attack...which will naturally tend to alienate those on the receiving end...and, more importantly, redirect attention from the substance of what you are saying. Why do I come here? This is the first place I've ever been to that ties together all the various strains of thought I've been engaged in for years...I can talk politically with group x, occultly (my post...I can make up words) with group y, UFO's with group z and on down the alphabet...only I started too low so I ran out of alphabet. I found this site at a time when I'm really struggling intellectually and spiritually to figure out what the hell is going on and what the hell is my role in it. These discussions help me. Someone once said I don't know what I think till I say it...well, there ya go. I appreciate your praise of my debating skills. I have high verbal skills, but believe me, I've got deficits too, and I'm aware of them. Also, I am aware that verbal facility doesn't guarantee that you are right, only that you are a talk purtier. However, you seemed like someone who could respond in kind. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>But I'd like to see you hold your own in, say a sophisticated Marxist discussion board. I don't doubt you'd do well, but you might not be so sure of yourself if you didn't have the "little people" cheering you on from the sidelines<hr></blockquote> As for participating in a marxist web debate of some kind...you are right. I haven't read Marx in detail since 1985...I'd get my ass kicked, if you want to think of it in those terms...though I suppose since I don't see the world entirely in Marxist terms, maybe those boards aren't a good place for me. And I'm not sure who the "little people are". We had one other debate...about paganism and the fact that someone named "Avalon' (get it, AVALON) got pissed at your description of Starhawk is to be expected. You'll just have to deal with that...that's not my doing. The only other remark I remember is how the discussion had "degenerated" into personal attacks...and I think that's how you come off. Sometimes. Actually, you really are either intentionally or indadvertently downplaying your own rhetorical skills. Your last post on that site was very good. , even if I didn't agree with all of it. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> I have a lot to contribute to this discussion board, <hr></blockquote> Yep. I have some advice. Keep starting your own threads and responding substantively to those of others'. You have a way of phrasing things that I think people might find rather much like personal attacks...the tone is sort of "how big an idiot do you have to be to believe this?" I don't know if that's your intent, but that's how it comes off. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> What is this, you demand high-society politeness? Instead of driving me away for my generalizations and accusations on the level I'm working on, why don't you work on driving away the bad meme-spreaders like, um, the little Jew thing going on, or, um the political quietism spread by the influence of new-age thinking?<hr></blockquote> I like that people on this site criticize IDEAS and not the writer of the idea. And politeness isn't really a horrible thing...especially in written format where tone of voice can't contribute. And you can and should feel welcome to attack those ideas you don't like...no one is trying to drive you away. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>I may be a less-sophisticated debater than you, but I know it's more real compared to the "where" that you're defending (although I get the feeling, maybe wrong, that the "where" you are defending is not really the "where" where you are at - and that 's why I get off calling you a sophist<hr></blockquote> I admitted I'm not a pagan...there were other issues I was working through that led me to start that thread. However, my wife is a pagan, and I happen to love my wife, so...you know.... And I think I'd like to suggest that another thing you refrain from is speculating on the lives of posters. It's pretty consistent for you. Someone says something you don't agree with, then you spell out what you assume their background and situation is, in the negative, of course. Well, you were sort of right with me, but with robertreed the cabby...well, I think you ended up looking a little foolish there. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Your reversion to accusing me of sectarianism and equating me w/ the RCP-types is way off base.<hr></blockquote> Yep, doesn't feel good when people make assumptions about you, does it. For what it's worth, I apologize. I was not attempting to equate you to the RCP , only to say that I've been around left organizing a bit and that just because someone uses the rhetoric you use doesn't mean they are more "authentically" concerned about the working class. I also am consistently surprised that someone with such a Marxist orientation is interested in "parapolitics." This makes you interesting to me. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

by **rain** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:29 pm

dreamsend - did that six years ago.

by **proldic** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:49 pm

I was right with you. I was right on the money w/ Robert. I'm right on the nazis over in room 4. 3 out of 3's not bad. My Plan for You: 1. Stop wasting so much time defending the alt status quo and apply it to trying to reach out in your neighborhood. Maybe if you weren't so [self-admit] alienated from your neighbors due to your buying into the red/blue meme and yr imo establishment-shaped [wrong] assumptions about what the majority of christians are thinking. Maybe then you wouldn't have been so alone when fighting the problems in yr school system. 2. Consider further my view that your take on this JT Gatto stuff relate to yr views on electoral politics, and mainstream religion. It's still that baby-out-with-the-bathwater shit. You are so "equisitely temperant" that you end up an absolutist. One thing I forgot to mention was the point you made about pagans and RA, etc. I disagree strongly w/ where you left things feel I still have some points to make, so I could return to that string at a later date. But I just wanted to add that I am completely aware of the question of RA and am trying to synthesize my extensive knowledge of that phenom. into a cohesive view, obviously centered around intel. In addition to having seen alot of raw shit myself, I am also close friends w/ a RA survivor at the hands of hippie-rainbow satano-pagans. So this is real for me, not some abstract commie flamer, or Marxist discussion group. I have personally combatted these people in many ways before. I despise them w/ every bone of my existence. I wouldn't dream of criticizing anyone for doing whatever they have to do, and put all my psychic energy behind the survivors. I would say I've actually "prayed" for them. Just not to any god (or goddesses). But I'd like to think we could talk about the-deleterious- effects-of-paganism-on-smart-people-who-could contribute-their-smarts-in-smarter-ways discussion without detracting from that energy. Highly Recommended: Witchrcraft In the Middle Ages by Jeffrey Burton Russell [Cornell]

by **robertdreed** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:17 pm

"So what are poor people supposed to do? Will we be better off making no effort at public education?" K-6, sunny. Take care of K-6, and the rest falls into place. I support increased funding for the public schools, where it's most needed. Up to a point. But not if the end result is kids as miseducated as the white, middle-class high school students of, say, Prior Lake, Minnesota (see reprinted article, above.) That isn't anything to aspire to, in my opinion. "Assuming that these minorities are making excuses for themselves is an ex of undercover racism bud." I'm not talking about "the minorities making excuses for themselves." I'm talking about anyone who advocates passing students up the line and graduating despite their lack of mastery of the basics, or letting people skate into 4-year colleges with marginal literacy and learning skills (only to be steered into remedial courses, only to find that they can't cut it there either.) Anyone complicit in the fraud. I can't stand the grade level system, personally- especially at the elementary grades. It makes a mockery of what is known about variations in developmental psychology. A year too precocious can be nearly as traumatic for a child as being a grade level behind, and rated for the "special ed" bin. But by about age 12, kids need to know how to read, write, and figure. And the educational system that Abe Lincoln and John Coltrane grew up under wasn't merely "good enough" for them- it was better than much of what's out there now. Only some of that can possibly be explained by "lack of funding." I note proldic's glowing self-assessment of his own perspicacity, proving that self-satisfied egotism looks the same, no matter what the ideology of the egotist. "3 out of 3", indeed...Although I think only a Marxist type could go on to bald-facedly proclaim "My Plan For You." Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/26/05 8:21 pm

by **Dreams End** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:31 pm

whatever

by **proldic** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:36 pm

Go ahead and ignore my points Robert. I tried to explain how I could understand why you would have so little empathy for the public school parents. I know it always freaks whitey out to hear it. "There's no way I'm racist". Face it - 99% of whites are racist, period. Closet or otherwise. And if you don't believe that, you're an idiot. No big deal. I worked with farmers, and militia supporters. I been there. Where were you? I had no problems working with them on common interests. Back then there wasn't as much outright racism, of course. This is here, that was there. This is supposed to be a parapolitically-sophisticated discussion board. Don't come on talking all political and then pushing all the same racist downsizing bullshit and then get all uptight when getting called out by me. All I see here is the same memes that are being pushed on Common Dreams, or Z-magazine, and almost the same level of defensiveness that's on DU, or Daily KOS for that matter. My point is not just that you are a closet racist, the point is how your racist assumptions about inner-city school parents is leading you to the support of a person [Gatto] whose intent is to destroy the public school system, something I support reforming. A good measure of a persons smarts (vs intelligence [like using big words like perspicacity]) is how shrill they get when confronted with a challenge to their (alternative) orthodoxy. I'd say both you and dreamsend qualify, in yr own uniquely different and pathological cultural ways.

by **robertdreed** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:51 pm

"Face it - 99% of whites are racist, period. Closet or otherwise. And if you don't believe that, you're an idiot." yet another variation on the tactic '"Shut up", he explained.' "99%"...hmm, a solid statistic. Presumably- I've heard the thematic drumbeat before- the 1 per centers are those who have been evangelized to Marxism, thus entitling them to flagellate the other members of the Morally Tainted Category for their guilt and obduracy. Having cast off the Blood Guilt of their own Ascribed Status, through their conversion to the Doctrines of St. Karl...although there are also those who maintain an affection for self-flagellation, even after the Conversion. Or at least they say they do...usually, it's more tactical scrambling. For the Moral High Ground. Anyway, the above is submitted for your Psychoanalysis...considering your predilection for critiquing personalities over debating ideas, proldic, I suppose I can expect more of the same. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/26/05 8:06 pm

by **robertdreed** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:17 pm

I still haven't established a definition for that term. Considering the frequency with which it comes up, I'd like to get a succinct working definition. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/26/05 8:18 pm

by **proldic** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:26 pm

Face reality dude. 99.9 would have been more like it. Did I say I claim I was free from it? No. I do know that the real-world effect of adopting JTG's approach = edu-genocide for inner city youth (and all Americans). That's the idea. I have debated ideas. One idea was that underlying racism is a big part of this debate. Like it or not. I am definitely not trying to stifle anyone's voice here. I get the feeling your trying to stifle mine - ya know -kill the messenger. Again, this is an example of the attitude I identify as racist: "Impossible - Then so long, suckers." Or actually just look at the vitriolic way you talk about "Marxists". You obviously fear self-analysis, so I do my best.

Obsessing About Conspiracy

J'accuse!

Re: way out of my league

proldic, I suppose...

Schools

Amen to that

chiming in

To Proldic

"it just so happens..."

Dreamsend

reply

okay prol

perspicacity

Speaking of "shrill"...

"Meme" talk...

Gatto = Racist

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