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Trump Trial Cliffhanger and the Consequences

Trump Trial Cliffhanger and the Consequences

Everyone makes a mistake now and then, but usually these mistakes don’t include six-figure payouts to porn stars while campaigning for president. Americans that care and understand the consequences sit in anticipation of the hush money trial verdict, a decision that could impact American democracy and cast a cloud of immorality and unethical compromise on our standards for leadership and politics. In other words this decision can dramatically hurt or dramatically improve the future of our country. Americans will begin to view leaders through this lens of compromise because the barriers and norms, the moral and ethical expectations for political leadership collapsed with Trump’s cruel, under-educated rhetoric and illegal, authoritarian mandates.

If the jury decides not to convict, autocrats like Trump will rejoice. The standards for leadership, fractured and in steady decline, will ultimately collapse. Our future governance will offer opportunities for profit and power to the exact wrong personality type: more Marjorie Taylor Greenes, more Lauren Bobarts, more strong men icons; a future of chaos and cruelty will become the new norm during a now unavoidable climate crisis. Some argue that this condition of cruelty and chaos, this collapse into civil unrest is a consequence of 9/11 and the political mistakes that followed the misguided war in Iraq. Others argue that this turn in society is non existent because the United States never provided a beacon of hope, that it has always, since slavery, been nothing but a cruel sham.

When I first started to analyze Trump’s speaking style, I considered him a buffoon, a simple minded, blathering idiot, that spewed nonsense and superficial vulgarities. But now I see him differently; I see him as a tool, most likely a Russian tool. The autocratic oppressive mind believes in Trump, whether it be a MAGA follower, an insurrectionist fool, or a power seeking greedy governor. Trump is a destructive, yet perfect, fun way to indulge in your lowest hateful tendencies. Fictionalizing threats, pretending pizza places are porn hubs, denying the death and murder of dozens of school children, and demonizing public sector workers, makes the meaningless mindless every day cycle of work and taxes more palatable for the ordinary, low income adult. Low income adults, people making less than a hundred k in our inflationary, capitalistic society, under a Trump tax plan will carry the debt burden.

Just as it was in the floundering decades of the Roman empire when dictatorships suppressed forensic and deliberative rhetoric, when discourse slipped into frivolities, and democratic ideals became misty memories, the era of Trump performs the same autocratic function, to stifle civil harmony and promote chaos and unrest. Violence is escalating and our civic values of honesty and fairness, compassion and empathy, flounder amidst the negativity. Each citizen must take a new oath, the oath of truth and freedom for all. No matter the outcome of the hush money porn trial, whether Trump steps forward as a presidential candidate, we all must maintain our humanity and continue to fight for equality. Only truth and equality will support civil stability in the new apocalyptic future.

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Thoughts on Last Night's State of the Union Address

Last night I watched President Biden's persuasive address to the nation, and it's clear to me that the Republican Party came out of the night looking foolish and out of touch. If people are sick of inflation, then look to corporate greed for a solution. Obviously, Biden is in a power struggle of sorts with big pharma and big corporations. If they can point to his policies as problematic, they can later line up to Trump's trough and slurp up lavish tax cuts at the expense of the working class and middle America. Big oil and other polluters like them will once again be allowed to operate without those pesky regulations that strive to protect ordinary citizens. They will once again start disregarding the rights of minority and immigrant communities. 

What Trump and the Republicans aim to do is unethical, immoral, and anti-democratic. Republican Party personalities always lie to their constituents and claim that interfering in the personal lives of citizens is not their goal, but one only need to look at the mess after the overturning of Roe v Wade to uncover the false narratives around their ridiculous claims. 

Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and disgraced US Representative George Santos clearly represent the level of low intelligence and obnoxious personality types that populate the Republican Party. Their refusal to send aid to Ukraine, while people die and a democratic European country is destroyed by Russian aggression, is only one example of poor judgement laced with hate and bigotry. 

Hate is an indulgence, and members of the Republican Party are morally irresponsible and unable to do what is right for our country and for the world. The fixation on hate and isolationism destroyed their sense of duty and justice. 

And last night's "kitchen rebuttal" looked and sounded completely ridiculous. Katie Britt snarled out a hateful, fear-mongering, rebuke that lacked any evidence, but capitalized on her hateful nature. As a woman, I felt embarrassed by her look and her sound. Every Republican bends over for Trump, a man that steals, lies, and sexually assaults women. Trump, the con-man, will destroy American progress.

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Cancel Russia and its Petulant, Whining Leader: Reject Fascism 🌻 #StandWithUkraine

Russia, a petulant, whining child, complains about the consequences of something that is entirely its own fault, the bloody invasion of Ukraine, an invasion based on obvious lies and foolishness. The rest of the world, according to the Kremlin, must capitulate and give them Ukraine. Why? Well, because it once belonged to them, back in the good old days of Soviet oppression. Don't forget, if you are leaning towards fascism, or if you are someone thinking that kowtowing to the Kremlin will protect you from harm, that Soviet citizens couldn't make choices or engage with the outside world. They lived by a rigid standard of rules that were designed to trap people into a life of subjugation and slavery. Even now the Russian government stealthily enslaves people that it considers unworthy of partaking in the common "civil" society, so what you are worth?

How would you stack up on Putin's rubric?

Frankly I'm sick of their tired and meaningless diatribes, especially that rat Minister of Foreign Affairs, their murderous and ugly intentions, and their selfish imposition on the world order. Just like any other adolescent cry baby, this regime will never be satisfied until they completely dominate the entire free world power structure. Every day they threaten a new border, a new ethnic group, or offer to pony up a nuke or chemical weapon. The world does not have to sit around and look at this.

We can take action too.

As if Putin and his cabal of greedy, rich and ugly, disgusting followers and oligarch zombies didn't already have enough wealth and land, exclusive power over vast populations, and at least prior to this cruel and murderous invasion, substantial prestige and unlimited luxury. How much do they need? Why couldn't they turn their ugly impulses into something beautiful and become kind neighbors to the countries around them? Think of how duplicitous and influential a different kind of Putin could have been. Even if he is just a hardcore Soviet, imperialistic nut-show, he could have seemed so different and thus benefit exponentially for his country, his cabal, and his personal greed. 

Putin and his oligarchs blindly threw away the greatest opportunity in the history of humanity. They took an opportunity of positivity and turned it into the ugliest mess since WW II. No doubt the hand he played in Syria defined him and allowed for future atrocity, but still a shroud of decency, even farfetched, might have been cast over his crimes considering the massive disinformation campaign that precludes such barbarism. His holding of a lighted candle during an Orthodox Easter service seems to parallel with Trump holding a Bible while protesters are gassed and beaten because in every move that Putin makes, rather it be abstract or concrete, a threatening message is sent. Every move Trump makes, even though they are completely amateur in comparison, share the same hateful and indulgent set of goals. Putin is telling us that he will use gas on Ukraine.

The fascists are here even if they are unable to define themselves due to cowardice or a lack of education. They are here and we must acknowledge their presence, just as if they too are whining petulant children. In our country, people are free to think as a fascist, but they are not free to act as a fascist. But I want to make it clear to the people that bother to read my thoughts, the toxic pond we wade in is deep because of Putin and his outdated Soviet philosophy--the modern fascist world will make the old fascist world look like a peaceful playground full of happy children. We must rise up and defend freedom or the suffering and horror will never end. Fascism, in alignment with Putin's world view, will be nothing but atrocity after atrocity. 

Ask a Ukrainian if you don't believe me.

BombedPlayground

 


Russia and Putin: Give Ukraine the Planes 🌻

I'm sitting here in Babin's Seafood place thinking about all I am grateful for: the wonderful little rescue Westie; the cozy, modern apartment; my wonderful friends and coworkers; the job that keeps me in society when I'd rather immerse myself in a massive writing project, alone and crazy. I'm grateful for my health, and I pray I continue in life physically and mentally strong.

Babin's reminds me of a typical California restaurant with the dark interior, plush and cushy seating, and the sense that you are invited to linger and enjoy cocktails, desserts, and good conversations. The relaxed atmosphere lends itself to thinking, and I know most of us in our quiet, thankful moments wonder about the pain of the Ukrainian people, how they sustain life in the face of evil and death. I'm not sure that if it were me, that I wouldn't sit down on the curb and beg for a bullet.

If I lost my home, my pets, my family, all of my belongings, and I faced a bleak and meaningless new landscape of destruction and dust, massive holes in the ground, and dead bodies scattered all around me, my work and culture and land, all wasted, my mind would probably turn against me. The constant shelling and gunfire, the fear of dying in horror, in a nightmare, would end it for my sanity. 

At the moment my biggest complaint is that some of my green beans are discolored. While I sit here and gaze on the green beans, I wonder how many people that Putin has destroyed or murdered. How many people has he starved?

I noticed on Twitter that some really vulnerable African nations seem to understate the threat that Putin represents to them. Putin is a Nazi white supremacist to the extreme. It is no accident that he interrupted the Ukrainian planting season. Putin's evil will win if we don't predict his moves months in advance. Putin's evil will win if we fail to meet his brutality with equal force. It's a large picture, not a small one. 

Many of our weak minded politicians are now, and have been, capitulating to Putin's evil. To capitulate seems a lesser threat. These cowards are lining up to save themselves, and at the same time they are lining all of us up as a grand sacrifice. If we succumb to "Tucker Carlson" style fascism, we too will be killed off. 

I know most of you feel skeptical. But, several times lately, Putin squeaks out a whimpering threat about nuking us. You realize, of course, that a nuke there is a nuke everywhere. He already has exhibited his artsy mosaic of human atrocities, even shooting up a nuclear disaster site. Why are we not convinced?

Ukraine, over the past 50 days, requests airplanes. But they can't have them because we are lining up for a disastrous ending of the free world, and signing on to a new, and more heinous form of authoritarianism--with certain death and suffering. While we capitulate and lolly gag around, Putin is raising the stakes. Write to whomever you need to in order to encourage the delivery of world class weapons to Ukraine, including fighter jets. Help Ukraine get everything they need now, or succumb to fascism later. 

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President Biden: Why Are You Doing Nothing to Save Ukraine?

I think it is amazing how you have managed to side step this genocide and unfairly and inaccurately minimize the impact on all nations and all free thinking people. For the first time in history we are experiencing this version of horror in real time on video and in the news with a courageous leader, President Zelinskyy, who articulates the details of these massacres and attacks. Yet, you sit there and do nothing, compounding this problem and its psychological effect, the kind of effect that will drive human behavior in future generations. 

Because you insist on sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing beyond handing over a few weapons and a few mild sanctions, more crimes like this will occur in the future. People are begging you to act, but you and NATO, and the UN, seem afraid. Let us get this straight. Because you are afraid of Putin firing off a nuclear rocket, even though the intended target is begging you for air support, you refuse to assist. You refuse in such a way that you leave the door open to Russia to continue these atrocities. 

I voted for you, but your inactivity is beginning to make me feel angry about the lack of choice that the democratic party offered us. I think you are the wrong man for the times. Your military policies are destructive to our security and sense of national pride, and your attitude is one of hubris, rather than humility. If you had a sense of community with the world, if you honestly cared about the violent genocide taking place in Ukraine, then you would make Hitler Putin capitulate. You would join with our partners in a violence of your own. You would stop this madness. The community of nations await your response, but you immerse yourself in domestic duties.

You keep going back and forth with sanctions. You keep throwing money and weapons around like a lazy 5th Avenue philanthropist. You keep talking diplomacy. Do you not recognize your foe? Sanctions mean nothing to a despot beyond inconvenience. Diplomacy? Please, do not make me laugh because it isn't funny. I am sure Hitler Putin laughs at the world concerning this diplomacy nonsense, but it is a nonstarter with a tyrant. In fact, I am sure that your attempts at diplomacy compute nicely with his genocidal strategies.

I am beginning to think you and Blinken know this.

As you sit there on your golden throne, a modern European country could fall to a tyrant. Millions of people are suddenly displaced, and the burden on the world is because of you. Children and babies are once again experiencing death, rape, and violence at the hand of Hitler Putin. A serious food shortage that will affect every single corner of the world is on the horizon because of your inaction. How can you continue like this? 

Give the Ukrainians concrete, major help and assistance: boots on the ground; planes in the sky.

Anything less is rank stupidity. Soon, a missile will be launched into Kiev...can you say you did everything you could to prevent that? I know you cannot. You enable this genocide with your inaction. DO SOMETHING CONCRETE.

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Putin: Words Are Insufficient to Describe this Horror

All of these years we have sat around as a country and let Putin unleash genocide and terror on humanity with no consequences to him or his oligarchs. We enabled him to rise to this level where he can get away with threatening us with nuclear weapons and we sit on our hands and do nothing to him in return. People will cry, "Sanctions, we have done sanctions." And I will remind those nice, well-informed, people that while we rely on nonviolent sanctions and while we ship some arms to his victims, we are doing something that does not stop the genocide or Kremlin fury. Genocide perpetuates itself as soldiers and "yes men" get in line for dictator favors. They represent the lowest of humanity, men and women that will literally extinguish life for material gain or their own personal safety.

Sadly, and I am ashamed of this, our President speaks when he should shut up, and he fails to act with force and fury when appropriate. As the clock ticks, more people, including little children, endure horrific violence, suffering and death, but Biden is resolute in his crap decisions. 

Some of you may whimper, "But nukes." Well, go ahead and live on your fears because these fears determine the future for millions of people around the world barely surviving the oppression of a nearby dictator. We fail to recognize the threat that exists for all of humanity when we allow a bloodthirsty tyrant to terrorize one ethnic/cultural group after another: Syria, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and so forth. We allowed these things to take place, these genocides. 

I noticed in the Russian news that the fascists point to our invasion of Iraq, and from me they will get no argument. I completely agree that invading Iraq ranked pretty high on the stupidity chart. But this time it is different. This time the option for survivors is not so-called Western style freedom, but the option is tyranny and subjugation, a stunning loss of freedom and an incomprehensible future. 

These other genocides, the ones that passed from our view, the oft-forgotten, indulgent and hedonistic violence that wiped out entire tribes and communities hid behind other news and dumb, superficial media stories. This genocide, thanks to the digital world, is lavishly recorded for all of us to watch. Even so, some news organizations try to look the other way in some shameful manner of mismanaged priorities; mingling corny jokes, laughter, and silly community stories, while barely glossing over the terrible predicament that our inaction has brought to us. 

This is not the first time I have felt terrible shame and feelings of disappointment and outright embarrassment concerning my country and the president I voted for; now I am not alone; the crowd of disgusted Americans continues to branch out like an angry web. When the details of this inaction comes to full light, no one will vote for Biden. He allows the extermination to go on.

UkraineVector

 


Henry David Thoreau and the Passing of Nature and Time

I'm tan. It's true. This is January, but I have a golden blush on my skin, and I'm worried.

Even though I live in a warm zone, I'm not supposed to look like I've been vacationing in Mexico, so my tan feels and looks unnatural to me. I don't mean Donald Trump orange, but I mean out of season, like wearing a floral boho dress in winter instead of plaid or muted colors. It's really worse than you think because I've been wearing shorts nearly every day for two weeks. Today was the first time I pulled on a warm sweater and leggings, the first time I've seen ice in my bird feeder, the first time I grabbed socks and not flip flops, the first time I made pumpkin spiced tea and pancakes. 

My little dogs quietly snooze on their new Christmas fuzzy blankets, all peaceful and warm. 

Henry David Thoreau, the poetic naturalist from the Transcendental movement, would certainly think a winter tan odd. And even though Transcendentalism faded away into the opulent glamour of the great Gilded Age, remnants of it hibernated within other more modern social and philosophical movements; and now, thanks to the pandemic, it seems reengineered into a full-blown revival.

Outside we go! Once again, elitist progressives become selfish of their leisure time, ponder and reflect on personal decisions and the meaning of life, reflect on brash behaviors, and attempt to make distance between the artificial and the natural. Elitist bigots, conservatives, and supremacists, engage in their own version of adverse Transcendentalism by "rolling coal" and "attempting a "coup d'etat." No matter what poison you ascribe to, conservative or progressive, Henry provides us all with a lesson on health and living well. He died at the age of forty-four of tuberculosis. As you know, tuberculosis continues to spread because no effective vaccine exists to eradicate it. Henry, from a young age, knew he was living with a disease that would end in suffering and death. He also knew his quality of life depended on him remaining physically active and out in the fresh air as much as possible. He appreciated the nurturing aspect of nature, and he accepted the cruel passage of time:

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate" (from Walden Economy).

However you interpret Thoreau, whether you appreciate him for his anger over injustice and slavery, whether you appreciate him for his loyalty to his beliefs and his love of nature, or whether you read him for his complex syntax and artistic descriptions, he certainly becomes more relevant with each passing year. As we journey into the Anthropocene, as we ride our planet into unknown territory, Thoreau's writings return us to a time when nature seemed on the verge of becoming predictable and possibly controllable. Darwin published after Thoreau, even though Thoreau seemed to already be aware of natural selection. The idea that the laws of nature were incontrovertible, that we, egotistical little humans, could harness this power like a work horse pulling a plow, is what got us into this ridiculous mess. 

Instead of putting nature first, as the Transcendentalists attempted to do, we corrupted our own menagerie of systems. Not one natural system remains intact thanks to human activity. Until we accept our failure and begin to dramatically change our oppositional handling of nature, we will continue to get these winter tans. And, as you already know, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, a winter tan is out of season.

Waldencabin

 

 


Explaining Myself: Why I Want to Become an Anti-Racist Teacher

First of all I would like to remind my readers that in spite of a stereotypical African American first name, I am a white person of western European descent with only a smattering of Native American thrown in. I know this for a fact because I took the 23&Me DNA test, and it turns out I'm nearly as white as a person can get. I do have skin that darkens up nicely in the sun, dark green eyes (cousin to brown on the DNA strand), and an overall 'Indian' look, but only one of my ancestors can be verified as native.

Discrimination and prejudice certainly impacted my life in an ongoing and rather problematic way because my family members stepped out in nontraditional roles and some of them worked in what could be considered as odd career choices, including myself. I'm not a stranger to white elitism and snobbery. But my challenges stack up nicely in the columns of inconvenience or mild heartbreak, even though I now realize that some of my old associates either hid their distorted and ignorant opinions from me, or have, over the decades, became disgustingly narrow minded and ridiculous, even ungrateful.

In recent years, some of my African American friends and coworkers quietly and patiently pointed out some of my own dumb blind spots and unearned privileges. Even if I earned the right to some of my privileges through hard work or suffering, I still enjoy a ton of White-Bread-American advantages that people of color righteously feel angry about. The best place to view this list of unearned advantages built into the racist American system are listed in Peggy McIntosh's essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, lists 50 ways that white people experience privilege over people of color. All 50 of them are relevant and important, eye-opening and true, but for now I want to talk about number 39: I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race. 

The best school leader I have ever known was a younger and wiser African American woman. She is honestly gifted, an amazing writer and communicator, a wonderful teacher and friend to every person that knows her. She goes out of her way to think open-mindedly about people that I typically write off as plain stupid and fake (this is hyperbole because I seldom write anyone off). Obviously, her heart is ten times bigger than mine because she strives to see the good in everyone, no matter their background or identity, while I'm a skeptic when it comes to adults. But she sometimes, like a million other qualified and gifted people, would be late to a faculty meeting or other function. On one notable time, she was stuck in a meeting with a parent, and I watched and listened as she entered the room; I witnessed the negative body language and eye-rolling, and I heard the comments that were made:

"There she is, late as usual. I wonder if she knew we had a meeting. She's late all the time." 

It's true that occasional lateness happened, but if the occasional lateness happened to me, or some other white person, nobody ever cares or makes any audible comments. When it's a white person, people tend to mind their own business when it comes to lateness. When it's a person of color, it's because the person is not organized, or they are lazy. This is just plain wrong.

Number 13 has to do with money: Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. Let us be honest white people--most of us don't deserve the bank credit that we get. Some of us start businesses and fail to properly pay or compensate our employees. Some of us are not worth the paper we are printed on, and that includes me. I am just not worth much, and I may never be worth much. But I have something that most people of color don't; I have some generational wealth. It's not much, but it's still amazing. It's better than nothing. When I walk into a bank, I get a ton of respect, respect I definitely do not deserve. If my qualified and gifted person of color walks into a bank, she receives less attention and gratuity, even though she is trying much harder than I am to establish herself as a reliable and current bank customer. 

We all know these stereotypes and racist beliefs are built into everything American. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, wants to make it illegal for teachers to point these facts out to students. He wants to forbid teachers to speak freely about critical race theory; but I'm positive that Abbott doesn't know what CRT is, or he would want to have it taught in our schools, because, after all, isn't Greg Abbott an open-minded and well-educated man? Critical race theory basically teaches us to notice the built in racist structures that exist, and then it teaches us how to reject and resist these ignorant ideas personally. For example, CRT points out that many deed restrictions disqualify residents based on their race. This is a fact of life, not a fairy tale or fake news. If it is our goal as a society to make opportunities and the American dream available to everyone, then how do these deed restrictions concerning race further equity? And, of course, this example of deed restrictions is just a tiny, petty example. If you really want to examine CRT, then look at incarceration rates, the war on drugs, immigration, and healthcare disparities, to name just a few glaring, national problems.

The real threat to American life is right wing extremism--neoliberalism. Donald Trump, Greg Abbot, and a slew of other ignorant politicians and demagogues clearly aim to normalize white supremacy, and they personally enjoy indulging in hateful and divisive acts and speech. They want wealth for a few and subservience for everyone else. Wealth for a few and subservience for everyone else is the political and economic theory known as neoliberalism. If you are following this ideology, if you are falling for this scam, then you are part of the problem. You are voting against yourself. If you are indulging in hateful thoughts and ideas, then you are doing something that is causing you to feel a temporary relief from what is buried under your psyche: the knowledge that you are wrong. You are actually causing Americans, including yourself, to lose freedoms. Neoliberalism and white supremacy are dangerous ideologies, but Critical Race Theory is an idea that will help you understand our national history; CRT will help you know yourself better, especially if you are white.

CriticalRaceTheory


Teacher and Student Burnout: The Battle is Real

I sit here helplessly in my little living room /slash/ office area of my tiny little apartment in this huge metropolis and I listen to people that have never worked in a public school, in any capacity, talk about how safe it is to go back to the classroom. I sit here and I listen to them compare me to the grocery store clerk, or the trash collection service. I hear them making a moral judgement about my courage and fearlessness in the midst of this crisis, as compared to my counterparts in other public service arenas. Well, I just want everyone to know that I'm not a coward, and I am tired of my opinion being overshadowed by people that have no experience in the classroom. At the same time, I'm not stupid either. I know for a fact that schools are disease factories; I know that schools can never be clean enough to "stop the spread"; I know how many colds, coronaviruses, streps, stomach illnesses, and other infections I have caught and/or transmitted over the past ten years of my career in public school, so how can this disease be any different? Uninformed people think if you throw some hand sanitizer, a mask or two, and some big cash at the problem, along with some attempted social distancing, that all of the kids can just march right back into the school. The reason that schools are not significantly contributing to community spread is because they are currently rather underpopulated, so how can anyone sit there and confidently pressure teachers and support staff to just go and willingly sacrifice their own health, or their family's health, for a job that they are not even adequately paid to do?

Kids and teachers are definitely unhappy right now. One thing that is getting my goat is this business about my online class. We are to slavishly follow the five-part lesson plan as it is laid out by Doug Lemov in his book, Teach Like a Champion. I have no problem with Lemov, and I like some of his ideas, but making a student do 7 Do Nows a day, along with 7 Exit tickets a day, all online, is just the dumbest thing ever. My kids are complaining voraciously about spending 7 hours a day doing a repetitious five-part lesson for each online class. That is 7 Zoom meetings a day. Making the teacher create 5 separate folders for each day and script out each step of the class, and then make that same teacher slavishly follow this five-part, five folder, five day a week, boring repetition is a burn out machine major-deluxe. I have heard in songs and stuff that it is better to burn out than fade away, but now I'm beginning to wonder. Maybe fading away is not a bad idea, a sentiment now shared by many educators.

This week I had the unique experience of getting an administrator in my online class asking questions. All of my kids can follow my class, open my materials, and work with my digital content. I am running 4 digital platforms: Schoology, the community college I work for, Skyward, and the College Board. All of these have some different requirements and portals to put grades in and different things for students to do. I am trying my hardest to keep it simple for my students by engaging them in creative and colorful discussion boards and assignments. My attendance is amazing, and the vast majority of my students are growing as writers, thinkers, and readers. Even though we are separated by distance and this disease, we enjoy our classes. In spite of everything, I have been able to build some robust relationships with my kids, so their suffering is my suffering. But I got a weird dressing down of sorts from my administrator because I don't have little folders for each day, with little lesson plans in each day, with my content spread out into these separate days. It's the craziest, most clerical intensive, mindless, and uncreative mandate that I have ever been asked to engage in. My students go back and revisit materials constantly, so I don't see how making them hunt and peck in daily folders is of any use to them; nor is this hunting and pecking of any use to me, as it completely stifles my ability to create a meaningful lesson plan or unit designed on the unique and specific needs of this crucial moment. My lesson plans, when I do them the way they are mandated, are fragmented and not unified. When I do them the way I have been taught in college, then my students are happier. I create a new folder every week, but these lesson plans and folders as mandated are harming my students' classroom experience.

I want to know when it started becoming important for me to write lesson plans that prioritize my administration over my students so that I can be judged, not for my teaching, but for my ability to make little daily folders, and all of this during a world health crisis.

This kind of negativity, looking for fault and calling teachers cowards, should be forbidden during this crisis. It is an all-hands-on-deck kind of a mess. Administrators and the public should be looking at ways to get teachers and kids safely back into the classroom where we do our best. If that means moving teachers up the line to get a shot, then why not? When you ask a politician or some high-level administrator this question about the vaccine, you get a bunch of weird lip service, but no answers. We are talking about the safety of our kids and the people in the schools that are charged with spending long hours everyday with them in close proximity. Only a fool or a charlatan would go around making the claim that schools are safe. Clearly, they are not, and they won't ever be if people in power can't focus on what is important, rather than what is petty. 

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Why the Bloomberg Message Matters so Much! Listen America...

Writing in juxtapositions hyphenates how circular and connected everything in the world is. When I interact with my dogs, I parallel their train of thought with my own because I respect the brain, the little soul, that exists in this furry, needy, little body. As Lukács relates his theory of social realism to Marx, he "contends [that human beings] are essentially socio-historical beings" and that the "formation of human society across time is a process of economic transformation, in which deep economic tensions resolves themselves in higher forms of social organization" (Graham 198). Even though Georg Lukács theory of the novel is simply that, a theory about novels, the economic juxtaposition is impossible to ignore. How does this all relate to what is happening in American politics now? Trump, an obvious fascist, represents an opposition to what most Americans fear the most, a debasement of the social structure as it swings left to shelter and support vulnerable individuals coded out of the mainstream economic upturn. 

How much of this upturn is due to an increased expansion of the fossil fuel industry is unknown by me, but I would say that it goes far enough to spike fear in the worker, enough fear to maximize a winner-take-all mindset such as the one that Trump represents. Critical realism debunks any possibility of a happy ending in the great American story because these higher forms of social organization, the economics of the neoliberal/capitalist state, will forbid any transfer of wealth into more sustainable energy forms. While Americans do see a few more solar panels and electric cars around, nothing is happening to offset carbon and methane output, quite the opposite, so a dirtier and more perilous world awaits for our children and grandchildren, even as we now watch helplessly as a worldwide pandemic unfolds. Politics at large, especially left leaning lip service, fails to permeate the echo chamber of winner-take-all-fascist-mindset even on the eve of our destruction.

The politicians on last night's debate stage fail to grasp Lukács theory of society functioning as an economic process constantly in transformation, so in other words, they will fail to beat Trump's fascist ideology because they are unable to adequately assuage the fears of the common worker, the fear of sustainable energy overtaking the fossil fuel industry. Even so, another, more dark and shady goblin lurks behind the transference of power from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, artificial intelligence. Fossil fuel workers realize at some level the sloughing off of jobs to machinery and robots. Even as we transfer wealth from one sector to another, skill based jobs are declining, no matter the purpose or intent. Following a cruel fascist into a dirtier future will only make this economic transformation more difficult and result in more penury and suffering. 

This is why I think it's vitally important to the public that Mike Bloomberg use his platform if not to win, then at least to inform. Stopping Trump means that Americans will face a brighter future even in the face of this economic transformation. Maybe we are trading one neoliberal narcissist for another, but at least Bloomberg is authentic, a strong juxtaposition to Trump.

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Donald Trump, Climate Change, and Totalitarianism: A Connection

Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism is a tough read. And sometimes I wish I hadn't struggled through her dense prose because much of it is making me sick with worry. I feel like an old time fortune teller because everything that I learned in the book is relevant to the Trump administration. Anyway, somewhere deep in her book she begins to talk about how Totalitarianism creeps in without the population's awareness or recognition. I strongly suggest reading this book yourself. I hope you will take time with every word. In the meantime, let me try to clarify what I think is important to understand in this moment. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism

Hitler warped reality for the Germans by using propaganda, symbolism, terror, concentration camps, shame and racism, along with dishonesty and violence. He pretended to care about the working man and woman, the underdog, and he aligned himself with other despots and liars. Education in all forms became not only a luxury, but it became something degrading and negative. The press and literacy became the enemy, so reality became a matter of debate, discussion, and skepticism. Warping reality serves to rip away trust and unity in society, creating a sense of confusion, supporting a rhetoric of aggression. This rhetoric of aggression serves to heighten tensions and stress (even in personal relationships), validating arguments that are essentially destructive and divisive. 

While people are living in this state of confusion and distrust, violence and chaos become more acceptable and frequent. Facts slip away. Society searches for truth by indulging in petty arguments and blundering around in confusion. Meanwhile, Totalitarianism is seeping into the social cracks. She wrote many pages on this subject of reality and confusion. And here we are quite confused arguing about whether or not children are drinking from toilets while living in cages, whether or not they are going hungry, or are ripped from their parents. We are arguing about whether or not the planet will be habitable in 50 years when we can clearly see that if we do nothing the die-off will overwhelm our souls and plunge us into a psychic darkness. We are arguing about science that is settled and factual. We are arguing in the face of science and allowing our government to dismiss this science as if it were some kind of fabricated theory while the evidence exists all around us. People are so confused they are literally becoming fanatically religious because of fear and doubt; somehow the supernatural becomes more reliable than everyday reality.

Arendt would say that Trump is a symbol, a caricature of Totalitarianism; he represents the future if we don't reclaim our reality and stomp out the kind of power he will extend. He is like a nasty seed, and we don't have time for him and his hatchlings because truth is on its way, a truth that will provide a rich ground for the growth of a more frightening and destructive form of Totalitarianism than we have yet to see in any society. With climate change will come massive disasters, resulting in the loss of national worth by depleting our resources and producing roaming populations of climate refugees. This is what they are striving for...a dark and selfish future that will allow for many helpless people to die out in floods and droughts, or to starve in famines while they attempt to build and buy their way out of the consequences of inaction and greed. Help will take years to arrive, and isolated communities will die out. Death due to neglect is just another symptom of Totalitarianism. 

We know what is real. All we have to do is communicate stronger, harder, clearer, and better. We are not communicating the coming catastrophe in a strong enough way. We are pretending that we will always have a voice even in the midst of a climate emergency. Even now, on the cusp of disaster, our voice is already muted and weak. 

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