The Rag Blog

Thursday, May 19, 2011
MORE ON IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY:THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 24, 2011

I have been thinking a lot about “ideological hegemony;” how and why we think about the political world in the ways we do. I do so not to add another layer of theory to an already complex set of arguments about economics and politics. Nor am I interested in immobilizing political activists. Rather, I think progressives need to think about how to challenge the ideas that most of us are supposed to accept and believe.

Of course, the primary public institutions that transmit ideas and ways of thinking to people, from the start to the end of their educational careers, are schools. Our friends on the Right know how important it is to shape schools at all levels. Early in this century I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh say on one of his radio programs that “the only institutions we do not yet control are the schools”

With this as a goal, just the other day we read stories about Koch brothers’ money financing faculty positions at Florida State University in economics (presumably Marxist or structural economists need not apply). Just a week earlier a story broke about rightwing efforts to cut and splice public recordings of lectures in a labor studies class at the University of Missouri to leave the impression that the instructors are advocates for labor violence. Using the methods of vilification and distortions that worked successfully against green jobs advocate Van Jones, community action group ACORN, and Shirley Sherrod, an African American employee of the Department of Agriculture, attacks on education are growing. The use of more sophisticated technologies than in the days of McCarthy or David Horowitz’s print crusades against “dangerous professors” are becoming common.

In addition to smear campaigns and using money to shape hiring practices at universities, access to varieties of knowledge remains very much constrained by institutional and political pressures, from kindergarten through high school and college. For example, we can talk about two subject areas, militarism and economic orthodoxy. Both subjects were prominently featured at an elementary school, Mayflower Mill Elementary School in Lafayette, Indiana.

As the local newspaper, the Journal & Courier reported approvingly on May 12, 2011:

“When Mayflower Mill Elementary students were told they would be able to hear the approaching helicopter that would land behind the school before they saw it, their ears perked up.” Although the noise they first heard was only a delivery truck, soon a Bell UH-1H Huey helicopter which was used in Vietnam, and piloted by a group of veterans, arrived. The pilots were part of an organization committed to maintaining a positive public image of the helicopter.

The helicopter and its veteran pilots spent the day at the elementary school, called by the school “Operation American Pride,”

“After Wednesday’s landing, students broke into groups…..including lessons on flag etiquette and the life of the soldier.” Kids got to go in the helicopter, sit behind a Humvee, and a military truck. The whole day was a celebration of the military, military values, super-patriotism. One student referred to experiencing the helicopter as “cool” and “exhilarating.”

Organizing the day’s activities took combined efforts of members of military families, community donations, support from the Army National Guard and members of Purdue University’s ROTC. Of course, the activities required the full cooperation of teachers, the principal, and members of the school board.

I wonder what would have happened if a parent or brave teacher had proposed that “Operation American Pride” include an historical discussion of the millions of Vietnamese people who died in the U.S. war in that country; or perhaps, if course material include reference to the 57,000 American soldiers who died in the war or the lingering effects of Agent Orange on subsequent generations of Vietnamese and U.S. veterans.

In addition the J & C reported on May 16, that fourth and fifth graders at the same school recently completed a class project simulating commerce and manufacturing. Students designed and sold products to their school mates (and the money earned went to recognized charities such as the American Heart Association and the local fire department). Kids produced “slime,” decorated pencils, and chocolate coated plastic spoons. Students designed their products, shopped for supplies, and produced and sold them. The teacher, it was reported, has done a similar project every year because she said about students that “they need to understand finance.”

The newspaper reported that the project was supported by long-time economics education lobbyist and think tank, the Indiana Center for Economic Education. An ICEE spokesperson, who offered a program that the teacher had taken years ago, spoke about the lessons kids learned: “The basics of operating their own business, the fact you’ve got to produce a product customers want and counter the cost of resources you need.” The spokesperson claimed the exercises such as at Mayflower Mill highlight real issues which sometimes get lost in teaching more dominant subjects.

I wonder if students learned anything about the historic role of organized labor in the state, high unemployment in Indiana, growing economic inequality, the forty year deindustrialization of the state economy, and the differences in economic opportunity between African Americans, other minorities, and whites, and between men and women.

Almost accidentally, I accessed stories about political struggles from 2004 until today at my old high school, Senn High School, in Chicago. It seems that the high school which over forty years ago was white and middle class was now populated by young people from working class and poor African American, Latino, and immigrant families.

By the new century it was experiencing problems in reference to academics and social order. The authorities, the City alderwoman, the head of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, Mayor Daley, and the military came up with a “great” idea. They created in 2005, over the objections of students, teachers, and community activists, the Hyman Rickover Naval Academy which occupies a large physical space in the high school and has enrolled at least 25 per cent of the student population.

Meanwhile programs to teach English as a second language and advanced placement courses for college preparation were reduced. The teaching staff in the non-military portion of Senn High School was cut by 33 per cent. CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) continues to challenge the militarization of the Chicago school system.

In our communities we need to work in solidarity with those immediately involved in educational institutions. Where issues of militarism and economic orthodoxy shape school curricula our voices need to be heard. Our political agenda, in sum, needs to address as best our resources allow what we learn, how we learn it, and who controls the institutions that shape our thinking and the thinking of young people.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ’s articles on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

The latest plan for perpetual war

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 25, 2011

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? — Gandhi

The wise men and women of the U.S. Congress are in the midst of deciding that the perpetual war desired by the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower’s original formulation before it was edited) will soon become the law of the land.

A defense authorization bill recently passed by the House Armed Services Committee includes a provision that recognizes that we are at war “with al Queda, the Taliban, and associated forces” and gives the president war powers until “the termination of hostilities,” which could mean forever.

President Obama and his successors will be permitted to engage in war until the last terrorist is dead. There was a time — when George W. Bush was president — that I would have thought giving such power to the president to be among the most foolish acts of our political class. After nearly two and a half years of President Obama, I find that I harbor the same thought.

To be clear, I have seen one report that President Obama has not sought this expanded authority. It may be that he does not believe the extra authority is necessary for him to adequately fight terrorism, perhaps because he has found it easy to ignore the consultation-with-Congress requirements of our current law with respect to the bombing of Libya.

Nevertheless, a few representatives enamored with war-making are pushing to give this new unfettered discretion to the president and his replacements.

After considering the history of more than a hundred plus years since the reign of President Teddy Roosevelt, I can’t imagine a worse idea than giving one person the right to engage in war unimpeded by the wise limitations imposed upon the presidency by our founders.

Modern presidents have failed to honor the Constitutional requirement that the country not engage in war without a declaration of Congress approving war. In fact, we have had war under every president since Franklin Roosevelt, who was the last president to seek and get a declaration of war from Congress.

Of course, these violations of the Constitution are as much the fault of Congress as of the presidents who decided that war was the answer to a problem they faced. One explanation is that defense contractors supply an enormous amount of the money our politicians need to get elected. As long as contractors enjoy endless profits from war, they will keep funding politicians who keep those profits coming.

The primary author of the constitutional check on a president’s war power was James Madison, whose thinking is instructive two and a third centuries later:

Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other… War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people… No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

And Madison wrote further,

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast, ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

From these comments, it is clear that Madison did not anticipate that we would have a huge standing military, always available to be sent throughout the world to protect perceived American interests. He would have been sickened to contemplate 820 U.S. military bases located in 135 countries imposing U.S. hegemony throughout the world.

Congressman John Conyers, in looking at the authorization included in the proposed spending bill, concluded that it “would appear to grant the President near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval. Such authority must not be ceded to the President without careful deliberation from Congress.”

Thirty-three members of the President’s own party have requested that the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon, schedule this perpetual war-making authority provision for public hearings so that the American public can be made aware of it and have a chance to discuss it with their representatives.

The provisions which trouble Conyers and others are found in H.R. 968, the Detainee Security Act of 2011, which will likely be considered as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2012. These provisions would give any president the right to use military force anywhere in the world where terrorism suspects are believed to be present, even if no U.S. citizen has been harmed and the U.S. has not been attacked, or is not under the threat of attack.

The president would be empowered by these new provisions to use military force even within the U.S. and against American citizens. These provisions dishonor both the intent of our founders and the actual words of the Constitution, which provide that the Congress shall declare war, not the president. In our system, it is important that 535 representatives decide when and whether we should go to war, not one person, no matter how well-intentioned or how smart he or she may be.

If you are concerned about the Congress giving unchecked authority to the executive branch to use military force worldwide, there is still time to let your representatives know your views before we embark on what may be irremediable perpetual war.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Thursday, May 19, 2011
MORE ON IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY:THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 24, 2011

I have been thinking a lot about “ideological hegemony”; how and why we think about the political world in the ways we do. I do so not to add another layer of theory to an already complex set of arguments about economics and politics. Nor am I interested in immobilizing political activists. Rather, I think progressives need to think about how to challenge the ideas that most of us are supposed to accept and believe.

Of course, the primary public institutions that transmit ideas and ways of thinking to people, from the start to the end of their educational careers, are schools. Our friends on the Right know how important it is to shape schools at all levels. Early in this century I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh say on one of his radio programs that “the only institutions we do not yet control are the schools.”

With this as a goal, just the other day we read stories about Koch brothers’ money financing faculty positions at Florida State University in economics (presumably Marxist or structural economists need not apply). Just a week earlier a story broke about right-wing efforts to cut and splice public recordings of lectures in a labor studies class at the University of Missouri to leave the impression that the instructors are advocates for labor violence.

Using the methods of vilification and distortion that worked successfully against green jobs advocate Van Jones, community action group ACORN, and Shirley Sherrod, an African American employee of the Department of Agriculture, attacks on education are growing. The use of more sophisticated technologies than in the days of McCarthy or David Horowitz’s print crusades against “dangerous professors” are becoming common.

In addition to smear campaigns and the use of money to shape hiring practices at universities, access to varieties of knowledge remains very much constrained by institutional and political pressures, from kindergarten through high school and college. For example, we can talk about two subject areas, militarism and economic orthodoxy. Both subjects were prominently featured at an elementary school, Mayflower Mill Elementary School in Lafayette, Indiana.

As the local newspaper, the Journal & Courier, reported approvingly on May 12, 2011:

“When Mayflower Mill Elementary students were told they would be able to hear the approaching helicopter that would land behind the school before they saw it, their ears perked up.” Although the noise they first heard was only a delivery truck, soon a Bell UH-1H Huey helicopter which was used in Vietnam, and piloted by a group of veterans, arrived. The pilots were part of an organization committed to maintaining a positive public image of the helicopter.

The helicopter and its veteran pilots spent the day at the elementary school. The school named the event, “Operation American Pride.”

“After Wednesday’s landing, students broke into groups… including lessons on flag etiquette and the life of the soldier.” Kids got to go in the helicopter, sit behind a Humvee, and a military truck. The whole day was a celebration of the military, military values, super-patriotism. One student referred to experiencing the helicopter as “cool” and “exhilarating.”

Organizing the day’s activities took the combined efforts of members of military families, community donations, support from the Army National Guard and members of Purdue University’s ROTC. Of course, the activities required the full cooperation of teachers, the principal, and members of the school board.

I wonder what would have happened if a parent or brave teacher had proposed that “Operation American Pride” include an historical discussion of the millions of Vietnamese people who died in the U.S. war in that country; or perhaps, had asked if course materials include references to the 57,000 American soldiers who died in the war or the lingering effects of Agent Orange on subsequent generations of Vietnamese and U.S. veterans.

In addition the J & C reported on May 16 that fourth and fifth graders at the same school recently completed a class project simulating commerce and manufacturing. Students designed and sold products to their school mates (and the money earned went to recognized charities such as the American Heart Association and the local fire department).

Kids produced “slime,” decorated pencils, and chocolate coated plastic spoons. Students designed their products, shopped for supplies, and produced and sold them. The teacher, it was reported, has done a similar project every year because she said about students that “they need to understand finance.”

The newspaper reported that the project was supported by long-time economics education lobbyist and think tank, the Indiana Center for Economic Education. An ICEE spokesperson, who offered a program that the teacher had taken years ago, spoke about the lessons kids learned: “The basics of operating their own business, the fact you’ve got to produce a product customers want and counter the cost of resources you need.” The spokesperson claimed the exercises like that at Mayflower Mill highlight real issues which sometimes get lost in teaching more dominant subjects.

I wonder if students learned anything about the historic role of organized labor in the state, high unemployment in Indiana, growing economic inequality, the 40-year deindustrialization of the state economy, and the differences in economic opportunity between African Americans, other minorities, and whites, and between men and women.

Almost accidentally, I accessed stories about political struggles from 2004 until today at my old high school, Senn High School, in Chicago. It seems that the high school which over 40 years ago was white and middle class is now populated by young people from working class and poor African American, Latino, and immigrant families.

By the new century it was experiencing problems in reference to academics and social order. The authorities, the City alderwoman, the head of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, Mayor Daley, and the military came up with a “great” idea. They created in 2005, over the objections of students, teachers, and community activists, the Hyman Rickover Naval Academy which occupies a large physical space in the high school and has enrolled at least 25 per cent of the student population.

Meanwhile programs to teach English as a second language and advanced placement courses for college preparation were reduced. The teaching staff in the non-military portion of Senn High School was cut by 33 per cent. CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) continues to challenge the militarization of the Chicago school system.

In our communities we need to work in solidarity with those immediately involved in educational institutions. Where issues of militarism and economic orthodoxy shape school curricula our voices need to be heard. Our political agenda, in sum, needs to address as best our resources allow what we learn, how we learn it, and who controls the institutions that shape our thinking and the thinking of young people.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ’s articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Bill Fletcher tries to say he’s as much of an Obama critic as anyone, but his clear logical conclusion is that we must, in the end, support Obama in order to counter the Republican’s racism. I must disagree.

First, racism has been a cornerstone of Republican presidential campaigns since at least the passage of the Civil Rights Act, almost 50 years ago. The only thing new in 2012 is that they will employ that strategy this time against an incumbent who is 50% African American. It won’t work. Racism is no longer a winning strategy in US presidential elections. It has almost no traction among younger voters and the non-white segment of the electorate is growing ever larger. Obama backers are praying for a Haley Barbour or Michelle Bachman to run against.

Secondly, efforts by both capitalist parties to minimize the vote are even more longstanding. Why do you think we vote on a Tuesday, a workday, instead of on a weekend or, better yet, declaring election day to be a national holiday – and that this is not even controversial? Voter ID campaigns are primarily directed at Latinos, who will be the principal focus of Republican racism in the 2012 campaign under the guise of “securing our borders” so only white people can cross them unencumbered.

More importantly, the real issues of 2012 are Obama’s slavish subordination to finance capital and the complete corruption of US presidential elections by unrestricted corporate campaign contributions. This morning, there is an article in the press about how Eric Holder, head of the “Justice Department” and another sold out African American, has, despite his early vows to do so, has failed to prosecute a single Wall Street financier for the fraudulent manipulations that led to the collapse of the speculative bubble in 2008. Never has it been more true that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the dominant capitalist parties.

But even more important is the corruption of the entire federal electoral system by corporate money in the wake of the Citizens United decision. To even participate in this travesty is to lend credence to fraud. Obama won’t need an army of small contributors (such as I was in 2008) in 2012. He has commitments for a cool billion from his billionaire buddies already in the bank. Nor will he need the army of progressive volunteers such as I was in 2008, instead reverting to the standard American way of vacuous 30 second television advertisements.

Nothing positive will come from the Left supporting a third party candidate either. The physics of our system dictates two parties fighting over what they collude to call the center. Furthermore, there is no credible third party. Those that exist have little structure, no money and unknown leadership. To participate is to agree to play a rigged game. Your odds are better buying lottery tickets.

The strategy of the Left should be to attack the system itself – to mount a vigorous and militant campaign to delegitimize the electoral process as corrupt. Millions of Americans of all political stripes hold this view already. This would involve picketing polling places, ballot mutilation, and confrontations with all candidates over the nature of their funding. There could be no more unifying, mobilizing and radical issue than democracy itself, or the lack thereof.

David P. Hamilton

Bill Fletcher tries to say he’s as much of an Obama critic as anyone, but his clear logical conclusion is that we must, in the end, support Obama in order to counter the Republican’s racism. I must disagree.

First, racism has been a cornerstone of Republican presidential campaigns since at least the passage of the Civil Rights Act, almost 50 years ago. The only thing new in 2012 is that they will employ that strategy this time against an incumbent who is 50% African American. It won’t work. Racism is no longer a winning strategy in US presidential elections. It has almost no traction among younger voters and the non-white segment of the electorate is growing ever larger. Obama backers are praying for a Haley Barbour or Michelle Bachman to run against.

Secondly, efforts by both capitalist parties to minimize the vote are even more longstanding. Why do you think we vote on a Tuesday, a workday, instead of on a weekend or, better yet, declaring election day to be a national holiday – and that this is not even controversial? Voter ID campaigns are primarily directed at Latinos, who will be the principal focus of Republican racism in the 2012 campaign under the guise of “securing our borders” so only white people can cross them unencumbered.

More importantly, the real issues of 2012 are Obama’s slavish subordination to finance capital and the complete corruption of US presidential elections by unrestricted corporate campaign contributions. This morning, there is an article in the press about how Eric Holder, head of the “Justice Department” and another sold out African American, has, despite his early vows to do so, has failed to prosecute a single Wall Street financier for the fraudulent manipulations that led to the collapse of the speculative bubble in 2008. Never has it been more true that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the dominant capitalist parties.

But even more important is the corruption of the entire federal electoral system by corporate money in the wake of the Citizens United decision. To even participate in this travesty is to lend credence to fraud. Obama won’t need an army of small contributors (such as I was in 2008) in 2012. He has commitments for a cool billion from his billionaire buddies already in the bank. Nor will he need the army of progressive volunteers such as I was in 2008, instead reverting to the standard American way of vacuous 30 second television advertisements.

Nothing positive will come from the Left supporting a third party candidate either. The physics of our system dictates two parties fighting over what they collude to call the center. Furthermore, there is no credible third party. Those that exist have little structure, no money and unknown leadership. To participate is to agree to play a rigged game. Your odds are better buying lottery tickets.

The strategy of the Left should be to attack the system itself – to mount a vigorous and militant campaign to delegitimize the electoral process as corrupt. Millions of Americans of all political stripes hold this view already. This would involve picketing polling places, ballot mutilation, and confrontations with all candidates over the nature of their funding. There could be no more unifying, mobilizing and radical issue than democracy itself, or the lack thereof.