Note: This entry was originally posted on May 24, 2004. Due to a technical problem I have had to re-post this entry on June 26, 2004. Unfortunately all comments were lost.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights they were concerned about creating a government that would have the power to control the mind, actions and ideas of individual citizens. That is why our freedom of religion, press, and speech were guaranteed in the Constitution. Unfortunately our Founding Fathers (wise as they often were) did not foresee a much more sinister problem-- non-governmental censorship.
I remember censorship being an important issue to me when I was younger. But it was a very different time. A different Bush was in the White House and the issue of the time was censorship of music. That's right, it was the era of Madonna's "Justify My Love" video and 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny." MTV had refused to show Madonna's video and 2 Live Crew's album was being banned from store shelves in Florida. Just a few years before, Frank Zappa had testified before the U.S. Senate about "Parental Advisory" labels. Also, my high school newspaper tried to censor a student-written article about STDs and condoms. This is what I thought censorship was. I thought it involved government agencies like the FCC, school boards and state legislatures. It often involved debates about whether Huckleberry Finn should be removed from school libraries because it contains the word "nigger."
Now Dubya is in the White House and the media landscape has changed a lot. There are a few large corporations controlling most of the U.S. media. Those few media outlets that are not owned by large corporations are still required to promote pro-corporate values or they risk upsetting their advertisers. Pro-business agendas are frequently right wing agendas. The current conglomeration of the media has allowed for a whole new kind of censorship. Now we have censorship by our news-media organizations, which are also often our entertainment-media organizations.
The reports about air quality in New York City after September 11 are a particularly nasty example of this corporate-media disinformation. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a press release saying that the air-quality in lower Manhattan was safe. According to FAIR, New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzalez attempted to investigate the EPA's claims. He was demoted for his work. It appears that independent reporting and journalism take a back seat to the needs of the big corporations. Of course big business wanted everything on Wall Street up and running as soon as possible so that they could make more money. People went back to work and back to their homes in lower Manhattan believing that they were safe. (Source: http://www.fair.org/extra/0303/fear-favor-2003.html). Now we know that many people, especially rescue and cleanup crews are paying a heavy price.
More recently the Disney corporation (which also own ABC News) has refused to distribute Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 911. Disney claims that it just doesn't want to be involved in the distribution of a political film during an election year. I might be willing to buy that on some level, but since Disney is receiving tax breaks from the State of Florida and Jeb Bush is governor of Florida I find it a bit hard to swallow. But really, how can the American public not be talking about this? The movie takes its name from Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 which is a great work of American literature (that just happens to be about censorship). Wake up folks! Bradbury's fictional vision is starting to become reality. If ideas can continue to be controlled this way, we will have lost our freedom. There's only one remedy--Public Backlash!
Note: This entry was originally posted on May 19, 2004. Due to a technical problem this entry was reposted on June 26, 2004. Unfortunately all comments were lost..
Over this past week there has been a lot of commentary about the state of our nation's public education system. This commentary has coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended segregation in our public schools. Many believed that integration was all that was needed to close the skills gap between African American and Caucasian students. Unfortunately fifty years after integration began minority students still perform lower on standardized tests than their white counterparts. Why is this still the case and what can we do to fix it?
Does taking a poor, minority student with low test scores and sending them to a school on the other side of town that is predominantly white, affluent and high test scores make the student's skills any better? Of course not! Yet that's exactly how we've been trying to remedy the situation. At this point that's how No Child Left Behind works too. If a school is failing parents have the option of moving their children to a different public school. That way the child's poor skills get averaged in with his/her new classmates who have higher skills. It's just like applying makeup to the bags under my eyes.
I have an idea that may help the situation. Studies have shown that the teachers working in poorer areas (and areas with a high concentration of minorities) are less experienced than teachers in more affluent school districts. So we need to get more experienced teachers to work in these locations, but how can we do that. Of course we could offer master teachers more money, but would an established teacher working near their home be willing to change jobs for a few extra dollars? I don't think so. Instead, I propose that we change the way new teachers are trained. Instead of a prospective teacher spending a semester doing student teaching, maybe they should work as an apprentice with a master teacher for a year or two. There are two benefits to this plan. First, the new teacher is getting more classroom experience so that they're not as wet behind the ears when they enter the classroom. Second the students in classrooms with apprentices are getting more individual attention because they have an additional person assisting their regular teacher.
I don't really expect this plan to be implemented nationwide any time soon. Universities and teacher's colleges have spent a lot of time and money (often tax money) making the profession of teaching more academic than professional.
Note: This entry was originally posted on May 12, 2004. Due to a problem with the system this entry has been reposted on June 26, 2004. I was not able to restore comments. I am sorry.
When the first pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison were publicly shown, the reaction of everyone who has any regard for humanity was the same. The shock was tough here in the U.S. Many of us who have opposed the Iraq war have been able to sleep at night because we had faith in our own citizens to do the right thing. We believed that our well-trained troops had enough of their own will left to stand up and say, “This is inhumane treatment. I’m not required to follow these orders.” We were always taught that principals of civil rights, human dignity and freedom were worth going to jail for or dying for. It is also nearly impossible to believe that these inexperienced interrogators were committing these abuses on their own.
Last night on “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn” one of the guests asked where they got the items they were using for the torture. When did dog leashes and black hoods become standard army issue? I suppose the items may have been in the prison before the U.S. occupied it, but who would give our forces the idea to use them. I could believe that anyone could figure out ways to abuse prisoners with just about anything. However, I’m not convinced that soldiers lacking training in the specifics of Middle Eastern culture and interrogation techniques would be able to figure out the most efficient ways to make prisoners feel emasculated and embarrassed. It’s also hard to believe that they found an English language interrogation manual left over from Saddam’s regime. My best guess is that our young, inexperienced soldiers were told specifically what to do by their superiors, intelligence officials or mercenaries
The thing that frightens me about the way this whole scandal is playing out is its politicization. The investigations need to be done carefully and thoroughly but that will not be happening. The Democrats are going to want a speedy investigation to uncover every mistake the Bush Administration made before the election in November. The Republicans are also going to want a quick investigation followed by quick trials in which Americans are convicted of abuse (and possibly war crimes) to make it appear as though they have done everything in their power to stop the abuse and punish the guilty. That way they look good on Election Day. This should not be about saving face. A quick investigation would be nothing but a public relations tactic.
This investigation should be slow and thorough. Investigators need to walk softly to get witnesses to talk. Certainly there were troops who have refused to follow such orders. If investigators are shouting loudly and waving big sticks they are going to cause those witnesses to be intimidated (or worse) before they have a chance to talk. Just as bad, we may convict innocent soldiers (who are just barely adults) of crimes they did not commit. We need to be just as careful about exonerating the innocent as we are about bringing justice to the guilty. In addition, we need to be sure all of our troops have a full understanding of the Geneva Convention and the rules of interrogation and warfare. Even a truck mechanic can find themselves in a war zone and expected to interrogate suspects. We need to take that into account for future training.