The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’ or ‘Corporate Bandit’

All secure behind closed doors we have seen and heard you Mitt, chumming with your choice of friendlies - ultra-rich supporters. You told us in Tampa you were a man of goodwill and great benevolence. We know the story of the Good Samaritan… However, now we know you, Mitt… You are not that kind of benefactor. You are the worst kind of Taker not a Giver. Some stories/parables from a Christian’s childhood Bible Stories are indelible and belief driving. The parable of the Good Samaritan is just exactly one of those powerful life teachings.

Good Acts and Civic Good – But Does It Pay? The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows even the ‘unbelievers’ have the capacity for economic-free empathy (Georg Pencz Engraving 1543)

Christ told this illusive story to draw out the real meaning of his ministry and God’s wishes for believers. The truth Christ said is that even a man who practices a “cult” religion (Samaritans were a labeled a “sect” for “unorthodox religious practices” during the time of Jesus and where therefore social outcasts)--is more compassion and understanding about human needs and poverty than the Pharisees and the Sadducees of Christ’s own orthodox Jewish practitioners and leaders at the time. The Good Samaritan parable arose out of a challenge given Jesus by a lawyer who confronted him about his ministry and unorthodox practices (such as eating with prostitutes and tax collectors).

Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind “[Deuteronomy 6:5]; and “your neighbor as yourself” [Leviticus 19:18]." He said to him, "You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" — Luke 10:25–29, World English Bible

Given this challenge Jesus replied with this parable/teaching story:

Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbour to him who fell among the robbers?" He said, "He who showed mercy on him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Note who did not intervene or help out: A religious priest, and then a lawyer. However, a Samaritan (a heretic member of a religious sect and outcast in the eyes of Jews to whom Jesus was speaking) was “moved with compassion” and “took care of him.” A “Good Samaritan” cares deeply about “victims.”

Sermonizing some pastor Sunday may obtain or gain insight expanding upon this parable for our times. She or he might skip over to refer also to that other story that expounds upon the relationship of the rich to the poor, The Rich Man & Lazarus. (See McGuffey: "The Blind-eyed Marriage of the Conservative Churches to the Excessive & Corrupt Business Practices") Yet using the Good Samaritan as an anchor, the good pastor can illuminate the power of the parable - educated and able men pass by those who have fallen among thieves and pass along indifferent and unmoved by such, a victim.

Those thieves the pastor may chance to connect with the Koch Brothers. who have stolen the clean air and pure water from those who work in their life threatening and notorious, heavily EPA-fined dirty manufacturing and cancer-causing petro operations/leaking pipeline facilities slung across America, many inflicting death and suffering on both Koch workers and communities surrounding them.

Or the pastor could refer to those clever manipulators of corporatocracy (Corporatist Job Thieves) whose lobbying and bribery (ALEC) for loophole and financial friendly legislation seeks laws and regulations which allow them to “steal” the jobs, livelihoods, and local places of employment from working families in order for their own “harvesting” of such community wealth as Mitt has so successfully done in the name of “free enterprise.” (See the video from the 1980’s were Mitt actually uses the term “harvest” when exalting in his shrewd methodology to his backers). These men are the same cut as the “robbers” in Christ’s parable.

One indication of Romney’s involvement in untoward activity and collaboration in the building Bain Capital includes the following:

“After initially struggling to find investors, Romney traveled to Miami in 1983 to win pledges of $9 million, 40 percent of Bain’s start-up money. Some investors had extensive ties to the death squads responsible for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador during the '80s. The investors include the Salaverria family, [whom] former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, has previously accused of directly funding the Salvadoran paramilitaries. In his memoir, former Bain executive Harry Strachan writes Romney pushed aside his own misgivings about the investors to accept their backing. Strachan writes, quote, ‘These Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital.’"

Source: On Democracy Now the piece “Romney’s Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched with Millions from Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities”, August 10, 2012.

Let us not forget that super rich cabal that in 1913 persuaded Woodrow Wilson to allow the federal banking system to be privatized and put into the Federal Reserve System. Those same wealthy manipulators did in fact pull or harvest their “takings” from the 1929 stock market crash just prior to The ‘29 Crash, thus using insider information and skills, protecting their wealth and holdings. But at what horrendous human cost and the sowing of the seeds of WW II, a time of high crime against the entire world.

Let’s return to the meaning found in the narrative of the “Good Samaritan”.

Seeing a badly injured man, the victim of a crime, along the roadside is one thing. But notice what Christ said. Look. See. Who was it that decided to observe and assess the man’s conditions of need and simply pass on indifferently?

The entire point of the GOP National Convention in Tampa would appear to be an attempt to “sell” Mitt Romney as a very generous man. Mitt: the benevolent Mormon Bishop. Mitt: the caring family man, etc. Then came Romney’s 47% damning Revelation:

“All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what."

These, Romney’s closed door revelations, were so shocking that Dr. Gregory Prince, a Mormon Historian and powerful defender of his religion, was compelled to proclaim, “Mitt Romney is not the face of Mormonism.” Dr. Prince:

“The issue of Romney's Mormon faith has never gone away, although its presence has waxed and waned as other issues have come and gone. How -- or if -- he chooses to use his religion as part of his public biography is up to him, but the fact that he is the only Mormon ever to be the nominee for the Presidency of a major political party makes it inevitable that even if people do not judge him because of his religion, they will judge his religion because of him. Given the unfolding news of this week, I regret to say that Mitt Romney is not the face of Mormonism.” (Emphasis Added)

So in his Quixotic Campaign Mitt has now devastatingly failed to redeem his father and has, in-fact, brought irreparable damage to his own precious Mormonism tradition. He’s a disgrace; having lost face in his own America, a nation that has never fully understood his cult religion and its place in society.

 Is it any wonder Wife, Ann Romney, would reveal on CBS that she has become very anxious over Mitt’s mental and emotional abilities to carry out the burdens of office, if elected? A lot has been made over the fact that Mitt is clearly more “centered” and “himself” when he’s campaigning accompanied by Paul Ryan and/or Ann, his wife.

 It is more than abundantly clear Mitt is in a unrelenting bind. He cannot control the radical GOP Apparatchiks (Operatives) “not of grand plans, but of a hundred carefully executed details”] who are determined to elect him to act as a figurehead ready to cooperate with an extremist anti-government agenda. That is, they are determined to elect a Republican if only as a compliant “document signer” for their planned radical legislation ala the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC’s nationwide agenda and the checklist of the Tea Party’s anti-government blitzkrieg coup d'etat. Now the “Mormon Candidate”, Mitt Romney, once portrayed as a kind and compassionate “Good Samaritan, ” falls prey to his own greed and duplicity--the dangerous vicissitudes of vicious politics. This is a crushing blow to Romney, a man on a crusade to save and rebuild his beloved father’s broken legacy, elevate, and authenticate in the eyes of the nation and the world his own Mormon Faith and bolster his father’s honor as a political leader well-suited to have been elected U.S. President back in 1968. How personally tragic and very, very sad for Mitt! Ann Romney has every reason to worry over the mental well-being of her Mitt; this man has been on the road to the presidency for six long slogging years, far too long to survive without fissures and stress due to the contortions and reversals of personal beliefs/religious training, and ambitions that such a grueling task exacts from a man whose main purpose in life may well-be to find his own place out from under his father's political shadow and avenge his father’s tragic and ignominious rejection from the 1968 GOP Presidential Nomination.

George Romney Campaign Slogan in 1968 – “Great for 68”

Michigan’s Gov. George Romney was rudely ejected from the process ostensibly because of Gov. G.W.R’s statement that he had been “brainwashed” by military brass that were determined to take the nation further into that horrible Vietnam War. It was a war Gov. George Romney abjured as a high quality Mormon on basic Mormon principles and would have no doubt changed the military execution thereof and possibly withdrawn the U.S. from Vietnam as its Commander-in-Chief:

“Initially, (George) Romney supported the Vietnam War, but after a 1965 trip there, he began to question the mission, feeling he had been ‘brainwashed’ by military officials. In August 1967, he articulated his opposition to the war.”

Source: Wikipedia, George W. Romney Campaign 1968 Mormonism, as a religion, has a conflict with serving in the military writes one Mormon; war and killing:

“…(T)here has always been an uneasy alliance between Mormon attitudes about serving in the military and religious devotion. President Spencer W. Kimball famously taught: "We (Americans) are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” - (Matthew 5:44–45)" “For many there is a person who kills for country or a traitorous coward. There are no positive terms for a non-combat hometown warrior, peace soldier, or citizen diplomat.” (Emphasis Added)

The exposure of Mitt’s most intimate thoughts concerning and defining the 47% of Americans whose support he forfeits, which Romney identified in Boca Raton as never voting for his candidacy and, coupled with the insider knowledge that his “cult” status as a Mormon was, and is, blocking his hoped-for plurality in the Deep South. This presents an intransient obstacle to his election. From a Brooking Institution Study titled “Does Mitt Romney have a ‘Religious Problem” in May 2012:

“Decades of polling has shown that Mormon candidates face steep obstacles in the American electorate. Roughly one in five Americans say they would not vote for a generally well-qualified nominee for their party who happened to be a Mormon according to Gallop surveys going back to 1967.”] , where “white” Evangelicals [by wide margins according to the Brookings Study make sure “Things are worse in the South, a region with especially high shares of Evangelical Christians. Romney lost Evangelicals (in the 2012 primaries) by 35 points in Louisiana, 33 points in Georgia, 24 points in South Carolina, and 16 points in Tennessee, carrying none of these states).”

Apparently there is a big problem here for Mitt. Southern far-right-religious will not back Mitt and in protest against his “cultist” status –they may “sit this one out”, may refuse to vote for president all together, despite the efforts of the Southern Baptist Convention via Dr. Richard Land’s attempts to assuage his some sixteen million SBC members to see Mormonism as a noble Fourth Abrahamic Religion-not a unique and suspect American Nativist non-Christian Cult, and vote, not for Romney but, directly against a “Black” Barack Obama (believing they are “saving American Exceptionalism” from a Socialist). Actual context of Dr. Land’s Statement:

“As controversy over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith continues to stir among conservatives and other candidates ahead of tomorrow night’s debate, some have questioned whether Mormons can be considered true Christians. “According to Richard Land, President of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the answer is no. “Most Evangelical Protestants and most conservative Catholics would say no, it is not,’ Land told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, refuting the notion that Mormonism is a Christian faith. ‘It is another religion. It does not have an orthodox view of the Trinity and the full and complete deity of Jesus Christ.’” He continued: “Perhaps the best way to look at Mormonism is it is the fourth Abrahamic religion. Joseph Smith playing the role of Muhammad, and the Book of Mormon playing the role of the Quran.”

That rancorous old political street fighter and cultural warrior, Pat Buchanan, has weighed in the following manner, in direct reference to the role race plays in the Southern Baptist Convention and the nostalgic Deep South. Joan Walsh, on July 25, 2012 in Salon:

“Remember that Pat Buchanan has compared the Tea Partiers to “George Wallace voters,” and bragged that he won them over to Nixon. Buchanan and [FOX’s Roger] Ailes are trying to do it again, and having a black Democrat in the White House makes them think it will be even easier this time. “Honestly, it won’t be easier. There are too many people of every race who are genuinely not racist, or open to naked racial appeals. I truly believe the vast majority of American voters will judge Obama on his accomplishments or lack thereof in 2012, not the color of his skin. But older white voters scared by social change are a small but reliable base for [FOX’s] Ailes and Buchanan to rely on.”

In another Salon Piece on February 2, 2010, Joan Walsh reported this bit of background:

“I reminded Buchanan that I covered a local tea party last year and worked hard to acknowledge the economic populism and anti-corporate-bailout sentiment animating some of the demonstrators. Whatever. But my favorite part of the debate was when Buchanan bragged about capturing the George Wallace vote for his boss, Richard Nixon, and I called that the “racist” vote. (For the kids, George Wallace was the Alabama governor who preached “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” and stood in the doorway at the University of Alabama to prevent black students from entering in 1963. He ran for president as an independent in 1968 and won five Southern states; Nixon and Buchanan clawed many of his supporters back in 1972, after an assassination attempt put Wallace in a wheelchair.) “Calling the Wallace vote ‘racist’ enraged Buchanan too, and he countered that those racists had voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. I acknowledged many of them did: Johnson lost them when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and he probably knew it at the time, famously remarking (although I can’t find a reliable source for the famous remark) that he’d delivered the South to the Republicans for a long time. Right about then Matthews called time on our segment. “You can dismiss this as dumb cable TV chatter, or ancient history, and that’s your right. But I would urge you not to do either. By bragging about his success in winning the racist Wallace vote for Nixon way back when, Buchanan is (perhaps unconsciously) admitting the through-line from that racist GOP segment through the birthers and extreme anti-Obama tea partiers of today. It’s a remarkable admission. We should pay attention to it.”

How exasperating and angering it must be for so many of those nativist Americans-who still hold racial prejudice and intolerance for Mormonism--a religion outside “born again” Christianity—who have only two major choices in their interpretation of the choices for president in November 2012: Vote for a Cultist or vote against a Black! Historic race between a “Sect-ist” Romney and a “Black” Barack Obama raises a very bifurcated dilemma for the Southern Evangelical American voter . Southern Baptists in particular can vote either against their settled doctrine condemning “sects” or express their “racism” by voting against America’s first black president. Again Brookings:

“Those supposedly anti-Romney voters are among the least supportive of the president. Only one in four, Evangelical Christians has favorable opinions of Obama. (FOX News-Roger Ailes-Racist) Indeed, among Republicans who do not think of Mormons as Christians—that is, the subgroup believed most predisposed against Romney—fully 92% have unfavorable opinions of Barack Obama.” *

*Note: This information is as of May 2012, some of that opposition to Pres. Obama may be changing due to the Romney/Ryan full-frontal attacks on Social Security.  

Guest commentary cross-posted with permission to Kos.

On the Reader:
See the VIDEO of Mitt Romney while at Bain Capital talking  about 'harvesting' profits or read the analysis from the Brookings Institution on Mitt Romney's religion and politics
“Does Mitt Romney have a ‘Religious Problem'”.

Related Slates:
Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers' Sterling Civic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - Mitt Romney: America’s Nascent Holy “god” & Possible President? (February 2012) - Welcome to Planet Willard: Michigan's Wayward Son Mitt Romney to Rule His Own World (January 2012) and more on Mitt Romney and his father George Romney on the Gazette.

Déjà Vu (Part 2): Buchanan's Pitch of Racial Undertones - "Suicide of a Superpower" a GOP Dog Whistle

MSNBC Sacked Pat Buchanan - Why? His "Suicide of a Superpower" & other of Pat's - Dusty Books (filled with racism, and bigotry) have found their way into the subtext of GOP Candidate's stump speeches and unscripted comments: Too much renewed interest in Buchanan’s racist & anti-immigrant rants, raises public awareness of the GOP’s "dog whistle" use of race as a  conservative voter stimulant. This harms the unity of the country and even dooms the GOP candidate in November, whoever he is.

Continued commentary on the struggles of the religious right with their candidates in the GOP Presidential Primary with comparisons back to 1996 campaign of Pat Buchanan. Pat has acted as a tapeworm in the bowels of our body politic for a very, very long time. His Cultural War speech in Houston, 1992 was but one strong example of how his exulted hyperbole and propensity for partisan fisticuffs has bruised our republic-with all respect to free speech.

"I'm like a Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois over there (at MSNBC)"
-- Excerpted from Buchanan's mea culpa to Glenn Beck concerning his (former) employment at MSNBC (10/28/11)

Ironic that the old Cultural Warrior and Race Baiter would use this analogy: The Iroquois being "an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America. (T)he Iroquoian... coalesced as distinct tribes, by the 16th century or earlier, they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the 'League of Peace and Power.'" (Wiki)

SEE ALSO PART 1 - Déjà Vu All Over Again: A Flashback to Another Fiery & Bizarre Michigan GOP Primary

Been here before: "The Suicide of the West" by former Marxist,
turned radical right conservative author James Burnham (1964)

AAP's David Bauder, AP Television Writer, reported (2.17.12):

"MSNBC dropped conservative commentator Pat Buchanan on Thursday, four months after suspending him following the publication of his latest book.

"Buchanan's "book "Suicide of a Superpower" contained chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America." Critics called the book racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic, charges Buchanan denied.

"MSNBC President Phil Griffin said last month that he didn't think Buchanan's book "should be part of the national dialogue, much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC."

See also this video clip of Pat Buchanan as he ruminates with Glenn Beck, who pontificates to Pat that President Obama is a "Marxist" while pitching his latest book "Suicide of a Superpower".

Power of the apocalypse: Tools of right wing encoded messaging
and political power in Buchanan's "Suicide of a Superpower"

Buchanan's recent chapter, "The Death of White America" is a textbook example of "dog whistle" and "bat language" to radicalized Republicans promoting racial fears. And should be outed for what it is.

The old warrior has fallen on his own sword.

Pat Buchanan Trumpets “The End of White America”

Pat Buchanan's key jabs, quotes, and factoids are often "clip and paste" in a clever and twisted manner from liberal or progressive sources to aggregate them cleverly into his edgyand provocative, radical racist premise found in his 2011 book, Suicide of a Superpower.

The following points taken from Buchanan's chapter four entitled "The End of White America":

• The Year 2042 is "the white peoples deadline," engenders the fears in the white minority
• Race is the real source of the over-the-top rage
• Beginnings of a 30 year racial struggle
• The Tea Party's Town Hall events were almost all white.
• What is coming is a "national existential reordering"; May cause "some Americans run off the rails"
• Last gasp of White America..."your time is limited, real damn limited..."
• "As long as you think you are white there is no hope for you" " co-opting Baldwin's quote
• Obama's 2008 victory-Payback for white bigotry
• 2009 Blue collared men have lost pace;-Blue collared white men have lost the largerportion of jobs (510K jobs lost), 17% of illegal aliens now own jobs
• Plurality of Americans lost confidence in the Federal Government
• Election sweep in 2010: WHITES MADE UP OVER 3/4ths of the vote nationally, In the South 2010, Whites voted Republican 73 to 27 Democratic
• White Democratic national congressmen from the Deep South are close to becoming extinct
• If there's an epicenter of angst it is "among Whites without college degrees" 64% of whom blamed the government in Washington

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"The atmosphere in this recording is, as you may expect, dark, grim, apocalyptic."

Source: Alternative Right (Alternative Right's founder, Richard B. Spencer, was formerly an editor at The American Conservative magazine and Taki's Magazine. AltRight became a media project of the National Policy Institute).

Pat Buchanan is...

"(t)he author of six New York Times bestsellers traces the disintegration to three historic changes: America's loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation.

"America was born a Western Christian republic, writes Buchanan, but is being transformed into a multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic stew of a nation that has no successful precedent in the history of the world.

"'Where once we celebrated the unity, the melting pot and shared experience, that the Depression and World War gave us, our elites today proclaim, 'OUR DIVERSITY IS OUR GREATEST STRENGTH!'- EVEN AS RACIAL, RELIGIOUS, AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY ARE TEARING NATIONS TO PIECES.'
(emphasis added)

Buchanan book quotes:

"'Rejecting the commitment to a God-given equality of rights for all as inadequate, our government is engaged in the manic pursuit of equality of rewards, as it seeks to erect an egalitarian utopia that has never before existed. Less and less do we Americans have in common. More and more do we fight over religion, morality, politics, history, and heroes.

And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars.'

"How Americans are killing the country they profess to love, and the fate that awaits us if we do not turn around, is what Suicide of a Superpower is all about."

Source: Amazon Book Description

Back to the future: Pat Buchanan's version
of Burnham's sixties spirit in "The Death of the West" (2001)

Couching his ruminations and anger in religious terms and emotions, Buchanan tries to seed great fear and anxiety into the minds of the country, specifically targeting the minds and emotions of the radical religious right - a vocal mob who are the most reliable GOP base, the uber-loyal voting bloc, the angry Teapartisans of 2010.

Currently Rad Religious Radicals are seeking a way forward out of a disoriented electorate embarrassing itself here in the spring of 2012, behind all of that confusion and angst is a strand of Buchanan's race fear.


Background Reading:
James Burnham, author of "The Suicide of the West" (1964) just one of many quotes from Burnham:

"Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow."
-- James Burnham in The Suicide of the West (1964)

In a later book, "The Machiavellians", [James Burnham] argued and developed his theory that the emerging new elite would better serve its own interests if it retained some democratic trappings - political opposition, a free press, and a controlled 'circulation of the elites'." (Wiki)


Review of "Suicide of the West" by Morton Blackwell at the conservative "Leadership Institute":

"First published in the early sixties, "Suicide of the West" is a withering indictment of liberalism.  Far from serving as a bulwark against communism, liberalism, Burnham shows, is the ideology of Western suicide, communism in its preliminary stage.  Though Soviet communism has collapsed, liberalism remains, and as long as it does, Suicide of the West should be read by conservatives."

On the Reader:
A series of articles on Pat Buchanan over the years at The New Republic (1990-2009). Also Pat Buchanan book "The Death of the West" (2000) read a synopsis.

The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement by Eric Heubeck based on the writing and teaching of Paul Weyrich founder of the Heritage Foundation, CNP, ALEC and a number of other right wing institutions, on the complete defeat of "the Left" referred to by Newt Gingrich as "replacement of the Left".

PART 1 - Déjà Vu All Over Again: A Flashback to Another Fiery & Bizarre Michigan GOP Primary


Original Part 2A and Part 2B.

St. Santorum Fails the Defender of Truth Test

Rick Santorum knows by heart the definition & meaning of "sin of omission." His failure to correct or rebut the angry, benighted cottonhead, who spewed vicious hate speech and bashing and libeling President Obama, is a gigantic fissure in his vaunted "values" image.

Is the distant possibility of the Presidency or the offer of the position of candidate for Vice President on a 2012 GOP ticket more important to Santorum than the chance he forfeited to be a courageous guardian of truth and decency?

Pragmatic omission has trumped Santorum's lengthy claim to the "moral high ground." With this one glaring omission and his milquetoast attempt to justify his grievous omission and error at the moment the incident occured will haunt Rick to the last days of his life.

Angry curmudgeon and hate-ranter woman in the audience:

"I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not. He constantly says that our constitution is passé, and he ignores it as you know and does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim and my question is, why isn't something being done to get him out of government? He has no legal right to be calling himself president."

To make things worse. Santorum, by not rebutting the lying woman, built on the power and momentum of her assertion and cleverly joined in on her verbal thrust. Added immediately by Rick Santorum:

"Well look, I'm doing my best to get him out of the government right now.... And you're right about how he uniformly ignores the constitution. He did this with these appointments over the recess that was not a recess, and if I was in the United States Senate I would be drawing the line."

Were Santorum a genuine man of integrity and greater courage he would have reacted as did Sen. McCain during his 2008 campaign: Republican John McCain directly confronted an angry woman who at that time pejoratively described Mr. Obama as an "Arab" by saying:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man ... [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

The weak courage displayed by Santorum's meek excuse for his omission of an instant "moral challenge" is highly revealing: "I don't feel it's my obligation every time someone says something I don't agree with to contradict them, and the President's a big boy, he can defend himself and his record..." In other words I chose to protect those of my supporters who agree with this angry woman, and I certainly don't want to offend them or lose their votes.

In other words, Santorum will shield his supporter(s), however malicious or in error. This he did in order to protect his media sound bite for the evening's news hour. He'd leave the world believing he didn't know the answer to the woman's assertion. Or did he choose to simply refuse to defend the President under sharp attack, thus giving the distinct impression, he Santorum (smiling) relished this savage attack on the President's character? Coupled with Santorum's reference to the President as a "big boy" Rick's demeaner smacks of a deeper and far more troubling subliminal, instantaneous, instinctive approving rejoinder; revealing a very dangerous biased interpretation from deep within Santorum.

How simple would it have been for Santorum to say he's our President and an honorable Christian man; then defend Obama's honor with the whole truth?

But "(r)ather than disagreeing with the questioner or correcting her assertion by reminding her that President Obama is in fact a Christian, Santorum ignored the more controversial parts of her question." Observed Lee Bailey's EuroWeb site.

St. Santorum, the "values" endorsee of the Texas Religious Right 150 Coalition, has failed the moral courage test. Give Santorum a solid F- !

SEE Also: Let the government be the government & Let the church be the church.

Original.

Selling out Jesus: When Politics Trump Eternal Truth

This is in response to an increasing number of Evangelical endorsements of Newt Gingrich.

The Failure of Rev. Dr. Bill Monroe, Florence, South Carolina Fails to Defend His Christian Faith's Moral Standards Against Newt's Sexual History of Repeated Sexual Indiscretions Is a Serious Denial of Fundamentalist Beliefs

South Carolina is home to 2,100 Southern Baptist Churches with 670,000 members. It has apparently lost its authority and hold on itself to the moral high ground.

The moral high ground (Character Counts) has been abandoned by one of the state's most well-known T.V. minister and denominational leader, Pastor Bill Monroe. Why?

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More and more Baptists/Evangelicals/Pentecostals are slipping out of the yoke of rigid fundamentalism and going for a new polity, a religion driven and based on a Marketplace, economic model, abandoning the prior commitment to the sterling principles found in the Holy Bible.

The Evidence of Change (God Hopping) is Everywhere
Their new churches look and act like humongous country clubs with clergy who aspire to become media celebrities. Many newly-erected buildings are festooned with boutique names to hide their actual doctrines and denominational affiliations. Now, more and more, these formerly Fundamentalist congregations are simply formed as non-denominational, inter-denominational, or free form.

Mega Churches are choreographed with hi-tech congregational karaoke-style singing "praise songs and choruses" steeped in adoration and praise, filled with scant theological content, infused with high calorie emotionalism and passion. Intimacy with Jesus, confession of personal failure, an outpouring of neediness, and a plaintive cries for comfort are palpable. It's a tough world out there!

Mega Churches play a role as platforms/stages for commercialism, business networking, hard-driving Entrepreneurs and MLM recruiters.

Millions of dollars of books, tapes, DVD's and other paraphernalia are hawked in the vestibules. Some churches publish a Christian Directory to their members to keep the flow of business inside the flock.

Attending church represents a ripe business opportunity!

So in Low Country a gigantic shift has eroded away the standards and faith of the forefathers of faith there. Doubtless, the rough ride taken having endorsed and backed "Cowboy Christian" G.W. Bush took much of the shine off the concept of Christian-in-chief once enthusiastically ascribed to W.

Foggy denial is a perfect place to hide from the momentous and terrible carnage and human suffering laid at the feet of a "war of choice" George W. Bush-the man who claimed God's blessing and guidance in his political debacles and warmongering.

The tragic consequences of the Bush failures and willful mayhem lie openly at the feet of South Carolinians who were the first block of "values voters" to propel Bush into the 2000 Presidential Race.

The "values voters" egregious mistake: Putting their full "righteous" faith and confidence behind George W. Bush, knowing his weaknesses, alcoholism, drug use, insincerity, intoxicated debauchery and loose/wild-living prior to his pronouncement of personal "salvation" succeeded in suckering many.

A good salvation/redemption story is always a big hit, especially if it is coupled with a celebrity. The mantra became, "He's 'born-again'- now he's one of us."

Christian South Carolinians this presidential primary season "seem more pragmatic about choosing a candidate than they have before." They are making an adjustment. TODAY, BEING 'BORN-AGAIN' TAKES BACK SEAT TO 'ELECTABLE.'

Beat Obama is more sacred than beat the Devil: Politics trumps "born again" salvation as the highest value.

They want a candidate who "will be best suited to defeat President Obama, fix the economy and promote Republican values according to interviews with dozens of voters, analysts , elected officials and religious leaders" interviewed and reported by Serge F. Kovaleski of the New York Times. 1.18.12.

Perhaps it is beginning to dawn on South Carolina; the impact their humongous mistake in endorsing G.W. Bush. Failure to carefully examine W morally and politically; Evangelicals thereby dismissed certain attributes and flaws that would have otherwise have been clear red flags for them as to the flawed quality of Bush's leadership abilities and his weak intellectual acumen. America and the whole world have paid an incalculable price for their omission!

-----

The use of the "born again" miracle, as a prime reason for a political endorsement, seems not to factor as much in their rush to embrace the sexually addicted Newt Gingrich here in 2012.

Some Fundamentalists seem to have chosen to accept the mode of redemption that Newt has adapted for his moral scrub-up.

Does Newt's use of the Roman Catholic system of long and expensive, legalized annulment(s) to enter the realm of the "redeemed" strike on authentic note with them? Newt's sins are now only "past history?" Newt's Catholic conversion, as described, is definitely not the Evangelical/Baptist equivalent of being "born again."

However, the compromise which "evangelicals" such as Dr. Bill Monroe have made by endorsing Newt, compounds their earlier compromised stance to overlook or ignore the glaring character flaws of W. Such sell-outs have now greased the rails, lowering the standards, to admit Gingrich to the place of religious acceptance and approval by "values voters" portends a tragic future and a nasty national election campaign and beyond. This process is taking a mighty toll on Fundamentalists' historic allegiance to the Bible and high moral standards.

"The Marketplace" has encroached upon the House of God and made it into a neo-pagan temple of commerce and politics.

The power and authority of the Ten Commandments has been abandoned - Commandment Number 7: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

Newt Gingrich's fancy footwork mitigating his sexual addictions and divorces has been brought to the forefront. Southern Baptists in the Evangelical block, e.g. 60% of South Carolina's GOP primary voters are Fundamentalist Christians. Voting for Gingrich in large numbers, they have abandoned truth and biblical principles based on literal truth found in the Bible. This is a serious lapse, a tell-tail indicator of coming problems for the denomination and "values" movement impacting its moral authority going forward.

Most "frequent church attendees" are apparently woefully ignorant of the basics of the Southern Baptist trademark: literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments and Scripture. Charge this up to the shift of its pastors and leadership, who have become more interested in single issues and winning at politics than doing the gospel work of encouraging and securing confessions of faith and teaching the unchanging Biblical laws for human behavior via helping people become "born again."

-----

How did the South Carolina Baptist leader Rev. Dr. Bill Monroe defend his endorsement for Gingrich?

1.) Pastor Monroe states "after meeting with Newt Gingrich, I believe he not only holds conservative values, but HE WILL FIGHT for them. His broad knowledge and experience in both foreign and domestic affairs give him a distinct edge over other conservatives and HE IS FAR AND AWAY THE BEST DEBATER which will be a critical factor in the upcoming Presidential debates. While I like Gov. Perry and Rick Santorum's conservative views, I BELIEVE NEWT GINGRICH IS THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE WHO CAN WIN. I WANT TO GIVE HIM MY UNQUALIFIED ENDORSEMENT." (emphasis added) 
-- PRESS RELEASE from: Newt 2012, 1.18.12

2.) "Though Monroe has endorsed Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential primary, he says the endorsement is personal and individual and does not represent an endorsement by his church as a whole."
-- WBTW News13


Original.

Disclaimer: This is in response to a number of recent evangelical endorsements of Newt Gingrich, and not meant to be an attack on Evangelicals or infringe on the right of any American to freely practice their own faith.

Plutonian Politics: Dionysian Newt v. Apollonian Barack

Newt's a clear victim of raging narcissism! Candidate Newt Gingrich is burdened with all the errors of unholy and now militant, aggressive, and angry hubris.

Newt is what Nietzsche scholars would label a “Dionysian”: Drawn from Greek mythology:  a man struggling with “his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate.”  “The Dionysian embraces the chaotic nature of … experience as all-important; not just on its own” subsequently and shrewdly utilizing and getting great pleasure derived from ordering about those around him.

Newt (portraying his struggle and envisioning his “heroic” attributes and special visions for himself as his” mission,”- to be the leader of the Free World-saving America and humanity from evils real and imagined)  is (in his own crazy private,  mythical world)  delusional.  It’s Newt’s world in which he truly believes he shares glory with Gen. George Patton and Winston Churchill!

Camille Paglia writes,

“The Dionysian is a force of chaos and destruction, which is the overpowering and alluring chaotic state of wild nature”…Writer Stephen King, “"I used the terms Apollonian (to suggest reason and the power of the mind) and Dionysian (to suggest emotion, sensuality, and chaotic action)” 

Source: Wiki on Apollonian and Dionysian.

America has no place for a Dionysian Wild Man in the White House.  None!

Barack, as an Apollonian leader, represents a man guided by “the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience.”

Newt, the Dionysian, and Barack, the Apollonian, represent sharp conflict in the present political battle. The fact that the “Dionysian and the Apollonian form a dialectic,” highlights the understanding, “they are (sharply) contrasting” conflicting, and in an ageless struggle for raw aggressive power versus creating beneficial change and recovery.

------

As boldly cast in Gingrich’s new battlefield-campaign banner, Newt promotes himself to the nation and the world as: "Newt the Fighter. The only Conservative who can beat Obama."

Gingrich's newly unveiled slogan. That bodacious claim, I can "beat" Obama, holds a double meaning: Win over one's opponent , but also reek harm and hurt upon the President-even, if limited, due to social convention, to the metaphorical sense of an old fashion "beating." This appeals perfectly, in an appalling manner, to many of the "toughs" who are anti-government and anti-equality and want Newt to "take off the gloves."

Characterized like Nietzsche was during his lifetime, Gingrich is an "Atavist run amok who should gather tigers and panthers about his knees" as Newt is wont to do (being a self-proclaimed maven of the ZOO), but Newt isn’t licensed to rally the Bible Thumpers with guns-at-the-ready, the roaming and self-contained/activated cells of militias all across America, wild-eyed men inspired and prompted by Gingrichian rants, all to march out of the palmetto swamps and rid America of the "Kenyan"-the closet “Muslim”

To wit:: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you piece together [his actions]?" -- Newt's Quip, September , 2010

-----

Like the strident Nietzsche, Gingrich denigrates the so-called "soft" approach to America’s challenges (Michael Borone: Hard America, Soft America), the nation's problems and civics. The issuance of "food stamps" hunger abatement to millions of Americans going hungry is but one example of the strict application of "harsh discipline" which Gingrich will mete out upon those who must work or not eat.

Newt's hard "disciplining model" of governance (select program eliminations) includes the adjunct-bashing "liberals" whom he despises. Those "soft" bleeding heart liberals are the nation's life guardians of men, women and children and their basic human needs and rights.

In turning a cold cheek away from human need and misery, Newt calls up with "increasing intensity" the "strong dark-side spirits" of the angry. Those of the disaffected filled with racial and economic angst. He speaks effectively to rally the disaffected to gather with him: "the Warrior."

"Join with me," Newt trumpets in a clarion call to mount a march, a crusade, against big government, elites, capitalists on Wall Street, and minorities who "refuse" to work, and a long list of other malefactious elements.

Knight Gingrich's militant march is built on his vain-glorious grandiosifying hope to become the "ubermensch." Gingrich aspires to become THE OVERMAN-who will mount the holy battle against the forces of evil.

This threatened political and cultural “war” includes the kinds of things Newt imagines are evilly engulfing America.

Now is a highly turbulent time, a period of economic depression in which Newt’s kind of  extremism appears to be "heroic" and erroneous ideology and misjudgments can seem like gospel. These "opportunities" Newt comprehends and relishes with a keen political predator's eye for prey.

Ruminate on this bold Newtonian utterance: "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." --The Atlanta Journal, 1994

Let’s not go thoughtlessly into the Plutonian Darkness of the 2012 Election unaware of the extreme nature of  the forces rallied by Gingrich and amassing against President Obama.


Original Part 1 and Part 2.

The 'Mouse' in the Room in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary Seeking the Defeat of Barack Obama

Why Are Libertarian Leaning Republicans, the GOP’s True BLUE R.I.N.O.’s, Suddenly Afraid of the ”Mouse” That Scares the 'B' Juses Out of Their Effort to Unseat Pres. Obama?

The "Mouse" in the elephant's cage is not really so small a fright as it once was back when Jerry Falwell joined Frank Schaeffer (Christian Right leaders such as Tim LaHaye have credited Schaeffer for influencing their theological arguments urging political participation by evangelicals. (American terrorist) Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, also acknowledged the influence of Schaeffer"- Wikipedia) together these two created a powerful coalition of values voters/so-called social conservatives who could join the Misogamy of Phyllis Schafley's anti-ERA crusade ("Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women" ) with the roiling Jim Crow sentiment that brought the Dixicrats into the Republican fold en mass under Barry Goldwater and Barry's ardent refusal to approve the Civil Rights legislation of the early 1960's.

Catering to the social conservative activists and pastor-led "church going voters"in Iowa has become a GIANT PROBLEM for the national Republican nomination process. Giving "social conservatives" the wheel and the driver's seat in legislation and candidate selection is seen as a clear path to SURE DEFEAT and the easy reelection of President Barack Obama.

An ardent Social Conservative may win the primary, and almost surely lose the November national election.

Always there has been the GOP Establishment's ability to slip stream, mollify, the anti-abortionists and ilk; just as every GOP president since Reagan has done so well. Now, having used this "morals issue" over and over, it's time to give the so-called "Social Conservatives" the big bone they are demanding, that they have worked so slavishly to obtain-a moral over-ride, cart blanche to enact any or all the raft of legislation these Hard/Harsh/Disciplining Fundamentalists, driven by "strong faith," desire.

The frothing desire of so-called "Social Conservatives" to enact all the oppressive and repressive laws and legislation they desire has the ability to stymie the Marketplace Corporatists (whose heyday of economic advantage has hidden under the skirts of "Social Conservatives." )

Here is the rub. If the "social conservatives" do not come out for a "strong convictions GOP candidate," sit on their hands and not vote at all, then the rolling advantage and heyday of Marketplace Entrepreneurals (given special advantage by Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Strict Catholics) will dry up and their commercial and legislative, unearned advantage will have to be won by Corporatists and "Market Fundamentalists" on their own merits.

No more True Believers handing out a free ride to Wall Street con men, Ken Lay, Enron, Koch Industries, and Amway could change and moderate the rancorous American political scene in a most healing manner.


Original.

The President Joins Teddy’s Spirited Charge Up Greed Mt.

President Obama has joined the charge up the slopes of massive greed and elitist's gated power mountain.

Review these his towering speech, presented-via Robert Reich - as follows:

"The President's speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas (12/8/11) - where Teddy Roosevelt gave his "New Nationalism" speech in 1910 - is the most important economic speech of his presidency in terms of connecting the dots, laying out the reasons behind our economic and political crises, and asserting a willingness to take on the powerful and the privileged that have gamed the system to their advantage."

(break)

"Some background: In 1909, Herbert Croly, a young political philosopher and journalist, argued in his best-selling The Promise of American Life that the large American corporation should be regulated by the nation and directed toward national goals. "THE CONSTRUCTIVE IDEA BEHIND A POLICY OF THE RECOGNITION OF THE SEMI-MONOPOLISTIC CORPORATION IS, OF COURSE, THE IDEA THAT THEY CAN BE CONVERTED INTO ECONOMIC AGENTS...FOR THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEREST," Croly wrote. Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism embraced Croly's idea"

President Obama in his Speech to the Nation:

"For...(The New Deal), Roosevelt was called a radical, a socialist, even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight hour work day and a minimum wage for women; insurance for the unemployed, the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.

"Today, over one hundred years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.

"Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where the workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100, so that layoffs were too often permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. These changes didn't just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs or the internet. Today, even higher-skilled jobs like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China and India. And if you're someone whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don't have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages and benefits - especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

---

"Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt's time, there's been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. "The market will take care of everything," they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes - especially for the wealthy - our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn't trickle down, they argue, that's the price of liberty."

---

"It's a simple theory - one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. HERE'S THE PROBLEM: IT DOESN'T WORK. IT'S NEVER WORKED. IT DIDN'T WORK WHEN IT WAS TRIED IN THE DECADE BEFORE THE GREAT DEPRESSION. IT'S NOT WHAT LED TO THE INCREDIBLE POST-WAR BOOM OF THE 50S AND 60S. AND IT DIDN'T WORK WHEN WE TRIED IT DURING THE LAST DECADE."

President Obama expands on this:

"...(T)his isn't just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. THIS IS A MAKE OR BREAK MOMENT FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS, AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE FIGHTING TO GET INTO THE MIDDLE CLASS. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement."

This speech will occupy the minds of those who were/are privileged to hear or read it for a long time.

It's time to occupy our own courage and meet eye to eye the hoary mass of obstructionism and fawning deference to the imperial 1%ers - whose days of plunder will include sunset- a massive revolt-the very kind that scares rad-right word-monger Frank Lunz ; who says he's "SCARED TO DEATH" of the power and ability of the 99%ers who literally occupy every part of America.

Our President expands:

"Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of COLLECTIVE AMNESIA. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."

President Obama's memorable concluding summation:

"Well, I'm here to say they are wrong. I'm here to reaffirm my deep conviction that we are greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. Those aren't Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They're American values, and we have to reclaim them."

"In 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here, to Osawatomie, and laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism.

'Our country,' he said, '...means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy...of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.'"
(random emphasis added)

Well said, and Timely.


Original.

Bipartisan reforms, Mike Bishop Remakes Himself at the 11th Hour

Response to Detroit News Op-Ed "Bipartisan reforms would strengthen state education" on  November 26, 2009 - Note: Bishop Running for Michigan Attorney General.

Mike Bishop's Make-over
Bishop's harsh partisanship has locked him out of any hope of becoming Michigan's next Attorney General. Now he wants his legislative legacy to be Mike Bishop "education reformer." To do so he will attempt to remake himself next week into the warm and fuzzy wonderkin of school salvation.

Quote: 

"Politics should stop at the classroom door when reforming education." Bishop Editorial, 11.26.09 in "Bipartisan reforms would strengthen state education" by Sen. Michael D. Bishop.

Politics are the stock and trade of Bishop et al. Has he stopped nasty politics at the classroom door? No. He's hyped partisanship up. Bishop's figuratively barged in and attacked the teacher, as she attempts to make the day's objectives in the curriculum and attend the ever-present social demands of "her" classroom children, entrusted to her special care. The childrens' parents are annoyed and angered by Bishop's tirades, smoke and mirrors, and give him and the state legislature failing grades for performance.

Bishop is after her job with part-timers. He's after her salary with vicious budget cuts, and "no new taxes." Mike is after her award of professional security for excellent performance in her chosen vocation-tenure, and her hard-earned future retirement is at risk under Bishop too.

Bishop is promoting deregulated completion to her classroom with faux public, but elitist charters and actual "private" and "ethnocentric" charters drain away "public moneys." In Holland, Grand Rapids and other places all across the state, charters are imploding the public systems. All to in direct response to GOP plans.

Bishop is generally roughing her up with a constant barrage of rude language about "reform and failure." Of course it's all her fault. She should just do more with less. She should succeed without his co-operation or the GOP's support-a throw back to the Engler Era.

Basics for Bishop
Mike, Let's start with a vocabulary lesson, there is a world of difference between "education reform" and "education revolt," between honest collaborative efforts to work with the public to improve their neighborhood schools and honest critics whose purpose is to preserve and improve public education. Reforms is not to do away with public education altogether. Bishop has thrown in with the much maligned Engleresque elements which are currently attempting a comeback here in Michigan.

Bishop is now trying to recast himself as the savior of the public system while still adamantly resisting any financial additions (new taxes) to augment the sharply cut state school budget. He's willing to sit on his hands while the state becomes a national spectacle again, with perhaps a dozen or more Kalkaska's, as in the early 1990's. Bishop will blame it all on Gov. Granholm, and that's a lie.

What is it Bishop is attempting?

"Reform" or "revolt" Bishop cannot and will not have it both ways.
Bishop lacks the cunning, the acquired knowledge of the intricate rules of the legislature, and the deeper anger that propelled a meanspirited John Engler throughout his "revolution." Bishop is not man enough to fill Enlger's hobnailed boots in this regard.

This statement of Bishop's concepts sounds a theme that perfectly parallels the positions of MEA. Bishop's quote: "When it comes to improving the education of our children, making sure they have top-quality schools and preparing them for 21st-century jobs, we must put politics aside and work together. Now is the time to make real, meaningful reforms to turn around failing schools and increase statewide student achievement."

Improving schools and full funding for the same, is and has been the underlying goal of MEA. But these goals are being countered by radical GOP'ers and the privatizers, and general malcontents-with greedy intent. The Association has been forced to rise to the defense of its embattled membership once again, as it had to oppose and defend the state's children and our neighborhood schools on so many earlier occasions through political means.

Bishop and Obama: The Odd Couple
"Senate Republicans continue to work on several key reforms that fulfill the requirements of President Barack Obama's Race to the Top plan, which makes our state eligible for up to $400 million in additional funding to improve Michigan schools," opines Mike.

Truthfully, Bishop knows the "gift" of Race to the Top fund is a crap shoot at best. It's that it is a gimmick, a cosmetic quick fix that off loads the very difficult work of addressing the real and urgent problems of our inner cities, the poor, and a failing economy with just one year's funding. If Michigan legislate to be in compliance with these R2T requirements there is no assurance we will get one penny, this year or ever. In that respect, its Leave No Child Behind all over again.

A Lansing Shocker
Bishop, the star Republican in the State Legislature, has been forced to throw in with the much maligned Obama Administration and with what GOP radicals on AM radio call the "gangster" elements of Chicago. Former Chicagoan education chief official, Arne Duncan's madcap attempt to trump the failed and rejected Leave No Child Behind fiasco, held over from the Bush era, is his R2T. Now this Duncan's new gimmick, becomes the same material, same page, the same goals for Bishop and State Republicans. A very queer alliance.

Two Men in a Tub: Bishop and Barack
The dangle of a short term, system disrupting, administrative boondoggling, Race to the Top, becomes the latest in PR designed "quick fixes." President Obama will socialize the country, we are told loudly and directly by the Teabaggers, who constitute the raucous peanut gallery for Bishop and his tax-hating friends in Michigan. National groups that have Bishop and company hostages to their ideology on "no taxes."

Now, ala kazam, Mike Bishop morphs himself into a bi-partisan and a collaborative Michigan "co-sponsor" of Obama criteria and programs. Why?

Bishop is Cornered, Out of Wiggle Room.
Between now and the Christmas Break, Bishop and Wayne Kuipers R-Holland-architect and proud instigator of the 2007 state budget shutdown-will join with Democrats to bring on revolutionary changes in the education community.

How are the GOP "reforms," in the spirit of anti-MEA reprisal, being rushed into law by Bishop? At the last possible moment, the old, old legislative trick. Just how are they going to actually save money? That remains to be seen and realized.

First of all, to begin 2010, there is far less money because of the shenanigans of Bishop and pack.

Pretty Boy Bishop Has a Change of Heart
In a Tartuffian stroke pretty boy Bishop says he "looks forward to continuing to work" with certain (until now despicable "tax and spend" house Democrats and even Gov. Granholm to "keep education a top priority and put our kids first." What a hoot !

The Mackinac Center is in full glory. At this moment they are the handbook/ playbook for both radical Republicans and now, glory be, disoriented Democrats. What a coup d'état!

Take a look at the radical proposals that are involved in "Bishop's Revolt:"
1. The "Texas 2 Step" (alternative methods to get a teaching position used in Texas perennially to off-set severe teacher shortages due to poor pay and conditions) proposed by Bishop. He attempts to bring into the classroom career professionals or others from specific fields where they have been prior to such things as retirement or lay-offs/unemployment, and give them fast tracked un-certified positions as instructors-replacing teachers certified and presently employed.

2. This lowering of professional standards expresses a total lack of understanding of modern instruction-it is a direct and unwarranted attack on the state's premier colleges and universities where aspiring teachers enroll, receive 5 years of costly and intensive training, undergo other testing, qualifying, and certification requirements to work for 4 years as probationary instructors before being accorded a secure teaching job.

These new teachers are saddled with large student loans(with hefty interest rates and payments) and are required to return for much further university training.

Now Bishop says let a math temp come in, part-time and take the class. It's cheaper. Bishop's bottom-line is to bump out that new teacher who will have tenure, a retirement, and benefits.

Where will that (teaching techniques and learning psychology, and methods-less, unprepared) part time teacher be after class is over? Rushing to his/her car to get to a class at another school in order to earn a living, far from mentoring or assisting the student after hours or after class, and non-participating in the over all environment of the school or the community activities centered there.

3. The idea of creating a new "chief educational officer" or "czar" with special powers to alter contracts or make judgment calls about what is at fault in a system labeled a "failing school" is likewise laced (deep in the details) with items intended to radically change the school environment-not necessarily for the good of kids or their teachers.

Save money: Save a Dime Spend a Dollar
These are but a few of the "revolutionary" concepts that abound in the minds of the Mackinac Center's robotrons in the state senate: Mike Bishop, Wayne Kuipers, and Alan Cropsey.

These coldhearted Lansing Republican pols intensely hope to push through reprisals and untested revisions as a counterweight to the strong and intelligent protests of educators, business people and parents across the state who are stunned by the impervious indifference they have shown to the public school. They are not working to fund the budget short-fall with all the tools in the box. How cleverly they attempt to deceive! They believe that they have worked a real money crisis into an "opportunity" to savage the teachers and diminish the environment and education of our precious children.

With the up-coming elections, MEA has a clear and urgent picture of Who's Who-committed to championing and supporting the public school and our children and who isn't. One out of every fifteen votes cast in statewide election comes from the MEA family of voters.

All of the major GOP candidates for governor have pledged themselves to advance "right-to-work-for-less" agendas. One, Mike Bouchard, has proudly declared that he is the "first" of the group to pledge/covenant with the national group, Americans for Tax Reforms, "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," swearing to fight "any or all efforts to increase taxes." It's expected all the others follow Bouchard's example.

The role of Governor Granholm in the current crisis remains yet to be clarified and confirmed. What result will come of her various efforts? Efforts which seem at this point ineffective, is uncertain at best.

Truth be told: Michigan Governance is in Disarray
However, just a dollar a day in new revenues from Michigan taxpayers would keep the schools afloat and give the legislature time to ferret out the kinds of experts and advice needed. They can call in from all quarters solid plans as to how, rationally and factually, we together can tackle the valid concerns about educational.

Original Post.

Don’t let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning 600 million for state education

There is a timeless quandary: What is more important to a child's, heredity or environment?

When it comes to children and their achievement in education, how does this question apply? We are learning, but as of yet we don't fully understand. But one thinks the News must know, look how assertive they are on all things related to public schools.

The Detroit News has launched out again against both the Detroit Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association in a hamfisted manner. To the members of the MEA it asserts, "Don't let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning." Nov. 12, 2009. To the Federation it demands, "Make student performance not teacher protectionism the top priority" Sept.23, 2009.

The News picked up on the phrase: Teacher quality is the No. 1 predictor of student achievement.

That is a non-holistic and incomplete statement of fact concerning how students achieve and why. But it is a neat silver bullet for winning an argument or nailing down another plank in an anti-public school effort. Common sense tells the astute observer there's much more to student outcomes that whatever "teacher quality" is, as defined by the originator of that, or yet another survey or academic study. Is it heredity, the "bell curve" or environment "unionized schools"? If the study comes from one of so many harshly critical think thanks such as the Heartland Institute, then consider the source.

Both of these incidents of hectoring come from the same chum bucket. As of today, there are published 38 of the 50 News requirements to "Fix Michigan" displayed in the paper. Approximately 13 of these demands are related to public education, in some form, and there are 12 more suggestions to go.

It's obvious that the Detroit News is expecting the teachers to solve the basic and gargantuan problems of our time.

If only the teachers would tow under, and follow the will of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the tax limitation teabaggers, and the intrepid corporatist/insurance endowed Mackinac Center for Public Policy, then progress could all be made.

The News, for years holed up in its headquarters with its window lights, architectural arches bricked in for security following the riots of 1967. One feels that has deeply influenced its own cynical quasi-Libertarian mindset.

It's easy to understand why there is disillusionment and angst in the News' editorial suite...but not excusable.

Let the News walk a weekday, 6 blocks, in a pupil's shoes.

Think of ones self as an innocent young girl walking to the neighborhood school past all those empty and sometimes burnt out, abandoned houses and structures. Buildings filled at times with rapists, druggies or squatters. What frame of mind would she have when she arrived at the classroom door? What fears or dread would haunt her as she contemplates returning home, latch key to her house, passing once again that gauntlet of neglect and criminal possibilities tolerated by Detroiters?

It has been reported that in some cases, even the Catholic church owns these kinds of properties. There aren't a few dozens of these structural hazards scattered about, there are hundreds and hundreds.

Time and again, the News has gone ballistic over picayune issues they conjure up to wedge their demands against teachers and work to take away the basis of commitment by the erstwhile supportive public.

In this time of national crisis, in this epoch of monumental manufacturing and industrial outsourcing to other states and third world countries, the News editors cannot bring themselves to step back and take a harsh and mind-boggling look at "real Detroit"-a dead and dying city in so many respects. One or two of the signal Detroit moments, historically of note in this regard, were: the exit of Hudson's from downtown and the summary closing of over two dozen Detroit area parish churches by the Catholic Bishops.

It's with great self-satisfaction that the Detroit News finds a "slam dunk" criticism in the offering of stimulus money in the form of $600 million in federal taxpayer monies, the state may acquire by compiling with the official guidelines for the Race to the Top's. "It is one of President Barack Obama's most innovative tools to spur states," chortles the News without in depth reflection.

Remember the News doesn't actually like stimulus spending, and says so. Several Michigan jurisdictions are loudly announcing they won't apply for stimulus cash or take it, if offered. At least one GOP Governor refuses all stimulus money to his state, irregardless of need.

So why is the News so hot to trot with the nascent U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and his "new" trends?   Duncan is that bureaucrat from what the wild right calls the "gangster" machine-run Chicago. In this case, if it suits the News' long range purposes, go with it. So it is with partisan politics. When a circumstance hits on an opponent, all prior principles are naught compared to the "kill." .

There are good and fundamental reasons to reject the U.S. Department of Education's current proposals, just as there were with the "Leave No Child Behind", that fiasco  was cobbled together by G.W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy: LNCB  continues to create more disillusionment and harm than good. Just ask Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

There are innumerable devils in the fine print details. At this point, seed money for this program is only about a year's worth. Just like several federal title programs, LNCB mandates, and other items the feds propose, the states and locals provide the ultimate costs and bear the burden of implementation and/or are threatened with huge penalties.

Nolan and crew don't see the fine line details and don't really care about the bottomlines either. "Race to the Top's a anti-teacher union zinger, let's push it.

In these financially troubled times as in all others, haste to radically change makes waste and further delays in real classroom outcomes and in the lives of children, captives/hostages to our failed thinking and our decaying infrastructure.

Every day, thank God, your next door neighbor, your fellow club member, member of the church down the block, leaves home to re-enter her or his classroom to do a precious job. Her/His ambition is to provide for the every need of her/His  students, to keep them safe, on task, and learning in her room, sheltered for the day from the gunshots her/his students hear throughout the night and the carnage they see on local TV news nearly every night of the year.

Her/His task is oft overwhelming and without proper support and encouragement. If she/he wants to begin a day with a bright outlook, going in to school, she'll/he’ll  not pick up the News until she/he  needs to change the lining in her/his bird cage at the end of a long day.

Original Post.