The Number One Reason For Electing a Third Party Candidate In Miro’s District

Hey, Joe… we need you to vote this way on this one…   oh, ok.

Versus…..

Hey Steve… we need you to vote this way on this one….    Why?

I’d certainly prefer someone who uses thought and logic to determine what is best for all, as opposed to someone who simply holds space and takes orders from those higher up… I believe you do too…. 

Best Investigative Story So Far This Year In Delaware

Courtesy of Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

I haven’t been paying attention.  Thank Goodness Steve has.

(For Steve): Libertarianism Swings The Supreme Court

Last week Allan Loudell was waxing poetic on an live interview how the Supreme Court was Conservative on the voting rights act and liberal on the repeal of DOMA, finishing with: ” is it anyones guess what to expect?”   I was busy at the time, but thought it was rather easy to figure out.  You see, i know a Libertarian and  so making the assessment that Justice Kennedy was also a Libertarian, didn’t require much of a leap at all.

When one thinks of Libertarians, one thinks of that tiny party in the middle of a ballot.  But Libertarianism has played a dominant role in the US’s formation…  It is just that when it strikes, it is not on the ballot.  Below I show how Libertarianism easily explains how this court acts….

This past season the Supreme Court heard 75 cases… Of those seventy five, 30% were decided by a vote of 5-4.   This is one of the most contentious courts on record.  The roundabout average is 22% of  its cases decided by 5-4 decisions.  However, and this is surprising, almost 50% of its decisions were decided by a 9-0 margin.  That is unprecedented as well.

Graph Courtesy of  SCOTUS Blog

There appears to be a solid libertarian bias that leans through this court.  If progressive, they are libertarian progressives, if conservative they are libertarian conservatives, and if split, then the most libertarian of them all, Justice Kennedy, is the decider.

Let me first touch on those decision made last week.  a) Voting Rights Act…  If there is no firm reason not to leave it to the states, then leave it to the states… Libertarianism. b)  Repeal of Clause 3 of DOMA… If  the government is picking favorites of one custom over another, that is not the government’s business… Government needs to butt out… Pure Libertarianism.   Those inured in thinking only in terms of  “left” and “right” are by their blinders.. baffled.  However there is a very clear aim through out this court and that aim clearly states that the government should not be interfering with people’s rights to decide things for themselves.

Furthermore, although this court is very pro business, to call it an business court would still be an error.  The human gene concept, that actual genes were not to be patented, was decided in part because doing so would benefit the company that acquired the patent, but hurt those who didn’t.  There was no prevailing clause of ownership offered by the plaintiff, since the gene existed long before the company did, so therefore, everyone has a right to it.  The decision was business neutral.  Though one company lost, all others gained thereby making the decision a neutral one.  Very Libertarian.   Favorites should not be picked by the government.  However if Monsanto in another landmark case, actually did invent the gene, then for a farmer to replant some of the soybeans as farmers have since  civilization began, should not happen.  Those beans were not his intellectual property, because they were created legally under license by Monsanto.   No different than buying a CD and burning copies for one’s friends and acquaintances.   Again, very Libertarian.  The government should not interfere with either picking or hurting a company in its effort to make money by playing with existing rules.

Likewise the Federal Government should not limit or impose itself or it’s temporary values upon a company doing business overseas.  Therefore for the Federal Government forbidding an AIDs vaccine to be used in Africa for infectees caused by prostitution, was illegal.  That puritan law was stricken.  Government can’t interfere.

And so after this season,  federal judicial participation in guilty pleas is now subject to harmless error review; the government can’t involuntary dissolve a parent/childs bonding rights; a person who does not choose to willfully invoke their 5th amendment rights, can have their subsequent silence used against them. A sex offender in the armed services must like every other citizen who is one, register in the state where he resides.  Likewise an insurance beneficiary of a previous divorce, can get paid according to original contract, and no state law can override that.

Just “thinking like a Libertarian” has for the most part made one able to predict the outcome of this court with amazing accuracy.  It is really contrary to Allan Loudell’s statement, not a mystery after all…..  One just has to think outside the Red and Blue Box…

Oh Brave New World That Has Such People In It….

Courtesy of Transparent Christina

During the 2008 Gubernatorial Debate, Jack Markell expresses the absolute exact opposite of the bill he proudly signed today: HB 165

This YouTube clip shall haunt his future Campaigns Forever.

Shades of Romney?

Take $2.3 Million From Christina And Give It To Charter Schools

Rule Number 1:  Anyone can make up anything about anything……..

So when the Markell administration through the mouthpiece of Mark Murphy says the RTTT funds were federally mandated to be used to pay $20,000 bonuses and then turns around and gives it to Charter Schools to use however, one must be skeptical.

This is 2013 and none of us were born yesterday.  But, back sometime in our past, when we were born, … there was an argument that public schools were falling apart and that only by having a charter school take over an existing public school system, could any improvement be made…

Recently the Delaware Legislature passed a bill regarding teacher training. (SB 51)… So with the movement of money away from teachers in the traditional public school system of Christina, over to the pockets of those endorsing Charter Schools, I became curious how the education of teachers between the public sector and the private sector stacked up…

After all, wouldn’t you be curious too?

Of course you are.

If one travels to the Delaware State Educational website and looks at schools, one sees a wealth of information…  One can choose a district and see how it stacks up, (unless that district is the Charter School classification and for purposes of obfuscation, they are all off-line).. From there, one can choose an individual school.  Once on the page, one can click either of three tabs. One describes the school overall and with this, one can make easy comparisons.  Two describes the teachers; one can readily compare. And three is for the student achievement (or fail) reports….

It is rather simple.

Which makes it confusing as to why various Senators and Representatives who purport in public to be on top of education, were so easily bamboozled and lulled into voting for a bill that destroys Delaware’s institutions of higher learning… (SB 51)

It also pokes very big holes into the lie that Charter Schools are better for students than the alternative.

I want to show you Christina and how that stacks up against Charter Schools….

Christina School District is the states largest… 52% of its teachers have masters, 47% have a bachelors, and 1% has their doctorate...  The number of teachers it has, who are highly qualified to teach Reading/ Language Arts, is at the 100% mark… The number of teachers it has who are highly qualified to teach Mathematics, is also 100%..

In fact all its teachers except in English which is 99.5% highly qualified, and Social Studies which are 98.1% qualified, are at 100% highly qualified. SB 51 was designed to make our teachers all highly qualified but it looks like Christina is already there…

So, there is reason that the Board wanted to give smaller bonuses to all teachers instead of arbitrarily giving it to one or two who by luck of their student draw, got the highest score. All its teachers deserve to bonus. Not one.

Now, let us compare that to a charter. We will pick one… Delaware Academy of Public Safety and Security. This is a charter under the direction of one Charlie Copeland, heard of him? This school has 192 students, zero of them on low income. It has only 17 teachers. It averages close to the magic number; it has 12 students for each teacher. 23% of its teachers have a masters or above. It’s number of highly qualified teachers in English are 0%. It’s math is at 100%. So 100% of its students are being taught English by a teacher who is not “highly” qualified.

So let us jump to Newark Charter School. This is one that is always tooted by Charter School enthusiasts to promote their cause. It is the best of the best of the best. Yet the best of the best of the best falls behind Christina School District, considered by Murphy and his friend Jea Street, as the worst of the worst of the worst, with only a 91.3% highly qualified teaching staff in Reading and Language Arts, and only a 95.2% highly qualified staff in Mathematics.

The best of the best of the best is worse than the worst of the worst of the worst….

There is something really funny going on, when the official line from the Markell, Rodel staffed Department of Education is saying stuff being picked up by the News Journal and front paged… that its very own website contradicts!

So we take away $2.3 million from the Christina District that has students under 100% highly qualified teachers even in the poorest sections of town, a gigantic district where 61.7% of children come from low income homes, and give $2.3 million to Charters, representing 7.9% of Delaware’s students, who have do not have 100% highly qualified teachers and who have either a zero or 1/5 the percentage of low income household students that the Christina District forebears….

And we call that progress from the governor who wants to be known as the “Educational Governor.” ???

The fix is easy. Pay for charter schools by increasing the top tax rate to cover what charters need. Let Traditional Public Funds stay in traditional Public Schools. As Steve Newton pointed out which you all read, such was in the original RODEL Charter put together “back in the day.”…

If it was so good then, what’s wrong with it now? Let’s just do it and fix this education thing once and for all! Raise the income tax on the top marginal rate to cover the state’s cost of all charters.

Calling Out A Lie….

The Delaware Department of Education said there have been plenty of open meetings regarding Common Core.

There may have been.. However when only one side is given notice of a meeting and only one side shows up, that is not an open meeting.

The Sokola meeting last Tuesday at Troop 2 in Bear had less than 24 hours of public notice.   Proper notice would have been two weeks. Less than 24 hours were given for the Senate Committee, the House Committee, the House Floor vote, and the Senate Floor vote.  The bill was introduced on 4/24.  Four days later, 5/2 it was voted out of committee. The same day, hours later, it was voted out of the Senate!  That was  the first chance the public had to view it. After only one legislative session day in between, it was voted out of House Committee! After only three days of session later, it received its last public appearance in the full Senate at the beginning of the fourth day.

Therefore the “appearance” is that this is being pushed through stealthly.   Stealth by definition is not out in the open.  From start to finish, SB51, one of the most damaging and monumental game changers in public education of the century, became law in  10 legislative session days…  Ten days.  The public only knew of it for just four of those days.

The first real hearing on Common Core across the entire state of Delaware took place  yesterday in Sussex County. Hat’s off to the 9/12 patriots for making it happen.  They organized quickly (under 24 hours) and responded as good citizens should. I’m so proud of them for drawing a line in the sand….

There is severe and gigantic opposition to this bill.  They are a homologous group called “parents”  They consist of Tea Partiers; they are progressive; they are Democrats; they are Republican; they are farmers; they are executives.  They are those who vote.  They are,… everyone who has children in public schools.  In Delaware, there has never been a debate between the two opposing forces on these issues.  That is wrong.  Very wrong! That is what we heard when we were little children that the Communists did in the Soviet Union and in China.

Every parent of every child who has seen the materials in these packets, who has looked at the homework their child brings home, will be aghast.  This Common Core program will devastate the current educational structure across America… It will shatter it into broken pieces.  It is that bad.

The first debate occurred yesterday.  So to characterize implementing Common Core as an open process, stretches the truth almost within lying range.  More debates will come.   All Delawarean citizens need to call their legislators and ask, them…” How could you!  You could YOU!  We trust you to do WHAT IS RIGHT!  And you failed us… YOU FAILED US!……”

Delaware’s “Broad” View of Education….

Eli Broad — the CPA-trained-billionaire-businessman-turned-public-education-reformer — informed Diane Ravitch, a distinguished education expert, about what needs to be done to education in America.  . According to Ravitch, “We talked about school reform for an hour or more, and he told me that what was needed to fix the schools was not all that complicated: A tough manager surrounded by smart graduates of business schools and law schools.”

According to Slate quoting Vanity Fair, Eli Broad boasted back in 2006 that he  “plans to virtually take over the Delaware school system in 2007, pending approval from that state’s legislature.” He backed the winning slate of candidates for the local board of education in 1999 and helped hire the superintendent.

Eli Broad trains Superintendents.  Christina School District has been the unfortunate beneficiary of his largess.  Joe Wise, followed by Lillian Lowery, followed by  Marcia Lyles, all are from Eli’s School of Superintendencies….Dr. Joe Wise was selected as a Broad Fellow by Eli Broad Institute for School Boards (2005), was appointed to the Eli Broad Urban Superintendents Academy as a Fellow (2003), and serves on the Broad Academy’s adjunct faculty and advisory committee. Although Broad Superintendents come in highly qualified, they often leave disgracefully. Joe Wise, may have been one of the first. Recently, across this nation many Broad Superintendents have been let go. All trained by the Broad Superintendents Academy: Maria Goodloe-Johnson (class of 2003) of the Seattle school district, LaVonne Sheffield (class of 2002) of the Rockford, Illinois school district, and Jean-Claude Brizard (class of 2008) of the Rochester New York school district. Brizard resigned to take the job as CEO of Chicago schools, but his superintendency in Rochester had been mired in controversy. Another Broad-trained Superintendent recently announced his resignation: Tom Brady (class of 2004) of Providence, Rhode Island, as well as these others from before: Arnold “Woody” Carter (class or 2002), formerly of the Capistrano Unified School District; Thandiwee Peebles,( class of 2002), formerly of the Minneapolis Public School District; and John Q. Porter (class of 2006), formerly of the Oklahoma City Public School District.

Ms. Lillian Lowery (class of 2004), Wise's replacement after supposedly cleaning up Joe Wise's disaster, was put in charge of all Delaware's schools, and now, is in charge of Maryland's. Broad's influence has touched every Delaware Student… and is about to touch all those of Maryland.

Our current head of the Department of Education, Mark Murphy, hails from a group NLNS funded by Eli Broad

If this was a good thing, it would be good.

So, what is the Broad influence?

Here is one take. It is one of the three influencers of education. Along with the Gates Foundation and the Walton's, it exerts a powerful influence, good or bad. It calls itself a venture philanthropy, as in venture capitalist. Meaning it invests in philanthropy expecting to yield a return on its investment. As an example, it can fund a study that says computers will help inner city kids learn, then sell those recommended computers to that school district.

Here is how it infiltrates a school district. Christina School District to be exact…

The Broad Foundation plants one of its elements in a school district, it is then highly likely they will plant another one along with it, so their influence is maximized.

For instance, an element might be:
– The presence of a Broad-trained superintendent
– The placement of Broad Residents into important central office positions
– An "invitation" to participate in a program spawned by the Foundation (such as CRSS's Reform Governance in Action program)
– Offering to provide the district with a free "Performance Management Diagnostic and Planning" experience

The Broad Foundation likes to infiltrate its targets on multiple levels so it can manipulate a wider field and cause the greatest amount of disruption. Venture edu-philanthropists like Gates and Broad proudly call this invasive and destabilizing strategy “investing in a disruptive force.” To these billionaires and their henchmen, causing massive disruption in communities across the nation is not a big deal.

The Broad Foundation has spent nearly $400 million on its mission of “transforming urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”

That sounds nice. So let us look closer….

The signature effort of the Broad Foundation is its investment in its training programs…The Broad Superintendents Academy runs a training program held during six weekends over ten months, after which graduates are placed in large districts as superintendents. Those accepted into the program (“Broad Fellows”) are not required to have a background in-education; many come instead from careers in the military, business, or government. Tuition and travel expenses for participants are paid for by the Broad Center, which also sometimes covers a share of the graduates’ salaries when they are appointed into district leadership positions. The foundation’s website boasts that 43 percent of all large urban superintendent openings were filled by Broad Academy graduates in 2009.

The Broad Superintendents Academy’s weekend training course provides an “alternative” certification process which has come to supplant or override the typical regulations in many states that require that individuals have years of experience as a teacher and principal before being installed as a school district superintendents….

The Broad Residency in Urban Education is a two-year program, during which individuals with MBAs, JDs, etc. in the early stages of their careers are placed in high-level managerial positions in school districts, charter management organizations, or state and federal departments of education. The Broad Center subsidizes approximately 33 percent of each Resident’s salary.

The Broad Foundation founded the New York City Leadership Academy, which trains individuals to serve as principals in the city public schools, several of whose graduates have been accused of financial misconduct, as well as arbitrary and dictatorial treatment of teachers, students and parents. This was recently featured by Delaware’s WDDE reporting on Reshid Walker who is training in Cape Henelopen under the Delaware Leadership Project. DLP is an alternate certification program that this year is preparing six candidates to work as principals or assistant principals at public schools serving high-risk students in Delaware. Alternate Certification means it sidesteps requirements that a principal has to have stepped foot inside a school before. Through four days a week of on-the-job training, and no certification from an accredited college or university, he will soon be in command of your child’s education.

The Broad Institute for School Boards provides three training programs for elected school board members and non-Broad-trained superintendents conducted in partnership with the Center for Reform of School Systems (CRSS). The Institute trains new board members at a one-week summer residential setting…The Broad Foundation underwrites 80 percent of all program costs through a grant to CRSS.

The Broad Foundation also supports a broad range of pro-charter school advocacy groups, as well as alternative training programs for non-educators who want to work as teachers and principals (Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools). In addition, the foundation offers free diagnostic “audits” to school districts, along with recommendations aligned with its policy preferences. It produces a number of guides and toolkits for school districts, including a “School Closure Guide,” based on the experiences of Broad-trained administrators involved in closing schools in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Miami-Dade County, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Seattle…..

Closing public schools to open opportunities for charters seems to be it’s prime directive. Although not officially enshrined as such, it does seem to be the consistent pattern of each of its graduates.

The foundation provided start-up funding for Parent Revolution (formerly the Los Angeles Parent Union), the group which developed the “Parent Trigger” legislation, designed to encourage the conversion of public schools to charter schools. Broad has also has given large amounts of money to Education Reform Now, a pro-charter school advocacy organization…

Eli Broad has said he “expects to be a major contributor” to Students First, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s organization that advocates for the expansion of charters, vouchers, and an end to seniority protections for teachers. The pro-Rhee biography, The Bee Eater, was subsidized by the Broad Foundation as is mentioned on the book jacket.

Of course, there are campaign contributions (you will need to type in Broad, Eli) to facilitate the corporatizing of education… A quick look certifies that his coverage is a who’s who across party lines in Congress. Obviously there will be support for Charters streaming down from the top lines of government.

Ok, so how does all of this affect Delaware’s public school’s families?….
One of the tenets of his philosophy taught to his graduates, is to produce system change by “investing in a disruptive force.” Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or “churn” is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.

A hallmark of the Broad-style leadership is closing existing schools rather than attempting to improve them, increasing class size, opening charter schools, imposing high-stakes test-based accountability systems on teachers and students, and implementing of pay for performance schemes. The brusque and often punitive management style of Broad-trained leaders has frequently alienated parents and teachers and sparked protests. A long laundry list of Broad Supertendants run out of town can be found here, near the bottom. But you can get an idea of what to expect, from just this one: Robert Bobb (class of 2005), the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, recently sent layoff notices to every one of the district’s 5,466 salaried employees, including all its teachers, and said that nearly a third of the district’s schools would be closed or turned over to private charter operators. At a recent town hall which Bobb had called so he could go over his plan, angry students, parents, and teachers drove him from the meeting. He was escorted out by his six bodyguards….

Disruption and chaos indeed…..

Delaware is fortunate to have a large parenting network of watch dogs who communicate well with legislators. Whereas the Christina District has had a rough go with Broad graduates, the rest of the state has so far been unscathed…..
Without the oversight being provided by parents and teachers watchdog organizations, the fate of Delaware’s students might be that of Philadelphia, Chicago, or Detroit.

if you are a parent or know one, you probably feel this way as well. Parents Across America considers Broad’s influence to be inherently undemocratic, as it disenfranchises parents and other stakeholders in an effort to privatize our public schools and imposes corporate-style policies without our consent. We strongly oppose allowing our nation’s education policy to be driven by billionaires who have no education expertise, who do not send their own children to public schools, and whose particular biases and policy preferences are damaging our children’s ability to receive a quality education.

In fact, this entire philosophy of forcing change upon children, strikes every parent as coming from those types of people we all run across, … who hate children…. “Someone smack that kid who’s crying.”

Amen And Amen.

…And The Vortex Over The Arctic… Was Rent In Two.

January 1-3

January 11-13

I getting a bad feeling about this. Who can tell us? What’s this mean?

Btw. There is a monster hurricane approaching Alaska with a low of 943mb. Category 4 if it were an actual hurricane. It is so huge it would stretch from the East Coast of the US to Denver.

Hey Romney! Walk Like An Egyptian….

As usual… when you tie a cow bone to a string, and a string to a used broom handle, and then, dangle that string before an American Reporter…  they jump up and down like Pomeranians…. “yip, yip, yip”…  hind leg dance…. “yip, yip, yip”.

99.0% of American news media coverage is focused on Romney the man.   And with an election approaching it is probably safe to attribute that to human nature…  Even I was  sucked in for a while.  But being an election year, that makes it rather hard for our government (yes it is still intact) to rectify its newest foreign relations problem, the  Arab Inflammation as it is now beginning to be called….

Since the more intelligent of our species tend to browse these pages, lets investigate the history, and delve into both short and long term solutions.   This may be long.

No matter what the crises,  and no matter at what level, there are some elements of truth that remain consistent.  Lack of communication always creates problems; it never solves anything.  Are you divorced?  Could be perhaps that better communication might  have prevented it?  Are you fired?  Could be perhaps that better communication might  have prevented it?  Are you in competition at work over something?  Gee, wouldn’t all being on the same team working together be much better?

In fact, most wars are started over misunderstandings.  The only truly reasonable excuse for starting a war, is…. “you have something I want, and I’m taking it by force”; and the other side’s response is… “over my dead body….”

That is one,  boiled-down reason for starting a war.

Every other excuse is superfluous.  It doesn’t  mean we don’t sometimes go to war for superfluous reasons…  But all those silly reasons can somehow be twisted back to that maxim mentioned above:   “You have something I want, (___________), and you won’t give it up unless I force you, It.. is.. on….”

There is one more thing to keep in mind.  A lot, a lot, a lot of people make a lot of money when there is fighting going on…  Therefore even in very peaceful times, you will hear made-up reasons as to why we should go to war…   They are created around boardroom tables,  they are fed to gullible people, then those people are whipped up by whips, and the leaders have no choice but attend to their follower’s needs or get replaced….   Some of those:

Pride, Prestige, Patriotism, Patrimony, Alliances, Reputation, Religion,  and Idiocy, all get exploited to further the economic gains of those few involved in producing war’s items.

This movie now at the epicenter of global outrage is a case in point.  Have you ever noticed how these hate religions now popping up in the USA preaching  hate, and have no sense of decency (as in protesting at military funerals) are always boasting they were founded by “former Marines”?  Steve Klein who produced this latest clip, is no exception.  Whether true or not, he is definitely boasting it.

Now, we all know someone who is a man of the cloth.  Some of us  are lucky enough to know many from across a very wide religious spectrum.  Not just the European religions, but those also spread across other continents and yes, sub-continents.  No matter what the name of the God is, to which they pay reverence, in every form of a religion there are consistently two types of preachers.  Those who are there for themselves; versus those who are there to help others.  No religion is immune; no religion just has only one side.

Therefore, something like this hate group, which only does have one side, fails the test of all religion.  How does or will it’s philosophy make all people better?   How could any religion that you know,  show sodomy of young children? Really?  How could any religion that you know, show cunnilingus?  Really?  As a religious person, you might at some point in your life have to allude to it, but actually show it?  It goes against your own core.   Even if you were using those scenes to put down someone else or describe evil,  as long as you had any religious bone in your body, you couldn’t do that.  Just couldn’t.  You would be worried about your own life in the hereafter.

So who could?

Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that all the acts portrayed in this movie were the exact same ones used at Abu Ghraib  in Iraq by our counter-intelligence staff as forms of torture?   Women’s periods, homosexuality, child molestation, cunnilingus, sexual arousal, falsifying  the Prophet…. Someone from that environment has a history of knowing exactly what hot buttons these are to Islam’s believers.  And I bet, they could even rank them in order of effect.  Someone from that environment who has perfected that technique upon individuals,  who has crafted the technique to elicit the desired responses, has now for whatever reason, chosen to use a broader medium, Youtube,  to foist that  knowledge upon 1/7 th of the world’s population.

It is pretty obvious to all, that this film’s raison d’etre comes from some intelligence or military network, and the easiest way to mask those origins is the time-honored way of using the untraceable networks in religion.

And from those of us who know people, (you know, like that sixth sense of when you walk into your home, and something has been done, you know who did it because you know they are the only one whose framework is wired as such that they could think of it?)  the one place on earth where you are guaranteed to find people who would see no qualms with using anything in this film to achieve their end, and who also would profit from a holy war involving West versus East,  is Arlington, Fairfax County, Virginia.  Incidentally (for those of you outside the Beltway) that is the home of the Pentagon and the headquarters of what a really good man, Eisenhower, once called the ” growing military-industrial complex.”  That is where the focal point of finding who is behind this, by the investigations of the fourth estate,  by he next wave of investigative hard copies for sale at Barnes & Noble, should be aimed.   Weird, fake, made-up  religious groups are just the patsy. They don’t make a penny if we suddenly go to war.

But to return the focus,  why the Arab violence over some really dumb film made by someone supposedly in California that surfaced and we didn’t even know about it,…  create such a fracas?  And can any of it be blamed upon any administration?

To understand the answer, there is one important thing you have to understand about Arab governments.  They killed all the liberals off a long time ago.  As autocratic powers,  anyone who challenged their religious government or was thought to one day possibly have the future presumption to challenge the religious government in the future, was made to disappear.   There are no liberals to provide a balance in Arab populations.   To even imagine what that is like as an intellectual exercise, imagine a society where there were no Democrats to say, “hey, that is not right!”  Imagine an America ruled by only Republicans headed by the Tea Party.  Give all the money to the wealthy?  No problem.  Take all the money from the middle class?  No Problem.  Instigate wars and draft and send the middle class out to fight them?  No problem.  Cut your benefits because you don’t worship our God?  No Problem.

Arab countries have what we consider as our center, anchoring the left end, and the caliphate anchoring the right.  In that environment it is easy to see, that the middle, is one who conforms with the caliphate, but provides a little balance against them by nuancing the edges.

Both Ronald Reagan and Romney would be too liberal to govern Egypt today.  Paul Ryan would be about right in the center.

Against this, no leader can go against the Caliphate.  It will take the development of a large cadre of liberals to rebalanced the power structure of every Arab nation, in order to deal with them in a rational and secular method….

It is to that development that the American foreign policy needs to point.   The very fact that America itself  has as large liberal population, speaks solidly that a free environment, wisdom tends to flourish and rise to the top.

The easiest and simplest method to accomplish this task, is to figure how to combine these liberal aspects and marry those to Islamic principals.  After all, how can the Caliphate denounce Islamic principals?  When we stress a policy we believe will help the Egyptian people become stronger,  we need to provide the Muslim framework coupled to it so they see it as part of their religion.  Failure to do so,  makes all our good ideas appear to be nothing but a method of control…  We laugh at that over here, but in our history, whenever someone tried to control how our money was spent, how our possessions belonged to us, whenever someone “far away” tried to control our life, we rebelled.  (A lot to think over in that sentence).

That is human nature.

Another prime factor that pushes Arabs to embrace the caliphate, is shame.  Yes, shame.  It is unspoken to foreigners and one has to deeply know someone who Arab before he is let in on a secret.  There is shame at being an Arab.  When one looks across the spectrum of the Muslim world, who are the successes?  Turkey.  Iran. Indonesia. Malaysia.  None of these are Arab.  Compare those successes  to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Ali Dubya, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and of course, now Syria?

There appears something to be really wrong with being an Arab… Really wrong. “Why can’t we get it right” is on every Arabs mind twenty-four seven.

Of course the four success stories have outside influence.  Turkey has tried hard to win EU status.  The changes it had to undergo to get there are what has propelled it forward.  Iran is Persian and as a former US satellite under the Shah, had enormous gains in infrastructure, and has been able to maintain and grow it primarily because it did keep its intelligent liberal and social force intact. The two eastern Asian countries have embraced democracy and are flourishing as a result.

Turkey is the player in Palestine.  Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Iran, are concerned about what Turkey does.   Iran is challenging the USA.   Palestine, Saudi, the Gulf Region, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, are day to day, concerned about what Iran is doing.   Indonesia has economic clout. China, India, and Australia keep tabs on it.

Against this.  Egypt can’t control what happens on the Sinai Peninsula.

The creators of the concept of  empire-building 7000 years ago,  a brave wonderful people who ruled the entire known world at that time , now, can’t control what happens on the Sinai Peninsula.   It hurts.   Just like it would hurt us to go to China in fifty years (5 if Romney gets elected) with hat in hand, asking for money to buy some food for our citizens.  Yes, we will have to do it so we can live… and yes, we will be grateful for our politicians who brought back the goods, but yes, it will hurt our pride still the same.

This feeling is exploited by the Caliphate.  “Join us and be great again.  As Mohamed hath declared, we will be feared.”  or something along those lines.   So set fire to a few cars, and whoa….  television crews pop up all over your city. You are important.  Set a few more and the leader of the entire world, the most powerful person in humanity, the President of the United States, is asking to meet your feeble countries leader.. He’s asking you (for a change), not the other way around, remember?  Where you had to take a number, and then do your best to convince him to put you on his busy schedule?

Suddenly you are powerful again.  It feels good.

How does or can the US combat that influence?

Ahh ha, the trillion dollar question with no yet known answer.  But here is what not to do.

One, go to war.  That solidifies resentment, and even upon a total USA victory, you did nothing but simply reinforce the root of the problem.  They are still ashamed of how weak and non-influential they are.  And all you did, was just shove that in their face one more time again.

Two, use shame.  It too solidifies resentment.  It too, builds resolve against us.

Three,  isolation.  It proves the Caliphate was right.  We, the West, obviously cannot be trusted.  Look how quickly we turn our backs. Better to suffer in squalor of poverty and abuse, but have consistent attention, than  it is to “flee to what they know not of”.  (Battered Spouse Syndrome).

So the one method that will work, and ironically Arabs are so good at this, is to make it our policy to divide and conquer, to separate the Arab’s well-being apart from their religion.   We use the rewards of recognition,  of extending equality, of true respect,  and bestow that upon the elements of the country who are not so inclined to follow the 1000 year admonitions of the Caliphate.

Somewhere in the future, someone there will stand up, and say:  “wow, look at all the rewards I was able tol get by disavowing the Caliphate!  How prosperous are you, who are still following them?’

Crazy as this sounds, if Obama were to visit Egypt,  not in an official capacity, but to tour the ancient ruins, and make a few remarks of how inspiring it was to see people of ancient times who then were so far ahead of  everyone else, so advanced, and to hope that he would live to see the day when the entire known world may once again come together and be prosperous as the known world was back in that time, some indirect captured  off- mic comment  like that would go a long way to counter the influence the caliphate now has over the Egyptian people.  An influence no one there really wants, but all there are powerless to now obstruct .

We then open up American colleges and universities to Egyptians, and pay their way.  We then advise them on regional disputes but allow them to make their own mistakes and revel in their own successes.

We help make Alexandria the financial headquarters of the Eastern World.  No where else, except  Israel and Iran, will you have access to a smarter bunch of people.

We then  invite their soccer teams to tour America and compete against our National League….

We invite their military to Fort Ord to teach them our desert techniques and partner with them.

All of these are aimed at building up the pride of the Arab and Egyptian.  With self pride and self confidence,  one is never defenseless.  One can grow on its own.  And as their national pride over their own accomplishment grows within themselves, the old ideas of the Caliphate are seen in their true perspective, as being  over 1000 years old.

With the Arab Spring, the USA has inherited a foster home full of growing young rambunctious teenage boys.  We have the duty to grow them into men.  As with any dad, sometimes you will have to be tough.  But to succeed, your goal has to be clearly that you do not wish to turn them into carbon copies of you, clearly.  Instead, you wish to give them the tools and advice they will need to chose, to pick through all the options in order to decide who and what they want to be.  But as it is with every child, it is always those honest and non-bullshit moments of tenderness that we remember which are actually the ones that  make the real difference in our lives.

The US Foreign Service is being very ably guided.  If  we threw our own children out on the streets to fend for themselves, every time they got mad at us, we’d have a very sorry, poor, and sinful society right now.   Obviously we don’t do that to our own flesh and blood for good reason.  Instead, we set the limit. We contain the anger. We provide a better alternative. We let them make their decision.  Then we provide the consequences, good or bad, for that decision they chose to make.  That is exactly what we are doing on the global scale under the able leadership of Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the public servants who make up our State Department, many who were hired by the previous Republican Administration.

The Republicans are trying to capitalize on violence right now.  As expected, they are failing miserably.  It would be wise to remember that it was the fruits of their philosophy that gave us  9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda,  Iran,  and super-de- dooper high oil prices.  They also sent trillions to the development and building of the tools of war.

The Democrats are responsible for calming the Balkans.   How is that going now?  Exactly.

We are on the right track.  Romney is on the wrong.  What we have accomplished so far in three years, will be views by historians as amazing.  We have inherited a home of children who have no dad, or mom.   We have the obligation to make them full members of society.  It will be a miracle if we get them all to succeed, some kids break bad.  But the obligation is there nevertheless to try for a 100% success rate.

The fact that Romney doesn’t “get it” and Obama does, is reason enough not to vote for Romney. The fact that Romney’s foreign advisors are the exact same hard core right wing people (Boulton? Seriously?) that embarrassed the USA of the Bush administration over it’s 8 years of  activity,  is reason enough NOT to vote for Romney.

You in the military-industrial complex can yell, scream, holler, hoot, high-five all you want.  But when it comes down to facts.  Romney is very bad for this country.

Mitt.  You’ve never heard of the “Bangles”?  I don’t believe it. You copy her eye motions exactly when you are before a camera.

2000

This is post number 2000.

The only real significance is it is 150 posts more than where Tommywonk stopped exactly one year and fifteen days ago…

If some future historian looks back, I can only guess they may kindly make some note of the quality of thought that underlies these efforts, but my guess, is no one will ever notice…

Irregardless, as long as the urge to put thoughts down for others continues, we will go on. As usual, with no goal, no direction, and no ulterior motive. Probably upon reflection, my biggest surprise, right here, right now … is that I still enjoy it so much, and can’t wait to jot my thoughts down, click the button, and send them off to where ever cyberspace and the vast internet ocean, lets them drift….

For each of you who have become regular over the years, … thank you friend…