No Sense of Irony...

Okay, usually I am willing to go to the other side, as a way to get at the kind of thinking used on the right, but I've reached my limit. Granted, I understand that the whole "tea bagger" thing is an astro-turf project funded by the health care industrial complex, in particular Dick Armey, but the limits of logic have been so far exceeded that something has to be done. But where in the heck to start? We aren't dealing with rational thought, so hang on for the ride.
Case in point- this article: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/16/tea-party-protesters-protest-dc-metro-service/

Apparently republican Texas Rep. Kevin Brady is upset that the public transit system in D.C. wasn't ready for the influx (no, not one million but more like 70,000 if one doesn't count the faked Promise Keeper crowd photo from the 1990s) of protesters hitting the city to...protest government spending on public services. He went on to complain that seniors (who likely receive Medicare) attending the protest were forced to take cabs since there was no room for them on the trains. Now I'm confused. Isn't privatization and the "toll" system of paying for services the major policy dream of republicans and the Ayn Rand crowd? Why are they unhappy? This is their social vision come to pass. If I were a p.r. person for the libertarian party, I would whip up some t-shirts with the slogan "Walk Proudly- Renounce Socialism on Wheels."

Speaking of irony, a group of conservatives is concerned that only 25% of Oklahoma high schoolers correctly identified George Washington as the first U.S. president (http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11141949). I'm not a fan of these sudden polls that throw out rapid fire questions to then show dismal results as proof that schools are teaching frivolous things. It's so Reader's Digest. But here we have a situation where conservatives are concerned about ignorance, yet these are the same folks who think the earth is roughly 4,000-6,000 years old! I could also be jumping to conclusions. Maybe part of the 75% named Jesus as the first U.S. president (since he is top choice as favorite philosopher). Then the conservatives shouldn't worry so much.

What is next, a debate about whether the sun revolves around the earth and vice versa? One thing I have learned is to never, I repeat never, make a statement about how things are bad, but thank goodness no one has (fill in the blank) yet. Yes, there is an anti-Copernican website out there, so my worst fears have been realized: http://www.fixedearth.com/ It's just good to know that there are people on this planet taking Glenn Beck's advice and "question boldly" (except the official story of 9/11), since that is evidence of our "freedom." Of course Beck forgot the rest of Jefferson's quote, which is to question boldly the existence of God. But that's just being picky.

All I can say is that the postmodernists must be happy by now to see their vision, like the tea-baggers, come to pass.

Rouge Forum Update--9-20-09--from Rich

See the RF Update here: http://www.richgibson.com/blog/?p=6

Letter of Solidarity with the UC Professors

To the UC Faculty:

We at the Rouge Forum applaud, admire, and support your efforts to respond to tuition hikes, enrollment cuts, layoffs, furloughs, and increased class sizes, which are indeed, complicit with the privatization of public education.

The Rouge Forum is a group of 4500 educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice. (http://www.rougeforum.org/, http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_Forum).

In the German Ideology, Marx submits, “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”

The connection and simultaneous control of this material and mental production comes into ever-sharper relief anytime we are confronted by our corporate media. The level of discourse is less than satisfying. And, frankly, frightening. Pick the issue: health care, immigration, worker's rights, war, education. While all of the issues are truly critical, the last is particularly problematic since control of schools is a final domino to fall in the imperial quest to completely (re)fashion our reality. Remove critical thinking, make children compete against each other for perceived scarce resources (standardized tests), use the results to reify hierarchies based on social constructions like race and gender and class status, make teachers compete against one another for perceived scarce resources (merit pay), boil dissent down to participation in (mostly) corrupt unions, excuse and/or cover-up the school to military and prison pipelines, monitor and make impotent our schools of education through if-it-wasn't-so-sinister-it-would-be-comical accrediting bodies like NCATE, and regulate truth. This has been the agenda. And, it has already buried itself deep into our educational psyche.

Your willingness to confront this reality on September 24 is an illustration of the work we will all have to do to protect public education toward the creation of a more whole and healthy society. Where Rouge Forum members are affiliated with the UC system, we have encouraged them to join you. Where Rouge Forum members are unaffiliated with the UC system, we have encouraged them to take part in campus wide discussions relative to the status of higher education, academic freedom, and the importance of public education.

We stand in solidarity with you and offer the graphic pasted above, created by Rouge Forum member, Bryan Reinholdt, an elementary performing arts teacher in Louisville, Ky.

Sincerely,

the Rouge Forum Steering Committee

They say cut back…we say fight back

Rouge Forum poster for September 24 university/school walkout in solidarity with faculty at University of California

On the health care front: Doctors speak out for a single-payer system

These doctors say we can handle the truth: http://www.madashelldoctors.com

Rouge Forum Update--9/13/09--from Rich

http://richgibson.com/RFupdate091309.html

Call for manuscripts: Critical Education

Critical Education is an international peer-reviewed journal, which seeks manuscripts that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.

Critical Education is an open access journal, launching in early 2010. The journal home is criticaleducation.org

Critical Education is hosted by the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and edited by Sandra Mathison (UBC), E. Wayne Ross (UBC) and Adam Renner (Bellarmine University) along with collective of 30 scholars in education that includes:

Faith Ann Agostinone, Aurora University
Wayne Au, California State University, Fullerton
Marc Bousquet, Santa Clara University
Joe Cronin, Antioch University
Antonia Darder, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
George Dei, OISE/University of Toronto
Stephen C. Fleury, Le Moyne College
Kent den Heyer, University of Alberta
Nirmala Erevelles, University of Alabama
Michelle Fine, City University of New York
Gustavo Fischman, Arizona State University
Melissa Freeman, University of Georgia
David Gabbard, East Carolina University
Rich Gibson, San Diego State University
Dave Hill, University of Northampton
Nathalia E. Jaramillo, Purdue University
Saville Kushner, University of West England
Zeus Leonardo, University of California, Berkeley
Pauline Lipman, University of Illinois, Chicago
Lisa Loutzenheiser, University of British Columbia
Marvin Lynn, University of Illinois, Chicago
Sheila Macrine, Montclair State University
Perry M. Marker, Sonoma State University
Rebecca Martusewicz, Eastern Michigan University
Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles
Stephen Petrina, University of British Columbia
Stuart R. Poyntz, Simon Fraser University
Patrick Shannon, Penn State University
Kevin D. Vinson, University of the West Indies
John F. Welsh, Louisville, KY

Online submission and author guidelines can be found here.