Why as a Black High School Teacher I'm Endorsing Bernie Sanders

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Yet as horrifying as that day was, it wasn’t the only disturbing experience for my students that month. A few days later, the first research project I ever assigned came due. The students arrived at school with their homemade posters, artwork that illustrated the lives of people throughout history who had contributed to social change. We were planning to present the projects the following day, but when we arrived at school the following morning we discovered that all the posters had been destroyed. Unbeknownst to me, there was a hole in the ceiling of my classroom and it had rained overnight, completely waterlogging their posters, and leaving pools of water on floor.

I learned something from that experience that has stayed with me all these years: Our government is able to mobilize an untold fortune to go bomb people and children all over the world, yet refused to find the resources to fix that hole in the ceiling of my classroom—right in the shadow of the White House.

After three years of teaching in Washington, D.C., I moved back to my hometown of Seattle and I began teaching middle school. After a couple years of teaching, the Great Recession of 2008 struck the economy and I was laid off, along with hundreds of other teachers in Seattle, and thousands more around the country. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, I learned another vital lesson: Our government will take great care to nurture and support investment bankers and insurance companies, and yet distains and disrespects America’s children (and their educators) in the public schools.

These harsh lessons have led me to support the unprecedented campaign of Bernie Sanders for president. Sen. Sanders has been speaking out against wars throughout his life, wars that have depleted the funding we need to improve our public schools. He’s been working to hold Wall Street accountable and to wrestle the wealth out of the hands of the richest 1 percent and use that money for the common good.

(snip)

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/10/why-black-high-school-teacher-im-endorsing-bernie-sanders

[beachbumbob]

1. review 1972 and the outcome of that election when leftist got their man as the nominee

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. "Leftist"

[beachbumbob]

4. leftist extreme leftwing, same tryoes who support Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, as well as any green

party candidate. Does not represent views of the majority of those on the "left" side of the political party system. Typically ideologues more interested in the agenda that is narrow in scope. Sees issues as BLACK OR WHITE

[Act_of_Reparation]

9. Had a lot of Jill Stein voters back in 1972, did we?

You are equivocating. You know you are equivocating. We know you are equivocating. There are plenty of derisive terms you could use that don't rely on reinforcing the red baiting of American liberals. Stop doing the GOP's work for them.

[wyldwolf]

7. would you prefer puritopian?

[NurseJackie]

37. That's the new hand sanitizer gel, right?

[wyldwolf]

38. if only

[wyldwolf]

8. and 1968 when they didn't, then stayed home... and 2000...

[Uncle Joe]

12. In the 2000 race "Al Gore Invented the Internet"

according to the corporate media conglomerates, that did more damage to his prospects than anything, period.

Despite decades of media mirth-making about the supposed statement, former vice president Al Gore never claimed he "invented the Internet."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/internet-of-lies/

Now why did the corporate media conglomerates libel, slander, trash Al Gore over this instead of giving him credit for being the preeminent political champion for opening the Internet to the people?

For the same reason that corporate media conglomerates trash Bernie's massive number of supporters on the Internet today, that being self-serving financial conflicts of interest along with threats to their monopolistic hold on the distribution and dissemination of information to the public.

They can't attack Bernie on the issues that's why the almost never discuss the short comings of our health care system or massive income inequality in the U.S. so they attack his supporters.

[wyldwolf]

13. So you're contending that lost him the election??

[Uncle Joe]

14. It and a host of other slanders totally damaged his credibility, are you denying that? n/t

[wyldwolf]

15. Yes, unless you have a link that shows that. I totally deny it.

The Nader effect is measurable. What you're claiming isn't.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Narratives whether measurable or not are very real political dynamics.

"Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" was telecast non-stop on the cable channels, late night comedy for the better part of two years prior to the election.

After this interview, Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule when his statement "I took the initiative in creating the Internet"[53] was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and figures in American popular media who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet.[54] Gore's actual words, however, were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President."[55]

Former UCLA professor of information studies, Philip E. Agre and journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet," which followed this interview.[56][57][58] Jim Wilkinson, who at the time was working as congressman Dick Armey's spokesman, also helped sell the idea that Gore claimed to have "invented the internet."[59][60][61] Computer professionals and congressional colleagues argued against this characterization. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn stated that "we don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet."[3][57] Cerf would also later state: "Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than any of his elective colleagues. His initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit."[62]

Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, and President Bill Clinton in 1997.

In a speech to the American Political Science Association, former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich also stated: "In all fairness, it's something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is -- and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a "futures group"—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the '80s began to actually happen."[63] Finally, Wolf Blitzer (who conducted the original 1999 interview) stated in 2008 that:

I didn't ask him about the Internet. I asked him about the differences he had with Bill Bradley ... Honestly, at the time, when he said it, it didn't dawn on me that this was going to have the impact that it wound up having, because it was distorted to a certain degree and people said they took what he said, which was a carefully phrased comment about taking the initiative in creating the Internet to—I invented the Internet. And that was the sort of shorthand, the way his enemies projected it and it wound up being a devastating setback to him and it hurt him, as I'm sure he acknowledges to this very day.[64]

Gore, himself, would later poke fun at the controversy. In 2000, while on the Late Show with David Letterman he read Letterman's Top 10 List (which for this show was called, "Top Ten Rejected Gore – Lieberman Campaign Slogans&quot to the audience. Number nine on the list was: "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!"[65] A few years later in 2005, when Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at the Webby Awards[66][67] he joked in his acceptance speech (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules): "Please don't recount this vote." He was introduced by Vint Cerf who used the same format to joke: "We all invented the Internet." Gore, who was then asked to add a few more words to his speech, stated: "It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy."[67]

(snip)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology

I heard that shit incessantly from my co-workers when I would argue Bush was too light weight.

Now what would the effect be if the corporate media conglomerates had given Al credit?

[wyldwolf]

18. again, anything measurable? No?

[Uncle Joe]

20. Primarily for two reasons, because Al's leadership in opening the Internet to the people which

in turn paved the path for our nation's first African American President; Obama and for the rise of the progressive movement beginning in 2016 and today.

The second reason being for his leadership in warning our nation about global warming climate change.

From a mythological analogy, I view Al Gore as Prometheus, the Internet as fire, the oligarchs or billionaire class in America as Zeus and their corporate media conglomerates as the buzzard/eagle with Bernie being Hercules.

It is Hercules that frees Prometheus.

That's why I have Al as my avatar to answer your question which you just deleted.

[wyldwolf]

22. so, no. The answer is no.

[Uncle Joe]

23. I answered the question you deleted.

[wyldwolf]

24. The question I asked was do you have anything measurable to support your contention.

The answer is 'no.'

I deleted my question about Gore so you wouldn't use it as an excuse to try and change the direction of the conversation. But you did anyway.

[Uncle Joe]

25. I told you on my second post #17

Narratives whether measurable or not are very real political dynamics.

Do you disagree with that?

[wyldwolf]

26. so, again, the answer is no. You have nothing measurable. No links. No polls. No data. Correct?

[Uncle Joe]

27. And you can't bring yourself to answer a common sense question.

That narratives are very real political dynamics.

[wyldwolf]

28. 90 minutes and you're still dodging and diverting.

[LanternWaste]

16. You'll supply data to support that hyperbole, yes?

"that did more damage to his prospects than anything, period."

You'll supply data to support that hyperbole, yes?

No?

No.

[wyldwolf]

30. He's spent close to two hours NOT answering that question.

[Uncle Joe]

31. I answered your question, you never answered mine.

Narratives are a real political dynamic.

Do you disagree with that?

[ismnotwasm]

33. Narratives are real, but nebulous

Take HA Goodman for instance, he created narrative after narrative as a journalist, with zero data.

Then he switched to supporting Trump.

I believe the posters you are discussing this issue with are requesting data, a poll, an analysis with numbers, that kind of thing.

[wyldwolf]

36. he KNOWS we're requesting data, a poll, an analysis with numbers

And he's avoiding answering it.

[wyldwolf]

35. point us to where you answered the question. And as a reminder, here's the question

You said the "I invented the internet" smear ""did more damage to his prospects than anything, period."

My question, asked repeatedly and in various forms, was "do you have any links or data to support that?"

Never once did you answer that.

[George II]

3. Only 172 teachers were laid off in Seattle, and only 2900 state-wide. That's quite an exaggeration.

[ancianita]

5. When it comes to American education and wars, this teacher gets it wrong.

1. State and local taxes fund schools, primarily, not the federal government.
The highest federal contribution of funds comes through IDEA qualifying student numbers, where the federal money follows the student no matter what school they attend.

K-12 schools, on average, get funded at 47 percent from state funds. Local governments provide another 45 percent. The remaining 8 percent comes from the federal government.

2. State and local budgets are not used for American war or any war actions, so they can't rightly be said to detract from school funding.

3. Priorities of funding education will not be made at federal levels until the Constitution itself is changed to make education a fundamental right.

4. To claim that any one candidate CAN influence state and local funding of American K-12 is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to improve schools. It will not be by a president. It will have to be by Americans and a national constitutional convention.

[ismnotwasm]

34. That's what I thought, and with all due respect to his experience

He left the actual process of funding out.

[ancianita]

39. Whose experience? The writer's or Bernie's. How schools are funded isn't part of

teachers' training, either. Or the public's for that matter.

There's probably no process of funding available for either to know, anyway.

[Jersey Devil]

6. As a rebel leader I too am endorsing Bernie Sanders

[wyldwolf]

10. Every primary, these types remind me of Wesley from 'Forrest Gump.'

[Todd79]

11. My old high school

My old high school’s African American linebackers coach is endorsing Joe Biden. I’ll ask him to write an essay that can be published on a pro-Joe media website.

Bernie’s views sure have evolved on fixing public education:

In a letter to the editor published in the Freeman in 1969, he called the growing disillusionment with public schooling “one of the most heartening signs in recent years,” and he remarked that “the basic function of the schools is [to] set up in children patterns of docility and conformity—patterns designed not to create independent and free adults, but adults who will obey orders, be ‘faithful’ uncomplaining employees, and ‘good’ citizens.” He took a similar tack in another essay, this one tongue in cheek, entitled “On Education.”

Treating children with kid gloves, he believed, was turning them into sexually repressed worker drones. In a 1969 essay in the Freeman, he wrote, “In Vermont, at a state beach, a mother is reprimanded by Authority for allowing her 6 month old daughter to go about without her diapers on. Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on peoples sexual frustrations.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-freeman-sexual-freedom-fluoride/

[SidDithers]

19. At least Bernie still has commondreams...

along with Jacobinmag and The Intercept.



Sid

[ismnotwasm]

21. Well props from going from private school in DC

To Garfield high in Seattle. He must be one hell of a teacher. And I mean that sincerely

Interesting he doesn’t reference the Mccleary decision in Washington state.

I don’t even disagree with the guy, except; of course, his choice of nominee; except I was told on this very board that with economic justice, social
justice will follow. Which is not, of course how anything works. Bernie can’t be the savior, because the follow through path was never available to him. What he tried to do, is change the conversation, taking on topic after topic, taking credit for “ideas” he did not merit. Others have addressed Climate change, the cost of education, healthcare.

Bernie has a golden opportunity to continue to drive forward his narrative here.

But not, unfortunately, and unless a lot of things change today, as president

Seattle loves them some Bernie. I often feel out of place politically here.

[LaurenOlimina]

29. Yeah.... I agree.