Occupy Wall Street protesters march on Rep. Maloney's office to demonstrate against free trade vote

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: New York Daily News

A small group of Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered outside Rep. Carolyn Maloney's district office Wednesday, hours before she voted on a free trade agreement in Congress.

The gathering of seven men and women hoped to persuade the Democratic congresswoman to reject the trade agreement, which will impact the United States, South Korea, Panama and Columbia.

The vote, scheduled for early Wednesday afternoon, is backed by President Obama and the majority of congressional Republicans, who believe it will boost exports and aid the economy.

Human rights groups, labor groups and several Democrats oppose the move, saying free trade agreements have historically caused U.S. factories to shift their operations overseas to countries with poor labor rights and environmental records.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/10/12/2011-10-12_occupy_wall_street_protesters_march_on_rep_maloneys_office_to_demonstrate_agains.html

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I wonder if anyone bothered to tell the protesters that Maloney is in Washington today.

[EFerrari]

1. Good for them. n/t

[Tippy]

2. K&R

[Kingofalldems]

3. Unrec for snide attack on OWS

The last sentence.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

8. Unrec

for the constant douchiness.

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. Thank you for kicking the post to the top

;)

[arcane1]

4. "backed by President Obama and the majority of congressional Republicans"

I suppose that says it all :(

[Enrique]

5. you've never heard of a protest at a congressperson's local office?

it gets local media attention, for example the article you posted. And thanks for posting it.

[SoapBox]

6. NO more "Free" Trade...Only FAIR Trade. nt

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dont call me Shirley]

10. NONE of the other FTAs worked for the 99%

[Dragonfli]

11. an unrelated question, why do you have a picture of a union buster in your post? just curios /nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. Which unions has he 'busted?'

[Dragonfli]

13. Arne Duncan, the anti Teacher Union Privatization Guru of education of course. nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. Which unions have been busted by Secretary Duncan?

[Dragonfli]

15. His policies promote closing union schools and replacing them with non-union charters

Your feigned ignorance is rather weak and unbelievable. I will humor you anyway, do a search of DU'er Madfloridian and read the last few years of her journal, she is a retired teacher that does exhaustive research as a matter of habit, there is enough evidence of his anti-teacher union privatization style deform there to fill a book.

You will not look however because we both know you are not as ignorant of his policies as you pretend to be, you gave away your rightward leaning anti union proclivities when you used the most favored trick of right wing trolls that I know of.

Do you always answer a question with a question? Do you always repeat the question when it has been answered? (I have seen many tombstones pass through here using those tactics but I think the brand of right wing you are is the brand that call themselves either third way or no labels, so I assume you are here to carry water for TFA or some other "approved" pirates of our education dollars).


Your turn, answer the question you have been avoiding from the start please.

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. Charter school teachers are free to form unions just like public school teachers

[Dragonfli]

17. But the results are expected by most (on both sides of union) to yield mostly non-union TFA charters

and has been demonstrated to work out that way in practice thus far.



Again, please answer the question, why do you have a picture of a "non-union friendly" individual in all your posts?

Do you just think it is cool to annoy all the teachers that post here? I'd rather not have to guess but you still refuse to answer a simple question, I even re worded the question using a more politically correct euphemism for such a critter in order to ask nicely, I even said please.

Pretty please, can you answer the question?

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. I have the picture there because I support their education policies

[Dragonfli]

19. Thank you, for an honest answer, I truly appreciate that, the reason I asked was

I am trying to understand support for this type of reform, it is not something I believe will help students or teachers, I have studied a great deal about it and I do not get the theory that firing experienced teachers and replacing them with self admittedly inexperienced teachers from TFA (who charges the schools a pretty large sum for supplying them) solves any problem at all.

I do not see how privatization that takes money away from a public education system that desperately needs it and transfering it to business helps anyone but the business.

I don't understand how the NCLB elements that center education around tests rather than critical thinking is supposed to help students learn well.

I don't understand the provisions that leave few options other than firing everybody if too many disadvantaged children bring the test scores down, the same students that the charters get to dematriculate to help the overall scores, and the same students that would achieve on level with their peers if more tutoring and or counseling were provided them.

I don't understand why they just don't even up the resources of the many different public schools instead of blaming the teachers and firing them for cheaper models. I have attended several public schools growing up and have also attended private catholic schools and saw the difference first hand, it is a rather stark contrast of resources where the best education I received was at St Joseph's Collegiate high school and the worst education was in the money starved public school in the poor neighborhood I ended up in after my father lost his job as a steelworker to foreign plants.

In between those two extremes was a lower middle class high school that was better funded with better resources (and better results)
The best public school I attended was an Amherst public school in a wealthy neighborhood that had excellent resources and smaller class sizes (15 to 20 students, usually 15). I learned from my experience that the education received was directly connected to how much the school had to spend on smaller class sizes and resources (books computers ect) The teachers were all about equal with the exception of those at St Joe's (their teachers made at least twice the salary as the PS teachers and were therefore drawn from a pool of exceptionally educated educators that were well above average, three of my teachers there had PHD's. The tuition was rather high however even with my partial academic scholarship.

These policies address none of these very real issues, the worst performing school (the one in the poor area) could not supply everyone with books (we had to share and pages were missing) and had class sizes between 50 and 55 students.

I must be honest with you, these reforms ignore these actual impediments to good education and turn to solutions that have been proposed not by educators but business men. They are obviously about privatization as well as Bush's idea (inspired no doubt by a brother that sold standardized tests) to spend most of the day preparing for tests with little time for everything else.

I am trying to understand why people are sold so easily on shifting the money away from public schools that prize experience in the classroom and the concept of union fairness to schools based on a business model utilizing less experienced teachers while focusing on tests (that are rather expensive and excessive) and the weeding out of the students that need help the most.

Rather than leveling the resources to achieve actual results for all students they actually maker them compete for resources like some bizarre Japanese game show while incentivizing using cheaper less experienced educators.

Please help me to understand.
On the face of it it looks like a blatant attempt to take public education resources and hand them over to businesses run by spreadsheets rather than teaching techniques.

Because you were honest when you finally answered my question, I will not judge you your opinion, I have just been trying to understand why someone supports this and would like your honest answer so that I can better understand your support.

I am not singling out this one issue or you personally, I have been trying to understand the support for other traditionally right of center views on a myriad of issues and find the hardest part is getting an honest answer and an actual explanation of the reasons for the support, so please respond, be as verbose as necessary, I will not pick the post apart nor will I attack you for your views (I am just trying to understand at this point)

Thank you in advance. :-)

[SolHankovic]

20. Torries and the 1%

I pulled out my Almanac of American History by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to read about the Tories during the American Revolution. You recall the Tories were the loyalists to England and supported the actions of British troops.

Tory commentary sounds very much the same as the 1%. There are always a few who place their own interests above the needs of those who are disadvantaged. And, there is only one language they understand - violence of the many, trumps the greed of a few. Just some food for thought.

[wordpix]

21. Just saw a public TV special on Panama & land rights violations there

Corporations/big hotels/developers just outright STEALING land from native Panamanians (and even some Americans who thought they owned a clear title to their property, where they built their home).