By AP | February 9, 2010 - 9:55 am - Posted in Politics
From WashingtonMonthly.com, Jan./Feb., by Mariah Blake:
[snip]
Battles over textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas, where bitter skirmishes regularly erupt over everything from sex education to phonics and new math. But never before has the board’s right wing wielded so much power over the writing of the state’s standards. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”
Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that [Don] McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come. p until the 1950s, textbooks painted American history as a steady string of triumphs, but the upheavals of the 1960s shook up old hierarchies, and beginning in the latter part of the decade, textbook publishers scrambled to rewrite their books to make more space for women and minorities. They also began delving more deeply into thorny issues, like slavery and American interventionism. As they did, a new image of America began to take shape that was not only more varied, but also far gloomier than the old one. Author Frances FitzGerald has called this chain of events “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”
The National Journal conducted a poll of 109 Republican Party leaders, asking them to “rank 5 candidates in the order of likeliness to capture the GOP nod.” That former MA Governor Mitt Romney topped the lists of those polled with 81 points, 62 per-cent of which were first place votes, is unsurprising. Were it not for half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s poor showing (25 points) it probably wouldn’t be worth talking about.
Not one of the party leaders or pundits polled selected Palin to top their list. Taking into account the ideological nature of her supporters — distrustful of government, adherents to the myth of a liberal media, and, most importantly, a profound disdain for the GOP elite — this was the best outcome Palin could have hoped for.
Talented FiveThirtyEight.com political prognosticator, Nate Silver, likes Palin’s chances to win 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Silver posted “10 reasons that Palin Could Win,” last Nov. 18. In his Jan. 7 reaction to the Insider’s Poll, Silver reiterated his number eight reason from last year:
…If the Establishment, owing to electability concerns or whatever else, tries to put hurdles in her way by re-structuring the primary or delegate allocation process, it may only play into the victimization complex of Palin and her supporters.
Silver’s commentary is apt, and though the poll doesn’t represent any direct effort to “neuter” Palin’s potential candidacy, that doesn’t mean they wont (see video, below). “Although the Establishment’s concerns about Palin’s viability as a general election candidate are well grounded,” Silver notes, “mostly they’re just terrified of her because she doesn’t need them. “
It might be wiser for establishment Republicans to remain hands-off, and wait for Palin to self destruct. Her supporters have proven themselves willing to keep their blinders on, content to cling to the dazzling façade rolled out at the 2008 Republican National Convention. However, Palin’s high visibility — albeit, NEVER in a critical forum — increases the probability of a politically fatal mistake.
Indeed, she may have already made it. I’m not referring to Palin’s recent doubling down on her “death panel” analysis of health care reform efforts in Washington – a turn of phrase awarded “Lie of the Year” for 2009 byPolitifact.com, Pulitzer winner in that same year. Palin’s deceit in this matter will go unnoticed by her supporters.
However, Palin’s snubbing of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has got much attention. Much more interesting is her commitment to speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Feb. 4-6.
Muriel Kane posted an excellent summary about how different factions are reacting to Palin’s curious positioning at RawStory.com, Jan. 8.
Missed opportunity, simple greed, or shrewd calculation? Only time will tell the real meaning of Sarah Palin’s Tea Party gambit.
Another aspect that has, thus far, received little attention from the media pertains to whom Palin will share the stage with at the Tea Party Convention. Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, Eric Boehlert, posed the question in a Jan. 9 post: “Will the press question the ‘Palin – Farah’ ticket?”
The Beltway press still refuses to raise questions about Palin’s decision to attend the first annual Tea Party convention in Nashville next month and share the stage with a fringe radical like Joseph Farah, who is an avowed gay and Muslim-hating extremist, and whose wingnut publication, [World Net Daily], remains obsessed with the loony, and thoroughly debunked, conspiracy claim that Obama was not born in America.
Of course, Kane was correct – only time will tell how this will play out. There is a long way to go, but the potential for Palin to become the 2012 GOP nominee still exists. So, too, does another outcome which I suggested the day Palin announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska:
If Palin does still have national aspirations, her only hope of success (in her mind, mind you) would be to position herself at the head of some third-party, the radical right-wing of the GOP finally throwing off its remaining moderate faction.
By AP | January 29, 2010 - 12:42 am - Posted in History
BigThink.com compiled their Zinn collection on the sad occasion of the famed historian’s death.
This clip is but the first. Follow the link below the clip to see parts, two & three.
From the BigThink.com post:
The legendary activist, author, and historian wanted to be remembered for “introducing a different way of thinking about the world,” and as “somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before.”
Read More–> Remembering Howard Zinn – BigThink.com
By AP | January 28, 2010 - 4:32 pm - Posted in History
Rest in peace, Professor.
From CommonDreams.org ~ by Mark Feeny:
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack [Jan. 27] in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said. He was 87.
Portrait of Howard Zinn by Robert Shetterly from his series, Americans Who Tell the Truth. http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Howard_Zinn.php
“His writings have changed the consciousness of a generation, and helped open new paths to understanding and its crucial meaning for our lives,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, once wrote of Dr. Zinn. “When action has been called for, one could always be confident that he would be on the front lines, an example and trustworthy guide.”
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn’s best-known book, “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s…
This is mainly an experimentation with soft bodies using toxi’s verlet springs.The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. The visual emphasis is on their decline.
By AP | January 27, 2010 - 9:58 am - Posted in Politics
Follow the link below for the Media Matters for America research page on Obama’s accomplishments.
In the weeks approaching President Obama’s first State of the Union address, some in the media have claimed that Obama has lacked accomplishments in his first year as president and thus, in the words of Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden, Obama has “little to show for ‘09.” In fact, Obama’s first year in office has been marked by a series of significant achievements, including creating jobs as a result of the economic stimulus, eliminating wasteful spending, increasing government transparency, and expanding federal health insurance programs to cover millions more children.
By AP | January 26, 2010 - 2:51 pm - Posted in Satire
Great satire from the FOD team and Jordan Peele in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. FEC, declaring corporations to posses free speech rights, guaranteed under the 1st Amendment as if they were individuals.
Satire just makes the impact of it more digestible… Enjoy!
By AP | January 24, 2010 - 3:54 pm - Posted in Politics
By David Plouffe – Sunday, January 24, 2010:
The Democratic Party got a resounding wake-up call from the voters of Massachusetts on Tuesday. But it’s long been clear that 2010 would be a challenging election year for our party.
With few exceptions, the first off-year election in a new president’s term has led to big gains for the minority party — this was true for Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. After two election cycles in which Democrats won most of the close races and almost all of the big ones, Democrats have much more fragile turf to defend this year than usual. Add to that a historic economic crisis, stubborn unemployment and the pain that both have inflicted on millions of Americans, and you have a recipe for a white-knuckled ride for many of our candidates.
But not if Democrats do what the American people sent them to Washington to do…[snip]
By AP | January 22, 2010 - 9:56 pm - Posted in Media, Politics
January 22, 2010 9:06 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Thanks to this Scott Brown-related dispatch [emphasis added]:
Mass. could benefit if senators set aside partisanship
Right, and if ponies could fly they’d land on rainbows.
This goes back to the point I made yesterday about how the political press refuses to tell the truth about what’s been happening inside the Beltway for the last 13 months regarding how the GOP has adopted a radical and unprecedented partisan approach to the White House, to the point where basically every single GOP member opposes all key administration initiatives. We’ve never seen anything like it in modern American history, but the press pretends like it’s normal, and that gosh, bipartisanship is still possible.
Does the Globe really think there’s a chance Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner are suddenly going to free their members to vote their conscience on issues and to vote for what’s best for their constituents?
Sadly, it takes a satirist to illustrate how pundits have framed Obama as both, a tyrant bent on the destruction of America, and an inept president who was unable to accomplish anything during his first year in office.
p until the 1950s, textbooks painted American history as a steady string of triumphs, but the upheavals of the 1960s shook up old hierarchies, and beginning in the latter part of the decade, textbook publishers scrambled to rewrite their books to make more space for women and minorities. They also began delving more deeply into thorny issues, like slavery and American interventionism. As they did, a new image of America began to take shape that was not only more varied, but also far gloomier than the old one. Author Frances FitzGerald has called this chain of events “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”
![[Portrait of Howard Zinn by Robert Shetterly from his series, Americans Who Tell the Truth. http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Howard_Zinn.php]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/howard_zin.jpg "howard_zin.jpg")
Portrait of Howard Zinn by Robert Shetterly from his series, Americans Who Tell the Truth. http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Howard_Zinn.php