As James Madison, Federalist No. 48, Feb. 1, 1788, wrote “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” See 2010 Presentation to Members of General Assembly of Virginia on investigation of judicial branch rule making power

This event is neither open to the media or to public scrutiny, but more importantly permit the promulgation of court rules that have violated the substantive rights of citizens, i.e., denial of the right to civil jury trials by abuse of dismissal under FRCP Rule 12, the discriminatory treatment of pro se litigants, the giving to the judicial branch absolute immunity from accountability for criminal acts or tort.

Evidence confirms that by the abuse and misuse of the Judiciary Act of 1925, the U.S. Judicial Conference Act, and the Rules Enabling Act, the Judicial Branch has conspired with government attorneys to undercut and disregard the limitations and prohibitions on government employees violation of the rights of citizens under the U.S. Constitution.  The extensive record confirms that there is an ongoing conspiracy by government attorneys and judges to deny nonresident U.S. citizens protection.http://www.liamsdad.org/others…. Thus, the evidence of cronyism between Beltway Lobbyist/Attorney, government attorneys and judges has revealed the usurpations of power by judges to obstruct justice in violation 18 U.S.C. § 4, § 241, § 242, and § 1204.(Jan 9, 2010 NOVA Presentation).Presentation to members of General Assembly of Virginia

The Mendocino Marijuana Museum is dead. It would have probably died of neglect and lack of funding sooner or later, but its bank preemptively killed it off.   It was supposed to be a place where the stories of the participants of the modern war on drugs were turned from folklore to history, but people mostly remained in their foxholes, and the war continues…

What happened? On February 29^th, the Mendo Lake Credit Union sent a letter to the museum. Here are some highlights:

                        Re: MLCU’s inability to maintain accounts for businesses or            individuals involving or relating to: Cannabis, Marijuana, Dispensary,             Collective, Compassionate, Apothecary, or other related references…

                    …(Y)our account with us is included in a group of business types that are      outside of our administrative capacity. Mendo Lake Credit Union is regulated       by a variety of Federal agencies and as a result, cannot contribute to the          production, sales, or distribution of unlawful activity according to Federal Law.

The letter then references The DEA Position on Marijuana, a 2011 publication by our Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, which contains the following paragraph:

                        …”Depository institutions (banks, savings and loans, etc.) that        knowingly avail and continue to afford their products and services to commercialized cannabis cooperatives or clubs in order to meet payroll,                  utilities, security, maintain leases and acquire additional merchandise do so in        violation of federal anti-money laundering statutes by promoting the specified          unlawful activity of drug trafficking.”

The letter concludes with a link to the DEA position paper (http://www.justice.gov/dea/marijuana postion.pdf}, and a “request that you locate another commercial banking provider”.

Since I did not actually open that letter until after I received a reminder and a couple of checks returning the balance of the account, I did not call MLCU until April 20^th, to point out that the museum and gift shop were not in the business of drug trafficking, and should therefore be able to maintain accounts at any and all banks. The lady who called me back to discuss this stated that my case had been reviewed, and that it had been decided that the museum/gift shop accounts would be closed. I asked if there was some other communication from regulatory agencies that I was not aware of, since the DEA paper says nothing about museums and gift shops. She declined to answer the question, or to go on record about any of this. “We are regulated by several Federal agencies, and we have to serve the community,” she said, somewhat cryptically.

So I tried to open an account with the Savings Bank of Mendocino. The lady I spoke with asked a lot of questions about the nature of the business and its banking needs, and told me that she would have to have my request reviewed at her board meeting before she open an account. A few days later, she left a message informing me that the board had declined my request. She did not return my call requesting an explanation of that decision.

The lady I called at the Redwood Credit Union thought that it would not be a problem to open an account there, but, after putting me on hold for a few minutes, regretfully informed me that RCU could not accommodate my banking needs, because they are a “Federally regulated non-profit community institution.”

I finally got something like a sensible answer from the gentleman at the WestAmerica Bank. He told me that any account with the abovementioned naughty words in the name could trigger a Federal bureaucratic avalanche and audits at any bank that provides banking services to anyone who has anything to do with the devil weed. It was not profitable to do business with the museum.

At this point I gave up. I was not about to call the bank of too-big-to-fail to hear the same story, or worse, do business with them.

So, if you care, come by on Memorial Day weekend for our garage sale, and say good-bye to the museum that never really got going.

.If you can’t make it on Memorial Day, don’t fret: most of the exhibits will live on in the Mendocino Censored Museum, which will take over the space.  The new museum will celebrate the trend of self-censorship in the land of the free, which is apparently better than taking a chance of irritating the people who own us.

Thursday May 24, 2012 at 11:15 AM there will be a General Assembly for the League of Student Workers at Santa Monica College.  I’ve been told the meeting is going to be pretty informal; the group is meeting to create a contact point for the Student Workers, introduce the committee members and present the annual report.  Student-workers are going to vote on whether or not they want to submit the report to the administration after appropriate changes have been made based onStudent Worker input. They may also vote on whether or not they want to make the committee a permanent representative body for Student Workers — but any details on structure ad mission will be determined at a later date.

Santa Monica College sets the pace for student organizing and fights against privatization and a State Wide Student Union

There is little doubt that Santa Monica College, one of the 112 community colleges in the state of California suffering under the weight of years of neglect and intentional slash and burn economic policies, is gearing up on multiple fronts to let the one percent know that a future of corporate low-paid work, lack of social security, table ortz for benefits, austerity in the form of higher costs for education, health care, social services and the inability to make a decent life or wage for oneself and their children is not acceptable.  Nor will it be tolerated.

In the culture of disposability, where people matter only as commodified low-wage workers or consumers, students are now viewed as a fugitive outlaw culture within the modern historical context of a failing and criminal economic and social order called monopoly capitalism.  Combine unfettered ‘self interests’ (usually manufactured by the Sorcerers of oppression and never critically examined by the occupied mind) and then couple this with failing descendant capitalism and one has the ingredients for an organized crime capitalist system accompanied by a predatory culture.

Working with students to assure they understand the class interest of both the ruling class and the class the working class that labors for them comes about when workers achieve a sense of class consciousness.  When student/ citizens become self conscious about power, the way it is configured and by whom, how it is used to repress and exploit the majority of working people and low-income people of color, that we can begin to develop the democratic thinking necessary for living a full and potential life within a system of hope and equal opportunity — not crippling depression and mendacity.

About The League of Student Workers

The League of Student Workers is committed to creating effective and transparent systems of communication between Student Workers and the SMC administration.

Mission

As members of LSW our goals are as follows:
- To maintain a productive coalition of student workers
- Promote positive communication between Student Workers, the SMC community, the SMC constituents, and our governing bodies
- Facilitate positive Student Worker action
- Advocate for fair wages and benefits (including non-monetary) for Student Workers
- Work to ensure better student involvement in all matters related to Student Workers at SMC
- Demand further transparency in all aspects of Student Worker policies and policy making

Description

We, the members of League of Student Workers (LSW), are founded on the basis of promoting student worker unity and improving student worker conditions and relations for all present and future Students Workers.

Founded February 12^th, 2012, the League for Student Workers can be found at:(http://www.facebook.com/LeagueOfStudentWorkers/info).

The report:

Summary

The following report outlines many of the financial and educational challenges facing working college students today. The purpose of this document is to initiate a collection of policy adjustments which will benefit both Santa Monica College and Student Workers. All of the changes suggested in this document, developed through research and Student Worker input, are meant to enhance and complement the current Student Worker program and not to replace it. The report analyzes three main areas of improvement and offers suggestions for their implementation:

1. The establishment of a variable pay scale system for Student Workers

2. The creation of an incentives package for Student Workers

3. The development and implementation of a comprehensive internal Internship Program

At the end of this document is a Proclamation of Unity, signed and approved by the Student Workers of Santa Monica College during the League of Student Workers First General assembly held May 24, 2012 at Santa Monica College. Follow-up and questions regarding any part of this report should be directed to the Associated Students League of Students Workers Ad hoc Committee whose member are:

Jessica Chuan – jessicastudentgovernment@gmail.com

Martha Clayton – clayton_martha_a@student.smc.edu

Jasmine Delgado – jasmine.smc.vp@gmail.com

Currently, Santa Monica College Student Worker Employment policies require that students must be enrolled full time (12 units) to work in the Fall and Spring semesters with a modified version of this for the Winter semester. Furthermore, students are only allowed work up to 20 hours a week and cannot receive more than 8.00/hr no matter their position or skill. Research indicates that all other community colleges in the immediate vicinity have much more lenient and generous student employment policies. For example, Pasadena Community College offers students a pay rate commensurate to experience and skill set. Their student’s pay rate starts at $8.00-$11.00 and can be increased to $23.00/hour; they can work up to 20 hours/week, and stipends are available upon the request of their supervisor. All nine of the community colleges within the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest in the country, share guidelines/policies and start their student employees at .25 above minimum wage with increases to that rate in increments of 15%, 20%, and 40%, and they are allowed to work up to 25 hours per week as long as they remain in good standing academically.

These higher standards are also reflected nationally. Quinsigamond Community College in Massachusetts pays students between $8.50 and $10.00/hour. Mercy College in New York pays students $7.15 (NY State min. wage) to $10.00. Raritan Valley Community College starts at minimum wage, which is currently $7.25/hour in New Jersey, but different jobs will pay different amounts based on department budgets and the difficulty of the job. Dyersberg State Community College allows that a pay rate increase be offered if a supervisor can justify, in writing to the Financial Aid Office, why a higher rate should be paid. Mesa Community College, which competes with LACCD for largest CC system in the US, starts student pay at $7.50/hour but supervisors can increase that rate, based on experience and commitment, up to $29.54/hour. Recent research indicates startling trends that students are having to work more and more during their college years. For example, since 2001 the number of working students has increased nationally from 49% to 57% with 830,000 students working full time (Learning and Earning: Working in College). Even with the current increase rate of inflation, tuition, and interest from loans, the standard pay rate of $8.00/hour has failed to meet ever rising living expenses, only to have risen an average of 50 cents in the past decade.

Given the situation of an SMC student paid at the current $8.00 pay rate, and assuming that he or she works the maximum of 20 possible allotted hours per week, he or she would only have on average 1/5th of the cost of an “affordable” apartment in California (considered affordable if rent and utilities cost under 30 % of income). The average 2 bedroom apartment in California requires 130 hours/week at minimum wage. There are only 168 hours in a week. The National Center for Education Statistics has reported that 80% of part-time and almost half (40%) of full time 4 year university students are working. The particular effects of work-over-study depend on the location, hours spent, and type of job the student is in. However, the one apparent correlation underlying the impacts of working more than 20 hours a week is a negative one. Economists Orzag, Orzag and Whitmore point out that drop-out rates for students reflect a devastating trend with “always-working students” being 45% more likely to quit school and/or enlist in the army. On top of this, the statistics increase in prevalence when the data is categorized by ethnicity, with African-Americans being affected the most. Furthermore, when they, surveyed students regarding what they perceived as the greatest impediment to their academic success, 20.8% reported part-time employment as being a reason and 11.5% reported full-time employment. Additionally, 40% of student who work reported that work limits their class schedule, 36% reported that it limited the number of classes they could take, and 26% reported that work limited their ability to access campus services, specifically the library.

Other studies clearly demarcate how the external pressures of work hinders GPA. For example, Philip Gleason discovered that “a student who begins a 30/hour per week can expect to see his/her GPA drop by at least .05”. This may seem minor or inconsequential if viewing higher education through yesterday’s lens but in today’s competitive atmosphere this .05 could easily mean the difference between acceptance and rejection, especially with the rising epidemic of grade inflation, impacted classes, and increasing competition. This is true even for state and public schools, traditionally seen as more flexible in admission rates. With the current economic trends manipulating the jobs market, the rise of tuition rates, and the increasingly prevalent dependency on student loans, students are desperate for well-compensated jobs while they face the difficulties of finding a flexible satisfactory job to support themselves through school. Long gone are the days when a summer-and-vacations job could make any difference to the financial obligations of higher education.

Ideally, for Santa Monica College to alleviate this incredible burden for students and increase Student Worker retention, it would be advantageous to implement the ever prominent variable pay scale, which would reflect the merit and skill of the student worker. Los Angeles Community College District uses the following model created in 2007. It does not reflect current California Minimum Wage requirements.

(Image 2):IMAGE 2: Taken from LACCD Human Resources Manual – HR R-320 Student Employees

Available: http://www.laccd.edu/hr/Documents/HRGuide_R-320_StudentEmployees.pdf

However, it is obvious that the current economic crisis leaves Santa Monica College in an unfavorable position to address the issue of Student Worker pay rates monetarily. With this in mind, we have determined that on top of the effort to raise wages, it would be extremely beneficial to both the employer and employee alike to develop an incentives package; for this would:

1.    Help alleviate drop-out rates due to financial stress for students and support them to perform better both academically and professionally.

2.    Create an employment environment which fosters retention and ultimately saves SMC money by lessening the recurring process and cumbersome costs associated with repetitive hiring and training of Student Workers.

3.    Reward students for their commitment to SMC, just as campus organizations such as the AAPIA, Black Collegians, Disabilities Department, Associated Students, and countless other clubs do annually.

4.    Presents SMC as an academic institution and employer who recognizes the current employment market as especially fragile for students and creates innovative alternatives to address such issues.

The incentives we have developed have been designed to cost SMC as little as possible and include several thrifty solutions. These solutions will promote professionalism and offer students a safe environment for acquiring necessary real-life work skills that can be utilized in all future employment opportunities while simultaneously raising SMC’s profile as a community college that takes a holistic approach to student success. The value of presenting SMC as an institution which recognizes the obstacles students are facing and then creates innovative, outside-the-box solutions cannot be overlooked. The following selection of incentives were created based on research, meetings, informal surveys, and student employee interviews.

Campus Discounts (food court, book store, parking decals, printing privileges)

As student pay has risen very little in the past decade, all other costs associates with higher education have risen exponentially at above inflation rates, and students immediately recognize the benefits of utilizing student discounts. A 5% discount at all on-campus vendors could allow for some significant savings for students while encouraging the on-campus economy. Students make their money on campus and in return spend their money on campus. Additional printing privileges, similar to the Associate Students Cayton Center printing policy should also be included.

Vendor contracts that highlight student employees

Requiring campus vendors , such as those in the cafeteria, to offer SMC students first-right-of-refusal for all positions would demonstrate SMC’s commitment to student well-being and success. Additionally, this would again improve the on-campus economic cycle of students working/spending/studying on campus.

Transcript Notation

As the competition for acceptance to four-year universities becomes more and more fierce, transcript notations stating a student’s work history dates and position could potentially increase a student’s likelihood of being accepted. Transcript notation can highlight a student’s commitment and professionalism; a benefit that students keen on transferring tend to value, as demonstrated by the number of participants recognized by SMC Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa, Alpha Gamma Sigma, the Scholars Program, and Dean’s List each year. This would also offer SMC the opportunity to recognize student employees for the contribution that they make to the successful operation of SMC.

Transcript Services

Again, in an effort to help students financially and reward them for their commitment to SMC, allowing Student Workers a limited number of complementary transcripts will engender mutual respect, and for some, make their ability to apply broadly for transfer more attainable.

Professional Development Opportunities

For many students, SMC is their first employer. With this in mind it is an invaluable opportunity to be included in Flex Day professional workshops with the faculty, especially for students working as Tutors, Supplemental Instruction Leaders, and in the Disabled Students Center. Offering Student Employees the opportunity to understand departmental goals, methodologies, and professional expectations can only improve performance. Additionally, this has the potential to create important mentor relationships between faculty and Student Employees.

Direct Deposit

With student pay being low, waiting for paychecks can often lead to greater stress and sometimes short-term financial crises. Direct deposit would alleviate this completely and save SMC money by eliminating the need for check processing and postage.

All of these incentives benefit both SMC and the Student Worker. Inclusion of these incentives would be of minimal cost to SMC with the rewards for implementing such a system far outweighing the initial staff hours required. At a time when the state budget crisis is effecting community colleges drastically, this incentives package can also serve as an excellent morale builder and public relations opportunity for SMC. Furthermore, this inventive solution for increasing the benefits of being a Student Worker can be applied as a broader, culture changing mechanism

Very often today we hear that the community college is changing. Students are no longer transient passers-by that enter and leave in two years or less. Due to rising costs, low wages and budget cuts on the state and local level, community college students are often extending their stay, sometimes for as long as 4 or 5 years. Additionally, the community college system itself is constantly under attack from slash-and-burn political budget agendas which pride themselves on presenting the community college system as a haven for slackers, but with the numbers of full-time learner/full-time worker increasing daily we know this isn’t true.

Yet through all this negativity, the community college culture appears to reinforce this detrimental image by offering students career services that push them out to external companies, encouraging them to commute rather then provide students professional work here, on campus. This exasperates a disconnect between the college and the students, leading many students to believe that the institution is in fact not truly interested in their success, but is “just pushing them through.” So how do we thwart these negative misconceptions about community college while simultaneously providing students applicable skills for their next professional and/or academic endeavor? We change this counter-productive relationship into an adaptive one by creating a comprehensive, cutting-edge, internal internship program that offers students the opportunity to develop professionally. This would thus allow faculty, administration, and classified employees the advantage of focusing on larger projects as the smaller, or more routine tasks of their departments are delegated to eager students, desperate for the opportunity to acquire professional experience relevant to their major or field of interest.

This outline demonstrates the general broad strokes and concepts of the proposed program. With a little research, departmental coordination, and development of the policies and the incentive package suggested, we can actualize merit and efficiency into reality. Again, the thrifty approaches proposed were formulated with budget constraints in mind and would probably require more intention and commitment from staff than it would require direct monetary output.

Progression and Integration of Internship Program into Student Worker System

Step 1: Internship (1-2 semesters)

·         unpaid

·         requires 6 units to participate

·         3.0 GPA

·         receives incentive package

·         learns professional skills associated with departmental needs

·         student develops mentor relationships

·         student gains resume content

·         SMC gains trained interns who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Intern contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC grows cutting-edge reputation by addressing student success in a multifaceted manner

·         Interns have priority employment and selected interns are chosen for professional jobs

Step 2: Promotion to Student Workers Position (semester 2+)

·         minimum wage

·         requires 6 (FWS) to 12 (Student Worker) units to participate

·         3.0 GPA

·         receives incentive package

·         fully trained from previous semester’s experience

·         able to train incoming interns

·         student deepens mentor relationships

·         students gain additional resume content

·         SMC gains trained employees who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Student Workers contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         encourages collaboration with trained Student Workers

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC leverages successes first generation of intern-to-Student Worker to promote program on-campus and in the community

Step 3: SMC implements variable pay scale for Student Workers

·         pay based on position and experience

·         requires 12 units to participate

·         receives incentive package

·         fully applies professional skills associated with departmental needs

·         student creates mentor relationships with incoming interns and Level 1 Student Workers

·         students increase resume content to reflect 1.5 to 2 year professional commitment

·         SMC gains trained professionals who contribute directly to success of institution

·         Student Workers contributions allow faculty, staff, and classified employees more opportunity to focus on larger issue projects

·         encourages collaboration with trained Student Workers

·         students feel greater connection to SMC due to direct contribution

·         SMC leverages successes first generation of intern-to-Student Worker to promote program on-campus and in the community

The ultimate goal of the incentives package for current Student Workers, the development of the Internship Program, and the imperative shift to a variable pay scale is to create a new paradigm for the community college system which takes the fostering of professional, academic and personal growth of students to a new and exciting level. This is an opportunity for SMC to further enhance its already well-respected presence in the field of higher education by demonstrating that it recognizes the important contribution that students make to the college’s continued success while cultivating an expansive support network for administrators, faculty, and classified staff. Furthermore, by implementing these programs SMC can offer students a value-added educational experience. This is especially important for students who decide not to progress beyond an Associates degree as it offers them favorable circumstances from which they can gain crucial experience that will help carry them into the professional market.

Proclamation of Unity

We, the Student Workers of Santa Monica College, call on the institution to recognize the invaluable contribution that we make to SMC. We ask that you, the administrators of Santa Monica College, implement these changes to the current Student Worker policies in an effort to create a more fair and beneficial work environment.

We, the members of League of Student Workers (LSW), are founded on the basis of promoting student worker unity and improving student worker conditions and relations for all present and future Students Workers.

As members of LSW our goals are as follows:

·         To maintain a coalition of student workers

·         Promote positive communication between Student Workers, the SMC community, the SMC constituents, and our governing bodies

·         Facilitate positive Student Worker action

·         Advocate for fair wages and benefits for Student Workers

·         Work to ensure better student involvement in all matters related to Student Workers at SMC

·         Demand further transparency in all aspects of Student Worker policies and policy making

For the last fifteen years, I have been running self-help groups and education programs in some of the most notorious prisons in the United States. At both Elmira Correctional Facility in New York and San Quentin State Prison in California, I have met men who would be considered the “worst of the worst.” And yet when I get to know them, I find that they are human beings like you or me. Often, they were quite young when they committed their crimes. Now, they are in their 40s, 50s and 60s and have served from 25-30 years of their “life sentences.” They have changed their lives dramatically, no longer the drug addicts or gang-bangers they once were. Yet they still sit in prison—transformed and rehabilitated. Why do we continue to keep them there?

I would argue that it is because we do not believe in rehabilitation in this country. Instead, we are interested in revenge and retribution. Why else would we pay $46,000 a year to keep someone in prison who is no longer a threat to society? It costs $34 billion a year to run the prison industrial complex of the United States, and at the state level, it is $57.92 a day to hold them.

In California alone, 167,000 people are in prison, and it costs $10.8 billion to keep them there. Even the U.S. Supreme Court thinks that what is going on in California’s prisons is horrific and has ordered that 33,000 inmates be released as soon as possible. As a result, a massive “realignment” is going on right now, with prisoners being moved to county jails instead. But often, these people could be freed from incarceration altogether, since they pose no threat to society.

Many of these “lifers” have served far more than their minimum sentences, and yet they still stay in prison despite years of exemplary behavior because of the arbitrariness of the parole boards—and, in California, of previous governors as well. Fortunately, the incumbent now, Jerry Brown, is far more enlightened than his predecessors and has paroled 80% of those whose applications have crossed his desk. But there are thousands more who are eligible and have shown parole boards they have changed and rehabilitated themselves but still remain sitting behind bars, doing no good to anyone except perhaps those who guard them, for whom they help provide jobs.

Are we an enlightened society? Clearly not! Other countries in the world look at how we treat our prisoners and marvel. Even Russia is working on changing its system. We need to rethink our attitudes of revenge and retribution, and begin to treat people who no longer pose a risk to society as human beings, allowing them to be paroled when there is no rational reason to keep them imprisoned. Let’s change our policy toward these people whom we have all made our victims.

Elaine Leeder is Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, and has recently published her latest book, My Life With Lifers: Lessons for a Teacher, Humanity Has No Bars. She has worked for over 15 years at Elmira Correctional Facility in New York and San Quentin State Prison in California. Follow her on twitter@ElaineLeeder or at MyLifeWithLifers.com.

In his “Sanctimonious Scolding Isn’t a Great Strategy for Promoting School Choice” posting, Hess makes an important statement at the end:

“Rather than obey the moral instruction of do-gooders, middle-class and suburban families tend to put themselves and their kids first (and, for the record, I don’t see the problem with that; hell, it’s kind of the logic of school choice, after all). If accepting school choice means that suburban communities are going to be pressed to open their schools up in ways that may adversely impact their kids and home values, those families may well stop being disinterested observers of the school choice debates and instead become active opponents.”

Hess doesn’t see a problem with families putting themselves and their children first, including protecting their home values.

And here is the (stone-cold) heart of the competition/choice ideology that is favored, not surprisingly, by the elite winner-culture driving all aspects of U.S. society.

The Corrosive Irony of Self-Interest

Free market advocates perpetuate compelling narratives about the cleansing power of choice, competition, and rugged individualism. These narratives have become, in fact, the unchallenged norm associated with the American Dream.

Choice, competition, and rugged individualism pervade every aspect of education and education reform: relentless testing to label, rank, and sort children; calls to label, rank, and sort teachers to fire “bad” teachers; class rankings (valedictorians, salutatorians), school rankings, international rankings.

It may well be true that these commitments stem from basic human nature, but it is also worth considering that competition and rugged individualism are components of the evolutionary theory U.S. society tends to reject. It is also worth considering that competition and rugged individualism were relatively credible paradigms in human eras of scarcity.

When resources are sparse, self-interest is simply self-preservation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains how and why humans become selfish in extreme moments of scarcity.

But the U.S. and even the world are currently in a position to be in a condition of prosperity—except that because of competition, choice, and rugged individualism, the privileged in the U.S. have created an inequity of resources, pooling and hoarding those resources among the elite. That hoarding creates an appearance of scarcity in order to perpetuate the exact attitude expressed by Hess: It’s OK to get yours for you and your family because otherwise you will be at the bottom of the pile.

This perverse paradigm fabricated by the privileged is made even more warped by a simple lesson from ecology (an ideology and movement also rejected by the U.S. obsession with consumer culture): To recognize the individual as a part of her/his environment—and thus treasuring that environment as a community—is being selfish; ignoring or wasting the ecology surrounding the individual is, in fact, self-defeating.

Arguments, then, for increased choice and competition are not commitments to democracy, human agency, human dignity, or equity. Arguments for choice and competition are arguments of the privileged to preserve their privilege, arguments built on the illusion of scarcity and fear perpetuated by those privileged.

In our schools, there is no scarcity of learning, and our students need not compete among themselves. In fact, we know that collaboration is more effective for learning than competing.

In our schools, teachers cannot teach while also seeking to get theirs at the expense of other teachers (and their students).

The single greatest failure occurring now in education reform is that our current president has allowed the education agenda to be built on Race to the Top. Like Hess, Secretary Arne Duncan personifies the elitist mantras built on the Social Darwinism that consumes us.

Collaboration and community are central to democracy. Choice and competition are central to capitalism and consumerism.

Democracy is a hand held out to lift the least of us to our sides.

Consumerism is a boot in the face to stand alone at the top of the pile.

If we persist along the current “no excuses” reform path, we must admit we are using our schools to pass out boots and to render democracy mere rubble.

Crown Prosecution Services charged Brooks, her husband, and four others with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on Tuesday May 15. The alleged conspiracy took place between July 6 and July 19, 2011.

Brooks and the co-conspirators concealed and removed materials sought by police in their investigation of phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation subsidiary, News International, according to prosecutors. Brooks resigned as chief executive officer of the subsidiary on July 15, 2011. (Image: SnowViolent)

Brooks’ current legal troubles should not obscure the significance of her testimony before the Leveson Inquiry last week. During her several hours on the witness stand, she was confronted with an explosive email that, if true, implicates Conservative Party Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in a conspiracy to pervert the British regulatory process in favor of News Corporation’s bid to acquire the ten-million-subscriber pay TV company BSkyB. News Corp owns 39% of the company. It sought the remaining 61%.

The acquisition was absolutely critical for for News Corp. BSkyB accounted for 14% of News Corp net income in 2011. Had the Murdoch’s completed the acquisition by the start of 2011, BSkyB would have accounted for 36% of 2011 profits.

In addition to the Hunt-BSkyB evidence, Brooks’ testimony at the Leveson Inquiry last week may result in additional charges of hiding and destroying evidence.

Were the emails lost on Brooks’ BlackBerry part of the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

When Brooks left the News International CEO position in 2012, she surrendered her BlackBerry to the company. Under questioning by Queen’s Counsel Robert Jay of the Leveson Inquiry on May 11, 2012, she noted of the emails that the BlackBerry had contained: “We had to image them and we had some problems with that.” (See Brooks Blackberry.) The emails were all destroyed except one, a compressed message from Prime Minister David Cameron that had no content.

Queen’s Counsel Jay pinned down the dates of the missing emails in this question: “So we have, as you explain, emails and texts which only cover a limited period, from the beginning of June 2011 until, you say, 17 July. Maybe 15 July or 17 July. Brooks responded, “I think it was the 17th.”

Those dates include a portion of the time period during which prosecutors allege that Brooks engaged in the conspiracy to pervert justice. Brooks claimed that “my Blackberry was imaged by my legal team,” the point at which the emails disappeared. If the lost BlackBerry emails are part of evidence destroyed or hidden, maybe it wasn’t Brooks’ legal team that imaged the BlackBerry and hid or destroyed the stored messages. No one on her legal team was charged in the conspiracy by Crown Prosecution Services.

Could it be that Brooks was somehow responsible for the destroyed or hidden emails? If so, her inquiry testimony last week makes her the star witness for her own prosecution. There is little doubt that Brooks provided vital evidence for any future prosecution of Jeremy Hunt.

The Michel-to-Brooks smoking gun email, June 27, 2011

The high point of the Brooks testimony last Friday came when Queen’s Counsel asked about an email sent at 16:29 on June 27, 2011: “Frederic Michel sends an email and it goes to just you” (full email). Brooks seemed surprised even though she had reviewed the evidence prior to the hearing: “I would be surprised if it just came to me. As you’ve seen from the previous emails, they were always copies in to the same — almost the same group of people, but perhaps it was directly to me.” (See Brooks 5.)
At the opening of the email, Michel tells Brooks that “Hunt will be making references to phone hacking in his statement on ­ this week … hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issue.”

Plurality refers to the criterion Jeremy Hunt has outlined as the basis for approving News Corp’s bid to acquire the remaining shares of BSkyB. The term references the number and diversity of media outlets available to the British public. If the acquisition reduced media plurality, there would be cause to deny the bid (an unlikely outcome). Michel claimed that Hunt would exclude the explosive phone hacking allegations against News Corp’s British newspapers from his considerations on bid approval.

If true, Michel’s statement implies a conspiracy between Hunt and News Corp to rig the BSkyB approval process. Hunt would be acting as an agent for News Corp.

The Michel-to-Brooks memo ends with this: “JH [Hunt] is now starting to look into phone hacking/practices more thoroughly and has asked me to advise him privately in the coming weeks and guide his and Number 10′s [Cameron’s] positioning.”

The closing elaborates the opening paragraph and expands the conspiracy from Culture Secretary Hunt to Prime Minister Cameron.

In her reply to Michel, Brooks asks “when is the rubicon [sic] statement” and Michel responds “Probably Wednesday” (June 29, 2011).

Is Michel’s smoking gun email reliable? Look at the evidence.

News Corp apologists have seeded the media with the notion that Michel, News Corp’s chief lobbyist on the BSkyB acquisition, is some sort of Walter Mitty who exaggerates claims of his access. Brooks even alluded to this in her testimony.

Rather than rely on name calling, let’s look at the evidence based on Hunt’s behavior after June 27, 2011, to determine the veracity of the claims in the email and the implications about a Hunt-News Corp conspiracy to rig approval of the BSkyB bid. (Image: DCMS)

Thursday, June 30, 2011, House of Commons: Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson asked Culture Secretary Hunt: “… if he will make a statement on the News Corporation acquisition of BSkyB.” Hunt replied, “Earlier today, I placed a written statement before the House outlining the next steps in my consideration of the potential merger between News Corp and BSkyB.” That statement, he said, reflected changes in his process of approving the bid that offered “a further layer of very important safeguards.”

Hunt made his statement to the House of Commons on Thursday, in line with Michel’s predictions in his email to Brooks. Was the written statement to which Hunt referred the “rubicon statement” Brooks had asked about in her reply to Michel?

What did Hunt say in his written statement on the News Corp bid to acquire BSkyB?

Written Ministerial Statement: News Corp/BSkyB merger, Jeremy Hunt, June 30, 2011 (or here)

“I believe that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure compliance with the undertakings [by News Corp]. Furthermore, the various agreements [between News Corp and the government] entered into pursuant to the undertakings will each be enforceable contracts. Therefore whilst the phone hacking allegations are very serious they were not material to my consideration.”

Hunt announced that he was in favor of approving the bid and that he was referring the News Corp acquisition to the Competition Commission. He outlined the new safeguards he had referenced to MP Watson and, in the last sentence, separated “phone hacking allegations” from his considerations. To remove any impact of the outrage against News Corp for phone hacking, Hunt had structured the referral to make sure that the Competition Commission would be “constrained to rule on issues of media plurality” only.

Hunt was playing a double game with the public, it seems. On July 20, 2011, Hunt told the BBC, “The question that News International have to answer is why malpractice happened throughout a very important part of their organisation without people like Rupert Murdoch knowing,”

Hunt was simply acting out the strategy that Michel talked about in the smoking gun email, separating the real prize, the approval of the BSkyB acquisition, from the hacking scandal while talking tough on the scandal.

Michel’s smoking gun email is clearly reliable evidence of a News Corp-Cameron government conspiracy to rig approval of News Corp’s BSkyB acquisition. Hunt’s behavior, just what the email predicted, demonstrates that the email is highly reliable evidence of that conspiracy.

Hunt went to Parliament to make a key statement on the bid within Michel’s time frame. He took the position that Michel had said he would on the bid. And, most cynically, Hunt separated the issue of corporate responsibility and fitness represented by Murdoch media properties from the approval criteria for the bid.

Ironically, to fend off the intense attacks on Hunt after the testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch in mid-April, PM Cameron suggested that the Leveson Inquiry would be the forum that would best judge Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s suitability for office.

That judgment is clear – Hunt acted as an agent for News Corp.

The inquiry also foreshadowed the charges against Rebekah Brooks for perverting the course of justice by destroying evidence.

How many careers will Rupert Murdoch end during his descent into a maelstrom of business and political oblivion?

More importantly, how many lives has Murdoch destroyed through the nihilistic news and editorial policies throughout his media empire?

END

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Rebekah Brooks Leveson Inquiry with Comments

The Money Party

I sit on a gray plastic chair, facing a tiny, gray, plastic table and another empty, gray, plastic chair, waiting for Gerardo Hernandez in the visiting room of the maximum-security federal pen in Victorville, California. Next to me, in similar seating arrangements, a middle-aged black man speaks to a woman, presumably his wife; other black men talk to their spouses. Two kids run from the “children’s room” to their Dad to get a caress.

Four guards chatter and observe the visitors and inmates. No contraband must be exchanged and no “excess touching.”

Gerardo emerges, reports to the guards. We hug. Gerardo talks about ideas to force the National Security Agency to release its vectored map of the Feb 24, 1996, shoot down of two Brothers to he Rescue planes by Cuban MIGs. The government charged Gerardo with conspiring to commit murder because he allegedly – the government offered no evidence – passed the flight information to Cuban authorities knowing they would shoot the planes down (how would a Miami-based agent know of high level decisions in Havana?).

The Cubans maintain the MIGs fired their rockets at the intruding planes over Cuban air space. U.S. authorities insist it happened over international airspace. If the NSA map sustains Cuba’s claim then Gerardo, who purportedly delivered the date and time of the fatal flights to Cuban authorities, committed no crime. The prosecutors offered no proof that Gerardo delivered this information. Hollywood would portray the Miami courtroom scene with the prosecutor telling the jury: “I don’t got to show you no stinkin’ proof.”

Indeed, Gerardo’s defense lawyer showed that Basulto, the head of Brothers to the Rescue, had already announced the date of the flights, and several U.S. officials also knew of his plan. The FAA had even advised Cuban authorities of the impending flights. Facts don’t matter when a jury and judge understand that a “wrong” decision could result in their houses getting burned down.

The NSA refused defense attorneys’ subpoenas to deliver their vectored maps during the trial and appeals: “National Security,” the two deadly words not found in the Constitution or the Bible, constituted their reason (excuse) for not delivering the documents. What could force the NSA to comply? We had no answers, but the question will linger.

Other questions still bothered me. What had motivated the FBI to arrest him and his fellow Cuban agents? After all the Cuban agents had fed the Bureau juicy morsels related to terrorist activities, including the location of a boat on the Miami River loaded with explosives. The FBI commandeered the boat before it sailed for Cuba – or blew up in Miami.

“Hector Pesquera,” replied Gerardo. He became the Agent in Charge of the Miami Bureau and immediately focused his attention away from the terrorists and onto the anti-terrorists. After the jury handed down guilty verdicts at the trial of the Cuban Five, Pesquera proudly boasted to a Miami radio station that “he was the one who switched his agents’ focus from spying on the spies to filing charges against them.” (See, Stephen Kimber, “What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five”, an e-book from Amazon)

Indeed, Pesquera persuaded Justice officials to refocus attention from exile terrorists in South Florida and onto the Cuban intelligence agents who had penetrated the terrorist groups. The case ‘never would have made it to court’ if he hadn’t lobbied FBI Director Louis Freeh directly.” (Kimber, p. 286)

Ann Bardach reinforced the view of Pesquera’s key role in turning the FBI from investigating terrorists to investigating anti-terrorists. Bardach and Larry Rohter wrote two stories in the New York Times in July 1998, in which Posada Carriles, a notorious Cuban-American terrorist admits his mastermind role in a series of bombings in Cuba to discourage foreign tourism. One of these bombing killed a young Italian tourist whose father is suing the United States for sponsoring terrorism.

Bardach told me about her surprise when Pesquera answered her question on Posada by saying “lots of folks around here think Posada is a freedom fighter.” Pesquera, friendly with ultra right exiles, terminated the investigation of Posada, and shredded his file. Even as Pesquera focused the FBI on destroying the Cuban agents web, thus reducing the Bureau’s information supply on terrorism, 14 of the 19 participants in the 9/11 attacks trained in the area without FBI scrutiny. Pesquera seemingly escaped scrutiny for his apparent lapse. (“Trabajadores,” May 22, 2005)

Gerardo and I switched subjects to Alan Gross’ interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Gross, convicted in Cuba of activities designed to undermine the government, which AP reporter Desmond Butler documented, whined about his life in prison, the food, his window had bars on it and he had only been able to receive visits from U.S. Senators, Members of the House, Foreign Presidents, religious groups and a day with his wife. He complained conditions in the Havana military hospital were downright prison-like.

Worse, ignoring Desmond Butler’s reporting and former National Security Council official Fulton Armstrong’s devastating op ed in the Miami Herald (Dec. 25, 2011), he proclaimed his innocence, insisting he only wanted to help the Jewish community get better internet access. For this he smuggled in equipment (documented by Butler) and got paid almost $600,000 from a company contracted by USAID. And Blitzer, who should win the journalism award for best stenographer, didn’t ask him about any of the facts Butler and Armstrong had raised.

We hugged goodbye. Gerardo raised a triumphant fist before returning to his cell. I walked into the dry desert wind, to the car and the road, down 5,000 feet and 40 miles to the Ontario, California airport with a chance to think about justice and injustice, again.

Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow. His WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP and FIDEL are available from cinemalibrestudio.com

And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach.

As a teacher, I am far from finished—and I never will be.

On this Mother’s Day*, I want to make a statement to the many and powerful leaders in education reform, all of whom have either no experience or expertise, or very little, as teachers:

I don’t need standards to teach, I need students.

If You Have Never Taught, You Simply Don’t Understand

Governors, policy wonks, and think tanks, I don’t need the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Secretary Duncan, I have no interest in racing to the top, when that means the top of the pile of my fellow teachers trampled by the policies you have created and promoted.

Bill Gates, I don’t want a dime of your billions; in fact, I am not even interested in what you do (I have always used Apple products) as long as you drop education as your hobby.

Michelle Rhee, I have no interest in my students having mouths forcibly shut by me. I am here to hear their open minds and mouths.

Pearson, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and every company seeking to sell me anything to support my implementing CCSS or preparing my students for NAEP, state high-stakes tests, or the SAT, I am not interested in buying anything. No software, no hardware, no textbooks, no worksheets. Nothing.

Professional organizations and unions, I need you to stop racing for a place at the table with the reformers and corporations noted above, and instead, seek ways to support my autonomy and agency as a professional so that the autonomy and agency of the children in our schools can become the primary focus of universal public education for free people.

And, finally, to anyone who thinks you know what I should teach and how, please seek a place at the front of a classroom filled with other people’s children, teach for a few years, and then let’s get together and talk. I am eager to be collegial in the pursuit of community as a key part of teaching and learning.

Then What?

Becoming and being a teacher is a constant state of becoming. A teacher must be always a student and scholar of her/his field(s), her/his pedagogy, and her/his students.

What the people and groups identified above seem not to understand is that for my eighteen years of teaching high school English, I probably taught about 2000 students; thus, I taught about 2000 different classes. And not a single measurable outcome of any of those students predicts much of anything about my effectiveness or if I’ll succeed with any future student. Some of the students who appear successful did so in spite of my failures. Some of the students who appear to have failed were provided my very best as a teacher. Almost all of the good and bad I have created as a teacher are not measurable or apparent in manageable ways.

I wasn’t concerned about meeting anyone’s standards or preparing any student for a test or making sure any student was prepared for the next grade, college, or the workforce.

And I never will be.

Instead of standards, testing, competition, labeling, ranking, and sorting (all the cancerous elements of traditional schooling and the current accountability era), as a teacher, I need to offer my students authentic learning opportunities in which they produce artifacts of their understanding and expertise. My students need from me my authoritative feedback to those authentic artifacts.

I have no interest in competing with my fellow teachers for whose students score highest on tests so I can earn more money than my colleagues. I don’t, either, want to join forces with my in-school colleagues to outperform other schools in order to compete for their customers. I couldn’t care less how my state’s schools compare with other states or how U.S. schools compare on international tests.

Absolutely none of that matters.

While not unique to Howard Gardner, we have a very clear idea of what it is teachers should do in the pursuit of learning. Gardner’s The Disciplined Mind examines a conception of education not distracted by accountability.

Teaching and learning must be primarily collaborative, a community of learners.

The goals of learning must be the broad and clear—although always evolving—defining qualities of the fields of knowledge we honor in academia.

Every history course, for example, would pursue, What does it mean to be a historian? Every science class, What does it mean to be a scientist? Every writing class, What does it mean to be a writer?

Teaching and learning are the collaborative pursuit of questions. Anything else is indoctrination, dehumanizing, and antithetical to democratic ideals and human agency.

Humans never will—and never should—learn the same box of knowledge. Humans never will—and never should—learn in linear, sequential ways.

And there is no need for any of that anyway as long as we seek to be a community instead of barbaric individuals committed to the conquest of goods at the expense of others.

There, I think, is the harsh and ugly fact. Those privileged elites—again the people and groups noted above—have acquired their status on the backs of others, corrosive evidence for them that they somehow deserve that and that it all is the way things should be. It is theirs then to perpetuate dehumanizing ways of being—labeling, sorting, ranking against the rules that gave them their power.

I choose otherwise.

I don’t need standards to teach, I need students.

* My becoming a teacher can be traced directly to the wonderful and rich influence of my mother, and that influence is inextricable from the powerful and enduring influence of my father.

You can disagree with violent anti-Castro dogma, but such dissent could also get you killed – or your business torched as happened on April 25 to Airline Brokers Co. Some Cuban exiles apparently take free speech so seriously that they punish those who use it in “inappropriate” ways.

Miami has witnessed countless incidents for five plus decades where those who consider their own views on how to bring freedom to Cuba as so pure and irreproachable, that anyone who challenges their doctrine merits a bomb, a bullet, or an accelerant.

Ironically, these extremists don’t do their macho violence in Cuba. They choose safer places. Orlando Bosch and his cohort Luis Posada Carriles said they were trying to free Cuba when they masterminded the bombing of the Cuban passenger plane over Barbados in 1976. If you believe in freeing Cuba, so their logic goes, you become free to kill all 73 on board. How this helped to free Cuba – well, you know.

By fighting for freedom in Cuba – or claiming to – you get a license from God to destroy and intimidate in the United States or anywhere else. Indeed, in Miami hundreds of bombings, shootings, and arson have occurred – all this mayhem in the name of that glorious cause of freeing Cuba. Although no one has yet actually explained how a fire or shooting in Miami helps liberate Cuba.

Instead, the majority of this “liberating” violence has targeted civilians in the United States. Did killing Cuban UN diplomat Felix Garcia in New York in 1980, and bombing and torching movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles (where my “Fidel” film was supposed to open in 1970) because they didn’t like the movie they hadn’t even seen help free Cuba? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a bomber put a charge on the wall of Marazul Travel – an agency providing legal travel to Cuba. Three Molotov cocktails got tossed into Marazul offices. Travel to Cuba became a sin against the religion of “fighting for freedom in Cuba.”

From the 1960s through the 1980s, “Bombs Away” could have referred to Miami rather than a video game about space aliens. And this “violence against people who disagree with violence in the United States will free Cuba” equation continues.

On April 25, 2012, fifty three plus years after the Cuban revolutionaries took power, God’s licensed terrorists burned the offices of an airline charter company ostensibly because it flew pilgrims to Cuba. How such actions advanced their cause of freedom for Cuba remains a logical mystery – or perhaps simply a pretext for baser motives.

The targets for violence have shared two qualities: 1) they disagreed with the dictates laid down by the extremist wing of exiles who demanded everyone submit to their views or suffer the consequences; 2) they had no chance to defend themselves.

The most recent “sinner,” who offended the self-anointed arsonists owned Airlines Brokers Co. Vivian Mannerud told Miami’s Channel 10. “It’s not that it’s burned. It’s pulverized.” She stared at the ashes that once housed her charter company. “I have never seen a fire pulverize things. I’ve seen it in pictures of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.”

Investigators aided by dogs trained to recognize the odor of accelerant determined that the fire was “deliberate.” So, the arsonists did a professional job, just as their predecessors, the bombers and shooters did in their countless acts of murder and mayhem in Miami, New York, San Juan and Washington, DC – all to free Cuba, of course.

In March, the Miami Archdiocese, which had received bomb threats in 1998 during a previous Pope’s (John Paul II) visit to Cuba, contracted with Mannerud’s company to transport several hundred of the faithful from South Florida to the island. Was this the motive? Or did it relate to a sin of her father who started the charter company in 1982 and had testified in the trial of Eduardo Arocena of the Cuban Nationalist Movement and its “action arm” Omega 7. The jury convicted Arocena.

If the Cuban Five network had remained in Miami they might have infiltrated the group that torched Mannerud’s company and tipped the police to the caper. But those anti-terrorists remain in federal custody, while arsonists roam the Miami streets and a bomber, like Luis Posada Carriles, has a publicized painting exhibition in a Coral Gables bank.

The “patriots” have no plans to “free Cuba,” only rhetoric with phrases like “return Cuba to freedom” (non-existent in Cuba before the revolution), and “get rid of the dictatorship” (which some of them supported under Batista). But decades of violence in the United States has hurt this country, but had no effect on Cuba. Ironically, the macho perpetrators even deny their deeds, but nevertheless get honored for doing them and accept the honors.

They can’t explain how destroying a Coral Gables travel agency helps free Cuba. “The money visitors spend in Cuba supports the Castro regime.” As if bombing travel agencies stops travel!

Reach beneath the unconvincing rhetoric and into baser motives. Do the violence makers make their living from violence? After the April 25 fire, did Coral Gables business neighbors of the Airline Charter Co. receive visits? “Hey, you got a nice store here…” You know the dialogue from the Sopranos. Except Cuban exile criminals cover their shakedowns with “patriotic” rhetoric.

I feel certain, however, that Miami area elected officials have strong feelings against this act of terrorism despite their deafening silence.

Landau’s WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP and his FIDEL are distributed by Cinema Libre Studio. He is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow.