Obama's Fascist Academies
Who says that President Obama has taken a hard right turn toward fascism since his inauguration?
It's just stinking far-left propaganda!
Those pinko-peacenik-tree-huggers at the ACLU are all liars, and President Obama is totally different from ex-President Bush!
Soldiers of Misfortune focuses on the U.S. military's recruiting tactics that target children as young as 11 and disproportionately target low-income youth and students of color.The report also demonstrates that the United States fails to observe minimum safeguards for recruitment of youth under 18 as required by the Optional Protocol, recruiting children without parents' consent and exposing youth to heavy-handed recruitment tactics and misconduct by recruiters, including coercion, deception, and sexual abuse.
The Marines are talking with at least six districts -- including in suburban Atlanta, New Orleans and Las Vegas -- about opening schools where every student wears a uniform, participates in Junior ROTC and takes military classes, said Bill McHenry, who runs the Junior ROTC program for the Marines.The academies have the support of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who ran Chicago Public Schools before being tapped by President Barack Obama. Duncan sees the schools as another option for kids who don't fit well in a traditional educational setting.
"For the right child, these schools are a lifesaver," Duncan said.
But far-left radicals are too honking stupid to see the beauty of those public military schools that Obama's friend Arne supervised in Chicago, because "students at the public military schools in Chicago have struggled."
Just 27 percent met standards in 2008 -- the most recent data available -- compared to the district average of 60 percent and the state average of 74 percent. At Carver Military Academy in Chicago, just 8 percent of students passed muster on state tests.None of the Chicago military schools made "adequate yearly progress" last year, meaning they fell short of basic standards under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
On the upside, Chicago's military schools reduced chronic truancy from 24 percent to 8.5 percent, and apparently heavy-duty truant officers are just another benefit of military "coercion, deception, and sexual abuse" in the schools!
Note: What I mean by "fascism" is domination of government by finance capitalism, along with increasing militarization of society. It would be an understatement to say that this definition isn't universal, and defining "fascism" is an ongoing nightmare for political and social historiography. There are numerous online discussions of this problem, in Wikipedia and elsewhere, which are easy enough to find, so I might as well add a little something to the soup, and include a page which I photoshopped out of the Fascism Reader, edited by Aristotle A. Kallis...
Test-score tautology
The more or less total failure of public military schools in Chicago has produced some changes in recruitment, and now Obama's fascist academies are recruiting "low-performing students who have high test scores," and for some strange reason (It's a tautology, stupid!) when you fill a school with students who already have "high test scores," your new public military school will probably have "high test scores" too, and that's exactly what happened in Philadelphia.
Hurrah?
June 5, 2009 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Be patient with me, if you will. I'm not sure I understand your point about why the Philadelphia Military Academy's students are apparently performing so much better as a group than students in other Philadelphia public schools. Would you mind spelling that out a little more?
June 5, 2009 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Students who have higher-than-average test-scores already are preferentially recruited. Consequently test-scores for the schools are higher than average.
This quote from the AP actually makes it sound even more tautologous (if such a thing is possible) than I claim, since it sounds like all the prospective students are in a high-testing group.
Thanks for asking a question. It gives this thread a little more dignity than the previous top comment, which began with a whole series of insults by a commenter who hadn't even bothered to read the links.
June 5, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Low performing students with high test scores" isn't a tautology, it is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
June 5, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
What you call an "oxymoron" probably refers high standardized scores in combination with "acting out," poor "social adjustment," and other non-intellectual factors in assessing "school performance," since that was the usual profile for deportees to military school when I was a kid, and now, as far as I can tell, although high aptitude scores in combination with low achievement scores is also a possibility.
June 5, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have obviously never been in the military and have no idea that these programs have been going on for years, so are hardly Obama's "fault" if such a thing even applies to this story.
They aren't military run schools. You are letting rhetorical license get in the way of communicating factual information. I had a friend who was in Sea Cadets at a very young age. He did a little time in the military, went to school and now pulls down well over six figures. I went to Job Corps, which could have greatly benefited from military discipline, and later joined the military for ten years, went to school and am doing pretty well for myself as a civilian.
How is a journey of that nature a bad thing?
The far left is starting sound as bad the far right. Do you even seek out secondary sources of information before you write these baseless screeds full of logical holes large enough to drive a truck through? This blog is long on nonsense, short on facts and misses even common sense interpretation of what are obviously unfamiliar institutions.
I would have to give this blog a low C or even a D for massive omissions of fact leading to erroneous opinions.
June 5, 2009 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
But unfortunately for you, chump, you don't get to grade my essays, and all you can do is defend your stinking Messiah with a few stupid lies about the sources of a diary that's sourced from the Associated Press and the ACLU.
But as the AP describes the current paradigm...
So an ex-Marine supervises little soldiers in uniforms, taking military classes, beginning the day in formation, and drilling on the parade/playground, but...
Jason says they aren't "military run schools," and look how well he turned out!
Harharharhar!!!
June 5, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's called a JROTC program. It usually involves a handful of students. They have been around for decades.
A proposal for a school that is all JROTC, which probably began to germinate long before Obama took office, is still just a proposal and is not the way things are today. It may never happen or may happen differently. It may work in one locale and not in others. You are passing judgment before anything has even happened.
You need to put away the tin-foil hat, skippy, it's rotting your brain. The ACLU is hardly an objective source of information.
June 5, 2009 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't you read the links, before you shoot off your mouth, jason?
jason says...
But the AP says...
Obamabots! They can't read, and assume that nobody else can read either!
But you have to give them credit for insulting and pestering anyone who criticizes their stinking Messiah Barack Obama
So...
Right back at you, jason!
And if you had bothered to read the links, you would already know that claiming "it was all Bush, and Obama is totally innocent" isn't exactly supported by the facts.
June 5, 2009 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, you prove my point for me. This is hyperbole and I am hardly an Obamabot. There are plenty of other things I take issue with about the current administration's performance.
Regardless of a handful of school that are public military institutions, which I admit that I missed in the link I browsed because it doesn't concern me in the least, I live in the real world not one built on conspiracies of Hitler Youth being raised in Sea Cadets and JROTC.
You really sound unhinged when you point to a program that is nearly 30 years old yet have yet to produce the results you so clearly fear.
June 5, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now that this barely literate clown, jason everett miller, has finally read the links and given up on refuting what I actually wrote in my diary, what's left?
How about claiming that I endorsed a "conspiracy theory?"
But there is no "conspiracy theory" in my diary. The plain fact that Obama and his secretary of Education are supporting public military academies is disgusting enough, and a whole lot of parents who don't want their children targeted for recruitment agree.
If there's a "conspiracy theory" in the proposition that these military academies are intended to funnel children into the JROTC, then one of the "theorists" is Bill McHenry, who runs the Junior ROTC program for the Marines.
June 5, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nor is there any messianic Obamabottery in Mr. Miller's comments.
June 5, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may very well wonder why I don't make fine distinctions between all the many commenters who post insults under my blogs... "you attention- whoring little shitbag" from brewmn61 is probably the most vivid instance today, but there are thousands more of them that aren't much different, and most of them appeared in connection with Barack Obama.
When jason begins his series of 11 comments of this diary (so far) with a row of insults based on ignoring or misreading my links, I answer his objections in detail, but really...
I don't want to focus on him, Obamabot or not.
June 5, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Name a single "insult" that I made. You need a little thicker skin if you take what I wrote as insults. No wonder liberals can't get anything done. They get all pissy at the first signs of disagreement.
June 6, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ten to fifteen percent join the military after attending such schools? They envision a ten percent increase in JROTC programs over the next eleven years! Holy crap. I see your point now. We better start preparing for the dystopian nightmare to come.
Vive la Résistance!
It is your overwrought language and combative style that implies a belief in some sort of Orwellian conspiracy to create a nation of citizen soldiers by way of 30-year-old training programs. You are envisioning a "fascist" takeover of the United States school system.
How is that not tin-foil hat land?
June 5, 2009 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Before you get so complacent realize that political fortunes wax and wane and imagine the nature of those very schools if Bay Buchanan were to become Sec. of Ed. If the economy does not recover, that might very well happen. Be very, very careful of the precedents you allow to be set -- pre- selling children on being in the military is much better left to family tradition than to a government regime.
June 5, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's been going on for 30 years. The percentages are so dismally low for student to joining ratio that they may as well not even exist. Or perhaps the schools aren't meant as a recruiting device and instead are there to try and help some kids better succeed?
June 6, 2009 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Miller, please stop libeling the "far left" by the inclusion of this asshole in it.
June 5, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
The far left is inhabited by assholes and idealists alike, just as the far right has both Rush and Ron Paul. The extremes aren't places where everyone has the same ideas. They are extreme because of the variety of competing priorities that never seem to accomplish anything sustainable.
June 5, 2009 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. In case the implication was unclear, this guy's views are in no way representative of the "far left." I do not know what, exactly, that term means in your mind but you are throwing it around just as irresponsibly as the original poster is charges of "fascism," with as little apparent regard for the meaning of the term.
June 5, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
If this guy envisions government conspiracies to take over the school system by way of military academies, that is a far left delusion. The far right equivelent wouldn't have a fear of military domination component. It would most like be pointing to charter schools as the evil to be squashed. Sorry, but he does inhabit the left-hand extreme of the political spectrum.
June 5, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, it really is not :) Libertarians, who are pretty far to the right in most interpretations, would be aghast too.
I am sure you have already seen it, but The Political Compass offers a four-axis political map which is a bit better than a two-axis one, though still naturally somewhat lacking.
(I currently sit at [-9.50, -6.82], in the Anarcho-Syndicalist sector.)
June 5, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just goes to show that the farther you get to the edges, the more they have in common. Go far enough left or right and you end up at the same conclusions for different reasons. Still, libertarian ideals are hardly the most prevalent example of far right political thoughts.
Interesting test.
I came in with the following results: Economic Left/Right: -5.00 and Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59. Not sure what that makes me, but I suppose it is pretty accurate to say that I am most libertarian on most things, but believe there is a distinct needs for collective strategies and tactics.
June 5, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mm, no, it really does not point to any such conclusion. It points to the left-right paradigm being completely obsolete, broken and dangerous. The middle is not a panacea.
And, as you have found out, you are actually not in the middle.
June 5, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I am just off the center baseline, which in a 3-d construct would be as close to the middle as someone could be.
However, I don't think the middle, as it has come to be defined in the US, is actually represented by that chart or those questions, many of which I could have answered with, "I don't give a f*ck." rather than agree/disagree.
I do strongly agree that the left-right construct is woefully inadequate to truly address our needs as a global society bent on self destruction.
June 5, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
-9.12, -8.51. I am practically off the graph. I might as well bathe in patchouli.
June 5, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It takes all kinds, like it or not.
June 5, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whatever...but why do you call it "Obama's fascist schools." Is it just because he is from Chicago? I live in Charlottesville, VA. Does that mean UVA's accomplishments are mine?
June 5, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Harharharhar!!!
Did you happen to notice that Obama's Secretary of Education is supporting these monstrosities?
There are a lot of people from Chicago, but only one of them appointed a Secretary of Education who supports public military academies.
But in the world according to Obamabots, Obama is only responsible for the good things, and if his Cabinet supports public military academies, or bombing civilians in Afghanistan, or giving away trillions of dollars to criminal bankers...
Obama is still...
As innocent as a little lamb!
Harharharhar!!!
June 5, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I also noticed that the ACLU Report you linked to:
Soldiers of Misfortune: Abusive U.S. Military Recruitment and Failure to Protect Child Soldiers
was published May 13, 2008, and places most of the blame for enabling this process on the No Child Left Behind legislation enacted in 2001, several years before Obama was even a Congressional member.
Again you played fast and loose with your citations. The 2nd blockquote in your post is unattributed, and based on the formatting, many who read this post would assume it is a carry over from the ACLU Report, when instead it is two mismatched paragraphs from the link you gave for the next blockquote. You cited Paragraphs 2, 21 and 22 from the article. That's quite a leap over an unannotated chasm of interceding content. Haven't you ever heard of the horizontal triple ellipse?
Your other citation from the article isn't any better. It was yanked out of context from the text before and after, which greatly weakens your charge that these schools are academic failures. I'll fix it for you:
In Philadelphia, the program is far out-performing the regular public schools, and at least a good chunk of the poor performance in Chicago is because many of these schools replaced previously underperforming schools. The proper metric would be a comparison between the schools which were closed, and the ones which replaced them, not the Chicago School District as a whole.Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, people would be a wee bit more amenable to your posts, if instead of skewing cites, then spewing them, you made an an good faith effort in intellectual honesty?
I did discover why many TPM users refer to you as Jacob Freeze though.
June 5, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually mentioned the high test-results in Philadelphia in the first comment on this thread, and likewise in another comment I also discussed the origin of these monstrosities in 1980, and...
Why bother?
I provided the links, and discussed contrary examples, and somehow PseudoCyAnts and NC Stevie inevitably claim that I'm trying to hide the truth, although there's no doubt that Obama is promoting public miltary schools for underprivileged children, and using them as a means to the end of military recruitment, and that's the main point of my diary.
June 5, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just curious - given a choice between public military schools for underprivileged children, and none at all(or the status quo), which would you prefer?
Meaning - if Duncan has found a way to get additional funds to these kids, that they would otherwise have little or no chance of getting - which is the greater evil?
Anyone want to rant about paramilitary youth organizations? (besides me, I mean.)
Recruiting from within them is also quite high. And there is almost no academic activity whatsoever to balance the paramilitary activities.
I should add, many of the children are thrust into them by parents affiliated by the sponsoring religious institutions.
June 5, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I already had more than enough of the "better than dogshit" meme with Barack Obama, and no, I can't figure out how McCain could have fucked up so much worse, but I also can't figure out where that left-over doo-dad from my video-cam was supposed to go, before I put it all back together, and now I see two or four of everything on every video, and it's still a better toy than John McCain!
June 5, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again, the percentages of kids who join is so dismally low that the numbers don't bear out this paranoid reading of the situation. Maybe they just want to give some kids a chance at success that they can't get from the normal schools? Nah. That would be too sensible. It has to be a plot to turn the US into Israel or Switzerland.
June 6, 2009 7:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't realize they had such a bad record. It's funny how people around here don't get worked up about the bigger picture of US recruitment practices regarding minors. It's really distasteful. Countries like the US and the UK with an overactive military really have to catch them young - in high-school - before they find better things to do in life. If you can't find enough adults to voluntarily do the fighting for you, you know there's a problem with your foreign policy.
June 5, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most of the European nations have a mandatory conscription policy... Germany, for instance, or Switzerland. So, recruitment statistics will be skewed because many nations don't have to recruit... service is mandatory.
June 5, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure what you're disagreeing with Zip. I'd say that conscription is probably the best way to avoid unnecessary wars. Avoiding the enlisting of uninformed minors would also be a good thing, no? And not having the US weakening international law against child soldiers would also be good, no?
June 5, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jacob, Since I am one who did attend a high school (private) partially supported by the DoD (Navy). And I turned out rather liberal and progressive, go figure. I am going to take a bit of issue with your proclamation as fascist or even a bad thing.
1) These are schools of choice. A parent and child can decide to go or not.
2) On average like other magnate or charter schools students seem to be performing better than their counter parts. ( yes I read the part about the Chicago schools, but I also read about the other schools around the country.
3)Recruiting tool, they may well be, but if they are they are not doing a very good job of it.
Children are all different, you, as an artist, (and a good one I might add. Yes, I have been to your web site) probably performed better in a far less structured environment. Other students perform better when there is a highly structured one. To each his or her own.
Next using words like fascist does nothing more than rile emotions and does nothing to further the discussion as to whether these schools are a good or bad idea. It would be like a right winger screaming that public schools that focus on the arts are some how socialist.
Finally, your vehement dislike of all thing Obama sometimes truly gets in the way of having a constructive dialogue.
June 5, 2009 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wish we could recommend comments. Well said.
June 5, 2009 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two quick things:
(1) Fascist? Maybe. I'm highly skeptical of the military's ability to teach "ethics and civics," but I'd be more concerned about fascism when politicization and blood-and-soil rhetoric come into play. That said, my blue sunglasses do tend to incline me to notice this sort of thing much more often in the right wing--and that's a fault.
(2) Crap, forgot what I was going to say. Probably wasn't important.
June 5, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, that was supposed to be a reply to the OP, not to jsfox.
June 5, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Mr. Fox, and it took me a while to think through it.
I'm not opposed to the existence of military academies in general, but this thing has a vector attached to it, and that vector is aimed at the increasing militarization of American society.
Defense is the biggest and only sacrosanct factor in the national budget, and now underprivileged children are also aimed at the Marines at an age when they can't really understand their choices.
I had a couple of friends who went through Hargrave, and it isn't exactly irrelevant that Hargrave and similar academies are designed to produce officers, which means that there's a certain amount of privilege involved in the process.
I'm not impugning the dignity of NCOs and private soldiers, and not very long ago I was dragging myself around offices in Washington, trying to convince Assistant Under-Secretaries and Congressional aides to give NCOs the power to greenlight projects with CERP money, not that anybody here is likely to know what that means.
But recruiting underprivileged children into the ranks offends me, and it's an idea that had to wait 200 years before anybody really promoted it in the United States.
Everything I have read about this thing has convinced me that it's primarily a tool for recruitment, and that the children are there primarily as a means to an end, and I hate the idea of it.
June 5, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's better - I think I understand the crux of teh biscuit.
You're offended that they're being raised like veal calves, as cannon fodder - and nothing else.
I can understand that.
What if these kids were fast-tracked into high schools and colleges that have OTC programs, and given some preferences when applying to the service academies? The object being to turn as high a percentage into officers as possible?
Less odious?
June 5, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it would be less odious...
I don't know.
What I hate the most about the whole idea of these schools is the overwhelming impression that I got from everything I read about them, that the children are being used as means to an end.
They want to boost the JROTC, so they can boost recruitment and fill up their quotas, and maybe it's only a matter of taste, but for me there's something sick about using children as means to an end, and it wouldn't be much "less odious" even if it happened to be an end that I approve of.
June 5, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, I'm repeating my comments now, with not much space between them, and that's enough for me.
June 5, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well.
Yeah, I definitely get that.
I'm glad you brought this up. I think.
Better than blissful ignorance.
June 15, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
If its primary mission is to recruit children for the military, they are doing a terrible job of it as only 10 percent of the kids actually sign up. Perhaps it is an anti-recruiting tool for most kids, giving them a taste of what they certainly don't want as a full-time job.
June 6, 2009 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. It's close to happening. Rutabaga Ridepole's head is about to explode. He cannot stand the that the hopes of Obama's supporters for his presidency are being born out. I just love the smell of smoking rutabaga in the morning. Next, Mr. Ridepole's body will spontaneously combust. Get your marshmallows ready!
June 5, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jacob, all children are different and require different settings in which to prosper.
My son did not do well in public school. He required more structure and discipline than what was available there. Had military school been an option for us, I don't know that we would have realized at the time that was exactly what he needed. As it turned out, when he was 17, he recognized he needed what the military had to offer and enlisted all on his own. The military was a Godsend for him.
My husband likens it to an operating system...we had entered all this information into our son, to no avail. The Army provided the operating system, and what emerged was a young man with all the ideals we had instilled in him, but he just couldn't process them on his own.
One of our nephews knew from an early age he wanted to be in the military. He made all his behavioral decisions based on "will doing this keep me from being able to go into the military?"
That filter kept him from making poor decisions. He went through JRROTC and is now in the Navy and doing very well.
The military isn't perfect, but for some, it is just what they need.
June 5, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I resemble this remark. I would have never survived (much less thrived) without the self-discipline and confidence my military service provided me.
June 5, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a vexed question, Rutabaga - on the one hand we don't want children inculcated in military doctrine at a young age but on the other hand, some children truly benefit from the discipline, structure and sense of community that such an education can provide.
My son enlisted in the U.S.A.R. between his junior and senior year of high school, went to college for two years and then joined ROTC and graduated from college with a commission. He is a true believer in the legend of Cincinnatus and the philosophy of George Washington, that all citizens should be able when called upon to defend the country and then put down those arms and return to civilian life without expectation of rewards. Reserve officers serve to keep civilian control of the army.
I can certainly see advantages to his way of thinking, it does serve as a check and balance on a professional army, but whether it is good to recruit freshmen in high school, I'm not sure that is altogether a good idea.
June 5, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
As surprising as it may be to some commenters, I also favor universal military service, and "some of my best friends are soldiers," as they say, but there's still something sickening to me about 13-year-old children wearing military uniforms and drilling on a playground.
I understand that many children may thrive in a very structured environment, but there are an infinite number of possible structures, and many of them don't include the mindless automatism of marching around in rows, without even so much as a band instrument to make it worthwhile.
June 5, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I agree, I don't like the idea of children being militarized at such a young age. I have no objection to volunteering for JROTC as juniors and seniors in high schools - but all military all the time for children as young as 13 and 14 I don't think is good for children or the country.
June 5, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the added note on fascism.
In those terms, it sounds to me like we're already there.
June 5, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Have been for decades under the stewardship of both parties.
June 5, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're not a fascistic nation, what we are is a plutocratic circle jerk.
June 5, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are at one end of the spectrum. Nazi Germany the other end. We have many of the main fascist traits such as corporate-controlled government, a nominal police state and the enduring illusion of freedom.
June 5, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't agree with that, Jason. We're not even close to an authoritarian state, much less a fascist state. I've never thought that gross exaggeration is helpful - in the short term it rallies peoples' attention, but when they discover that the situation has been exaggerated, they tend to disbelieve anything that is said.
June 5, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that. This country has been of, by and for the elite powers that rule it since our founding. That we have made gains where other empires have failed is not disputed, but that we are as free as our marketing message implies seems hopelessly naive to me.
June 5, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That being said, we are a plutocratic circle jerk as well.
June 5, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
If this was a fascist nation we wouldn't be posting here.
June 5, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Obama's Fascist Academies" does not equal:
"The first public military school in the U.S. opened in Richmond, Va., in 1980. Since then, about a dozen have been added..."
Or are you unaware that Obama was not president in 1980, and in fact was not president until January 2009?
And where were you when we were really facing fascism for the last eight years, you attention- whoring little shitbag?
June 5, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a veiled problem here that is missing behind the hyperbole:
Why is it that military academies can consistently perform better on standardized exams? Is it because the academy is effective, or is it because the existence of standardized exams undermine unstructured education?
So, it may be more than a question of fascism... but the actual educational structure in which the best way to get students to jump through standardized firey hoops is to put them through muster, chow, and drill.
June 5, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's because they can pick and choose their students, a luxury public schools don't have.
June 5, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is more than that. Having gone through a military education, we are trained to pass tests. The tests, physical, emotional, and mental are delivered in a phased manner for particular results that are examined and compiled. We are trained for the BST (Basic Skills Test) through a repetitive rote method. I, for example, was a "prac recruit" who took up our little precious moments by shouting questions and answers to be repeated by the other recruits. Even the biggest "rock" in the platoon (we call the ASVAB waivers) passed the BST, which is no joke in terms of the study materials for the average student.
While your response makes a degree of sense, my experience dictates otherwise. There is a more profound point afoot that transcends your point. While it is valid, you should look at the military when it comes to molding young men and women. Not just in academies that can "pick and choose" but in the overall nation, where there are recruiting standards, but nearly everyone comes in and comes out a far different person, and much more adapted to the national standards of success.
June 5, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now I cannot agree that "nearly everyone who comes out of the military...is more adapted to national success". Statistically, they have no higher a success rate than those not in the military and trend to higher rates of alcohol and drug addiction, marital and relationship problems and a higher suicide rate. Since the Viet Nam war, the veteran tends to earn less than those who stayed home and this is true of the Gulf War and the Iraq War. At least 23% of the homeless are vets and 33% of all homeless men are vets.
There is no magic in military schools success rate in testing - it's about the same for all private and catholic schools - the students are chosen from a narrower pool with already higher test scores and are highly motivated to succeed.
I might also point out that every year since the Iraq war, the recruitment standards have been lowered - while in the past the volunteer army has accepted only those with a high school diploma or GED certificate, this is no longer the case.
No one "passes" or fails the BSA. The test is designed to place the takers in a percentile that best represents their skill level. Basic training isn't anywhere near a "military education" or any education for that matter - it is exactly as described, training. Public schools (and many private schools) train students to take tests which is no doubt, why test scores have risen in many public schools.
Military schools aren't any better at educating students than other schools, it is just another way to teach students. The method works for some and not for others.
June 5, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are confusing BSA with BST. It is pass/fail.
"There is no magic in military schools success rate in testing - it's about the same for all private and catholic schools - the students are chosen from a narrower pool with already higher test scores and are highly motivated to succeed."
My experience (imperfect) is that military academies get a lot of troubled youth. The Navy Academy by my home has a number of these.
"I might also point out that every year since the Iraq war, the recruitment standards have been lowered - while in the past the volunteer army has accepted only those with a high school diploma or GED certificate, this is no longer the case."
Really? Maybe the Army. I'll have to look that up.
"Basic training isn't anywhere near a "military education" or any education for that matter"
Ummm... sorry, but that isn't true. I also think that is disrespectful.
"Now I cannot agree that "nearly everyone who comes out of the military...is more adapted to national success". Statistically, they have no higher a success rate than those not in the military and trend to higher rates of alcohol and drug addiction, marital and relationship problems and a higher suicide rate. Since the Viet Nam war, the veteran tends to earn less than those who stayed home and this is true of the Gulf War and the Iraq War. At least 23% of the homeless are vets and 33% of all homeless men are vets."
This is a hodgepodge.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.nr0.htm
"A large majority (85.0 percent) of Gulf War-era II veterans partici-
pated in the labor force in 2008, and their unemployment rate was 7.3
percent. As with nonveterans, the jobless rates for veterans vary con-
siderably with age. Veterans between the ages of 18 and 24 had an unem-
ployment rate of 14.1 percent, nearly double the rate of those ages 25
to 34 (7.3 percent), and almost three times the rate for 35 to 44 year
olds (4.9 percent). In general, Gulf War-era II veterans' jobless rates
were little different from the rates of nonveterans in the same age group."
I will also add that a healthy chunk of the military are getting out of bad homes, neighborhoods, and poverty.
I can't believe I am actually defending the military style education. I am really not. I am only saying that the military style education is effective in producing functional members of THIS society... which is already militarized. By bringing in veteran's affairs, you are muddying the water because war and combat stress effect the statistics.
June 5, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will also add that the military has helped me adapt to this culture. Whether that is a good or bad thing is anybody's guess, but the character I had developed pre-military was maladaptive and couldn't hold up my end of the middle class contract. So, like I said, the fact that a military education and training apparatus can successfully mold productive citizens says more about our culture than it does about the instituations.
June 5, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I resemble this remark as well. The Navy provided discipline and structure that I had never received. It also helped to relieve the lingering self-image and self-esteem issues I had retained from surviving a rough childhood.
An education system that needs military academies to provide structure to some children is one that is failing on many levels. I just don't agree with the basic premise that the very idea of a military academy is a bad thing. Not if 90% of their students end up having nothing to do with the military.
In the absence of other alternatives, this seems to be an idea that helps kids who would otherwise be lost in our current system.
June 5, 2009 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny how experiences can vary with circumstances and over time. One of the best lessons I learned in the Army is that education and class background are not good measures of a person. About half-way through my tour, we got sent out to the same platoon twice in one month to check on some wounded, and pick-up a few KIAs. The platoon leader was a mule of a shave-tail with one a one page playbook: straight up the middle for three yards and a cloud of dust. Naturally, as QB, he always handed-off the ball. He also had a reputation for recommending posthumous medals, as if this made up for the coffin returning home. The 2nd time out to the platoon, I told him eye to eye that a Silver Star was not worth dying for, and specified which of his orifices was the appropriate location for awarding them in. That got me a scheduled JAG hearing date, and that day, the platoon's 1st Sergeant showed up on his own initiative to offer his insights about the event. He was old-school; the kind that disappeared in the up or out era, who had enlisted the start of the Korean War at 17, lying about his age, after walking off an Oklahoma oil field. Vietnam was his 2rd war, and he was a recidivist volunteer for quick turnaround tours. He told the JAG hearing officers what I'd said was wrong, but still needed to be said, and by someone not directly under the shave-tail's command. I got off with a stern lecture, followed by free-beers, advice and a sincere thank-you from the 1st Sergeant.
These schools aren't of and by themselves necessarily evil, and do offer advantages to many kids with dismal futures. Still, it bothers me that choosing between a poverty-stricken life, multiple prison terms, or military service, is hardly a real free-choice. It's also troubling that recruiting an all volunteer military in this manner, helps perpetuate politicians' imperial mind-sets, placing far too much of the burden upon an already over-burdened subset of the whole population without the electoral clout provisioning easy access to the politicians' ears. I've come to the conclusion over the last several years, that America's future would be brighter, if the current short-fall in military enlistments were instead filled-out in a fair draft process, that exposed all in each age cohort equally to the chances of getting called. If the blood-fee for waging war is distributed much more evenly across the whole American population, the waging of war is no longer a trivial pursuit.
June 5, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear what you are saying and would love to live in a perfect world that doesn't send young men and women to die on the other side of the world to make small groups of men rich. Having our poor people kill their poor people is hardly the best PR we could muster given our other positives.
However, the boy I was when I went into the Navy at age 21 came out a man ten years later. The success I have achieved in life can be directly traced to my military service. I joined because I had few other choices, true, but I went in with my eyes open having been prepared by a Vietnam-era stepfather who did two tours as a Seabee. I certainly had no illusions when I volunteered and neither did the vast percentage of my fellow Sailors. The only ones who were surprised were the ones who told themselves (or had recruiters) lies to sign on the dotted line.
I am not saying the system is perfect by any stretch, but an all-volunteer military has worked pretty well since the end of Vietnam. Not sure a draft is the answer, but some sort of compulsory service (military, civil service, Peace Corps, etc.) with a "boot camp" component can only be a positive for this country given the current trends. In the absence of real parenting, our kids need something to give them a fighting chance at life. For many kids, including myself, the military is that chance.
June 6, 2009 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ooh ooh! Mr Rutabaga! I can help you with your difficulties in defining fascism! Why, I went and looked in my THESAURUS (it's a Roget's, doncha know) and it made it allllll perfectly clear.
Why, fascism has a LOT of synonyms, Root - "Nazism, absolutism, authoritarianism, autocracy, bureaucracy, despotism, one-party system, party government, racism, regimentation, totalitarianism." And it's antonym? Democracy.
We are learning SO much from Roget's, aren't we? Fascism is RACISM! Because because because ROGET'S says so! And fascism is BUREAUCRACY too, man!
So. That should clear up that debate. Roget's are ever so good at precisely delineating these political and psychological meanings! After all, as the ad says, for the blogger of discriminating taste,
LET ROCKIN' ROGET'S BE YOUR GUIDE!
But wait a minute. Waaaaaait just a doggone. You weren't trying to CHANGE the meaning of the word fascism, were you? You know, influence how people use it? Wow. What an interesting idea. I think I'll consider your idea. Hum. Hum. Thrum. Yum. Ok. I've considered it. And my response is...
DENIED, DUM DUM!
I mean, it's all well and good to say that YOUR definition isn't universal, but "words don't mean what you want them to mean, amike... errrrr, Rutabaga...." In fact, your attempt at redefining fascism here smells to me like an endorsement of the middle-school free association of... whoever.
"Here's what pops into my little mind when I hear the word 'fascism!' Oooh, ohh, I hate finance capital too! And ummm, finance seems to be talked about a lot lately, a LOT more than the religious aspects, so I'll pack FINANCE right into the core of my definition of fascism, yup yup. And that way, I'll be able to outflank my friends by lining up with the 3rd International's definition over at Wikipedia, and THEN I'll give those Obamabots what for."
Now tell me allllll about how fascism is a "nightmarish" word to define, whereas empathy is crytalline in its clarity. 'Course, if you commit a comment that dumb to your blog, it'll just lay there for an eternity, staring back at you, the abyss of your dumbitude, visible to God's own eye, and likely resulting in an ALMIGHTY HAR! from the clouds.
June 5, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
On your other issues, 1) I agree completely that Arne Duncan is a dip-shit (is "dipshit" hyphenated? hmmmm), and 2) agree that expanding military schools in an overly-militarized nation is insane, and 3) that finance capital may well be central to fascism.
Tougher schools! More tests! Enhanced disciplinary techniques! Just what we need to COMPETE in the innovative modern economy, where every job is a symbolic analyst's job, and every sheep is scared. etc.
June 5, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS...IS...SPARTA!!! (with video games)
June 5, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Considering that my diary includes a link to the Wikipedia article about (most of) the many definitions of "fascism," additionally elaborated with a page of historiographic meta-discussion about ongoing definitional disputes, it doesn't have much in common with amike's definition of "empathy" by fiat, based only on his own intuition, which also suggested the witch-hunter John Winthrop as a model of "empathy."
Harharharhar!!!
June 5, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Weak..... ;-) The Winthrop quote came many hours after the initial exchange. Be that as it may.
On a wider issue. Ruta, you're aces with language, ok? I know that. But just in terms of future debate/discussion, do you really think there are neutral "authorities" we can turn to, to make any final determinations on the meaning of major political, cultural or other terms? I'm sure there are some social sciencey "facts" that we can get an authoritative answer to (e.g. did the 1871 borders of Germany include Leipzig?) but for any major term, I don't believe that's the case. Democracy, power, freedom, nation, fascism, individual, rationality, class - these things have always been in dispute, and always changing. And pretty much the same for religion/theology, psychology, etc.
In short, I'd like to get past wasting time on disputes about whether there's a "final" or authoritative answer on some of these terms - and focus on whether they seem to help us make new/old connections, see new/old things, open the door to different kinds of actions, etc. I find definitional debates pretty much dead, whereas coming up with a new metaphor opens up more light and space. e.g. I'm ok with calling our societies "fascist" today, I get what the person is saying, and yeah, it has some traction... but it doesn't really fit that well, and some of the historic connections it produces are well off. Instead, don't you find that, say, Zipper's example saying "This is Sparta (with video games)" more likely to trigger interesting and relevant images than the more general political sciencey term?
June 5, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since I already included a page of historiographic discussion about a more or less undefinable political term, let's just assume there's an answer to your question hidden somewhere inside it, and let me ask you a slightly more personal question, without assuming that your original gibberish about amike wasn't already personal.
Look back through the long thread above these comments, and check out the brain-dead insults from commenters like jason and brewmn61... "you attention- whoring little shitbag"... along with Zipperupus' usual junior-college "refinements" of very big questions, and PseudoCyAnts' far-fetched, dishonest "textual criticism," and then...
Try to balance it out with posts by real people like BevD and jsfox and worthless citizen and stillidealistic, and then you tell me, quinn...
Why bother?
It isn't for the fame, Buckwheat!
It isn't because of the "challenge" of refuting half-wits like jason or devious, dishonest little hustlers-for-Obama like PseudoCyAnts and NC Stevie.
And it isn't to prove that I'm "aces with language," like the glib little scumbags Ben Rhodes and Jon Favreau, who write Obama's speeches.
But there's still a sufficiently good reason...
June 5, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
So those who agree with you and give you kudos: REAL people
Those who disagree (softly or vehemently) or try to expand the dialogue away from black/white: FAKE PEOPLE
You are such a fucking asshole. And not even in a TRUTH TO POWER way. Just an asshole.
June 5, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
None of the people on that list "agreed" with me, chump!
Do you think jsfox was agreeing with me, chump?
Did you read his post, chump?
He wasn't agreeing, chump, but he wrote from real experience, chump, and he really thought about my post, chump, unlike you, chump, who used a dim-witted transmogrification of it, chump, as a platform, chump, to pretend to be something you're not, chump, and that makes you, chump, unreal.
June 5, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
What am I not?
June 5, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry:
What am I not, you asshole?
June 5, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this chump-asshole-chump thing has potential. Ruta... maybe if you could just throw in a bit of tap, you can tapdance right, you brung yer shoes, maybe every third "chump," you give us a lick... and Zipper, if you could just randomly shout SPARTA, that's riiiight, beautiful, who loves ya... Damn. I think we got a show.
Now, That's Entertainment.
June 5, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not working with that asshole.
(sparta)
June 5, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're not a giraffe, Zipperupus, but you are a Marine, Marine, and that's an almost unsolvable problem for you, Marine, on TPMCafe, Marine, because if you wrote like a Marine, Marine, on TPMCafe, Marine, you would scare all the other children out of the sandbox, Marine, so you have to find something else you also are, Marine, besides a Marine, Marine, and I don't know what that would be, Marine, but you can probably figure it out, Marine, if you really try.
(In the magical field of these brackets, I will now pretend that I give a fuck about Zipperupus, and make a "benevolent" suggestion: Ask somebody you trust, Marine, what else you are, Marine, besides a Marine, Marine. My infallible (but only in brackets) intuition says... You will get an answer!)
June 5, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"(In the magical field of these brackets, I will now pretend that I give a fuck about Zipperupus, and make a "benevolent" suggestion: Ask somebody you trust, Marine, what else you are, Marine, besides a Marine, Marine. My infallible (but only in brackets) intuition says... You will get an answer!)"
Dude... are you saying I AM or AM NOT a Marine?
Sp-sp-sp-SPELL IT THE HELL OUT.
June 5, 2009 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I used to think your pseudonym was Zipperpus... as in Zipper-pus. This works as a name for a psycho-billy band, but on TPMCafe, it was probably too risqué, and almost on the same plane as the Butthole Surfers.
Zipper-pus the Marine!
It ain't exactly cosmic, but it's still one step up from...
Brendan, the hedge-fund manager.
When those guys get stuck in the Malibu MacDonald's drive-through (because it's really way too narrow for a Humvee), I throw rotten fruit from the roof of my shack and scream...
"Welcome to the Bu!"
They usually shit their pants, and abandon the vehicle, which I subsequently strip and sell for parts, and that, Marine, is how I can afford to live in Malibu!
June 5, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Locust Abortion Technician
June 5, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
That works for me.
June 5, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
SPARTA!
June 5, 2009 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point 1. Pleased to see you recognize that my gibberish is original. Fuckit, if I was just passin' off second-hand used gibberish I'd get more serious about this auto-erotic asphyxiation thing I've been workin' on.
Point le deux. Truth is, when you got called an "attention-whoring little shitbag," I was kinda jealous. When a fucktard raises their insult game like that, you should feel honoured. As for PCA, well, he's a different kettle o' fish. Often he does really really good research. He's got chops. That argument about ellipses on China the other day was junk though. Weak. He and Stevie don't feel comfortable debating the economics around China and such, and they went for the pin, and missed I thought. But you and PCA and Stevie have your antlers so entangled now it's doubtful they'll ever get clear. Anyway.
#3. Ok. So it's not the fame, or the challenge, or to prove anything. So it's gotta be... ummmm... for the chicks?
No. That doesn't sound right. Part of your community service?
No? Shit. Damn, this is hard. Ummmm, each blog earns you points toward the super-decoder ring?
NFW, huh? Ok. Final guess. I'm gonna hafta go with "chicks."
Dude. Face it. You come here to feed the flame, feel the burn. The least you could do is let us know you enjoy the brawl. Otherwise, people aren't gonna want to put the effort into coming up with really good insults.
P.S. I just googled "Attention-whoring little shitbag." I want you to guess - how many hits?
One. (1) One, dude. You are the first person in all of cyperface to receive that particular little gem of an ass-smacker. Which means, I have to take back my mean insult to brewmn61. Turns out the dude isn't just an average fucktard. He may very well be world-class.
And like I say, I'm jealous. I only ever get to argue with Clearstunker the Finkfunker. Try to argue with him sometime. Har indeed!
June 5, 2009 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for googling my brand new title, you attention- whoring little shitbag, and now that we're in this thing together...
BFF?
Seriously...
BFF!
And didn't I already admit my first comment to amike was "way too harsh," or at least "too harsh," or "probably too harsh," or whatever, before you even commented on that sympathy/empathy blog that was "originally" and exclusively intended as a set-up for yet another blog that nobody read, Ricci, Raniola, and Dabit," and wasn't that a catchy title!
June 5, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that title sucked, dude. I woulda tried getting three cases where the 1st letters came out CCR. Woulda racked up the Recs.
June 5, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
But you can also rearrange the letters of Ricci, Raniola, and Dabit to spell...
Italic Ocarina Bird!
Last one to post a diary with that title is a wuss!
June 5, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Italic Ocarina Bird, contrary to popular belief, was not a being of the avian persuasion at all, but rather referred to a singer, female, reportedly from Hungary, known by the name of Orssola Benedek. She emigrated to the United States in 1847 at the age of 22, eventually making her way to California during the gold rush that began in early 1848, at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, California. Making her way as a saloon singer, she was known as 'The Bird' for her delicate bone structure and mastery of musical vocalizations. She eventually married a miner by the name of Francisco Donati, the brother of the inventor of the modern day ocarina, Giuseppe Donati. In the mid 1850s she was joined on stage by younger members of the Donati clan who accompanied her with a chorus of ocarinas, in an effort to promote their uncle Giuseppe's invention. Over time her Hungarian ancestry was overwhelmed by the Donati clan that surrounded her, and she became known as 'The Italian Ocarina Bird', which over time came to be abbreviated as the 'Italic Ocarina Bird'. Next!
June 6, 2009 2:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eye-popping diary. @@ I had never heard of these public military schools???
June 5, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink