[AAACE-NLA] "Mayberry Machiavelli's"
Catherine B. King
cb.king at verizon.net
Thu May 15 12:52:55 EDT 2003
Hello Eileen:
I read your note and found no offense in it.
I work with teachers every day who still harbor a "no
interest" view and actually still think that educators are and
should be non-political. My own point is that it is a failure of
our own educational system, and of course ourselves, that
those who consider ourselves born and bred Americans can
also act in such an un-American way--meaning to just junk the
Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and our Constitutional separation
of powers. These apparently are only "liberal tools" to make
the country more anarchic and "evil" than it already is.
Though I was speaking with tongue in cheek about being
in denial about what is happening, I do feel like I have been
broadsided out of my hope that those in power understand
the principles on which they stand--and I have now lost that
hope. There are many who saw its loss with the last election.
I still harbored hope--alas.
And with you, I think that "professionalism" can be understood
as just another double-speak term to cover the loss of the value
and necessity of open dialogue and critique in an open
civilization. Let's be nice little educators.
A true story: I lost a class in my University on the charge of
being "rude" because, to one teacher's way of thinking,
disagreeing with students is "rude." This charge got out to the
next class, and I was dismissed from it because the students
had heard I was rude from another class and wouldn't pay for the
class. The university shrugged and said okay ($$$), even though
I have a raft of good comments and recommendations from
many other students. These are teachers in K-12, many who
have worked for several years already. And this is a
university that is more involved with capitalism than with
excellence, openness and challenge in education.
But the denial that I see in my teachers is also a product of the
myopia born of having been born into and lived under the
protection of such documents without having understood their
meaning--as you and others have understood by having
experienced what it means when such documents and
adherence to them is absent. Freire and Peter McLaren are
both standard reading in my courses. These people also
can be understood as "rude."
Teacher busy-ness is also a tool to keep teachers from
thinking about such important issues. And the
epistemological breakdown has crept in under this
ignorance to support the view that being nice is more
important that having a healthy, disagreeable argument.
After all, there is no truth and anything anyone says, even
the teacher, is only personally and collectively "constructed."
I don't have to agree with it, especially if it doesn't meet
with the corporate ideology. On principle, a single teacher
cannot carry any truth or authentic critique. This is all
philosophical prepation for the rise of a demi-god on the
wings of fear and for nothing less than fascism. Plato
called this mentality "misology"--the hate of dialogue.
But in the current environment, the more politically astute
teachers go nuts or begin leaving, and administrators
begin hiring more and more teachers with "follower" and
"politically naive" stamped across their resumes--the ones
who think everything will stay the same if the just stand
still. And now we have a bunch of teacher-workers
in a corporate environment where the ruling ideology of
"no disagreement" and the keeping-of-a-job are so closely
identified as to be indistinguishable.
Catherine
----- Original Message -----
From: Eileen Eckert <eileeneckert at hotmail.com>
To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 8:32 AM
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] "Mayberry Machiavelli's"
> Catherine and others,
> One statement you made, Catherine, struck a chord with me:
> "But I am still in denial--I cannot believe people who claim
> to live here, with such a document as the one we live under
> and have lived under for so many years, can so easily do
> such a violation of long-standing principle."
>
> I'm responding to your statement as a general reflection of how many
> Americans feel; I'm not trying to argue that you personally <can't
possibly>
> or <shouldn't> feel that way. Please try to keep that in mind if I sound
> harsh.
>
> From an interest in human rights, way back in the 80s I got involved in
> anti-apartheid, Central America solidarity, and some community organizing
> work, and that kind of set up a framework for me to gather and organize
> information into knowledge and understanding that has been a strong
> influence on my literacy work. In 1991 and 1992 I traveled to El Salvador
> with teachers' delegations. We went to the countryside. We marched in a
> demonstration with many Salvadorans and saw our picture on the front page
of
> the newspaper the next day and were the subjects of an editorial cartoon
> titled "Yankee Revoltosos (troublemakers) Go Home!" We saw the
> machine-gunned Bible and other effects of churchpeople murdered by the
death
> squads. I met people whose children had been murdered.
> Our government paid millions and millions of dollars and provided military
> training and "advisors" to the government that did that. Someone close to
me
> arrived at work one morning in San Salvador and found the body of his
> friend--I won't give the gory details. We paid for that.
>
> Why talk about that? What does it have to do with adult literacy, or
> censorship of the NIFL archives? Isn't it "unprofessional," or
> "inappropriate" or just irrelevant to bring that up here? Don't educators
> have a professional obligation not to be political? Don't we need
consensus,
> not divisiveness? That easy willingness to define appropriate and
> professional to coincide with working within the status quo is disturbing
to
> me, and when I hear someone talk about being "professional" meaning be
> polite it makes me want to behave as <unprofessionally> as possible. This
is
> not about decorum--it's about people's lives, because what we are allowed
to
> read, to talk about, and to know has a profound effect on what we do and
> what we demand from our government and from ourselves as citizens.
>
> It's finally hitting home, hitting some of us, the middle-class people who
> never had to confront what our government's policies mean to people in
> developing countries, and to poor people here. We've had the luxury of
> denial. <They> have been the side effects of "economic development,"
> containment of communism (a policy that continues, look at our policy on
> Cuba), and spreading "democracy" and "free markets" (free to us). Why
would
> anyone want to censor a listserv archive? It must mean that free
discussion,
> thought, criticism are very dangerous things, even here.
>
> Eileen
>
>
>
>
> From: "Catherine B. King" <cb.king at verizon.net>
> Reply-To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
> To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] "Mayberry Machiavelli's"
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 07:51:38 -0700
>
>
>
> Hello Eileen and Colleagues:
>
> Eileen says: "Can anyone seriously argue that blocking
> or deleting messages to a listserv is legal or necessary?"
>
> The problem seems to be that arbitrariness is afoot in the
> land, which means no one NEEDS to make an argument--
> the people behind the curtain, as it were, "just do it"
> because they want to and they can, and probably because
> the big G told them to, if many of the press reports are
> true.
>
> At present, it seems that the qualification for such actions
> is "covered" by such language as "appropriate" and
> "scientific-based evidence." But this is possibly the
> language of half-truth--bad intentions entering the arena
> through the language of good intentions. (I wanted to use
> a different six-letter word that starts with "c" and ends with
> "t" and sounds like "rover" with a "t" at the end, but I was
> afraid it wouldn't "pass.") But soon, if what is inferred is
> actually true, we will need no cover language.
>
> As far as
> education goes, we may infer that these folks failed to
> understand in their own education the importance of our
> founding documents and the tenuous relationship between
> that, the rule of law, and the documents of deity and lone
> internal dialogue of prayer. In this sense their acts are in
> principle NO different that the acts of the persons who ran
> into those two buildings up in New York--they are following
> their own personal interpretation of what the deity wants
> and trumping the entire order of civilization that has
> emerged through an enormous battle over the centuries--
> and for which many died--because they are in a powerful
> position to do so. No argument is needed or wanted, and
> has no purpose for such groundless power--argument is
> anti-thematic for such a mind.
>
> Who needs argument when I have the power?
>
> And who needs Chicken-Little when the sky has already
> fallen?
>
> Catherine King
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Eileen Eckert <eileeneckert at hotmail.com>
> To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 5:29 AM
> Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA]free and open discussion
>
>
> > I think we need to check that our responses are based on an accurate
> > reading--Debbie specifically said the censorship applies ONLY to NIFL
> lists
> > subscribed to through the LINCS website, not to this policy-related
list
> > sponsored by AAACE. The censorship that's happening is indefensible in
> any
> > case, not just because one can make the argument that general
government
> > policy is related to adult literacy policy.
> >
> > If someone posting to a NIFL list can state how their message fits the
> > guidelines for the list (even if others don't agree), then it seems to
me
> > the message is appropriate. If not, isn't that one of the roles of a
> > moderator, to navigate that unmarked territory, or to help subscribers
> > navigate it? It's NEVER appropriate, or even legal, for an outsider to
> order
> > messages be blocked or deleted from the archives. It is especially
> > disturbing when, in a democracy, someone uses their direct or indirect
> > influence over someone else's continued employment to coerce them into
> > breaking the law. I'm assuming the censorship is carried out under
orders
> by
> > people afraid for their jobs; maybe that assumption is not correct.
> >
> > The Bill of Rights was written in a time when the United States was
> fragile
> > and new, and many could argue persuasively that free speech would
> jeopardize
> > its very existence--the framers of the Constitution still had the
> foresight
> > to include it as an ideal and a fundamental part of law (even if they
> never
> > lived up to all of the Constitution). Can anyone seriously argue that
> > blocking or deleting messages to a listserv is legal or necessary? We
> don't
> > need to make the case for the appropriateness of the discussions to the
> list
> > on which they appear--they're legal, no one has the right to even take
> the
> > argument into the realm of "appropriateness". I think we weaken our
> argument
> > for the basic principle of free speech when we make our case based on
> > appropriateness of specific discussions or messages.
> >
> > Eileen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at Brown.edu>
> > Reply-To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
> > To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
> > Subject: [AAACE-NLA]free and open discussion
> > Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 17:24:28 -0400
> >
> > This is astonishing.
> >
> > HR 1261?
> >
> > I'm wondering if the silence comes from messages now not being posted,
or
> if
> > others are as stunned as I am?
> >
> > We can't discuss legislation on a list devoted to policy? We're not
able
> to
> > communicate about issues that impact the lives of our learners and our
> > communities?
> >
> > Who is making these decisions?
> >
> > Janet Isserlis
> >
> > >The following has come to my attention. Members of this list will be
> > >interested. This is from NIFL, and concerns only the lists subscribed
to
> > >through the LINCS website. I assume NIFL was required to do this.
> > >
> > >"Messages sent to the discussion lists containing the following terms
> and
> > >phrases are currently not being allowed to post to their destined
lists.
> > >
> > >Urge Congress
> > >Your action can make the difference
> > >Chopping block
> > >Please make your views known
> > >Iraq
> > >War
> > >Action alert
> > >H.R. 1261"
> > >
> > >Debbie Yoho
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >_______________________________________________
> > >AAACE-NLA mailing list: AAACE-NLA at lists.literacytent.org
> > >http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/listinfo/aaace-nla
> > >LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> > >http://literacytent.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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