[AAACE-NLA] "Mayberry Machiavelli's"

Thu May 15 12:49:47 EDT 2003

Catherine,

I am so grateful for your remarks.  You hit me right between the 
eyes.  Globilization extends far beyond the "bottom-line" mentality of the 
corporate world.  It has it's tentacles deeply in the enterprise of 
American education.  What can and cannot be said is directly connected to 
what I have heard called a "dead democracy."  Please continue to stimulate 
our thoughts and our actions in the name of life long learning.  Be well...

peace and love,

chris

At 09:52 AM 5/15/2003 -0700, you wrote:

>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
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > >_______________________________________________
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> >  >
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