Principles, People, and the 2004 Election

[kiahzero]

"... Principles are just laws you make to separate yourself from other people. Principles are selfish when they're more important than those people."
-- Sal, "It's Walky!"

Some are already threatening that they will vote third-party in 2004, and still others are threatening to stay home on Election Day.

I humbly ask those people not to let their principles blind them to the truth - George W. Bush is a blight upon the nation. Any one of the current candidates, from Lieberman all the way to Kucinich, is miles ahead of Bush.

Even if you have to hold your nose to do it, please vote for the Democratic nominee in November. I know I don't want to see Bush when he doesn't have to worry about re-election, and I suspect none of you do either.

[JailBush]

1. I'm voting Democrat - but with an enormous chip on my shoulder.

It's obvious the Democrats have no intention of cleaning up their act, nor does the Green Party have anything to offer, other than rhetoric and lame websites.

I'm still looking for an alternative, and I'll continue blasting everyone who isn't lavishing as muc attention on local campaigns as the presidential election.

It would sure be nice to see an election campaign where at least one candidate has something intelligent to say about public education. (Actually, Kucinich might fit the bill; I'll have to take another look at his website.)

[kiahzero]

2. Clark on education

(Hey, I'm always willing to support my guy)

For example, take the idea of competition in schools. OK now, what is competition in schools? What does it really mean? Well, competition in business means you have somebody who's in a business that has a profit motive in it. It's measured every quarter. If the business doesn't keep up, the business is going to lose revenue, therefore it has an incentive to restructure, reorganize, re-plan, re-compete and stay in business.

Schools aren't businesses. Schools are institutions of public service. Their job--their product--is not measured in terms of revenues gained. It's measured in terms of young lives whose potential can be realized. And you don't measure that either in terms of popularity of the school, or in terms of the standardized test scores in the school. You measure it child-by-child, in the interaction of the child with the teacher, the parent with the teacher, and the child in a larger environment later on in life.

So when people say that competition is-this is sort of sloganeering, "Hey, you know, schools need this competition." No. I've challenged people: Tell me why it is that competition would improve a school. Most of them can't explain it. It's just like, "Well, competition improves everything so therefore it must improve schools."

If you want to improve schools, you've got to go inside the processes that make a school great. You've got to look at the teachers, their qualifications, their motivation, what it is that gives a teacher satisfaction, what it is a teacher wants to do in a classroom. We've got to empower teachers. Give them an opportunity to lead in the classroom. Teachers are the most important leaders in America. All that is lost in the sloganeering of this party. And the American people know it's lost. So you asked me to give you one thing about this party that's in power -- it's the sort of doctrinaire ideology that doesn't really understand the country that we're living in.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002033.html

[JailBush]

3. What would REALLY fire me up is a candiate who can speak the

simple truth about public education, getting right down to the bedrock: Public education has been taken over by corporations and have been effectively privatized. They are infested with corrupt school officials and teachers unions, which have also recruited many corrupt teachers and parents to serve as "gatekeepers."

I would declare war against high-stakes tests and runaway superintendent salaries start talk about punishing derelict principals, rather than students.