Sample Response to Reading Question #1

What if our current federal government had an energy policy permitting industry to develop our wealth of natural resources?

If our current federal government had an energy policy permitting industry to develop our wealth of natural resources

• we would be paying $2.50/gal (or less) at the gas pump
• hundreds of thousands of skilled workers would be actively engaged in steady, progressive, and productive  work
• those families would be actively participating in our economy, thus allowing thousands of other industries to rise from the ashes
• the US would actively pursue the American Dream of solid work, appreciating our resources and our resourcefulness
• the US would no longer be financially supporting nations that wish US dead
• we would need to borrow less and less from China ...as we grew more independent, nationally prosperous in body, mind, and spirit... and financially secure as families, communities, cities, states, and finally as a nation
• as we grew stronger we would be able to further our already generous contributions without going bankrupt like our Socialist global neighbors across the Atlantic.* 

* Teacher's Reflection:

The United States of America is number one among free nations in sharing our EARNED wealth.  We have traditionally been so generous that EVEN NOW UNDER Barack's outrageous spending habits: 

• He has acquired an additional 5 trillion dollar debt for US ... in just 3 years!  
• He has US borrowing-to-give (to Egypt, etc, etc, etc.) from China ... you know that name... it's stamped on so many items we purchase from our stores now.) 
• If we developed and generated our own natural resources (and we have wealth right here, right now), we would also be able to progressively reduce our debt (and This is an authentic application of the recently misapplied term "progressive")
• Piggy-backing on Point Three: we could  extend such prosperity by bringing back industry that has increasingly emigrated to foreign shores due to the extraordinary corporate tax imposed on industry in the US. 
• We wouldn't be tempted to further "poach" the already substantially taxed earned resources of those who are achieving and have achieved the American Dream (many of whom are by the way immigrants from Asian countries who are willing to work hard and smart to build wealth because the US offers them (and everyone) a free country in which to do just that!)
• We would ultimately afford to ensure decent and workable health insurance to just those with pre-existing conditions denied by insurance companies without changing everyone else's already workable insurance plans (as the populace voted to do in Mitt Romney's State of Massachusetts...this amounted to 6% of the state's population, by the way).

Teacher's Extension:

I listened to a a call-in news program last week.  A "regular" called in saying how well he liked, Barry. The Host questioned the caller's reference to "Barry."

"You know, Barry, my man!" 

He was referring to Barack Obama, or as Fallon called him, "Prezi of the United Stezi."

Since our current prezi actively seeks this level of intimacy or in these times of Extreme TV we could say Mr. Obama seeks our Extreme Casualness with potential voters.  

Throughout my 45 year practice in the varied arenas of Educational Psychology, I have been concerned about the "intimacy and belonging" needs reflected by parents and teachers who encouraged being on a first name basis with their younger, dependent charges.  Besides the race card, our current "Prezi" insists more recently on playing the celebrity card! Thus, I will pace this master of rhetoric and "ceremony"...we will also call him, "Barry." Barry -seems he clearly wants us to think of him as our man! So let's give the man what he really wants.

It's hard not to notice how Barry has assumed the bounce and stride of an NBA player, the toothy smile of a nominee racing toward his trophy at the Academy Awards, the stealthy glance-and-sidetalk with the likes of Biden, even more foreboding with Russia's President-to-Putin exchange.  Barry thought his microphone was off.  He misjudged. It was on. Stunned by his ease with stealth, I heard him assure the Russians he could be more "flexible" in the future (anticipating his post-election flexibility re defense missile negotiations).  OOOOOOOOweeeeee, scarey.   But real, folks.   

Barry was very comfortable setting up shop for future private business ... out of our sight and range of listening.  What "deal" would eventually become worth Barry's while to sell some of us  (or all of US) down the Volga?  In the beginning (2007-8), Barry publicly claimed Presidential TRANSPARENCY his high priority.  In 2008, I voted for Barack Obama...I thought that what I saw and heard was what we'd get. 

What I've learned since  2008, is that Barry is a practiced showman.  It's easy enough for anyone to assess his "master of ceremonies" persona from college on YouTube.  His experience as a community organizer only galvanized what was already his greatest talent: delivering convincing rhetoric.  

From his presidential track record, three years down the road, I clearly see that what we heard during his first campaign differs from what he actually does  "off-stage." All career educators have witnessed the bravado and rhetoric of star bullies at school when they draw an audience!   More importantly, what we've heard from Barry significantly differs from what he believes.  Again, experienced professionals and diagnosticians know the value of working backwards to more accurately discern authentic elements of a grand  design.  Working backwards, we temporarily set aside what Barry wants us to hear him say.  Instead, we observe what he does and how he does it. 

What Barry believes is reflected not only his legislative actions, e.g. his premier package: Obamacare.  It is also reflected in the trajectory of his actions, most recently through executive order forbidding protests when he is presenting, verbally daring the Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unconstitutional, and before this coercing congress to vote-before-reading his over 2000 page proposal pocked with thousands of earmarks (kickbacks and special deals).  He is growing more offend able and more offending; his extreme narcissism is showing (and the Emperor's clothes are becoming more translucent).

Looking backward over the nature of this trajectory, my studied inference is that Barry indeed shares strong sentiments about America's legitimacy to exist with Farrakhan, Sharpton, the Black Panthers, and his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright (The definition of "reverend" makes it impossible to apply to this  inflammatory man). 

How did the revolution in France and Russia progress?... Inflammatory class divisiveness, economic collapse, and ultimate takeover by a small but autocratic elite to whom everyone else was subservient.   

How did the evil of genocide come to fruition? Through good people standing by doing nothing, saying nothing - being politically correct! "Civilized" people seem to live in fear of being "offensive."  From antiquity, genocide has been unleashed on different ideologies, religions, cultures: Carthage and Melos, European Jews ("Holocaust"), the Romas (Gypsies), the Poles, the Tutsis in Rwanda by the Hutus, Armenians in the Anatolian Provinces, Arab Bedouins who destroyed those of Black Ethnicity in Darfur, Chinese by Japanese, Native Americans by the U.S. Calvary, The Tibetans by the Chinese, and most recently the Bosnians by the Serbs (just a little scan of human transgressions against "different" and "hated" neighbors. 

UNITED STATES 

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM 

CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES, most data gathered from the Report by Professor Emeritus Yehuda Bauer, Israel and a survey of genocides since antiquity on most continents: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199232116.do

Infusing the federal government dead center in control of every nook and cranny of what was once a uniquely states'-and-individuals' rights-American life is a certain way to change America (but not the way we hoped for, voted for in 2008).  As an educator, psychologist, developer of empowered human beings, I came to understand deeply, the power inherent in human beings ... and in our processes for BECOMING more of who we choose to be.  Informed parents (and highly experienced educators) raise children to become SELF-STARTERS, lifelong learners, and generative contributors to the world within and around.  Centralizing, as a social process,  is at the opposite end of LOCALIZING.  We've seen how badly "centralizing" school decision-making worked across the last generation -not only in our cities, but across the nation. Five decades of integral connection with public education -as one political football of government- reveals the way processes work. 

While capitalism is imperfect its imperfections depend on the integrity of the individuals using that process.  While imperfect, it allows individuals and families freedom to prosper, create and recreate.  Socialism, all grown up, economically looks like Greece, Portugal, Italy, France, etc.  Europe, not including Germany -who doesn't overspend, which is why they  have the money to offer to bail out bankrupt Greece (with conditions to stop overspending on their socialist programs) is currently on the verge of economic collapse.  So do we (US) really choose to continue on a path to socialism?

Communism looks like the starving and mafia-controlled Russian Federation ... and the one-child China (preferably male children).  

Tyrannical Dictatorships look like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.( and Sharia Law -which among other deadly women-hating ways, includes death for blasphemy).  

Please do your own investigating, pay attention day after day for at least one month.  Compare and contrast five different TV networks in their coverage and presentation of events.  

1. Are the range of issues covered, followed the next day of dropped?  
2. Followed by partisan debate? Or does the network itself present a single political position/interpretation?
3. To what extent has the network predigested issues, simply and summarily prounced as facts by the newscaster?
4.  Does the network (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN) offer simple or complex interpretations/debates/dialogues of political events?
5. How much time is allocated to local, national, global news?  Many focus much or more time on murders and natural disasters compared to time on the task of informing a vote-capable citizenship (- allocated to national news that we can actually do something about through our right to inform ourselves and vote on November 6, 2012).
6. How do you feel after witnessing individual networks --hungry for more detail and dots to connect? Or sick to your stomach stuffed with views of violent episodes you cannot control? Or kept happily sheltered from ugliness in the world needing transformation through our sharing, our efforts, our contributions?
7. After watching a network do you feel like you ate a can of Chef Boyardee prefabricated ravioli drenched in additives to make eating it smoother, faster, taste-bud stunned, and seductively addictive (like loosing ourselves in tabloid celebrity drama) 
8. Or do you feel quizzical, stimulated, nourished ...even  invigorated by some healthy conflict of interests that makes you want to learn more... as if you devoured a healthy nutrient-rich salad.

Check out  YouTube recordings of Barry's progression since 2007.  Check out the GOP candidate, Mitt Romney.  Investigate top talking points/issues through Google searches.  Cross check email "Forwards" through a check point listed below.  My brother has used all three, recommending them.   It's good to have an alternative.

Snopes.com

Factcheck.org

Politifact.com

Just notice...and spend significant time questioning with a friend what you both thought you knew when you didn't know much, but felt OK about that.  As  Antoine St. Exuperay expresses through the WWII novella entitled, The Little Prince: "One sees clearly only with the heart."  

And as we mature as adults, we learn to see with our fuller and higher, deeper and richer heart-mind.  While we will always detect the ways of thinking and the primal affiliations of childhood, adolescence, and very early adulthood, mature adults are called to use all our senses, including common sense.  We bring to bear on our adult issues a wealth of global and local knowledge and know-how. We organize and update and revise our primal perceptions in the context of higher order concepts from which we can draw more accurate inferences.  

In the end, adults contribute to our greater good as informed citizens,  able to navigate diverse territories, responding to both the panorama and each tree in the forest in which we live and love, work and play, participate and contribute, make the world a truly better place by being the best we can be.

Please leave behind the fear of being politically correct.  Keep your good manners, use your words, don't worry about spelling ... just respond, share thoughts, ask questions. Let's have important political conversations...now.