Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc. (who is facing a major scandal involving stock option backdating), lambasted one of his company's most loyal customers yesterday: teachers. He said that "what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way... This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
Jobs, who usually is venerated as a salesman, admitted that his tirade caused Apple to lose "some business in this state." No kidding. Since he just insulted me -- a unionized teacher -- he just lost my business, too.
There has been an enormous outcry to Jobs's ridiculous statements. Beyond the fact that an ordinary CEO would lose his or her job for making remarks that so blatantly harm the company's business, Jobs clearly is a better computer programmer than he is an analyist of public issues.
What is wrong with the schools in this nation is that they are chronically underfunded. Teachers, despite their unions, are severely underpaid and overworked. Classrooms in many parts of California are falling apart. Our public school teachers need our support, not more hackneyed anti-union flack from Steve Jobs.
Is there a problem with underperforming teachers? Yes, but as California-based technology reporter Leander Kahney says, "...it is not the number one reason schools are failing. It's not even in the top 10. In California, the most pressing problems are schools that are too big, too bureaucratic and chronically under funded. Teachers are criminally low paid and under trained. Education -- and school funding -- has become solely about test scores."
Jobs, whose mantra has always been that he, as an employer, should be able to fire anyone at any time, has no business criticizing teacher's unions. The sacrifices of union workers, like teachers, has brought benefits to everyone in America.The NEA, AFT, and other teacher's unions fight for smaller class sizes, improved classrooms, and funds to purchase some of Jobs' better technology. If Steve Jobs has a problem with that, then he can go outsource his educational business overseas just like he's outsourced his iPod manufacturing.
Labels: From The Courage Campaign, Politics
Yesterday, on the anniversary of the largest protest in history, UC Santa Barbara students joined thousands of student protesters across the country by refusing to attend classes in protest of the Iraq war. Here are some photos of the rally and protest march. In an action reminiscent of the great anti Vietnam War rallies, the protest march forced the closure of California Highway 217 for over an hour.
Here's fellow UCSB Graduate Student Yousef Baker speaking on the war:
More photos here.
Labels: Politics
Thousands of students went on strike and refused to participate in business as usual today in protest of American involvement in the Iraq war. At the University of California Santa Barbara, where I am a graduate student, a massive rally turned into a protest march. For over an hour, the protest forced the closure of California Highway 217. A heavy California Highway Patrol presence, with some officers wearing riot gear, looked on as students gave speeches decrying the Iraq war and their university's involvement in support of weapons research. (Photos and video will appear here shortly.)
The action at UCSB was organized as part of a nationwide antiwar movement. The date, February 15, was chosen as the anniversary of the historic antiwar protest in 2003, which took place in about 800 cities across the world. Today, students at more than 15 universities and colleges across the United States - including UCLA, Columbia, New York University, and Rutgers - held protests or went on strike demanding the end of American involvement in Iraq.
In describing his reasons for involvement in organizing the strike, UCSB graduate student Darwin BondGraham wrote:
"Striking is a tactic used by social movements to withdraw obedience and complicity from oppressive and antidemocratic governments or corporations. A strike means a withdrawal from the system in order to disrupt it. Disruption inhibits the ruler's ability to carry on with business as usual.
Right now business as usual in our nation is a nightmare of war, torture, and secrecy. It has created the conditions of domestic decay here in the US with no money or political will to rebuild the Gulf Coast or fund education and healthcare. Economists call this opportunity costs. The war is consuming our national treasury and killing some of the best men and women of our generation. The death toll and damage it has wrought against the people of Iraq is indescribably horrific....
The student strike is meant to put an end to business as usual. How can we continue going about our days as though nothing were wrong, as though the war were not destroying our country as well as Iraq and forfeiting our future to a debt of trillions and an body count based on lies? If we truly oppose the war it is time for a peace movement that does more than just symbolically protest. The movement must start withdrawing consent and resources from Bush's illegal war."
The UCSB strike will give way to a week-long teach-in called "Peace Out University," where activists will participate in events meant to educate about the origins and maintenance of war. The event is free and open to the public. Another protest rally is planned for March 17, on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war.
From the Courage Campaign
Labels: From The Courage Campaign, Politics
by Erik Love
Students at the University of California are taking big action this month on two of the most important issues for them: the Iraq War and the rising cost of their own education.
On the Iraq War, the University of California campus at Santa Barbara has been plastered with hundreds of posters announcing a student strike on February 15. Students plan to shut down the university's educational activities through their action, as a way of turning the nation's attention back toward the need to end the American involvement in Iraq. Students will hold a rally at 1pm on the 15th, and then a week-long teach-in will take place in Isla Vista, in a park near the university campus. More information about the Santa Barbara action -- which is spreading to additional UC campuses -- is available at www.sbantiwar.org. Stay with us here at Courage Campaign.org for more coverage on the 15th.
And on the issue of education here in California, students across the UC and CSU systems are protesting Governor Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal, which includes yet further hikes in student fees. Students are signing postcards to send to their local legislators, urging lawmakers to demand a rollback in fees and tuition.
The need to raise fees at the universities and the inability of the state of California to adequately fund its universities is a direct consequence, it seems to me, of Proposition 13. The state has a structural, built-in budget deficit that began with the passage of Prop 13 back in the 70's. It wasn't long after Prop 13 came into effect that the universities started charging fees that makes them simply unaffordable for the majority of California's families. Our state is obligated, under the constitution, to provide tuition-free higher education to all residents. Calling the skyrocketing cost of higher education"fees" doesn't make going to college affordable. Look for more on the issue of Prop 13 and Schwarzenegger's failure to fund higher education in a forthcoming Total Recall post here at CourageCampaign.org.
From the Courage Campaign
Labels: From The Courage Campaign, Politics
Children of Men, the new film from Director Alfonso Cuarón starring Clive Owen, has been transformed from the novel by P.D. James into the best science fiction film I've seen in a very long time. Aside from succeeding admirably as an edge-of-your-seat thriller with powerful acting, cogent writing, and beautiful cinematography with brilliantly subtle design and special effects, the film also manages to do what all great science fiction does: it poses relevant questions about today by taking us to an imaginary world.
This time, the imaginary world really isn't so different from our own. The film is set in London, a few decades from now. Due to some mysterious global malaise, humans can no longer have children, so the youngest person on the planet is about 18 years old. Societies all over the globe have come to grips with the now-too-imminent extinction of humanity by tearing each other apart as though there is no tomorrow. The film shows a collapsing world, with war and violence leading to massive economic depression and displacement. "Only Britain Soldiers On," beams a television propaganda message, and apparently Britain is struggling to keep the rest of the world out. Immigrants - all immigrants - are being violently rounded up, and cages filled with people dressed in rags are seen all over London.
It's in this world that we find Theo (Owen), a well-dressed, quiet bureaucrat whom we learn was once a flag-burning political activist. Despite his professed indifference to politics, Theo gets wrapped up in the business of an extremist group known as the "Fishes," a group which has been branded as a terrorist organization by the government. But the group has a shocking secret that Theo learns about almost accidentally - one of their members, Kee, an immigrant from Africa (played by Claire-Hope Ashitey), has miraculously become pregnant. Now that the pregnancy has gone to nearly 9 full months, it has become the Fishes' most urgent mission to save the woman by getting her to safety. They plan to get her off the British Isles and to a group calling itself the "Human Project" somewhere overseas. Exactly where this group is and whether it really exists is unclear, but it is clear that Kee, as a hunted illegal immigrant, needs to get out of London before she gives birth. Struggle ensues, involving both ideology and praxis, and the film's ride is both terrifying and compelling, cynical and hopeful, surreal yet real.
If you haven't seen the film yet -- stop reading here to avoid spoilers. If you have seen the film, keep reading to see the best review of this important film available anywhere. You're welcome.
The science fiction element here - the inability to procreate and the imminent extinction of humanity - is an excellent symbol for what we all already know. Humanity's future is not guaranteed. Pick any one of the dire threats to our very existence - climate change, war, poverty, disease - and each of us knows quite well that tomorrow we might not wake up. But, knowing this, how do we act? We're racist. We pollute. We kill one another. In Children of Men, we see these patterns amplified. With the end of days in clear focus, humanity's worst traits have expanded with horrible results. Poverty and hatred is widespread in London, people live in fear, and pollution has left the planet gray and filled with sludge.
Still, there's a veneer of hope. Kee's pregnancy and her child symbolize a new idea. The way forward. The child is the concept or effort that will change the world. What can we do to ensure that the child survives? That's the film's question, and indeed, that's the question we all struggle with.
The struggle that Kee and Theo go through to see that the child survives suggests that the only way forward is through hard, selfless work, despite little hope for success. The film adamantly rejects romantic notions of violent and rapid revolution - the Fishes' "uprising" is portrayed as villainous and futile. And the beauty of the child is but a fleeting distraction for the masses - there's no epiphany and quick fix once the secret of the child's existence is out. Instead, when the baby is discovered by the warring soldiers, for just a brief moment, the crowd is awestruck and stunned silent. Bold new ideas, or moments of crisis, often do this - they remind us all of the fragility of life and lead to momentary thoughts of putting down our guns. But, before too long, we end up forgetting about that new idea and we go right back to the war, right back to our old patterns. Kee and Theo have to continue their struggle to see that the idea - the child - survives long enough to reach tomorrow.
The film isn't perfect. Many of my friends rightly criticize the "white man's burden" aspect of a Clive Owen-type hero saving an African woman and thus the world. Still, I think overall that this is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Possibly, it's even better than Borat.
Labels: Film
Perhaps the single most important piece of domestic legislation in the 110th Congress was introduced today in the US House of Representatives -- the Employee Free Choice Act. This bill, if passed and signed by President Bush, will restore the ability of workers to form unions in America. The current system for forming unions is terribly broken because employers simply have far too much power to bust unions. The EFCA will make union membership as simple as signing a card.
As we've said time and again, the right to form a union is essential if we want to achieve any of our progressive dreams. A vibrant labor movement is a vibrant progressive movement. We need to fight back against the slippage of worker's rights during the Conservative Era, and the EFCA is a big piece of that struggle. Specifically, EFCA firms up penalties for union-busting activities (penalties which are vague and rarely enforced today), and it would eliminate all barriers to creating new unions by allowing a union to form at a workplace simply when a majority of workers have signed membership cards. These reforms are commonsense and absolutely necessary to ensure the continued expansion of the labor movement.
Check if your legislator is one of the 230 House members to cosponsor the bill, and then take action here to support the EFCA.
Labels: From The Courage Campaign, Politics
Better luck next year, Bears.
Labels: News Media, Sports
Is it just me, or did that 2008 campaign season get really hot in January? Must be that global warming.
Or, maybe the extremely early start comes because Bush is the lamest duck since Nixon, and he's made even lamer thanks to Cheney's inability to shoot straight, much less run for president. Given Bush's failures and the glaring weakness of the Republican agenda, everyone who's a Democrat has given serious thought to running, and already many big-name candidates have announced. Yes, even Joe Biden.
The early start, it seems to me, is not so great. In fact, I'm reluctant to even write this because I don't want to talk about 08. All this talk about 2008 is distracting from the important work that we have to do here in 2007 - we still need to get the minimum wage increased, we need to fix our levees, we need universal health care, we need to stop Schwarzenegger from shortchanging education, and we've really got to get our troops out of harm's way in Iraq.
Another unfortunate part of the early start to the 2008 Campaign is that it's only February but already lots of people have decided that the field is closed. Given who's announced, lots of smart people have decided that the Democratic nomination is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's to lose.
The view that Clinton has all but sown-up the fundraising battle and the momentum battle is the fuel firing up the fight over moving California's presidential primary election up to February 2008. Conventional wisdom at this point, a full 12 months before the primary election, is that the February primary would most benefit the front-runner - Clinton - to the detriment of progressive candidates like Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.
But 12 months is a very very long time in presidential politics. As crowded as the field is, there's still room for at least one more major candidate. If Al Gore decides to run, we're looking at a seismic shift in the 2008 race. Gore would move Obama and Edwards down to the second tier, because he's a figure around whom the left could coalesce. Gore could announce even as late as November 2007 and he'd still instantly become Senator Clinton's chief rival. He'd raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of hours, and he's already got a unique, almost elder-statesman-like national appeal (with a bit of movie-star glimmer added in, too). You know what, I really think Gore could walk into the Democratic nomination if he wanted it. And that's why I think he'll run.
Not only would Gore's announcement probably signal Clinton's eventual loss, but it would all but guarantee a Democratic victory on November 4, 2008. Imagine a Gore/Obama ticket, or a Gore/Edwards. That's a long way from the Kerry/McCain ticket Democrats used to dream about in 2004. And speaking of McCain, I think the Arizona Senator would have a tough, tough time against Al Gore. So would any other eventual Republican nominee.
All right - enough 2008 dreaming. My point is just this: February 2008 is a long time away, and November 2008 even longer. There's no way to predict what's going to happen between now and then. For all we know, Joe Biden might somehow take his foot out of his mouth. Who knows.
Let's keep our eye on the ball and continue pushing 2007 progressive priorities here in California - including the priority to get our state's voice heard in the presidential nomination process.
From The Courage Campaign
Labels: 2008, From The Courage Campaign, Politics
