My Brushes with the Educationists Final Part

STANDARDIZED TESTS

<>The recent emphasis on accountability in education is the nemesis of the educationists. Legislatures, despite the vociferous protests of the educationist establishment, are imposing a requirement for students to take standardized tests at certain points in their schooling. The educationists claim that these tests are detrimental to student learning. They maintain that they have to devote too much class time to prepare students for these tests and have too little time to teach critical thinking. If one didn’t know better one might believe that this argument is persuasive. After all, critical thinking is vital to success in life. But this seemingly cogent argument is a canard. The fact is that it isn’t possible to teach critical thinking. It belies egalitarian orthodoxy, but critical thinking is a function of intelligence. The more intelligent individuals are, the greater their faculty for critical thinking. That is not to say that intelligent people always exercise their ability to think critically. Emotional factors are frequently impediments to exercising this faculty. Stupid people can’t and don’t think critically. One can enhance the ability of intelligent people to think critically by teaching them such subjects as mathematics, science and logic to give them the tools to think critically. One can also stress the importance of exercising this faculty in life, but one can’t teach dullards to think critically any more than one can teach a pig to fly. A good many of the teachers in the classroom today are themselves incapable of critical thinking. <>

Having made the argument above that one can’t teach critical thinking, it is necessary to point out that, to the educationist, the term critical thinking doesn’t mean the same thing as it does to laymen. It is educationese code for brainwashing. Teaching critical thinking means shaping student attitudes to conform to educationist orthodoxy. The goal is to ensure that students have the correct (not critical) attitudes about multiculturalism, diversity, abortion, the environment etc. The critical thinking of the educationists is the antithesis of true critical thinking. This perversion of language typifies totalitarian educationist dogma. It is reminiscent of the linguistic perversions of such titles as, “The People’s Republic of China” (an oligarchic totalitarian state) or the “German Democratic Republic” (neither democratic nor a republic). <>I

t’s true that standardized tests don’t measure the educationist version of critical thinking.
They do measure proficiency in mathematics, reading, geography, history etc. More and more these tests are incorporating a component to measure writing skills. Why in the world would educationists object to tests that measure these important academic skills? I believe that there are two reasons: Rejection of accountability and repudiation of academic achievement.

<>Rejection of Accountability

<>Accountability is anathema to the educational establishment. The results of these tests permit citizens to make painful comparisons. They can compare the results of individual teachers, schools, or school districts. The average parent doesn’t want to hear alibis. Just try telling a parent,

“Your son scored in the 10^th percentile. I wouldn’t be concerned just because he can’t read at grade level and can’t do simple math. None of this really matters because your son is one hell of a critical thinker! Go ahead ask him what he thinks about saving the whales. Besides, if he can’t get into college, there is always an education department somewhere that would welcome him. He will be able to use his critical thinking skills as a teacher.”

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Repudiation of Academic Achievement. <>

It seems bizarre to talk of teachers and repudiation of academic achievement in the same breath. However, when one reflects that academic achievement has not been the forte of the typical teacher, the seeming incongruity vanishes. How do teachers who have never achieved academic distinction lead their students to academic excellence? The short answer is that they don’t. Many teachers, never having experienced the joys of mastering an academic subject, simply do not comprehend the delights of intellectual pursuits. To many teachers schoolwork is pure drudgery. It is almost inconceivable to them that there are individuals who love academic pursuits. Academic subjects such as mathematics, science, English, history etc. are bad memories for them. The typical teacher and guidance counselor are more likely to belittle than praise students who devote themselves to scholarship. To expect these teachers to imbue their students with a love of academic pursuits is almost cruel. It’s like asking a homeless man to describe his house.

TEACHERS

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There are, of course, superior teachers, but contrary to the precepts I was fed in my education classes, they aren’t dullards. I was privileged to attend a parochial high school that fielded a veritable teacher all-star team. As I recall, none of these teachers had taken a single education course. In the view of educationists, this splendid cadre of teachers lacked the qualifications to teach in public schools. How ironic! I particularly remember my freshman algebra and Latin teachers. These men were not educationist hacks; they were scholars who instilled in me a life-long love of their subjects. Their passion for their subjects was contagious. When I entered high school and found out I was going to study algebra and Latin, like it or not, I was less than thrilled. Actually, I had wanted to go to the local public high school with my friends. Thanks to the wisdom of my parents, I wound up in this excellent parochial school. Within weeks, owing to the excellence of my teachers, I started to develop love for academic pursuits. <>

I have spent a lot of time around teachers and have swapped tales with them about experiences in education courses. We have shared many a good laugh about the inanity of these courses. Contrary to the educationist point of view, superior teachers are highly intelligent. They work in hostile environments in which intelligence is viewed with suspicion. Intelligence spawns ideas and ideas can refute the intellectual rubbish that comprises educationist orthodoxy. <>
I think back to the days when my children were in school. Both of my sons, for one reason or another, generated a lot of notes from teachers. Sometimes, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read these notes. They were often full of grammatical errors and misspellings. On several occasions, I mentioned these bouts of illiteracy to principals and vice principals, but the only reaction I got was a formulaic assurance that Mr. or Ms. So-and-so was a consummate professional. I got the message that literacy was not a skill required of teachers because they were professionals. I think one must be a member of the inner sanctum of educationists to comprehend this wisdom. I was tempted to request a teacher who was a literate amateur rather than a professional illiterate, but one learns not to exhibit intellect in the land of the dullards. If you have ever let a loud fart in church, you can begin to understand the horrendous nature of this faux pas. The educationists will forgive you anything—ignorance, apathy, stupidity--but not intellect. I also fondly remember the newsletter that was published by the middle school attended by one of my sons. It was chock full of errors in grammar, syntax, and spelling. I used to delight in editing each issue with a red pencil and mailing it to the principal, who never thanked me for my editing. One of the highlights of each issue was an article by the principal. I could see why he was the boss, because, in a profession notorious for its illiteracy, the principal was the grandest illiterate of all.

One of my sons, who had a vocabulary superior to that of most of his teachers, once used the word “meretricious” in a paper he wrote for a sophomore English class. When I reviewed what he wrote, I told him that the word “meretricious” came from the Latin word ”meretrix”, which means ”prostitute.” When my son got the paper back from his teacher, she had penciled in the margin,” Is this really a word?” After class my son told the teacher that it was indeed a word and it came from the Latin word for ”whore.” Boom! Major incident. I was called to school and informed by a humorless vice principal of my son’s barbarous behavior. I concurred that he might have made a better choice of words, but I didn’t think he should be suspended. When I tried to divert the issue to that of an English teacher whose vocabulary was deficient, I was given the old “She is a professional.” Can you imagine complaining about an accountant who couldn't add a column of numbers and being told not to worry because the guy is a “professional?”

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Then there was the high school algebra teacher (Call me, coach) of the son of one of our neighbors. “Let’s all learn this stuff together”, was reportedly his opening exhortation to his students. According to our neighbor’s son, the students left coach in the dust. One has to live in Texas to understand the reverence with which coaches are viewed. Their mystique pervades the educational establishment. Reputedly, they can teach any subject. An ordinary garden-variety math teacher may require years of preparation to teach mathematics on the secondary level, but not coach. No siree bob.

THE HEROS

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The school in which I served my two-year sentence as a social studies and Spanish teacher was an intellectual wasteland. The school had a terrible reputation, which it richly deserved. A fair share of the students was on probation--not academic probation, the other kind. Few of the students seemed to have any aspirations or dreams and many of the faculty members had long since left their aspirations and dreams at the door of this school. “All ye who enter here……..”

Yet, even in that dispirited institution, there were a handful of gifted teachers who really cared. Every day they battled against the demons of ineptitude and apathy that haunted the place. One of these teachers, a retired NYC fireman, served as my informal mentor. The most valuable single lesson he taught me was that you could not “outtough” our students. They knew more about the dark side of life than we would ever know. Many had been abused and brutalized. They had no family life and had had to fend for themselves since they were babies. There was no threat we could make or carry out that would faze them. My mentor taught me that, with respect to imposing classroom discipline, I could not rely on the system or the school administration. I had been briefed by a vice principal that disruptive students were to be sent to the office of the guidance counselors. My mentor told me that, if I ever had to send a student to a guidance counselor, I would have lost the war. He taught me that the key to classroom discipline was mutual respect. No educationist gimmicks, no manipulation would work. He pointed out to me that the students would not respond to armchair psychoanalysis, but they would respond to respect. He advised me to make a written pact with the students on the first day of class. He gave me a copy of a pact he had made with one of his classes. This pact contained rules of behavior for both the teacher and the students. For example, one of the obligations of the teacher was to never belittle a student. One of the obligations of the students was to never talk when the teacher or another student was talking. After negotiations with the students on the first day of class, the students and I signed the pact. This pact turned an unruly mob into a law-abiding community. Peer pressure forced the students to conform to the covenants of the pact. The pact I concluded with my students amounted to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. It began, “The teacher is the king and his students are his subjects However, students have certain rights that the king must respect.” Even though I was recognized as the king, I was also bound by the pact.

<>It is ironic that I can’t think of one thing I learned in an education class that really helped me in the classroom, but I learned a great deal from a retired NYC fireman who had nothing but disdain for the educationist establishment. It is also ironic that none of my education professors could have survived a week in the school in which I taught. My students would have run these officious pretenders out of the classroom. Perhaps we should replace the educationists in our universities with retired NYC firemen.

And so forth…….

My Brushes with the Educationists Part 2

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Tom Molloy

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2. THE TEACHING CERTIFICATE RACKET

As far as I know, in most states, to obtain a permanent teaching certificate, one has to run a gauntlet of tedious education courses. In these courses, one gets lots of sterile, “how”, but no “what”. In practice, most of the “how” is puerile balderdash. The "how” that has merit could be easily condensed into a short course. I can’t believe that I sat in classes in which I was expected to participate in discussions on bulletin board management and effective use of stick figures on the chalkboard. Lamentably, pursuing the educationist curriculum is a zero sum game. While one takes oodles of hours of junk education courses, one is not taking courses in mathematics, foreign language, history, philosophy, chemistry, and physics. Ironically, one must abandon educational pursuits to take education courses. Education is the only field I know in which the more “professional” courses one takes, the more disadvantaged one is in one’s profession. It is as if each education course appends barnacles to the mind, creating a drag on the intellect.

<>In my opinion, increasing education course requirements does nothing whatsoever to improve teacher competence. When you add zero to zero ad infinitum, you still wind up with zero. The very first day I stood in front of a class I knew I was good at it. Being a cocky young smart-ass, I repeatedly told my graduate advisor of the low esteem in which I held education courses. As part of the graduate program, he had to come and observe me teach a few times. It really stuck in his craw that this young upstart, who belittled education courses, could tame an unruly pack of teenagers and have them eating out of his hand. Not only did I excel in the classroom; I didn’t conform to the educationist paradigm. I used sarcasm; I insisted on excellence, I made students memorize material. Perhaps my most serious breach of educationist protocol was to proclaim to my students that in my classroom I was the king and they were my subjects. We established a constitutional monarchy. I stole this scene from one of my high school Latin teachers, a magnificent teacher, who, naturally, used to make his pronouncements in Latin. Egalitarianism wasn’t part of my pedagogical repertoire. Moreover, my advisor knew that I knew that, for all of his junk degrees, he couldn’t emulate my performance. My homeroom class, composed mostly of students awaiting their 16^th birthday, the legal age of expulsion, would have eaten his lunch. <>

My graduate advisor was basically a decent sort so the only price I paid for my flippancy was a little nitpicking. For example, in one instance, I began a question to the class by saying, “Does anyone know………? Well, to a layman this might seem a reasonable query, but to an educationist this was a mortal sin. You see, the theory was that you asked questions only to individuals, not to the class as a whole. This was supposedly a control mechanism so ten students didn’t shout out the answer at once. As educationist rules go, this was not a bad one. However, in my case, my students had been conditioned to raise their hand if they knew the answer. I would then call on one student to answer—not always one who had raised a hand. I would not have tolerated anyone shouting out the answer. When my graduate advisor counseled me about this alleged transgression, I instinctively realized that I had to let him win one. I decided to keep my big mouth shut and acted contrite.

If I were hiring a history teacher and there was a choice between an individual having 60 hours of history on his transcript and another having 30 hours of history and 30 hours of education courses, all things being equal, I certainly would hire the teacher most knowledgeable in history. In my opinion, education courses not only don’t add value; they debase one’s intellect. Nevertheless, the educationists have a lock on the system. In general, unless one is willing to prostitute one’s intellect by taking these mind-numbing courses, one can’t obtain a teaching certificate. In the parlance of “educationese”, a qualified teacher is one who has taken the critical mass of education courses. Individuals with an MA in mathematics from MIT are not considered qualified teachers unless they subject themselves to the intellectual abasement of education courses. The educationists have rigged the system so that an education major with 18 or 21 hours of “mathematics for teachers” is considered more qualified than our MIT graduate with an MA in mathematics is. Any course labeled “for teachers” is code for “dumbed down.” To me the great mystery is whether educationists really believe that education courses have any relation to pedagogical competence. Could anyone really be that stupid? Or, or are education courses just a profitable racket?

<>Whatever the purity of educationist intentions, this ludicrous, monopolistic system yields juicy benefits for teachers. It creates an artificial shortage of “qualfied” teachers. The formula is simple: shortage=demand=higher pay. If only plumbers had it so good! Can you imagine what a windfall it would be for a few plumbers if the government were suddenly to mandate that, in order to practice their trade, plumbers had to have 30 hours of art history courses? Not only would those few plumbers with these credentials reap a bonanza, but so would university art history departments. I submit that art history is to plumbing as education courses are to teaching. The difference is that, although art history courses are not germane to plumbing, they at least have substance. After taking these courses you actually know something. Not so for education courses.

<> COMPLICITY OF UNIVERSITIES

<>Universities benefit enormously from the education course bonanza. Education departments tap a lucrative source of income that is not available to other departments. They have a monopoly. Other departments generally don’t accept dullards for admission. This leaves education departments with an exclusive right to the dullards. (After all, don’t dullards make the best teachers?). There is a lot of money in “them there” dregs. For those who think that everyone should go to college, education departments are the ultimate answer. Education departments welcome dullards with one hand while they pick their pockets with the other hand. These departments are the last resort for students who have no intellectual aptitude. They graduate teachers who are barely literate or numerate. In education departments the almighty dollar has usurped academic excellence. Are universities really that venal? You betcha! Newly minted teachers graduate financially and intellectually impoverished, waving their junk degrees—degrees that offer no guarantee of basic literacy. The whole system is a colossal sham. University administrators should be ashamed of themselves. They are extracting money from their victims and, in return, giving nothing of substance. This isn’t tuition; it’s a form of extortion.

<>Education departments are also cauldrons of nefarious ideas; to name a few: The whole language method of teaching reading, bilingual education, the New Math, self-esteem "uber alles", egalitarianism--all are concepts which are or were cherished by the educationists. Admittedly, I don’t sit around reading educational journals, but I can’t think of one measurable improvement in pedagogy that issued from education departments in the 20th century. There have been lots of fads and lots of old ideas warmed over and served in a casserole of new terminology, but where is the demonstrable, irrefutable evidence of progress in pedagogy? Today’s fad is tomorrow’s bad idea; today’s flashy new term is tomorrow’s discarded cliché. Do education departments today really turn out teachers equipped with skills superior to those of yesterday? What would Socrates say?

<>While I was taking education courses, I coined a definition of a doctor of education; to wit, “A doctor of education is someone who takes a bikini idea and puts it into a snow suit so no one wants to look at it anymore.” Still works for me.

The great tragedy ensuing from the monopoly of the educationists is that individuals who would like to be teachers in order to engage in intellectual pursuits are dissuaded from this vocation because they are compelled to subject themselves to the humiliation of education courses. Take the young chemistry graduate who is passionately in love with his subject. In order to share his passion as a high school teacher, he has to run a gauntlet, being pelted by intellectual garbage hurled at him by educationists. This hazing of the mind is too high a price to pay for many young intellectuals. The educationists are effectively purging the teacher ranks of intellectuals. Only the dullards will remain. This is a sure-fire way to ensure that academic achievement is delegitimized. It’s working.

To be continued

My Brushes with the Educationists Part 1.

By

Tom Molloy

<>PART 1.

INTRODUCTION

<>My first contact with the educationists came after I graduated from college. During my college years, I hadn’t taken any education courses, although I had heard rumors about their inanity. I had never given any serious consideration to being a teacher. Towards the end of my senior year, I began looking for a job but my 1A draft status made me an untouchable. I was beginning to become desperate. By chance, a friend told me of a school district on Long Island that would hire any “warm body” that walked through the door. I walked through the door and I was hired on the spot. Not only did they hire me, but a couple of months later I received a 3D draft classification in the mail. It turns out that anyone desperate enough to work in that misbegotten school was a vital national asset that couldn’t be drafted. <>Of course, there was a downside. I discovered that I would have to obtain a temporary teaching certificate in order to begin teaching in the fall. I was required to take nine semester hours of “graduate” education courses during a summer session and to continue taking three hours per semester ad infinitum until I had accumulated the zillion hours necessary to obtain a New York State permanent teacher’s certificate. As I recall, the titles of the three summer “graduate” courses were something like: Adolescent Psychology, General Methodology, and Methodology of Teaching Social Studies.

EDUCATIONIST PRINCIPLES

<>Naively, I showed up for my first education course full of enthusiasm. By the end of the first hour of class, thanks to the insipidness of my professor and my classmates, my enthusiasm had hemorrhaged, leaving me totally drained. I felt like an alien. The course content was vacuous and many of my classmates were dullards. During that monotonous summer, I learned that each professor had pet principles, which, to an outlier like myself, appeared to be nothing more than pure drivel. As the professors propounded these principles, I kept expecting them to wink, but they didn’t. Most of the principles were so self-evident that one wondered why they were material for a graduate course; others were so absurd that one just wondered and wondered. To cite a few examples of the absurd:

<>Principle # 1. Students who have difficulty learning make the best teachers because they understand the difficulties being experienced by their students. One professor used to pronounce this principle to console those of my classmates who had difficulty comprehending the banal contents of the course. Had I believed this schlock, I would have been left in a terrible quandary. You see, in all humility, I must confess that I never had much difficulty learning and ipso facto I would have been forever consigned to the ranks of the less gifted teachers. If this principle were true, I was one of the few in the class not destined for greatness. Indeed, many of my classmates had a great deal of difficulty learning. Those multiple-choice tests based on the reading of a few pages of trivia really bamboozled them. Had I subscribed to this principle, I would have envied them their dullness. Yet, somehow the thought of undergoing a lobotomy that would confer on me the precious gift of difficulty in learning (i. e., superior teacher status) never appealed to me.

<> Principle # 2. Never use sarcasm with the students. There was a dress code in the “graduate” education department. All male students were required to wear a coat and tie to class. Students who failed to comply were marked absent. You see, a coat and tie had a unique place among the educationists. The education establishment was very touchy on the subject of professionalism because there were those in the academic world who knew that the educationists had no corpus of knowledge that would merit the appellation “professional”. Wearing a coat and tie created the illusion of professionalism. On the first day of class, the professor challenged one of my few intelligent classmates because he wasn’t wearing a tie. My classmate responded, “A monkey could pass an education course if he wore a tie to class. The hard part would be for him to tie the tie.” The professor misinterpreted this bald statement of fact as a sarcastic comment. He responded by delivering a diatribe against sarcasm and enjoined us never to use sarcasm in the classroom. He railed against the devastating effect sarcasm had on the self image of students. I found this emotional outburst disconcerting. It belied my experience. I recalled that some of my most effective high school teachers and college professors were masters of sarcasm. In fact, I had always prided myself on being pretty good at sarcasm, but, in this alien world, sarcasm was taboo. Allegedly, the use of sarcasm deflates the egos of students. I found this rationale rather silly. It took me a while to discern the real rationale for the proscription against sarcasm. As I adapted to the educationist environment, it dawned on me that principle number two was actually a derivative of principle number one. You see, to use sarcasm, one has to be more intelligent than a turnip, but such a relatively high IQ is rare in educationist circles. If one were to use sarcasm, it would be tantamount to confessing that one was too intelligent to be a good teacher. That is to say, in educationist circles, sarcasm is apostasy because by using sarcasm one renounces one’s status as a dullard.

<> Principle # 3. The purpose of education is to instill correct attitudes, not to impart information. Academic achievement is elitist. Here I am paraphrasing. No single professor explicitly stated this principle. I derived this principle as an amalgam of the snippets of wisdom dispensed by several professors. Viewed from the perspective of the self-interest of the teaching profession, this principle panders to the teacher candidates, very few of whom come to education courses either sullied by information or guilty of academic achievement. One must applaud the success of the educationists in shaping the educational establishment to fit this principle. Our secondary students can recite the correct attitudes on saving the whales, cutting down trees, and building nuclear power plants. Many may not know that whales are mammals, that trees produce oxygen, or that a nucleus is part of atom, but attitude--they can give you attitude all day long. There is nothing as edifying as observing a group of teenagers sitting in a circle, picking their pimples, and reciting slogans about the evils of nuclear energy. It’s a tribute to their teachers that they can recite the correct attitudes without ever having to endure the tedium of studying physics, chemistry, or biology. The real triumph of attitude over information can be witnessed every day in our fast food restaurants, where high school graduates brimming with attitude, require pictures on the keys to operate a cash register. We all have our favorite stories about getting change when the registers go down.

<> Principle # 4. Everyone should attend college. It seems paradoxical that a professor could advocate that all students attend college while maintaining that academic achievement is elitist. This apparent paradox vanishes when one realizes that the educationist vision of college is not of students engaged in the elitist pursuits of history, philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. No, their vision of college is a place where advanced attitudinal training takes place. Students, who had already been inculcated with the correct attitude about mundane subjects such as whales, trees, and nuclear energy could now have their attitudes molded in such advanced areas as affirmative action, multiculturalism, sexism, abortion, and feminism. These professors were egalitarians. According to their orthodoxy, all people were literally created equal. In their mind, the only variable in academic success is opportunity. Of course, opportunity is an important variable in one’s academic aspirations. It’s no secret that George W. Bush isn’t equal and didn’t get into Yale based on his stellar academic performance. Yet, most of us believe that intelligence also plays a role. To some of my professors, the idea that intelligence was a factor in an individual’s academic success was heresy. It became apparent in just a few class sessions why these professors disparaged the value of intelligence. <>Despite having suffered severe indigestion trying to stomach my first three doses of education curses, I embarked on another course during the fall semester. This course gave me even more severe indigestion. I spent so little time in this course that I don’t even remember the name of it. It was awesomely awful. After a few sessions I just stopped going. The irony is that I think my escape from this course earned me a grade of “incomplete”—which, according to the rules, would eventually become a failing grade. I have never asked for a transcript, but I presume I actually failed an education course. I may very well be the only individual to have failed an education course in the 20^th century. If there is a “Dunce of the Millennium Award”, failing an education course may very well make me a candidate. <>There was very little substantive content in the dreary education courses I endured. They were a triumph of form over substance. A good deal of the course content was either common sense or nonsense wrapped in glitzy, high-sounding terminology. Two terms that readily come to mind are “horizontal articulation” and “vertical articulation”. I was counseled by my academic advisor that my “vertical articulation” (ability to get along with superiors and subordinates, i.e., students) was satisfactory, but my “horizontal articulation” (ability to get along with peers) needed improvement. How would you like to be told that your horizontal articulation was out of whack? Pretty heavy stuff—sounds a lot worse than not getting along with your peers. The truth is my advisor was right. I prided myself on not getting along with most of my classmates. I was something of a snob. I confess I looked down on “graduate” students who disdained intellectual pursuits. I had teamed up with the few other literate students to form a clique that was despised as elitist by the dullards--faculty and students alike.

To be continued.

A War Almost Lost

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Tom Molloy

Whenever President Bush tries to justify our invasion of Iraq by saying that we are fighting terrorists “over there” so we don’t have to fight them on our own soil, it causes me to shudder. I wonder if the President is naive enough to believe this or if he is trying to con the American people.

Experts tell us there are cells of terrorists in the USA that are now planning to cause massive destruction in our country. The government has reacted to this omnipresent threat in two ways: First it has greatly expanded and consolidated intelligence gathering capabilities. Second, it has expanded the size and scope of our security forces in order to protect our vital installations from attack. I submit that these measures are necessary but insufficient. If we stake the survival of our civilization on these two measures, we are deluding ourselves. Our intelligence gathering will never achieve perfection and we will never be able to protect every potential target.

The war in Iraq, whatever one’s feelings about it, can hardly be considered a measure to stop terrorist attacks from being planned and executed against targets in the United States. President Bush seems to assume that the terrorists can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

One congressional committee after the other keeps discovering that, no matter how much money we spend, we still seem vulnerable to terrorist attacks. There are so many modes of attack. Two examples of highly destructive weapons: small nuclear bombs or shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. It is doubtful that we can prevent these weapons from being smuggled into the United States and even more doubtful that we can protect every potential target against them. Given the weapons, a reasonably bright group of 12-year olds could plan and execute attacks.

The terrorists have an infinite number of targets from which to choose, but our resources to defend against attack are finite. If we were to enlist every American into our intelligence or security services, we still wouldn’t have the manpower to defend every potential terrorist target. Given our vulnerability, I don’t know why the terrorists haven’t attacked us again since 9/11. However, I think it is dangerous to equate “haven’t attacked us” with “couldn’t attack us.”

The Bush administration tells us that the war against terrorism is going to be a long one. This prediction is based on the sanguine presumption that we are going to win it. Yet, Hollywood is not writing this script; Tehran and Damascus are. I can guarantee you that their script doesn’t depict us as the winners. I suspect their script envisions a relatively short war that brings down Western civilization.

If nuclear bombs were to explode tomorrow morning in 10 or more major US cities, I don’t think the President could appease the American public by stating that the “War on Terrorism” was just going to take a little longer than he had thought and that he was sending 50, 000 more troops to Iraq to fight them ”over there”.

The razing of 10 major cities along with the ensuing horrors would be so grotesque that even Dick Cheney might be compelled to admit that we had suffered a setback in the “War on Terrorism”. The average citizen would realize that we had just lost the “War on Terrorism” but I suspect the administration spin would be that the attack was the last desperate act of a group on the point of extinction.

Imagine the scenarios in the devastated cities: A total breakdown in law and order; citizens fighting one another for scraps of food, water, and medicine; massive looting; the dead rotting in the streets; rampant disease; abandonment of infants, the old and infirm--a scenario too horrible to contemplate, but if we don’t contemplate it, we are going to be forced to live it.

It’s not that our enhanced intelligence and security capabilities are totally nugatory, but reliance on these inadequate measures as our first line of defense against terrorism indicates a national “death wish”. Some morning we will wake up dead, complicit in our own suicide.

I believe that there is one way we might win this war. The Achilles heel of the terrorists is their dependence on their patrons for support. They can’t support their terrorism habit by working part time in a car wash. Weapons and explosives, particularly nuclear bombs and shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, are expensive. Without patrons, the terrorists would be hard pressed to commit acts that cause massive casualties.

Every day, while we wage war in Iraq, politicians denounce the nations that are patrons of terrorism. For one reason or another, these nations feel that their support of terrorism is in their interests. Despite our protestations about their support for terrorism, they thumb their noses at us. Simply stated, the time has come for us to make it clear to them and the rest of the world that their support of terrorism is no longer in their interests. We must make it clear they are in danger of losing their thumbs and their noses.

My fellow Americans, we have to make a decision. Are we going to meekly wait to be slaughtered or are we going to defend ourselves? Right now we are biding our time until a massive terrorist attack brings us to our knees. We are deluding ourselves. We are waiting for a Deus ex Machina ending, the sound of bugles as John Wayne comes riding over the hill with the cavalry.

Admittedly, the “doomsday” strategy I am going to suggest is not for the timid, but the time for timidity has passed. Life–long friends have chided me for even thinking about this strategy.

STRATEGY

The United States of America should issue the following proclamation:

1. Nations and individuals supporting terrorism against the United States and its interests must cease their support immediately: (List names)

2. Effective immediately, the Unites States regards all citizens of countries that support terrorism as enemy combatants.

<>3. With respect to terrorism, the United States has adopted the doctrine of disproportionate response. That is to say, the response of the United States to any act of terrorism or intended act of terrorism will be to devastate entire towns or cities of the patron states with non-nuclear weapons. <>

4. The United States, in the interests, of showing states supporting terrorism the error of their ways, will give a demonstration of the future consequences of supporting terrorism. <>

5. The town of_________________ located in ______________________will cease to exist in 15 days (incendiary, not nuclear, weapons will be used). It is suggested that evacuation of this city commence immediately.

6. Should the government of (targeted country) decide to install foreign hostages in the targeted town, the United States will annihilate not only this town, but will also wipe out a major city on the same day. The name of the second city will not be announced in advance. It will simply be “now you see it; now you don’t.”

<>7. The United States will hold the targeted countries, in the absence of proof to the contrary, responsible for each and every act of terrorism against the United States. If there is no clear connection between a minor act of terrorism and one of the targeted countries, we will randomly pick one of these countries and devastate several of its cities. A major act of terrorism will result in the total destruction of the targeted countries. There will be no investigations, no hearings, no negotiations; no appeals; there will just be devastation. <>

8. Effective immediately the United States will assassinate individuals known to be supporting terrorism.

9. The United States has no intention of losing the ”War on Terrorism” and will take whatever measures are necessary to eliminate terrorists and their patrons.

<>10. The United States urges citizens of the targeted states to change their governments before their countries are annihilated.

Most readers will have recoiled at the thought of destroying cities and killing so many “innocent" people. There are two points I would like to make. First, whether or not we kill people will depend on the acts of their governments. Second, I lived many years in the Middle East and I can assure you that many of these “innocent” people would rejoice if Americans were slaughtered in a nuclear attack. Many, who would never dream resorting to violence themselves and who loudly condemn violence, felt a twinge of delight on 9/11 because long-suffering colleagues had finally taught the West a lesson. And I remind you that virtually all main stream Muslim leaders refused to categorically denounce 9/11.

Most Westerners feel that, when the stakes are so high, we can reason with people. You can’t reason with Islamic (or any other) fundamentalists any more than you can reason with a virus. We may dissuade patron nations from supporting terrorism by instilling fear of annihilation, but it is fear, not reason that will determine their response. The inexorable logic of this strategy notwithstanding, I myself have moral qualms about advocating it. I just wish I knew if my qualms spring from moral fortitude or moral cowardice. As for morality, if we don’t take action, we won’t be alive to discuss ethical nuances.

I know we are not going to adopt this strategy? We are meekly going to await our fate. We are going to die knowing that our cause was just, but not just enough to do what is necessary to win. Because of our failure to defend ourselves, our losing isn’t an option; it’s a certainty.

How ironic! Ignorant fanatics are preparing to obliterate the resplendent legacy of DaVinci, Mozart, Aquinas, Kant, Shakespeare, Bach, Dante, Cervantes, Beethoven, Einstein, and Keats.

The barbaric legacy that is going to triumph sanctions stoning women to death for adultery and killing innocent rape victims to restore family honor. It preaches hatred and promises suicide bombers eternal bliss for killing innocent women and children.

<>Throughout history barbarians have brought down great civilizations and, I fear, they are about to do so again.

<>Aw shit!

Useful Poor

THANK HEAVENS FOR THE POOR
by
TOM MOLLOY



In the early 1960’s we had never heard of the War on Terrorism or War on Drugs, but in March 1964, President Johnson, in a stirring speech, declared the War on Poverty. At that time I was a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV). I and most of my fellow PCVs were euphoric that the United States would be the first nation in history to successfully eradicate the scourge of Poverty. We were young, optimistic, and passionate. Well, my optimism fled with my youth, my passion is somewhat dampened and Poverty is thriving. Since our defeat in the war on Poverty, the term “liberal” elicits derisive reactions from a large segment of the American people. “Liberal” is defined in the rightwing vernacular as “a godless socialist who foments class warfare”. Had someone told me in 1964 that the term “liberal” would evoke such rancor in US politics or that the United States would be the only Western industrial democracy not to have eliminated Poverty, I would have been incredulous.

Instead of eliminating Poverty, we have become dependent on it. Most of us (80 to 85%) have a relatively high standard of living at least in part because our working poor provide cheap labor. Think of the consequences of raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Suppose, over a period of time, we doubled or even tripled the minimum wage and also provided health insurance to all the working poor. Whatever the other consequences, the working poor would join the ranks of those earning a living wage. A good part of the cost would be passed on to more affluent consumers in the form of price increases. A hamburger, a plane ticket, a hair cut, a car---all would cost more.

In fact, in Europe, where the “common good” is a social ideal and poverty is considered a social aberration, wages are generally sufficient to keep wage earners out of poverty. More affluent Europeans accept paying higher prices for goods and services. In America, the ideal of “rugged individualism” has trumped the common good.

In recent electoral campaigns, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans made the elimination of poverty a major issue. To be sure, the Democrats timidly made pro forma proposals for palliative increases in the minimum wage and lamented recent tax cuts, pointing out they disproportionately benefited the wealthy. The right wingers preach the mystical powers of the free market to reduce the number of the working poor. According to their paradigm, the free market is a panacea and tinkering with wages of the poor is anathema. Nonetheless, when it comes to the rich, the right wingers have a tendency to disregard free market principles. A steady stream of tax breaks cascades out of Congress, gushing into corporate coffers and the pockets of the rich. Judging by the tax breaks dished out to the rich, it appears that making money is not an incentive per se, the rich have to be given special incentives to make money.

The cynicism that is the handmaiden of aging has replaced my youthful optimism. I am almost ready to believe that the reason that Poverty exists on such a large scale in America is that the elimination of Poverty would disrupt the lives of the affluent. I am not just talking about economics here. The least disruptive consequences might be the ensuing price increases for goods and services.

The most disruptive impact of eliminating Poverty might be on finding recruits for the all-volunteer military. The majority of enlisted recruits are from low-income families. They join the military to improve their lot in life and many of them do so.. If it weren’t for a large pool of economically disadvantaged young men and women, the enlisted ranks of the military would have to be filled by conscription.

The French use their Foreign Legion to do their dirty work. After all, foreigners are expendable. We use our economic underclass to do our dirty work.

Woe to the politician who proposes any scheme to draft the sons of middle and upper class “patriots’. Their patriotism consists of wrapping themselves in the flag and bombastically extolling the valor of the poor kids dying to preserve the standard of living of the rich kids. Many of our hawkish fat cat patriots, whose sons are the future power brokers, passionately support our invasion of Iraq. If it were their sons dying in Iraq, I suspect their ardor for this war would quickly wane. President Bush speaks of the nobility of our soldiers in Iraq and openly weeps at the mounting casualties. I don’t presume to question his sincerity, but if serving in Iraq is such a noble endeavor why aren’t his daughters there soaking up some nobility?