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The final update on my counter claim: Blogger reinstated the two posts that they had wrongfully..."
Posted by muruch in Free Association: Sound of Silence
fratman1906 posted in There's No Place Like Home: A History of House Ball Culture
zumbi1165 posted in Silence Broken: How Not to Spoil Obama's Victory
jones267 posted in There's No Place Like Home: A History of House Ball Culture
Police Shooting Caught on Tape
Here's a terrible way to start off the New Year --
Oscar Grant III, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was shot and killed early on New Year's morning by an officer from the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police force in Oakland.
The murder occurred just after 2 am at the Fruitvale BART station. Apparently, trains headed toward the East Bay were stopped so officers could respond to a reported fight on one of the trains. A group of young men of color were handcuffed -- without incident -- and berated by police. In the video, Grant is not one of the men handcuffed.
What makes this so shocking is that the entire incident was caught on tape. In the video posted below, Grant is seen cooperating with officers as they tackle him to the ground. While Grant lays on his stomach, an officer sitting on top of him -- for no apparent reason -- pulls out of a gun and shoots him in the back. Grant was taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
(The shooting occurs at 2:34)
Based on a report that cites an eyewitness account and sources close to the investigation, the officer may have accidently shot Grant, mistaking his firearm for a taser gun.
According to another reported eye witness, Grant was heard pleading for his life shortly before he was shot, saying, "Please don't tase me, please don't shoot me, I have a daughter."
BART police are still investigating, the officer involved has yet to be named publicly and Grant's family is in the beginning stages of filing a multi-million dollar civil suit.
In the mean time, here are five things you can do help:
- Digg the story so that the national media can pick up on it.
- Contact BART Director Carole Ward Allen and demand that 1) the officers involved be taken off duty without pay and charged and fully prosecuted; 2) there be an independent investigation of the shooting that includes a review of training and hiring practices; and 3) BART establish an independent residents’ review board for the police Call her at 510-464-6095 or email the BART Directors at BoardofDirectors@bart.gov
- Call the BART police to complain about the officers’ conduct and demand immediate action: Internal Affairs: Sergeant David Chlebowski 510.464.7029,dchlebo@bart.gov; Chief of Police: Gary Gee 510.464.7022, ggee@bart.gov
Call them toll free at 877.679.7000 and press the last four digits of the phone number you wish to reach.
- Talk it up on your blogs, networks and talk radio shows (call Michael Baisden 877-6BADBOY or Rev. Al, etc. to get this on the national radar)
- Stay tuned for other actions, protests, etc., especially if you are in the Bay.
h/t to RaceWire for the action points.
Why Gaza Matters To Us
(This post originally appeared on RaceWire)
On December 30, I attended a rally/memorial for Gaza in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is home to the largest community of Arab and Arab-American people within US borders.
I went with two young women who have focused on Palestinian human rights, and were in Palestine last year doing work with youth to develop a creative and nonviolent response to the wall, and a third young woman who is learning about the situation much as I am.
One point of the conversation on the way to the rally focused on how, in the Geneva conventions, collective punishment is a war crime. The tactics used by Israel in response to the use of rockets by Hamas - sound bombs, blocking food and medical supplies into the area, and now days of air strikes - these are forms of collective punishment, effecting and killing children, women, civilians, elderly.
When we arrived to the area near the rally and memorial, the streets were lined with clusters of people. We met up at an Arab bakery, got warmed up. Whole families were in attendance, together. One of the women who’d been to Palestine last year says it was that way there, that you are expected to understand your political situation and be involved at any age.
As soon as we got to the actual rally, we saw sign with a shoe taped to it, one of the more humorous I’ve seen in a while. Most folks were holding Palestinian flags. There were chants - “Free, free Palestine!”, “1, 2, 3, 4 - Stop the Killing, Stop the War!!”, and “Muslims/People, United, Will Never Be Defeated” by a side group. Several chants were happening at a time, reminding me that its hard to be organized in grief, under attack. The waves of powerlessness keep you chaotic. We didn’t stay for very long, and I was overwhelmed by the need to do more, overwhelmed by the jaded tones of Palestinian voices knowing that it is too late, the blood is everywhere.
I don’t know how it feels to be Arab, seen as a terrorist monolith, with displacement and massacre of my people approved of by the major super powers of the world. It would seem that to be Palestinian, now, means that sophisticated technology is being used to build walls through your land, tear down your home, bomb and strike you; and if you respond with rockets, you are called a terrorist, and expendable.
I do know that the majority of people of color in the US came here either because they were stolen from their own lands and brought to work here, or displaced from their homelands by war, poverty or persecution, and driven to be in this space. Many of us had our cultures erased or diluted in this process, and have forgotten what it means to be connected to the ancestral land of our people. I can’t overemphasize the depth of this loss of culture and place; I know it makes it hard for many people in the U.S. to even understand the displacement that has been happening in Israel-Palestine since 1948.
I know that most of the people I surround myself with every day look back on the massacres of Native Americans as a point of irreconcilable grief and shame in the founding of the U.S. It is not enough to say it was sad but oh well, that’s how history progresses. It’s the part of history that keeps us from the future we want. The cowboys vs. indians games many of us were taught to play as children are fabled re-imaginings of colonization, much like the current heroes vs. terrorist stories being presented today around the world, amplified in Israel and the US. It is shameful, and sensational.
How many times must we allow the same thing to happen before we learn no good can come of it?
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Students Occupy The New School
(This post originally appeared on Zentronix)
Last night students began what they call "an occupation" of the New School in New York City, demanding the ouster of university president Bob Kerrey and other school officials and direct student involvement in the school's governance and investment policies. Students have taken over the Graduate Faculty Center.
Certainly media will compare this to the Columbia occupation in 1968, but the more immediate echoes may be of the anti-apartheid divestment movement of the 80s and the anti-sweatshop movement of the 90s, a precursor to the Battle in Seattle.
In addition to their demands for SRI, socially responsible investment--a movement that was catalyzed by the divestment movement--the students have also been deliberate about claiming solidarity with the striking students in Greece.
In response, Kerrey--who recently received a "no confidence" vote from the faculty--has actually begun a blog, in which he discusses a student senate meeting tonight as an example of the school's "support of dialogue and dissent."
You can keep up on the latest by following the New School In Exile blog.
===
For more, see:
Protest at the New School Seeks Kerrey's Outster (NY Times)
Update (12/23/2008): New School Sit in Successful http://www.nsns.org/news/new-school-sit-in-successful
The Bush Education Legacy
With a new administration preparing to enter the White House, I got to thinking about what we have seen change over the past eight years in federal education policy. There are some who argue that one of President Bush's most lasting legacies from his time in office will be his impact on K-12 and Higher Education. The President himself agreed with this assessment, referring to the No Child Left Behind Act as one of the "most significant achievements of my administration."
So what exactly will this legacy entail? It's hard to know for certain right now, since so much may change when the Obama administration tackles No Child Left Behind reauthorization, but there are at least a few lasting impacts that aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
One lasting impact is a heightened federal role in K-12 education policy. It's easy to forget just how tenuous was the authority and political support for the federal government to actively shape local and state level school policy. Take a guess as to when the following statement appeared in the Republican Party's National Platform:
“Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping: the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula... That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.”
1944? 1960? 1980?
Nope. How about 1996... just five years before President Bush took office and ramped up the federal government's "meddling" in schools to an unprecedented degree.
So historians will not be exaggerating in the future when they say that President Bush (43) was fundamentally responsible for ushering in a new, major role for the feds in school improvement efforts. But there's more to his legacy in education than simply ratcheting up the federal role in schools, there's the vital matter of how the feds are now involved in school policy that is equally paradigmatic.
The easiest way to characterize this fundamental shift in how the federal government approaches its role in improving education is to recall one of the best instances of rhetoric President Bush used during his time in office. Credit his speech writers for using the phrase, the "soft bigotry of low expectations" that plagued our schools. Put simply, perhaps the greatest legacy that President Bush will leave behind in K-12 education policy is the now-firmly entrenched role of the federal government in holding schools accountable for student success, no frills, no excuses. Prior to 2001, only a handful of states expected schools to show returns on public tax investments by way of student learning gains - now, school level accountability is the rule, even if an oft-derided one.
Courtesy of the Education Trust, I want to leave two images in closing to show exactly what President Bush was referring to by the "soft bigotry of low expectations" that absolutely must be eviscerated if all children in America are to receive the quality of educational opportunity they both need and deserve. You can compare and draw the conclusions for yourself by picturing, in your mind's eye, what kind of school handed out each of the two assignments:
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Survival is Non-Negotiable
(Joshua Kahn Russell is blogging live from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland)
Young people from around the world made their voice heard today at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP14) in Poznan, Poland. After an inspiring speech from Al Gore, over 200 young people from India to the U.S. to the Congo held a spontaneous action inside, with banners that read "SURVIVAL IS NON-NEGOTIABLE."
The demonstration was the next step in our "project survival" - inspired by a speech earlier this week by a representative from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), stating that current emissions targets set by powerful countries condemn their nations to extinction. In the last two days youth have mobilized to get over 80 country delegations to sign a pledge to "safeguard the survival of all peoples and nations." These young people organized actions, tracked down delegates in the halls, lined the entrance to the plenaries, and knocked on meeting room doors to push their countries to sign the Survival Pledge. This morning our text has been adopted in the official UN Ministerial declaration document emerging from COP14, the COP President's text on long-term vision. Heads of state referenced our call in major speeches.
"It's been an amazing success," said Amanda McKenzie, of the Australian Youth Climate Network. "Hearing Australia's Climate Minister Penny Wong commit to 'survival' yesterday had me cheering in the halls. Now, it's time to make sure she delivers."
Actions like the one that happened today aim to create the pressure to do just that. At the end of our action (after engaging with some angry UN people) several delegates and dignitaries came to thank the youth for their action. One woman said "I am in a very high position in my government in Norway. Youth doing actions like this makes my work easier. Thank you."
We've had an exciting victory, but we know we must continue to organize to make the implications of that statement meaningful - we know that any targets less than 350ppm will not insure the survival of all peoples and nations, and we know that any solution that is not equitable and just, is no solution at all.
While our demonstration today was not permitted by the United Nations, young people felt compelled to step outside the boundaries of rules and etiquette to ensure that the main message emerging from COP14 is one of survival. We will continue to work year round, taking on this generational challenge.
How Not To Make Black Allies
(This post originally appeared on Hayes & Central)
Dear white gay marriage activists (and their allies),
When an overwhelming number of Black folks in the sometimes-liberal state of California voted in favor of a ban on gay marriage, and some of you began to riot against said Black folks (and their allies), activists of color had one simple -- albeit tedious -- suggestion: invest the time, energy and resources to help queer folks of color organize their own communities. While I know that adding a racial justice lens to your framework might seem soo 1992, for many queer folks of color, it's a matter of life and death. Not to mention that adding a racial justice lens might also help ease racial tensions and allow both sides to work on behalf of their own self-interests.
But this isn't exactly what activists of color had in mind:
In fact, it's, like, the opposite. Just in case you weren't paying attention, co-opting the language and spirit of the civil rights movement and using problematic terms like "new black" and "last great civil rights struggle" are downright inflammatory, not to mention blatant signs of cultural appropriation. Kinda like Madonna in Vogue.
Instead of reaching back across the decades for a historical precedent, it might be more constructive to articulate the ways in which the current struggle for gay marriage -- and efforts to normalize queerness -- are directly related to the livelihoods of communities of color. Surely, you musn't think that communities of color, and Black ones in particular, don't already know and love their funny-acting queer cousins, daughters, sons and choir directors. Also think about the fact that historically, legal marriage in the Black community hasn't exactly been fostered by the interests of white privilege.
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Going Green, Part II
(This post originally appeared on FobbDeep)
**Read the first part of this series.
Dear Young Gifted Black and Brown Folks, and their ill White allies,
Recently I’ve had the opportunity to get trained on Green Building, Permaculture, and hella other shit through work. Over the past weeks, coming home from these discussions I’ve then had the task of translating what these words actually mean to me. The official idea of permaculture in short is to take lessons from our ancestors and how they lived, combine it with our present-day technologies and find a realistic way for people to thrive. Permaculture also encourages a critique of trade laws, labor practices…But really yo, that ain’t the bottom line. You want more than just cleaner air, you have to go to a far bigger word - Revolution. But that’s for another day.
One of the most incredible parts of permaculture to me is the big picture. If I give into a craving and I buy some red licorice, I am not just doing horrible damage to my brain (sugar), my blood sugar levels (corn syrup), and risking cancer (red 40 food coloring). I’m also using up plastic, paper, water, and other resources needed to make the candy and the packaging. Then whatever waste comes out of my body from that food - that same poison is going into the ocean and soil. And guess where that ends up - in the crops that someone else is going to eat. Crazy, right?
But beyond some candy I might eat, let’s get to whole way of life that permaculture is about. It’s really not that new of an idea. In the Philippines we make bags out of candy wrappers, houses out of scrap metal, and kitchenware from tin cans. While sitting on the train I thought to myself:
- How can I live like recent immigrants do? How did Mom and Lola use resources when they first got here and were livin in somebody’s basement in Daly City?
- How do I live like a Filipino in the Philippines, even though I am now a Filipino in the States?
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Farai Chideya's News And Notes on NPR Has Been Cancelled
(This post originally appeared on Zentronix)
NPR is announcing it has cancelled Farai Chideya's brilliant African American-themed talk show "News and Notes." Argh.
Aside from being a good friend and a brilliant journalist, Farai has changed the game for people of color's media, regularly broadcasting a smart, topical, and witty show on a national level. She was the first hip-hop gen host on NPR. Her show, on the air since 2005, was axed along with "Day To Day." In all 64 journalists will lose their jobs.
NPR leadership blamed the layoffs on a decline in corporate sponsorships. Ain't that ironic.
The truth is that NPR has been fickle with younger audiences and audiences of color. Its audience continues to age. The median age is 48.
While NPR has experimented with bringing in a more diverse listenership, it hasn't shown much willingness to commit. The list of casualties includes Tavis Smiley (News and Notes' predecessor) and Ed Gordon (Farai's predecessor at News and Notes), not to mention a long list of young producers and staffers of color.
The only remaining show for African Americans on NPR--never mind Latinos and Asian Americans--will be Michel Martin's relatively new "Tell Me More."
Farai and her team will be on the air until March 20th. Whether they will be employed after that depends on you. Jasmyne Cannick has already set up email forms and petition forms to the NPR top brass. Let 'em know...
Coming to America
“Why do stores open at 4am on Black Holiday?” Michelle asked. “Black Friday is not a holiday. It is a shopping event. But Thanksgiving is a holiday” I responded. She looked a bit puzzled.
Michelle is my cousin, a fashion loving 15-year-old, who just emigrated with her family from Taiwan. I made sure to clarify that it was not an African American holiday in case she got confused. With a newly elected African American president and a dramatic downturn of the U.S. economy, I can see why she would think it was a celebratory holiday for African Americans and not a shopping event for shopping Olympiads. In her English Language Development class Michelle had a briefing about the historical day where Pilgrims and Native Americans worked graciously together on Thanksgiving, but those references quickly faded into the oblivion of Black Friday advertising.
It was up to my family to show my aunt, uncle and my two younger cousins the traditions of an American Thanksgiving celebration.
Before they arrived to America I was worried that Michelle and her younger sister Rachel, a sporty 12-year old, would have a hard time fitting in or getting used to American culture. Nine months later, Michelle thinks it is perfectly normal to wear chunky fur boots in 80 degree climate. Rachel can’t help but describe good as “totally awesome” and bad things as “so not cool.” If being an American teen means using a skimpy vocabulary and wearing Eskimo inspired pieces in Los Angeles weather, then Michelle and Rachel are as American as their classmates.
For the first three months my newly immigrated family lived with my parents and me in our modest home. I slept on a full-sized bed with Rachel and Michelle slept on a twin bed two feet away from us. Through their probing questions I learned that there were a lot of things I don’t understand about America. One question revealed the strangeness of American culture, “What does an Easter bunny have to do with Christianity?” “Good question. I’m not sure.” I replied.
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Victory for Florida Farmworkers
Last Tuesday, Subway reached a landmark agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the Florida farmworker group covered on WireTap last month.
Subway -- the largest fast-food buyer of tomatoes in Florida -- has at last taken concrete steps to improve wages and working conditions for Florida farmworkers. The agreement comes in the wake of student protests to call on the sandwich chain to address the prevalence of sub-poverty wages, violence and slavery in the state´s agriculture industry.
Subway now joins McDonald´s, Yum Brands (Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silvers & Pizza Hut), Burger King and Whole Foods Market in signing accords with the CIW to change the human rights crisis plaguing Florida´s fields, where 7 slavery cases have been successfully prosecuted since 1997.
Student/Farmworker Alliance, a key ally to the CIW, has been coordinating student solidarity with the farmworker-led movement for an end to sweatshops in the fields.
There are strong hints that the CIW´s Campaign for Fair Food may move now to the food service industry. So, Aramark, Sodexo and others: be on guard. Your campus contracts may be the next focus of a concerted, nationwide student movement!
Place Your Bets Now
As President-Elect Obama continues the roll-out of his high-profile cabinet, the education reform world--and then some--is waiting with bated breath to see who he will tab as the ninth Secretary of Education in United States history.
Just how closely are people paying attention to the choice? Quite a bit more than you might think: editorials and articles on the question of who the President-elect will choose have appeared, all within the past week, in the Associated Press, Newsweek (twice!) Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times, Denver Post, and the Huffington Post--and that's just a partial list!
Why is it so important? We are talking about the Secretary of Education here, not the Secretary of State or Defense, where headliners like Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates have been chosen by the Obama transition team, the former notable for her 18 million primary votes and the latter because he's a Republican who has served at the pleasure of outgoing President George W. Bush. In fact, I'd put a good wager that most readers would have a hard time naming more than two or three of the eight Education Secretaries our nation has had since the cabinet post was first created in 1979. (Give up? Check the answer list at the bottom of this entry)
So why are so many people paying such close attention to Obama's choice? Partly, one can only hope, it is because observers recognize just how important education reform is to the long-term health of our economy; indeed one could plausibly argue that if the $700 billion TARP bailout plan is Congress's attempt at a band-aid for our nation's economic outlook, the underlying cure can only come in the form of drastic improvement of our K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.
But more significantly, people are setting odds on Obama's Sec Ed choice because who he chooses will tell us far more about what kinds of policy changes and priorities to expect from the Obama administration than anything he has actually said in his life as a politician thus far. The reality is, candidate Obama had his cake and ate it too on the tough issues of education reform, supporting controversial plans like merit pay for teachers and school choice to the delight of reformers (or "disrupters", as chairman of the House education committee George Miller approvingly refers to them); while at the same time appointing pro-Union, establishment Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond to chair his education transition team--a choice that caused near-panic among some die-hard members of the disrupter camp. (N.B. Rep. Miller refers to the latter group as "incrementalists" who support a slower, more measured pace of change in schools.)
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Buyer's Remorse
The first political training program I did included a resume class where I was told that no one cares where you went to school or what degree you got, they want to know what experience you have. Now, my expensive degree is only tiny line at the bottom of my resume. It doesn't even say what degree I got, nor does it mention any honors or activities.
For me, the entire process was bittersweet: I quit school for a year to work on a political campaign, and graduated college with over $40,000 of debt from a state school in Kansas.
While my student debt plagues me each month, I can't help but feel empathy for those Millennials behind me whose degree expenditure is climbing well above the anticipated sticker price.
Rising college tuitions are pushing higher education further out of reach for more young people. According to an article on CNN.com:
"College tuition continues to outpace family income and the price of other necessities, such as medical care, food and housing."
The CNN article cited a recently released study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education that gave hard figures on how fast college costs have risen:
College tuition and fees, adjusted for inflation, rose 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, towering over increases in medical care, housing and food, according to the report. Median family income rose 147 percent during the same period, the report said."
The news isn't all that surprising given our current state of financial meltdown, but the magnitude of the crisis is still shocking.
Recently, the California State University (CSU) system, which is the largest state school system in the country, announced that it's cutting back on the number of students it admits to make up for a decline in resources. It's the first time in 48 years that the 23-campus system will turn away qualified high school graduates and community college transfers.
In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, CSU Chancellor Charles Reed described how the school's fiscal crunch might compromise the quality of its students' education unless drastic measures were taken:
"Quality is all we have, and we have got to guarantee to the people of California that the 93,000 graduates that we turn out each year are ready to join the workforce," Reed said. "We cannot continue to admit more and more students with less and less money. Class sizes have increased, workload (for faculty) has increased, and services have gone down."
When the services, Reed speaks of, go down, the result is higher costs passed off to the students. Those higher costs mean more loans by failing banks, while some students wonder how they'll be able to pay for it all.
Looking back on my college experience, I've had to ask myself tough questions. Even if you can write the check or get the loan, what's the point when the price tag is so inflated you're questioning whether or not it's worth it?
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International Youth call for a Climate Rescue Plan at UN
It’s day four of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Poznan, Poland, but it feels like I’ve been here for months.
I’m up before the sun rises and in bed after midnight – and the action is nonstop. I am one of 500 youth delegates here from over 54 countries across the globe, from India to Peru, to Australia. We’re indigenous and non, we’re as young as 16, and we’re all climate activists. We’ve been meeting with governments, participating in negotiations, harassing corporations, training each other in everything from climate justice to organizing skills, and speaking clearly and loudly: young people are collaborating across borders and have a shared vision. We want binding, equitable, science-based targets, and we’re going to fight for them.
One of the ways that we’ve been telling our story is through actions – we’ve been coordinating two per day! This afternoon, we hosted a “Who Wants To Be a Trillionaire?” game show. One contestant was the “big banks,” who have recently won 4.1 trillion dollars in government bailouts from the E.U. and the U.S. The other was a “climate rescue plan” which got over 40 times less - a measly 13.1 billion (if that doesn’t sound like a big disparity, check out the graph on this report here.
The United States Congress has committed zero dollars. Despite getting all the questions wrong, the “big banks” got all the money anyway. A rambunctious game show audience held a banner that said: "EU Bailout: $2.8 Trillion. US Bailout: $1.3 Trillion. Climate Rescue: Priceless.”
Our point was simple: the same people who have spent decades telling us they can’t afford to save our planet, can clearly move trillions of dollars within weeks (when their own pocketbooks are directly affected). The issue is not lack of resources, it's lack of political will. Youth are demanding our governments invest in a strong green economy, our planet, and our future.
Lucky for us, this economic crisis presents us with a wonderful opportunity. The opening day here in Poland, the UNFCCC said that the economic crisis is no excuse for inaction. We are saying that in fact, it’s the best reason in the world to invest in clean energy now, creating green jobs and sparking opportunity worldwide.
If we are bailing out failing industries (from financial systems to auto industries) with public funds, then the public should be able to make demands upon them. Journalist Naomi Klein once called the idea “people’s structural adjustment.” This is a powerful moment for governments who suddenly have more control - if they choose to - over massive sectors of industry, by exercising leverage for climate demands. We need to renew these sectors. It's not just about money, it's about innovation and curbing their emissions. We can tie government lending to demands that industry become more innovative and more climate conscious.
We know that any solution to the climate crisis that is not equitable and just, is no solution at all. International youth are at the United Nations tasking the leaders of the world with no less than fundamentally changing the way our economies work. This crisis gives us an opportunity to take a massive step forward with instituting a Green New Deal and investing in a new truly just, sustainable economy.
What's Next for Mumbai?
Last week’s tightly-coordinated terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which left 174 people dead over three days, is a peerless illustration of the enduring nature of intractable political conflicts that have roiled the Indian subcontinent since partition.
The Indian government quickly laid blame at the feet of arch-rival Pakistan after apparently learning that all the militants infiltrated India via sea by way of Pakistan’s major port city, Karachi.
True to form, India’s right-wing party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was keen to capitalize on the opportunity by trying to latch itself onto the American ‘war on terror’ bandwagon.
One party leader, Yashwant Sinha, intoned, “It is time for unilateral action against the training camps in Pakistan. If the U.S. can go into Afghanistan to punish the Taliban and chase Osama bin Laden, why should India hesitate?”
This imitation of America’s militaristic platitudes in the heat of the moment may be understandable; although an obvious reply is that the “punishment” of the Taliban has not gone particularly well since Sept. 11th.
Bravado and opportunism aside, the terrorist attack is rooted in local conflicts that cannot be captured in sweeping slogans. While the gunmen were reportedly based in Pakistan, the organization they appear to be associated with is Lashkar-i-Taiba—a guerrilla group based in Kashmir.
The disputed region of Kashmir has been the source of many Indian-Pakistani confrontations. During the bloody 1947 partition of India into Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority nations, Kashmir remained under Indian rule despite being a Muslim-majority province, and has been in a state of rebellion ever since.
The Pakistani Army, always keen to justify its own bloated self-image and distorted control over the state, has engaged in foolish military ventures on the Kashmiri pretext, often through militant groups it has trained and financed.
As leftist Pakistani-born writer Tariq Ali has noted, Pakistan’s confidence in undertaking such ventures up until 2001 was boosted by America’s support in its other proxy war –the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
India seems to realize that threatening Pakistan militarily would be futile because threats only work if the threatened party can produce results.
“Who do we talk to? Who is in control in Pakistan?” a senior Indian official recently sighed. “They have a government, but how relevant is it in controlling the terror groups there?”
Cheery thoughts about mosques and mandirs or commonalities between Pakistanis and Indians are unlikely to have passed through the minds of Indian military commanders or BJP politicians, but in their own way they understand that Pakistani stability and Indian stability are entwined.
However reached, such an understanding is crucial to prevent the kind of all-out war last week’s terrorists died trying to precipitate.
Duncan's the Choice
He was the odds-on favorite in this blog last week, and sure enough, the ninth United States Secretary of Education will be Arne Duncan.
The selection drew strong praise from both sides of the education reform debate, as evidenced by this press release issued by the "disrupter" group, Democrats for Education Reform, and this release from the traditional, "incrementalist" approach champion, the National Education Association. Both sides haled Mr. Duncan as a savvy choice who would put their proposals first--merit pay and charter schools for the "disrupters" and increased funding and teacher pay for the "incrementalists".
If I haven't made it clear before, let me say it again: both sides are not likely to be right regarding Mr. Duncan. With only a limited amount of political capital, not to mention money, available to spend on K-12 reform issues in his earliest days in the White House, President-Elect Obama will be hard pressed to devote the kind of attention that would be needed to appease both sides in this debate.
Arne Duncan has a history of working collaboratively with the unions to achieve some significant results for Chicago's school children during his seven years as CEO of the district, so the potential for success at the federal level certainly exists. But how will he fare when the first set of major challenges comes down the pipeline? For instance, will he consider it a greater priority to push broadly for full-funding of No Child Left Behind (the NEA argues that it is under-funded, when compared to authorization levels, by $71 billion), or will he use increased school funding as a carrot to get unions and other traditional stakeholders to accept change on teacher pay, charger schools, accountability, and other fronts?
To help shed some light on how Mr. Duncan may perform, I dug up this video on YouTube of testimony he gave before the House Education and Labor Committee this past summer on how to close the achievement gap: