At Wit’s End: The Death of Osama bin Laden

–May Osama bin Laden rot in peace!
That was my first thought after President Obama announced Sunday night that an elite team of Navy SEALS stormed bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan and shot the ruthless, murdering cutthroat dead.
I’m not going to sound politically correct or sugarcoat the facts here.

bin Laden’s ambition in word and deed was to destroy this country and I’m an American and a New Yorker. I covered the
9-11 attack of the World Trade Center as a journalist including several funerals for Brooklyn cops and firefighters who died heroically responding to the attack.
Aside from recalling my experience in the 9-11 attack, I’m as liberal and progressive as most New Yorkers, but if someone attacks me physically, I strongly believe I have every right to defend myself.
Kudos in the killing of bin Laden is in order to the brave military men who carried out the operation and to our commander in chief, President Obama.
Indeed, Obama has been taking a lot of heat lately that is equal parts politically motivated and good old-fashioned American racism.
This bashing includes everything from Obama leading from behind to allegations he wasn’t born here to his presidency itself being un-American.
But Obama’s decision to storm bin Laden’s hideout without bombing it to smithereens was gutsy. His decision to not tip off Pakistani authorities on the raid was smart.
All-in-all, it dispels the critics who say Obama leads from behind and can’t make shrewd presidential decisions. It also greatly improved his chances for getting reelected. He’s a lot tougher than he is often portrayed.
It also made good on Obama’s promise during the last election campaign that he would get bin Laden.
As for his predecessor, George Bush, who painted himself a cowboy, I give him some reluctant credit for starting the security wheels rolling in getting the terrorist outlaws. The end result, though, is that Bush was all hat and no cattle – to use a cowboy phrase.
Now since the demise of bin Laden, a few things have to be cleared up.
Firstly, it behooves the White House to release a photo and all evidence that we did indeed get bin Laden. Not that this will stop the conspiracy theorists, but at least it won’t throw gasoline on their theories.
Additionally, it will help families of loved ones lost in the terrorist attacks find some closure.  It will also reinforce the powerful message to any person or organization that wants to do harm to our nation that while we have liberal values, we back them with might when threatened.
Obama showcased these values in the death of bin Laden by washing his body and wrapping it in a shroud according to Muslim burial laws before burying him at sea.
While some may argue that Muslim burial laws also required that bin Laden be buried in the ground, the watery grave made more sense lest a land grave become a site for would-be terrorists.
As Obama stated, it is not Muslims that are our enemies, but those that want to do America harm.
So now bin Laden is swimming with the fishes and he becomes only a footnote in the sordid chapter of American history regarding a proclaimed “War on Terror.”
Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Liu Seeking to “Level Playing Field” for Small Business Owners Doing Business With the City

The Corporate Takeover: The trend for appointing CEOs to top jobs is symptomatic of a declining commitment to public education and social justice

By Paul Thomas (The Guardian)

The top positions in state education across the US – for example, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, recent chancellors Joel Klein (New York) and Michelle Rhee (Washington, DC), and incoming Chancellor Cathleen P Black (New York) – reflect a trust in CEO-style leadership for education management and reform. Along with these new leaders in education, billionaire entrepreneurs have also assumed roles as education saviours: Bill and Melinda Gates, and Geoffrey Canada.
Gates, Canada, Duncan, Klein and Rhee have capitalised on their positions in education to rise to the status of celebrities, as well – praised in the misleading documentary feature Waiting for Superman, on Oprah, and even on Bill Maher’s Real Time.
What do all these professional managers and entrepreneurs have in common?
Little or no experience or expertise in education. (Instead, they have degrees in government and law, along with nontraditional entries into education and strong ties to alternative certification, such as Teach for America). Further, they all represent and promote a cultural faith in the power of leadership above the importance of experience or expertise.
When Klein quit his post as chancellor in New York – soon after Michelle Rhee left DC – the fact that he was leaving for a senior position at News Corp and that his replacement would be a magazine executive sent a strong message. The implication was that the American public distrusts not only schools, but also teachers and education experts.
More telling, however, is the appointment of Duncan as secretary of education under President Obama. This appointment of a CEO-style leader of schools in Chicago comes under a Democratic administration and, ironically, a president once demonised as too friendly with the radical left within the education community.
Like Obama, Secretary Duncan has led refrains against bad teachers, while ignoring the growing impact of poverty on the lives of children and on schools. One very visible effect of this trend for recruiting CEO-style leaders and billionaire entrepreneurs is the new commitment to corporate-sponsored charter schools – such as the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) among the most high profile.
The messages coming from state education in the US, then, are that government has failed and that only the private sector can save us. But is that message accurate?
The corporate push to take over state education is, in fact, masking the failures of corporate America. And, in turn, this masks the fact that America has failed state education, rather than state education failing America.
The standards, testing and accountability movement is built on a claim that education can change society. The corporate support for the accountability movement and the “no excuses” charter school movement seeks to reinforce that claim because, otherwise, corporate America and the politicians supporting corporate America would have to admit that something is wrong with our economic and political structures.
And the evidence isn’t on the side of corporate America.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that only 14% of pupil achievement can be attributed to the quality of the school; 86% of that achievement is driven by factors outside of education. David Berliner has also established six out-of-school factors that overwhelm the effectiveness of education against poverty and expanding social inequities.
In the US, achievement gaps and failure in state schools reflect larger inequalities in society, as well as dysfunction in corporate, consumer culture. The schools did not cause those gaps or failures – although it is true that, far too often, they perpetuate the social stratification. And the evidence shows that schools alone will never be able to overcome powerful social forces.
The real failure, which is the message being ignored here, is that one of the wealthiest countries in the world refuses to face the inequities of its economic system, a system that permits more than 20% of its children to live in poverty and to languish in schools that America has clearly decided to abandon, along with its democratic principles.

View From Here: Terror in the Gulf

The oil gushing from a well a mile underwater is the result of  an amazing feat of engineering that private industry has achieved and only they have the engineering technology, robotic submersibles working at the drill head and controlled from a room in Houston, Texas for one example, to even begin to stop it.   The Obama Administration has very smart people giving advice and support as they work their way through the unique and “unprepared for” engineering predicament their expertise and technological hubris has led to.
This piercing of the earth and continuing another 35,000ft. through rock to tap a toxic substance that Mother Nature surely thought she had safely tucked away, has allowed us to see oil in its purest form-as a destroyer of life.  It is akin to an underwater radioactive bomb, destroying life throughout the water column and a way of life all along the coastline. 
We see independent reports with estimates ranging between 25,000-90,000 barrels of oil a day being released and spewing into the Gulf.  Much of it is being dispersed into droplets too small to see, too small to rise to the top but able to be caught in ocean currents fouling life cycles from plankton to people and from the wetlands of Louisiana on to Florida and possibly around and up the East Coast.
President Obama has to bring a full light on the situation in the form of an official revision upward of the estimate of the gusher and a radical recalibration in the level of his response such that the perception of government is changed.   If current efforts, what the industry calls a “top kill” fail to stop the discharge, Obama can keep his cool but he’ll have to do it at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting where they treat the Gulf Coast as a third front for all appropriate resources.  Have Drones monitor the oil above and below the surface and put the images on YouTube. Break protocol on nuclear subs and announce there’s one in the area full of scientists.  Call in the Marines.  Have troop trucks on the highways headed for the coast.  Show them marching down to the shoreline with shovels, oil-absorbent material and buckets of Dawn.  Let the debate be if the administration went “over the top” in its response to protecting the coastline and the nation’s security.  Less than that and the possibility exists that Obama will spend the rest of his presidency in explanations instead of cheers.

HEALTH CARE REFORM:America’s Pre-Existing Condition or …

 … How Do You Mend a Broken System,

Broken Promises, Broken Hearts?

(Part 5 of Five Parts)

Kimberlee Currans-Leto

UPSTATE ROUNDTABLE

 (Troy, New York) There’s something rotten in America.  While other countries provide for their citizens, ours continue to struggle at every turn. 

In today’s economy, families are faced with impossible pressures and decisions that carry great impact upon their futures.  Many do not have savings and do not have retirement because they chose to provide for their children.

President Obama is taking a great gamble that policymakers will finally see the light.  The numbers do not lie.  This year over 47,000 people in America will die due to lack of health insurance coverage.  This reality many experts attribute to lack of affordable options for families who do not have coverage through their employment or do not qualify for state-funded programs. Today in America over 46,000,000 people lack health insurance coverage. Many of these people agree if there were an affordable option, they would be insured.

Who pays for this lack of coverage for the uninsured should they fall ill or become hurt in an accident?  One answer: we all do. 

It does not matter which side of the reform one stands for, this issue hurts us all with the rising costs of premiums, co-pays, prescription allotments and limitations on existing coverage. As a result, many struggle to keep coverage.  Insurance companies continue to make money off of everyone while limiting those who can participate by including the pre-existing condition clause. 

In many states the insurance company excludes pre-existing conditions up to one year.  This concept, creatively designed by the industry as a loophole of exclusion, symbolizes what is rotten at the core of the industry and it makes health care reform all the more complicated.  How do you remedy a broken system with not just broken promises but a sick way of determining who gets coverage?  The ironic twist is that many families would give up their life savings, the deed to their homes, if it meant they could have affordable, adequate health care coverage for pre-existing conditions like diabetes and asthma.

Many families have some form of pre-existing condition that’s not covered.  Many are excluded altogether and have been given no choice but to alter their lifestyles drastically in order to qualify for state-funded programs.  How is this right or moral – to make hardworking people quit their jobs, divorce their spouses so that they can have health insurance?  This shows just how broken the current system has become, representing the blatant manipulation of insurance companies who not only profit but benefit because so many laws allow them to get away with such actions. 

The uninsured argument: Many things contribute to Americans taking the risk of living without health insurance and this happens more than people think about.  While many Americans fall into this category without harm to themselves or their families, I believe many do not even fathom the risk they are taking with their lives.  Many people create a gap without knowing otherwise when they discontinue coverage before starting a new policy.  Just that brief period of time can create an inconceivable nightmare, one that can follow a family for years and jeopardize every aspect of their well-being. 

For young children like Sheldon Wagner and others like him who fall through the cracks of broken public systems, an overall system defined by hierarchy and wealth; there must be a better way to provide health care for every American equally and fairly.  Part of the issue many conservatives cannot empathize with is the notion of covering pre-existing conditions; they believe it overburdens quality health care by allowing those who are sicker to receive treatments at the same price as those not sick at all.  Furthermore, it is felt from the conservative side that some should suffer as a consequence of their actions.  It seems unfair the only crime is being poor while others have no choice but to lower their standard of living in order to save their families.  It just brings to light how divided this country remains when instead, all Americans should be working together to solve this issue. 

What many do not or cannot see is how much this reform will impact other reforms and set into action the foundation needed for America’s rebirth. What the conservatives do not understand from an economic standpoint, someone will be paying for the uninsured and those labelled by pre-existing illness. This may explain the outrageousness of some hospital bills or why a ten-minute consultation costs $250.  Why aren’t people outraged, disgusted at the state of health care in this country?  Why hasn’t a mob scene incurred on Capitol Hill?

What we know in our hearts: President Obama is on the path to doing what’s right.  While so many seem trapped by the status quo of thinking: “There is nothing that can be done” to change something so rotten and immoral, he has this country participating in change, in finding our voices.

We no longer can ignore that everyday people are suffering while so many of us just blend into the background unable or unwilling to take a stand, not knowing how far our voices will carry an impact.  I will take that stand for people who have not been heard.