[kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

GREG SLAWSON gregslawson at msn.com
Tue Feb 16 21:39:19 EST 2010



The articles you linked re: charters outperforming public were from NYC, where the school are probably so bad that anything

could outperform them. Speaking of Massachusetts, where I live, the opposite is usually true.

And the military budget figures you gave don't include things like Veterans befefits, separate funding for current wars, interest

on debt, and homeland security/CIA. That brings the % way up!

Re: conspiracies, the only ones I know of are the small groups that believe in 9/11 conspiracies.



Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:09:52 -0500
From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

Are you still on this "Peter" thing? Wait a minute while I grab my dictionary and look up the word 'Obtuse'.
(This does however fall in line with your conspiracy theories so I'll begrudgingly grant this one to you.)

Ummm, if you look at the NYC school grades up till Bloomberg took over they were a wreck!
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/opinion/mayor-bloomberg-s-public-schools.html?pagewanted=1
It was only after the union lost some power that grades began to go up.


Your "less experience" falls flat because it seems that Charter schools are outperforming Public Schools
especially when it comes to minorities and low income bracket groups. (Don't that suck!!! Damn! You almost had it! Almost!)
No wonder you guys shit on Charter Schools (of which most are NON-UNION) the upstart is having better results than the entrenched AFT/UFT unions!
http://www.gowanuslounge.com/charter-schools-showing-results/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574429203296812582.html
http://education-portal.com/articles/Second_Study_Shows_Charter_Schools_Outperforming_Traditional_Public_Schools_in_New_York_City.html
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/147473?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wnyc_home+%28WNYC+New+York+Public+Radio%29

Regarding licensed teachers:
http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/Report.aspx?id=93

You admit that the union is corrupt and yet you shout about "UNDERMINE THE UNION".

Unions do have much better job security that non-union members (Ask the United Auto Workers. Where you for or against the bailout?) and
many times to the detriment of non union members, private sector people and the average person that invests in a union company and ends
up with a big union fist up his/her ass.

Re Budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
"The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2010 for about 19% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues. Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 25–29% of budgeted expenditures and 38–44% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009.[19]"

This is far shorter than the %60.00 claim. Your "just numbers" claims seem to be just numbers.

I'm not arguing how great the military/CIA is as it has nothing to do with our discussion. What prompted you to pull this
rabbit out is beyond my understanding.

And regarding your last statement about conspiracies? I'll just base my opinion on you for now for it seems you just created
another one. *shrug* (I'd also love to know how you've managed to reach this conclusion.)

At 06:59 PM 2/16/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:

Dear Peter,
You're really missing the mark here. For example, Obama handing out $ to the unions, which many are rejecting, is true--b/c following the requirements, like merit pay and more "charter schools" (in the US, privately run schools that use public school $) would UNDERMINE THE UNIONS. Now, you're right that the unions are powerful, corrupt, etc., but they do an important service of providing SOME job/pay security, and setting standards for teachers (licensure, experience). In my state, most charter school teachers are not liscenced, have little or no experience, and quite w/in 3 years. Most of them are considered worse than public schools. The unions are right to turn down the $. And BTW, according to my principal, it's little $ anyway, and is not guaranteed to any school system (it's like a contest to see who gets the dough).
Second, I'm not talking at all about "conspiracy theories"--those are your words. There IS a connection b/w as you say limited federal funds (of course that's true), the military, and funding for everything else. It's no conspiracy, just numbers. Over 60% of the US budget goes to military/defense/national security--about 10 times as much as goes to education. Argue all you want about how great military/CIA is, but those are the numbers.
BTW the vast majority of the "left", from mainstream liberals to revolutionaries commies, don't believe in conspiracies--that's something the right invents.



Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:47:50 -0500
From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

Your inability to make one single focused argument is amazing!
As is your inability to stick to one of your own previous statements.

Who said anything about jealousy? I pointed out that they are not poor miserable scabs as you make them out to me.
the corruption within the union and the greed for power in union politics.

Now, let us see the genius that is Greg Slawson.

"Did it ever occur to you that if one group gets better salary/work conditions etc, it sets the bar higher for OTHER groups of workers?"
Now in the previous Email you stated the following.
" But they made the mistake of using purely economic motivations (pay bonuses) (called the Stakanovite system or something)."
&
"In fact, all the teachers I know are agaisnt Obama & Co's plans to bring "merit pay" to teachers who boost test scores the most (many think it's a scheme to bust teachers unions too). " HUH!!!!???? Psssssst... The Teachers unions are just afraid of accountability.

Actually the Europeans may be living on borrowed time and money. As the populations grow the benefits (or money for the benefits) will continue to diminish.
It's nothing to do with labor unions as much as the type of social system in place. Many European countries are quite stagnant from
an economic perspective. (It will be interesting to see how the Euro plays out as well.) However this is all up for interpretation and debate.

("Membership in France's labor unions accounts for approximately 5% of the private sector work force and is concentrated in the manufacturing,
transportation, and heavy industry sectors. Most unions are affiliated with one of the competing national federations, the largest and most powerful of which are the communist-dominated General Labor Confederation (CGT), the Workers' Force (FO), and the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT)."


The amount of federal money is falling? Is that because there is a big cabal against teachers or because the feds don't have an
unlimited amount of money to give? Especially when the US spending per child as astronomical compared to others. Now recently
the Obama administration did offer money but lots of the unions turned it down because it would "interfere" with their system.
Whatever ever happened to the mantra "do it for the children"? You of course found this to be a big conspiracy. (As you do with everything
else.)

Naturally you'll talk about the military impacting City and State run programs; but why, I have no clue. There is no connection.
Just like there wasn't any connection in your previous email about public sector tax payer jobs and private ones.
(Are you also implying that the school system be under rule and thumb of the gov's as opposed to localities? If they're going to
dump more wads of cash I'm sure they'll want some control/regulation over what happens to it.)

Thank you for telling me I'd make a great CEO. I take pride in that.

However regarding your nonsensical rants and horribly though out arguments that contradict each other within 3 emails
scares the bejesus out of me.

Ps. Stop with the friggin conspiracy theories, isn't it time you grew up a bit?

At 01:22 PM 2/16/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:


So are you basically jealous that teachers have benefits/vacations, etc? Did it ever occur to you that if one group gets better salary/work conditions etc, it

sets the bar higher for OTHER groups of workers? Why do Europeans generally have much better fringe benefits, hours, etc. than US workers? Could it be b/c the unions

are STRONGER, and there are more strikes?

And you're right about how most $ for teacher salaries come from city and state, but the amount from the feds has been falling over the years, and it has

made a difference. At my middle-class school, they plan to lay off about 20% of the teaching staff next year. Is that a good thing? And yes, I will talk about the military--how

about if they lay off 20% of their workforce?

You'd make a great corporate CEO--you think just like them.





Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:49:50 -0500

From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com

To: gathering at misera.net

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!


I can give you many more examples as well.


1 in 20 is acceptable for you? Whatever happened to accountability?


I also fail to understand how you can compare teachers which are paid for by the public (via taxes)

to corporations which are private/semi-private entities and are accountable only to the head honcho or to the investors that choose to

invest in it.


Teachers barely earn enough to survive?

I wouldn't call this barely.

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/TeacherPrincipalSchoolProfessionals/Salary/Salary+Step+and+Differential+Schedules.htm


Don't forget all holidays are off, and paid summers. Plus if you work (teaching) during the summer your salary gets an increase for the duration.

Add on more credits and you get another bump up.

Then throw in tenure after only 3 years (Best damn job security ever! Even if you fuck up big time.)

plus medical benefits and it's actually quite decent.

Now add on retirement pension plans + cost of living increase.


Those poor poor folks! I wonder how many people on this list have job security after 3 years.


For every example you can give me of teachers fired for "no reason" I can give you more that should've been fired and

are kept around.


Hmmmm, how about this one? Get paid $100,000.00 (Tax payer $$$) a year for doing... Wait for it... Wait for it... Absolutely nothing!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/bounce_rubber_flubbers_MrL9ZhEGshrv2H5ToVTxUK


And here is the article by the New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill


You can read more about union cover up and bullshitting in the above article, as well as teachers who claimed to be

unduly fired/punished/released. And what you basically get out of the article is that it's one big clusterfuck.


The unions have lots of power and political clout, they give out quite a chunk of change to many politicians. Planting cue cards at hearings? Check!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill


And there is so much more...


Please don't try to pull the "poor little innocent union" crap with me.

You can do it to others that don't read up on this but I won't let it fly.


Everything by you is an attack on the little guy, the war mongers, the this, the that. Plenty (most) of the money comes from local,state and regional pockets

not DC. (The teachers contract negotiations and powers are not implemented nor negotiated by Washington.)



At 11:03 PM 2/15/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:

THat IS interesting. Every teachers union I've read about hates the idea. And the article from LA weekly is a classic case of taking a few extreme examples--by
the articles own admission, about 1 in 20 teachers suck--and making a huge case of it. How many corporations have at least 1 out of 20 workers who stink, but are
not fired? What about the financiers who wrecked the US economy--some of them now in the Obama administration--and not only were not fired, but grew even
richer? Most of the right wing goons like West will let them off the hook, and attack a few teachers who barely earn enough to survive (in the US anyway). Another thing these bullshit "news" articles don't mention is that for the first 3 years of a teacher's career, they can be fired FOR ANY REASON, no questions asked, until they get tenure. There was a teacher at my school who was fired after 2 years for loosing a student's homework. He used to stay late after school every day giving extra help, and used his free period to tutor kids. I knew another extremely smart and dedicated teacher who was fired after one year for sending warning notices to all his students, in order to shake them up a bit. ANd the rules are changing to give principals more power to fire even tenured teachers. There is a wholescale attack on teachers unions--currently the largest unions in the US, which has an extremely rapidly declining union membership--by local, state, and fed government. It's yet another way to attack ordinary working people in order to fund the huge military budget (larger than that of all other countries in the world combined, and over half the total US budget).



Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:14:39 -0500
From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

Interesting, in Colorado teachers had recently voted to employ merit pay.

Not having merit pay is simply a very good tactic to keep all the teachers in-line and not shake up the teachers union (like the AFT/UFT).
Since all teachers in the union be they good, bad, average or exceptional have equal votes you can just imagine the havoc it would
wreak were they to introduce merit pay. Pitting one group of union members against another is bad union politics.

The union is all about money (for itself) and power (power in numbers); to have anything rock the boat is a big no no.

For a semi-lenghty read on the bullshit that goes on in the teachers unions feel free to read the linked article below.
This is one of the latest I've come across.


http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons/






At 07:06 PM 2/15/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:

Sorry Sade, I must have been mixing up 2 different emails. And yes, I meant competition! One more point about the 'exceptional' issue--
communism doesn't mean that no one could ever be exceptional--in fact it would be (and even was, in the early USSR) encouraged. But they
made the mistake of using purely economic motivations (pay bonuses) (called the Stakanovite system or something). My point is that there are
many other reasons to do your best at something, beyond purely personal economic gain. There have been studies by economists (in the US) that confirm this. And,
as a teacher, I see some teachers who may be considered exceptional, but hey are not motivated by $$ to be so. In fact, all the teachers I know are agaisnt
Obama & Co's plans to bring "merit pay" to teachers who boost test scores the most (many think it's a scheme to bust teachers unions too). Many teachers
don't even think it makes logical sense...



Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:40:00 -0800
From: saulomar1 at yahoo.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

>>> ..were it to succeed and everyone became "exceptional"... how would anyone be exceptional?

> ..you're taking the term exceptional is bit too literally!


It seems you took the term "everyone" a bit too literally. (Maybe I should've said instead, "everyone enough'?)

No one's attacking anyone (much less calling them names), just pointing out ironies and
incosistencies the world would be better off without.


> Back to the Haiti example .... the medical folks, have been completly exceptional.

> There has been little or no... Bill Gates/130 year olds, etc.


That was conflating two seperate points from 2 different people, hence I'm not sure how (or if) that replies to what I wrote.
Now, if I were the suspicious type i'd say it was a bit of a straw man to shoehorn in that last' sumthin' about the poor suckers jumpin' through hoops - but then again, no one's calling anyone names here...


> There has been little or no completion between them,


Do you mean competition, instead of 'completion'?



... ... ... ... ... ...
[looking at the current state of things..]

'Who has the fun..
..is it always a man with a gun...?
Someone must have told him if you work too hard... you can sweat"




From: GREG SLAWSON <gregslawson at msn.com>
To: gathering <gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 2:53:47 PM
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!
I think you're taking the term exceptional is bit too literally! Back to the Haiti example--from what I've been hearing, most of the volunteers
that are down there, esp. the medical folks, have been completly exceptional. There has been little or no completion between them, nor are there any Bill Gates/130 year olds, etc.
It's amazing the hoops a couple of people will jump thru just to attack communism or anything on the left..poor suckers...



Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:21:37 -0800
From: saulomar1 at yahoo.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!
Assuming Ultimate Communism would encourage everyone to be "exceptional," were it to succeed and everyone became "exceptional"... how would anyone be exceptional? Exceptional being a relative term, is there some explanation of "exceptional" (as in, in relation to what?) that would still hold?
Because if everyone had Bill Gates' money, a philosopher's depth, and the health of a base-jumping 130-year-old twice-reincarnated Himalay Sherpa, no one could possibly be exceptional.


... ... ... ... ... ...


[looking at the current state of things..]

'Who has the fun..
..is it always a man with a gun...?
Someone must have told him if you work too hard... you can sweat"




From: GREG SLAWSON <gregslawson at msn.com>
To: gathering <gathering at misera.net>
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 10:49:12 AM
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!
Communism would encourage people to be "exceptional". It says nothing about going over people's needs. And yes, no country has got it
right yet (it's only been about 100 years--a short time by historical standards).
And as for your "it will never work b/c all people care about is $" beliefs, why are thousands flooding into Haiti, mostly unpaid, to help?



Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:50:01 -0500
From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!
Right on!
If only we all lived in Imaginary Communist Land (because it seems that no one can ever get it right and communism has never
ever existed) things would be so much better and we'd all be happy, joyful, thoughtless providers to the betterment of man kind.
Should anyone choose to be exceptional we will just maim them till they are EQUAL with all the others. Should anyone want more than
what is deemed acceptable to them... Ohhhh boy! I pity the fool!
Greg, I do hope that your salary does not go one penny over your needs and that if you ever had or will have a pay raise
you will promptly denounce it and threaten your employer with resignation.
FIGHT THE POWER MUTHAFUCKAS!
At 03:03 PM 2/13/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:

Unfortunately the march toward war doen't depend entirely on who's pres or PM. It stems from the competition between nations over markets,
resources, cheap labor, etc. Obama has already stepped up the Afghan war (where the US wants to build an oil pipeline w/o Taliban interference), and
has not withdrawn troops from Iraq any faster than Bush would have. As long as capitalism exists, WWIII will be on it's way (w/China?)...



Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:39:38 +0000
From: adrianwason at btinternet.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!
I dont know how many of the gathering outside the UK have heard about the latest bollocks enquiry about tony & george's ego trip but I found it alarming how much blair mentioned Iran.My motto is attack is the best form of defence but it has to be organised.

Can anyone imagine what would have happened if these 2 clowns were left in power. I never ever thought I would say this but thank God america can get rid of it's idiots after their terms.

If George & Tony were still in power WW3 would be just around the corner. In the Uk now we have a one eyed grumpy disorganised threatining(to his staff) totally fiscally incompetent person who inherited a good economic base and has totally fucked it up & the USA-who knows.

But thank God it's not Cuba otherwise we could have those simpletons in for life.


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