[Marxism-Thaxis] Obama speech to students sparks new controversy
Obama speech to students sparks new controversy By LIBBY QUAID and LINDA STEWART BALL, Associated Press Writers Libby Quaid And Linda Stewart Ball, Associated Press Writers 2 hrs 4 mins ago DALLAS – When kids all across the country return to school Tuesday, some will see a welcoming message from President Barack Obama and some won't. Obama's planned address to students has touched off yet another confrontation with Republican critics, who have battered the White House over health care and now accuse the president of foisting a political agenda on children. The president will speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in. Schools don't have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to tune in. Districts in states including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out. Some conservatives, driven by radio pundits and bloggers, are urging schools and parents to boycott the address. They say Obama is using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and is overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools. As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality, said Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Steve Russell. This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Arizona state schools superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican, said lesson plans for teachers created by Obama's Education Department call for a worshipful rather than critical approach. The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. The president will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. I think it's really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this, White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview with The Associated Press. It's simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they're good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously. She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial. Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it, Higginbottom said. In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000-student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later. PTA council president Cara Mendelsohn said Obama is cutting out the parent by speaking to kids during school hours. Why can't a parent be watching this with their kid in the evening? Mendelsohn said. Because that's what makes a powerful statement, when a parent is sitting there saying, 'This is what I dream for you. This is what I want you to achieve.' Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said in an interview with the AP that he's certainly not going to advise anybody not to send their kids to school that day. Hearing the president speak is always a memorable moment, he said. But he also said he understood where the criticism was coming from. Nobody seems to know what he's going to be talking about, Perry said. Why didn't he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it? Several other Texas districts have decided not to show the speech, although the district in Houston is leaving the decision up to individual school principals. In suburban Houston, the Cypress-Fairbanks district planned to show the address and has had its social studies teachers assemble a curriculum and activities for students. In Wisconsin, the Green Bay school district decided not to show the speech live and to let teachers decide individually whether to show it later. Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer said in a statement he was absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology. Despite his rhetoric, two of the larger Florida districts, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, plan to have classes watch the speech. Students whose
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama speech to students sparks new controversy
Uh-oh, the crackers are restless . . . At 09:09 AM 9/4/2009, c b wrote: Obama speech to students sparks new controversy By LIBBY QUAID and LINDA STEWART BALL, Associated Press Writers Libby Quaid And Linda Stewart Ball, Associated Press Writers 2 hrs 4 mins ago DALLAS When kids all across the country return to school Tuesday, some will see a welcoming message from President Barack Obama and some won't. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Where jazz meets hip hop
Where jazz meets hip hop Detroit-born Karriem Riggins grooves at the corner By W. Kim Heron http://metrotimes.com/music/story.asp?id=14332 SEE ALSO More Jazz Stories Jazz fest highlights (9/2/2009) Some high notes among fest offerings Life lesson (9/2/2009) A tribute to Eric Dolphy — years in the making The last king of swing (9/2/2009) Gerald Wilson paints his hometown in sound More from W. Kim Heron Jazz fest highlights (9/2/2009) Some high notes among fest offerings Life lesson (9/2/2009) A tribute to Eric Dolphy — years in the making The last king of swing (9/2/2009) Gerald Wilson paints his hometown in sound By W. Kim Heron ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Materialism is a form of idealism
Materialism is a form of idealism Chris Doss I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is, but I meant metaphysical materialism, not historical materialism, which is a whole other kettle of piscines. Metaphysical materialism is logically incoherent because matter is an idea. Historical materialism, which is merely that human beliefs and cultures are determined by technological development and so forth, is not logically incoherent. ^^ CB, Metaphysical materialism is logically incoherent because matter is an idea. That's not persuasive to me. You'll have to elaborate. Ideas are material. They are electric impulses in the brain. I just saw a 60 minutes show wherein the latest brain physiology allows paralyzed people to control artificial limbs with hitech stuff. In other words, they have decoded the brain waves or ideas, like left or right, up ,down such that they can use them to do exactly what they mean (!). No more mind/body problem in philo 101. Anyway, ideas are matter. So, the idea matter _is_ matter. It can't be _reduced_ to matter, it's matter and more. A la Aristotle, all ideas are matter , but not all matter is ideas. Sort of like humans are animals and more. Anyway turns out that some matter has a dimension that can be termed message. Does that help ? I term my point on this issue as dialectical materialism, as you may know. You may even be reading _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_ in the original Russian some time. I admit I get my point from Engels and Lenin on that. Lenin defines materialism there as belief in the existence of objective reality. This is realism in bourgeois philo, I think. He and Engels develop their argument as a critique of Kantianism especially. Kantianism is shamefaced materialism or dualism. As to Historical materialism , I would define it somewhat differently than you do: that fundamental_changes__ or revolutions in human beliefs systems and cultures are caused when serious contradictions arise between those belief systems and their accompanying relations of production. The latter include both social relations and means of production. Necessity is the mother of invention. I agree this is logically conherent.. These revolutions are rare, by the way. Most of the time the idea systems are very determinative of people's conduct. Most of the time of history, a form of idealism is true. This is the truth of Sahlins puckish humor in the aritcle, I think. Ideas dictate the activities in the economic system , conventionally. Tradition/culture/symbol systems rules in convention. Necessity is the mother of invention. How's that for thinking outside the box, tvarish ? Or better a theory of how major paradoxes , cause whole new thought boxes I disagree that materialism ( as defined by Lenin) or realism is logically incoherent. Maybe I'll critique Sahlins tomorrow --- On Thu, 9/3/09, c b cb31450 at gmail.com wrote: We never knew White was a member of the Socialist Labor Party in the ’30s and early ’40s, contributing articles to The Weekly People under the name John Steel. Nor could you have guessed from his so-Americanized version of Marxism: a theory of cultural evolution based singularly on technological progress. Progress in the Neolithic, he claimed, came from the increase in the amount of energy harnessed per capita because of plant and animal domestication. He was not amused when I objected that energy “per capita” was the same as in the Old Stone Age, since the primary mechanical source remained the human body. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Materialism is a form of idealism
Materialism is a form of idealism Chris Doss This is not evidence that ideas are not matter. Indeed, as always and inherently, it is the opposite. Because evidence is an idea. :) Really, people didn't only learn yesterday that the body determines the mind! All idealists know that. Plato was perfectly aware that when you drink alcohol or get a spear through your head, you think differently. But that didn't bother them, because the body and alcohol and spears are ideas. (Plato was actually an idealist in a different sense than that that I discuss below, but bear with me.) ^ CB: Another way to say some of this is that human mind or ideas are an emergent phenomenon of matter. I'd say the Marxist-Leninist philosophical fundamental or definitional statements are for metaphysics or ontology from Engels There is nothing but matter and its mode of existence is motion, and epistemology from Lenin Materialism is the belief in the existence of objective reality. Marxist philosophy categorizes Plato as an objective idealist. Hegel too. Lenin's book is a critique of subjective idealism, Berkeley, Hume, and as Lenin argues, really, Kant, who is a shamefaced materialist in Engels phrase. Another term for it is agnostic. Kant is an agnostic i.e. doesn't know, thinks there are un_knowable_ things-in-themselves. (A lot of good belieiving there are things-in-themseleves or objective reality, if we can't know it !). There are deists and agnostics. Hegel's philosophy is actually written as a form of Christianity and belief in God or deism. Plato is a bit far back and different to categorize as a modern deist, I suspect. On the other hand, in another writing, Lenin ( in Russian !) refers to Hegel as arch-brilliant and borderline materialist ! Hegel's Christianity seems suspiciously a cover to deal with reactionary Prussian censors or something Anyway, for Engels there is a significant identity of idealism and deism, and materialism and atheism So another definition of materialism is atheism. All these definitions do not imply that ideas or human mind have no determinitive impact in human affairs , cultures, structures, economies ( see article by Sahlins that initiated this thread). I'd say, with the Bible that In the beginning of human society was the Word. Not the beginning of the universe or earth, but the beginning of the human species was language, the Word, culture, tradition, custom, symbols , systems of ideas, kin systems. ^ The brain is an object of experience. Electrical impulses in the brain are an object of experience. Artificial limbs are objects of experience. No one has ever seen a brain, an electrical impulse, or an artificial limb that is not an object of experience, nor can they, and there is no conceivable evidence that anything corresponds to them outside of experience, because any evidence you gain will, again, be an object of experience. CB: Agree. This is empiricism. Materialism is not synonymous with empiricism, but it doesn''t contradict it. Empiricism equated with materialism becomes positivist error. Experiences are had by individuals. This is a necessary step in the scientific or materialist epistemology, individual experience, but it is materialism only when individual experience is combined with social experience in particular, communications from others to the individual of their experiences. This is the aspect of social labor that is communication and combination of the experiences of maney. ^ Experience is something that happens to a consciousness, that is, an idea. So, what you have done is correlate objects of experience, that is, ideas, saying, this thing I experience correlates to that thing I experience in such and such a way. To use an old example, you do not refute Berkeley by kicking a rock and saying, I refute Berkeley thus! Because you didn't kick a rock, you kicked an idea of a rock, or rather, rocks were ideas all along. CB: Materialism concerns a relationship between consciousness and objective reality, or that which you are referring to as experience. Materialism holds that both consciousness and objective reality are matter ( There is nothing but matter...) and that there is matter outside of the matter of consciousness ( belief in the existence of objective reality). There is matter outside the matter of consciousness. Consciousness experiences something other than itself. There is matter other than the matter which is ideas. The entire pattern of correlation could be explained, if you wanted to do so, in a purely solipsistic manner. There is no difference to the dreamer between dream and reality. And Occam's razor says, to the dreamer, your dream is real, because that is indeed the simplest explanation. ^ CB: I agree that dreams are the purest form of individual consciousness or consciousness only experiencing itself, or the self experiencing
