NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT NEWS

"Not a single state will have a highly qualified teacher in every core class this school year as promised by President Bush's education law. Nine states along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico face penalties." Support your local opposition.

PELOSI: DEMOCRATS WON'T TRY TO IMPEACH BUSH

see here... thanks to Politics in the Zeros for noticing... wadda buncha weenies... meanwhile, a new Newsweek poll now disputes the ABC poll re: American approval of NSA testing... what are they afraid of?

AND LET ME BE THE FIRST...

to encourage In These Times to put out articles such as this...

ANOTHER ARTICLE BY JOEL BLEIFUSS: WHAT THEORY IS ABOUT

My posting of a Joel Bleifuss article achieved a response, which is a good thing!

Here is Bleifuss' most recent piece for In These Times. Bleifuss explores the notion of "outrage fatigue," this idea that people get tired of reading about outrageous things in the media and of being outraged by them. He suggests:

In the case of a person grappling with outrage fatigue, the easiest solution is to protect yourself from bad news and learn not to care. Another solution is to do something about your outrage. Nurture it. Express it.

Kudos to Bleifuss for exploring this idea.

Let me suggest an alternative to emotional fatigue, and to the solutions Bleifuss suggests -- theoretical preparedness. The idea is that, in observing the news, one comes armed beforehand with theory -- and thus when outrageous news events occur, one can be free to approach these events with a detached, yet concerned, optimism. When in doubt, always choose an emotion that is helpful. Your emotional life is about you and who you want to be.

In that spirit, I would like to encourage my readers to learn all there is to learn about the capitalist system, about how it operates socially and about its metabolic interactions with the natural world. The more they learn, the more they will come to expect what they previously might have been outraged to hear.

One cannot become so "wrapped up" in news events that one loses one's ability to respond proactively. This is what theory is meant to cope with. Theory is overarching knowledge, knowledge that can be applied to events whatever they are, that can be used to form a protective cover for one's emotions. The theoretical perspective suggests: do not "go on gut reaction" when reacting to events. Guts do not form theory without help from brains, so consult brains first. Always try to understand; don't get carried away.

NSA SPYING ALLEGEDLY ACCEPTED BY PUBLIC

everyone's publicizing the ABC poll... William Arkin says that the the USA Today story only glances the tip of the iceberg of NSA surveillance... Poll question for Americans: If the NSA was to subject you all to anal probes and the White House fatuously told you that it was all about "stopping al-Qaeda," would you acquiesce?

IRAN WAR COMING TO A THEATER OF OPERATIONS NEAR YOU

US Army Troop Build up on Iraq-Iran Borders... US sources are confirming plans: "According to military and intelligence sources, an air strike on Iran could be doable in June of this year, with military assets in key positions ready to go and a possible plan already on the table." Meanwhile, all of the right-wing blogs are going ga-ga over an interpretation given in an editorial ("subscription only") in the New York Sun that interprets Ahmadi-Nejad's letter to Bush as a declaration of war.

CROOKS AND LIARS SEEMS TO THINK THIS IS BIG NEWS

Crooks and Liars...

Meanwhile, I was just at a conference with Peter McLaren yesterday... I think I'll listen to some Donovan today... stay mellow...

AND LET ME BE THE FIRST...

to encourage In These Times to put out articles such as this...

ABU GHRAIB IN CHICAGO

This should be another blow to American exceptionalism -- the idea that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were mere "abberations" and that otherwise Americans are kindly, sweet, loving conquerors who only want what's best for the world.

ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT FOR FORREST HILL

Thanks to Gregory for this one... See here...

"IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT HERE, COMMIE, MOVE TO RUSSIA"

"But in a lot of important ways I already DO live in Russia"! Glenn Greenwald's column, so publicized by Cursor, delineates where exactly the Constitution has been rendered meaningless in all this.

TIBET'S ICECAPS WON'T SAVE CHINA FROM TURNING TO DESERT

See here... if you want to read a really good ecotourist narrative about how China is turning to desert, check out Mark Lynas' High Tide... from Gristmill: RealClimate does climate-change book reviews...

ENLIGHTENING STUFF

This popped up on a Google search for "Walt Sheasby":

Some may ask, "If capitalism switches to renewable energy and material inputs, will it be sustainable?" Not only do I believe that it is structurally impossible for capitalism to limit its inputs to renewable levels, I believe this is the wrong question to ask. By moving the discussion to technology and the means of production, we lose sight of relationally-oriented, Marxian analysis. Although capitalism must expand both extensively and intensively, our earthly biosphere is finite. There must be centers of accumulation and regions of extraction. The flow of energy and materials tends to occur geographically from the peripheries to the core, while the waste tends to be concentrated in the peripheral regions. This flow tends to create a division between town and country, but the expansion of capitalism, necessary to its logic, poses limits to the development of these polar relationships. The peripheries develop complexity at the same time that values are depleted, but peripheral regions must develop complexity in a certain fashion to serve the needs of the core. So called "development" is not possible for all regions of the world because of the nature of global world-system and the very logic of capitalism.

The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.

and I also discovered Derek Wall's blog... do give Derek a shot...

OPPONENTS OF THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS ARE AT THREE NOW

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia...