on a political note
You know, I don’t often blog politics because — I don’t know, this could easily become a political blog and I could blog nothing but and more and more I think about that. I’ve been reading Howard Zinn’s You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (he wrote A People’s History of the United States, which changed how I and many others thought about American History), as well as many other things online and off and thinking about the times and world I live in. I’m redesigning one of my classes around the notion of “big ideas” — the important ideas we need to wrestle with today: we’ll be talking and learning and reading about sustainable agriculture and American nutrition (Fast Food Nation), war and American intervention as well as what courage means (The Kite Runner), global warming and government coverup (An Inconvenient Truth), Western dependence on oil (Syriana).
And then I get to this morning’s NYTimes, my first stop (along with a cup of coffee and morning play with Spense and Ed and Naima) and find two things waiting for me. The first you have to pay for but is well worth it — Paul Krugman’s column on why African-Americans distrust the Bush administration and the second is this:
“The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.”
This is not a new story, but even the ABA is paying attention now. The President has put himself above the rule of law, the very Constitution of this great land of ours. As Zinn wrote, “I love this country, but I don’t pledge allegiance to governments.” Yeah. Wonder why. With Bush’s reliance on signing statements amended to nearly every bill passed under his watch, he has exempted himself from more than 100 laws in a move amounting to a line item veto with one important exemption — Congress can’t act back as they could with a Presidential veto. Check and mate. In language so broad that Mr. Bush has left himself plenty of maneuvering room:
“When Congress requires outreach or affirmative action for women or members of certain racial or ethnic groups, the president demurs, saying such provisions must be carried out “in a manner consistent with the requirements of equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
Game over? No way. This is not only unethical, it is completely contrary to the ideals on which this country was founded — namely the checks and balances system of government that are supposed to prevent one branch, let alone one person, from gathering too much power. The time has come and gone and come again. This is well past sensical. Speak now or forever lose your right to do so. Stay informed and exercise your right to vote.
Jon Stewart in ‘08. It’s the only way. [grin]
July 25th, 2006 at 3:17 am
what’s this course you’re planning. it sounds great! i was planning to rewrite my content area literacy course around inquiry, but i love the idea of exploring the big ideas as the focus of inquiry.
i find bush’s actions to be scary, but what scares me more is the way the majority of american’s don’t seem to notice or care. and with nclb, there’s a trend in schools to remove instruction in science and social studies to make more time for skill and drill math and reading exercises. i hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but man it sure sounds as if there’s a plan to keep americans at a low level of knowledge and understanding.
so how to counteract this? we teach courses like the one you are planning and hope it trickles down?