| Number 145 | February 15, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, First and foremost, a big THANK YOU to those of you who have renewed your pledges, and also to all of you first-timers. You know who you are. One day you'll be able to say you were a Nygaard Notes supporter before it was cool to do so. And you will know that you were one of the people that made it all possible. You are great! It is unfortunate that a subscription to Nygaard Notes does not include an audio component. If it did, you would be able to hear me laughing as I type such phrases as "The Education Governor" in reference to the governor of our state. As it is, you have to read the article in order to understand the humor in the ironic title. Once again, as with last week's edition, I decided to make the Notes almost twice as long as usual. I have no real explanation for this. Maybe this will be the official length for a while. I still have quite a backlog of things I have not gotten to yet. Oh, well, we'll find out next week. I certainly don't know what to expect. A reader wrote last week to complain that sometimes the Notes can be a little heavy, reminding me that this can be disempowering to readers. She asked that the Notes "tell us how to take action instead of letting us stew over all the bad news." Excellent point! I have historically been quite careful to do just that, and this conscientious reader's comment makes me realize that I have been lax in this area of late. I'll be better from now on. Thanks for the feedback, Michelle! As always, the important thing is to do SOMETHING. Different people have different abilities and capacities, so I can't tell you what you should do. Maybe you have more money than time, in which case you can financially support a group (or weekly newsletter—hint, hint!) that you think is doing good work. Perhaps you have time to write letters to your elected representatives, or to the local paper. Do it! The best, of course, is to put your body on the line, by becoming an active member of whatever group(s) you feel are doing the best work. Can you imagine yourself going beyond complaining to actually working on building an alternative institution that makes your neighborhood and community a better place? Nygaard Notes is an ongoing attempt to help spark that sort of imagination and light the fire of hope. Until next week, I remain hopefully yours, Nygaard |
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I have been writing a lot lately about The WAT?! ("War Against Terror"), and I will likely continue, since we've been promised that this war will go on for decades. Indeed, it looks more and more like The New Cold War, except this time the enemy is not a specific country, but is essentially anyone who our leaders don't like. The good news is that the Cold War rhetoric is so over-the-top ("We're going to eliminate evil," "You're with us or you're against us," etc) that many people are becoming skeptical. Even better, people around the country have already begun to organize in defense of some of the basic rights and liberties that are being threatened by The WAT?! One of the most encouraging examples is to be found right here in Minnesota. A few weeks ago (NN #141 and #142) I mentioned that the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild had organized a statewide coalition to address the threats to our civil rights and civil liberties in the post-911 United States and here in Minnesota. That project is now up and running and, from the looks of things, has already built up a good head of steam. Calling themselves "The True Patriots," the coalition is organized around an impressive and important set of principles, and is vowing to work to:
Beyond just issuing a statement, the coalition has been busy taking action, including organizing lobbying efforts in opposition to a horror being considered at our state legislature called "The Minnesota Anti-Terrorism Act of 2002." Several great-looking educational events are scheduled, as well. Readers can learn a great deal about the nature of the new threats to our social fabric by visiting the True Patriots website at http://www.true-patriots.org/. If nothing else, take the time to read the public statement, which has been signed by an impressive array of groups and individuals. Signatories include the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers, the Minnesota Green Party, the Anti-War Committee, Refuse & Resist! Twin Cities Chapter, Women Against Military Madness, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Minnesota Chapter. Many individuals have also signed the statement, and you can too! To sign the statement, get involved in the activism, or simply to learn more about The New Cold War and why it is a threat to you, visit the website, or call (612) 805-6457 and tell them you want to sign on and help The True Patriots. |
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I In a little-noticed move to exploit the September 11th tragedy for purposes of advancing his anti-union agenda, so-called President Bush issued an executive order on January 7th forbidding unions at several agencies in the Justice Department. According to the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") the "President" issued the order "out of concern that union contracts could restrict the ability of workers in the Justice Department to protect Americans and national security." No matter to the so-called President that many of these workers have been union members for 20 years, with no problems reported so far... II Meanwhile, President Bush recently granted the secretary of Health and Human Services the power to classify information as secret, "a step that shows how the battle against terrorism is drawing domestic agencies into the national security apparatus," according to the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") of December 20th. "Experts on government classification said they believed it was the first time in several years that a new agency had been given the right to stamp information as secret. The trend had been toward less secrecy," said the Times. The times, they are a-changin'... |
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One of the ways one can tell that a policy or practice of the government (or anyone, for that matter) has become an accepted truth and is not subject to challenge is when it occurs as a simile in an unrelated story. When one is using a simile (e.g. "He's driving like a bat outta hell.") it is only effective if the subject ("bat outta hell") is clearly understood to have certain general characteristics. Otherwise, to say something is "like" something else isn't too useful. In the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) of February 2nd we see an article in the Business Section about Enron. The article, written by staff writer Thomas Buckingham, appears as an "Analysis" piece, which is what they call editorials that appear on the news pages (although, officially, editorials never appear on the news pages, I should add). The online title is "Bush Needs to Think Daisy Cutter to End Financial Fraud." Mr. Buckhingham first goes out of his way to point out that capitalism is the best economic system that has ever existed. Then he proceeds to call for a stronger federal role in regulating large companies if we want to have "fewer Enrons." Knowing that the call for a larger federal role is a tough sell these days, Mr. B calls on a powerful simile, in these words: "Bush must...understand that the war against fraud might require the legal and regulatory equivalent of one of those superdestructive 15,000-pound daisy cutter bombs that have proved so useful in the war against terror." At the end of the article, reporter Cunningham underlines his point, saying, "If he wants no more Enrons, Bush must consider whether our laws have treated financial crime in the same offhand manner as U.S. foreign policy treated Al-Qaida in the 1990s, occasionally lobbing in a cruise missile, then moving on to the next thing." So, the "success" of The WAT?! is now so well-accepted in the corporate press that it is a reference point to illustrate the success of other public policies. Try to notice when and how reporters stray from straight reporting into such covert propaganda. The first defense against these subtle forms of "opinion shaping" is to be aware of them. |
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While everyone is entitled to have an opinion, public figures have a responsibility to base those opinions on factual foundations. Allow me to introduce Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Governor of Minnesota. "We need to make our public schools more competitive," said the Governor recently, adding that "I'm shocked to hear myself say this today." The Gov was speaking on his weekly radio show, as reported in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) on February 2nd. According to the report, Governor Jesse also said he may need to start considering private school vouchers. "It ties into how we need to find out why it's so expensive in public schools. No money seems to be enough." We assume he meant to say that no AMOUNT of money seems to be enough. According to the well-done article, the Gov "said something's wrong when it costs taxpayers $9,800 per year per child in the K-12 public school system, while parents can send a child to Blake, a highly regarded private school in [the affluent suburb of] Hopkins, for $7,000 per year." That would be worth debating, if only it were true. However, as reporters Larry Oakes and Anthony Lonetree point out, the average per-pupil cost in the public schools in Minnesota is actually only $7,217. And the cost at the Blake School is actually about $15,000 (closer to $17,000 if one adds in optional bus service and daily lunches.) Furthermore, according to a Blake spokesperson, these figures really only account for two-thirds to three-fourths of the actual costs, with fundraising, endowments, and income from facility rental fees making up the difference. In other words, the actual annual cost of a high school education in this private school is between $20,000 and $25,000. Another difference is that public schools are, well, public. This means, among other things, that they shoulder the responsibility for dealing with such things as the special needs of low-income students and those with limited English skills, responsibilities that are optional (or irrelevant) in exclusive private schools. Even in the Minneapolis school district, where such costs are higher than in small towns and suburbs, the per-pupil public-school costs are about $9,500 per year, or less than half the costs at Blake. These points are what we in the journalism business refer to as "facts." Unfortunately, to our Governor they are simply annoying. Facts, Schmacts While we're on the subject of the Governor's crusade against public education, let me recall an earlier comment from Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Minnesota's celebrity governor. This one is from December 14th, at which time the Governor was complaining about how top-heavy the public schools have become. As evidence, he informed listeners that, according to statistics provided by his administration, the number of administrative assistants and non-classroom professionals in the public schools rose from 3,543 in the 1975-76 school year to 6,865 in 1999-2000, an increase of 94 percent. The Gov couldn't understand why this would happen while total enrollment actually fell from 879,000 to 844,000—that's about 3 percent—during the period. Once again, the Governor raises a point that would be worth debating except that, once again, the facts are dramatically different. Bob Lowe, a spokesman for the Minnesota School Boards Association, immediately pointed out that Ventura's analysis was "simplistic" as it did not account for many new responsibilities that have been placed on schools by the state and federal government in the past quarter-century, such as the obligation to teach children who have a wide range of learning disabilities, not to mention the increased costs of security and safety practices put into place in recent years. These increased responsibilities should be understood to involve increased costs, and indeed they do, although not the costs the Governor's people fed him. It took a few days for someone to actually go and look up the figures for themselves. When they did, they discovered that the growth in non-classroom public school workers in Minnesota was minimal, from 6,714 to 6,887, or about 3 percent, over the past 25 years. So the Governor overstated the growth by approximately 3,100 percent. This is not nitpicking. This shoots his argument completely out of the sky. In all fairness, I must point out that the Governor issued an official apology a few days later. He didn't mention where he got his wacky "facts." It's highly ironic, isn't it, that every time our Governor opens his mouth to talk about education he reveals himself to be a startlingly uneducated leader. More accurately, he seems to be largely mis-educated, his head being filled with skewed information that fits with his preconceived ideas about how the world operates. While our Governor has up until now been famous for being a professional wrestler, perhaps he's finally beginning to develop a reputation for being an ill-informed ideologue trying to push a right-wing libertarian agenda on the state of Minnesota. You can expect more on the Governor in these pages as Election 2002 approaches. |
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Sometimes it is illuminating to juxtapose two seemingly-unrelated stories from different news sources. For example, on February 4th the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") had a front-page article called "Bush to Request Big Spending Push on Bioterrorism." On the same day, the local paper had an article headlined "This Plumbing Bill Won't Be Cheap." The first story talked about how the so-called President's new budget "would propose $5.9 billion to finance improvements in the nation's public health system that would help defend against the deliberate use of disease as a weapon." The article in the local paper, the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) spoke of a long-existing problem with the Minneapolis sewer system which causes raw sewage to flow into the Mississippi River during heavy rainfalls. This is why citizens have been warned for years against swimming in the Big Muddy in the Twin Cities. (Maybe around here we should call it the Big Toxic.) Bush's budget proposal includes "Some $600 million [which] will go to the Pentagon, of which about $420 million will be used to speed efforts to develop better devices and systems to detect and identify the release of dangerous germs in the atmosphere or water." As the Minneapolis case shows, many "dangerous germs" have already been detected and identified. In fact, the state legislature passed a law in 1985 mandating that the local dumping of sewage into the Mississippi be ended within ten years. (Note to the Governor: That deadline passed seven years ago.) In the case of Minneapolis, everyone knows what to do, and this non-terrorist biological threat could easily be eliminated, except for the fact that, as the senior engineer for the state-level pollution control agency, Dave Sahli, points out, "We don't have financial assistance for them. In the past there was." It's hard to argue against the need to improve our capacity to deal with bioterror attacks. Still, it remains true that the actual deaths in the United States attributed to bioterrorism in recent decades number somewhere under 10 (I can only find documentation on about five; correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, over the past 40 years there has been a total of only about 100 "incidents" of any sort involving biological agents in the United States, most of which were hoaxes. Meanwhile, about 900 Americans die each year from polluted water. Most of that deadly pollution has its source in "animal and human fecal wastes," that is, sewage, according to the American Society for Microbiology. It's worth mentioning, also, the 900,000 Americans who become ill each year from water-borne biological agents. It's too bad we can't identify our toilets as "terrorists," since then we could perhaps get some funds to clean up these known biological threats to our health. |