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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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CRT and the sad state of educational politics

If our culture is studied 100 years from now, the predominant theme of the research will be a sense of perplexed revulsion toward how we did nothing to address the climate crisis in spite of having decades of forewarning. If there is a second theme, it will be a profound confusion regarding our immense and unearned sense of self-certainty. A retrospective of the early twenty first century would be titled something like Who the Fuck Did These People Think They Were?

The latter theme is illustrated in the debacle surrounding a recent slew of municipal and statewide bills that seek to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. For the record, I am strongly against these bans. But I’m also self-aware enough to know my opinion matters very little, and therefore realize that an analysis of the discussion surrounding the bills will yield much more worthwhile observations than a simple delimitation of their pros and cons. Regardless of your personal opinion, I hope you’ll humor me.

I am, in some regards, a moral absolutist. But I also realize that abstract morality has very little bearing on material and political realities. In my ideal world, classrooms are free from political meddling. Teachers teach to the best of their ability, presenting students with truths that are confidently unvarnished due to the thorough amount of work that was required to reach them. I don’t cotton any of that socratic bullshit. Students are there to learn, not to engage in weird Gotchas with some perverted elder. The teacher’s job is to teach. The material they teach needs to be subjected to some graspable and standardized mechanism of truth adjudication before it is worthy of being taught. Teaching is not therapy. Teaching is not poetry. Teaching is not love, nor is it religion, nor is it a means of social or political indoctrination. There are plenty of other avenues available to accomplish all of those other things. Teaching is teaching.

That’s the ideal. But ideals are just ideals. They never come true. The art of teaching, regardless of setting--from overpacked classrooms to face-to-face instruction to curricular design to nationwide pedagogical initiatives--boils down to a teacher’s ability to reconcile the need to convey truths with social and political pressures that are heavily invested in the suppression of truth.

I have formally studied and practiced education for nearly two decades. In that time, the prevailing political thrust toward education has been a desire to casualize the practice of teaching, to render educators as cheap and fungible as iphones. The thrust takes different shapes depending on the political affiliation of whomever happens to be in charge of the state and federal governments that fund education, but the ultimate desire is always the same. The goal is always to attempt to make teaching rote and algorithmic, something akin to running a google search for How to do math? or What is morality?. The framing is always just windowdressing, empty culture war bullshit.

Maybe it’s the inescapability of this thrust that’s rendered so many educators so blind to it? We only have nominal political choice, after all. The discourse gets more blinkered and vicious as the stakes decrease. At any rate, this is the undeniable reality, and anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t worth listening to.

Non-administrative per-pupil spending as been on a steady decline since George W. Bush was president. Administrative bloat and meddling are becoming as common in k-12 as they are in higher education. The will of parasitic NGOs are implemented as common sense pedagogy without anyone even bothering to ask for any proof that they work. The so-called Education Reform movement is sputtering out due both to its manifest failures and rare, bipartisan backlash. But it will be replaced with something just as idiotic and pernicious. The thrust of causalization will not abate.

And so what do we decide to do? What’s the next big thing on the education policy horizon? Critical Race Theory.

Okay, this makes sense. In 2021, a local paper can’t run a news story about a lost cat without explicitly mentioning the race of every human involved and possibly also nodding toward the implied cisnormativity of pet ownership. So it makes sense that this broad rhetorical mandate would come to dominate the transitional period between Bush-Obama Education Reform and whatever bleak future awaits us. The controversy is so perfectly inefficacious that its adoption was inevitable. Because, seriously, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the outcome of this kerfuffle, no problems will be solved. The real shortcomings of public education will not be addressed. Larger social problems that are typically blamed on public education in spite of having little to do with public education will especially not be addressed. Maybe white kids will have to do struggle sessions in lieu of the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe black kids will get full credit for drawing the Slayer logo in the part of the test where their geometric proof is supposed to go. Or maybe it won’t happen. Maybe instead these practices will be banned, and in turn liberals will begin to embrace homeschooling, the charter movement will be given new life as a refuge against the terrors of white supremacist behaviors such as, uhh, teaching kids to show their work. Whatever.

Within the context of public education, the outcome will not matter. It cannot matter. There will be broader social impacts, sure. It will continue to drive Democrats more rightward, providing their party’s newly woke corporate wing with progressive-sounding rationales for austerity. But so far as teachers and students are concerned, it won’t matter.

Why do I give a shit about this, then? To put it bluntly, I’m struck by the utter fucking inartfulness of CRT’s proponents. At no point has any advocate of CRT presented a case for their approach to education that was at all concerned with persuading people who aren’t already 100% in their camp. There’s been no demonstration of positive impacts, or even an explanation of how the impacts could hypothetically be positive. In fact, so much as asking for such a rationale is considered proof of racism. Advocates posit an image of existing educational policies that is absolutely fantastical, suggesting that kids never learn about slavery or racism or civil rights. But then... then they don’t even stick with the kayfabe. They’ll say “kids never learn about racism.” In response, people--mostly well-meaning--say “wait, umm, I’m pretty sure they do learn about racism.” The response is “we never said they don’t learn about racism.” You’ll see this shift from one paragraph to the next. It’s insane. Absolutely insane.

Or take this talk from a pro-CRT workshop in Oregon. The speaker freely admits that proto-CRT leanings like anti-bias education, multiculturalism, and centering race in historical discussions have been the norm since the late 1980s. The speaker admits that these practices have been commonplace for 30+ years, as anyone my age or younger will attest. Then, seconds later, the speaker discusses the results of this shift: it failed. Unequivocally:

We had this huge, huge, huge focus on culturally relevant teaching and research. [ ... ] So you would think that with 40+ years of research and really focusing and a lot of lip service and a lot of policies and, you know, a lot of rhetoric about cultural relevancy and about equity and about anti-bias that we would see trends that are significantly different, [but] that’s not what we’re finding. What we’re finding that you see [is] that some cases, particularly black and brown [students] the results, the academic achievement has either stayed the same and gotten worse.

Translation: here’s this approach to teaching. It’s new and vital but also we’ve been doing it for 40 years. It doesn’t work. But we need to keep doing it. Anyone who is in any way confused by this is a dangerous racist.

Even in the darkest days of the Bush-era culture war, I never saw such a complete and open disregard for honesty. This isn’t to say that Bush-era conservatives weren’t shit-eating liars. They were. But they had enough savvy to realize that self-righteousness alone is not an effective way of doing politics. You need to at least pretend to be engaging with issues in good faith.

This is what happens when a movement has its head so far up its own ass that it cannot comprehend the notion of good-faith criticism. These people do not believe that there can exist anyone who shares their basic goals but has concerns that their methods might not work. Their self-certainty is so absolute and unshakeable that they can proffer data demonstrating the complete ineffectiveness of their methods as proof of the necessity of their methods.

For decades, the most effective inoculation against pernicious meddling in education has been to lean upon the ideal form of teaching I described earlier in this post. We claimed that teaching is apolitical and that no one is trying to indoctrinate anybody. Regardless of the abstract impossibility of this claim, it has immense and lasting appeal, and it was upheld by a system of pedagogical standards that allowed teachers to evoke a sense of neutrality. The prevailing thrust in liberal education is to explicitly reject any such notions, and no one--not a single goddamn person--has proffered a convincing replacement for it. We still say, laughably, that we’re eschewing indoctrination. But people aren’t that stupid. If you find it beneath yourself to make your lies digestible, people will be able to tell when you’re lying to them.

This, my friends, bodes very poorly for the future of education, regardless of whatever happens in the coming months. A movement that cannot articulate its own worth is not one that is long for this world. Teachers themselves are the only force that can resit the slow press toward the eventual elimination of public education, and they have embraced a worldview and comportment style that renders them absolutely unable to mount any worthwhile resistance.

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automatismoateo · 6 years

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Being a Closeted Atheist via /r/atheism

Submitted February 04, 2018 at 06:05AM by magdeleina (Via reddit http://ift.tt/2EC8wPA) Being a Closeted Atheist

I'm a 20-year-old girl. I’ve spent my entire life inside a very close knit evangelical church. My church has been my whole world. It’s been my community, my safety net, the center of my life, my friends’ life, and my family’s lives. To say how all encompassing the church is in my life, I will admit that I’ve never had a “worldly friend.” I go to services three times a week, Any outings are with church kids. Total purity from sin is expected from everyone

My parents are true believers 100%. So are all my friends. They love God deeply and believe everything the church says without hesitation or doubt. Nothing matters to them but winning God’s approval and laying down sin. I do think they are genuinely happy. God is a constant, a loving Father who guides their every day with little signs and blessings.

But me, I’m not a true believer. I don’t think I’ve ever been. Growing up I was called a prideful know-it-all because I had an insatiable urge to know why and to have the phenomena of life explained. I was fascinated by science, history, and literature. I read voraciously and became a veritable encyclopedia of random facts and tidbits. My academic pursuits were encouraged, though I was warned to keep humble and know my place as a submissive woman. I thought it must be right because it was the only world I ever knew.

Yet as I went on, learning more and more about the world, I began to see discrepancies. I read the Bible cover to cover when I was twelve years old, and noticed discrepancies and inconsistencies. Why would a God who said “Do not murder” ask his people to slaughter children in his name? Why did everyone in the Bible constantly talk about how the End Times were coming soon when it was written 2,000 years ago, and now my church used those passages as evidence that we were also living on the brink of Armageddon?

My pastor would have errors in his sermons, or take some historical event out of context and twist it to serve his rhetorical purpose. I noticed these mistakes, but when I would bring them up (always respectfully) my parents told me I had no right to correct a prophet since I was a child and that it was a sign of my pride and self-absorption.

As I learned more about geology, archeology, and astronomy in school, I came home breathless in excitement about science. Yet when I would compare what was in the Bible to what I had learned, I realized how little sense the Biblical narrative was. Yet around me, scientific theories and discoveries were being mocked as worldly foolishness by my peers. I was the stupid one for wanting more evidence than the Bible and answered prayers for accepting the notion of the Flood and Genesis. I tried to reconcile Evolution with Creationism, dinosaurs with Adam and Eve. I became more skeptical. As a result, my parents took me out of public school and had me homeschooled with Abeka.

Abeka is a very fundamentalist Christian homeschool curriculum where Darwin was Satanically inspired and America was the culmination of a divine plan. God was the Great Scientist, they would say, it is from him that all science is written. Any words that don’t match to his divinely inspired book were falsehood from Satan to be shunned. I learned to stop asking questions because questions got me in trouble.

As I grew older, I began feeling a great deal of disconnection because I did not believe in God the way everyone else did. I wanted a God who was logical and consistent and I could not find him in our theology. I became fixated on the idea of Hell, mostly because that is where I expected to go when I died.

How could a good God sentence people to an eternity of torture? How could cultural relativism make that equitable. Some people were born into faiths that required a daily human sacrifice to keep the sun from going dark. They lived on continents unknown by Christians. They believed just as fervently in their religion. Would God send them to Hell for being born on the wrong side of the world?

I asked this question and got platitudes about how God is Love with a wisdom beyond human understanding. When I pressed further I was told to stop asking and focus instead on serving the church and getting out of my sin of pride. This hurt me deeply because I felt so alone. To get into Heaven, I had to have a personal relationship with God. I had to get answered prayers and signs. I would get on my knees and try to pray to God, cry out that I needed something to give me faith, but all I got was silence.

By the time I started college, I felt so alienated from everyone. Every day was an act and I wore my mask of true believer to perfection. I led prayer circles, talked about scripture, and volunteered on church committees, but inside I knew it was all a performance to me. I felt so utterly alone, like my life was completely meaningless and empty. I couldn’t really connect with people anymore because if I showed any vulnerability, I was afraid they would see my fakeness. All my friendships withered and I became increasingly isolated.

I lived with my parents all through college and commuted. Moving out wasn’t even an option for kids in my church. The church encouraged parents to hover, spy, and discover all their children’s secrets. Helicopter parenting was the norm.

By age seventeen I fell into a depression. By eighteen I was having daily suicidal thoughts. My mother found my journal where I wrote about wanting to go to sleep forever. She brought me before the church leaders where they told me I was being attacked by demons. They prayed over me and told me to read the Bible more. I played the good Christian girl because I knew sharing my real beliefs would be dangerous. If I was too flippant, my parents would pull me out of college (where I had a full-ride academic scholarship).

Three months ago, at age 20, I had my first real suicide attempt. I just wanted an end to the pain of isolation and depression. Not a single day went by where I did not long for an end. I just wanted to stop existing, sink into the void. I took a couple pills but chickened out at the last second and flushed them. I admitted this to my father and asked if I could see a doctor. He said that was impossible, as our church doesn’t believe in mental health. He told me to focus on obeying God and that happiness would come eventually.

I am an atheist, I think. I cannot believe in God. Yet my depression scares me. Everyone around me says they are happy with God. They saw the world offers nothing good and that the only happiness in life is from finding God’s spirit. I want to be happy. I don’t want to be in that terrible dark place again, yet I think being an atheist pretending to be a believer is part of it.

Leaving is not really an option for me. If I leave, I lose everything and everyone I love. My parents, friends, home, everything will be taken away and I will be shunned. Not to mention, my future will be in jeopardy. I have one year left of undergrad before I plan on going to law school. I don’t have a job right now, so I am entirely financially dependent on my parents. They control all my finances. The idea of even getting a job makes them suspicious. Moving out isn’t an option. Girls in my church are expected to live with their parents until they get married. Even after marriage, many young couples continue to live with their in-laws. Independence isn’t a virtue kids are taught.

I don’t know what to do. I feel so alone in the world. I know I can’t believe, but I can’t leave either. Sorry for the long post. I'm just never ever allowed to say this out loud.

#reddit

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jonboudposts · 5 years

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Winston Churchill and the British Fear of History

This piece is adapted from a broadcast of All the Rage due to be played on Trax FM on 20 February 2019. It will then be available for streaming and download; I thought it was worth putting into a readable piece too but please excuse the tone if it sounds like a radio show.

Sometimes when the deadline for a radio show approaches, I can be rather panicked. It can be a struggle to address interesting subjects in the right detail, or at the right time and I often have weeks wandering around stressing about what we should talk about.

This is not one of those weeks; because often, especially in Britain, anything from a serious issue to a seriously-not one drops into my lap from the wider world and our wonderful media - this week it has been that ghost of British history’s appalling past in the shape of one of Britain’s worst sons, Mr Winston Churchill.

The reason he is back in the news is because a few people recently have mentioned how he was not a wonderful person unlike his historical profile; the one getting the most attention is Labour Shadow Chancellor John MacDonnell, who was asked if Winston Churchill was a hero or villain; he replied villain and qualified this as being based in his actions as part of the Tonypandy riots. It caused the usual bullshit response from the usual people and lots of pathetic apologetic behaviour too.

Personally I wish they ha asked me because my response to Churchill would cause mass pearl-clinching hysteria in these circles no doubt.

Now, this will not be a biography on the bloke; I am not going to note his school life, every position he ever held or what so-and-so said about him. This is about facing some of Britain’s most terrible history and how it affects life in the country today – and what position Churchill takes in all this.

Straight out the gate, he is my position:

I hate Winston Churchill. I hate the things he believed, the things he did based on those beliefs and how he holds a heroic position in much of British culture. As a working class political activist and believer in the importance of knowing our history, he is a figure of oppression. As an active anti-racist, he is a figure of evil. He is class privilege personified and someone who has become a Jesus-like figure to the far right and centre and an example of the cultural inertia we face today.

More importantly, I hate the way it has become taboo to raise any question about him or anything about the Second World War, including setting certain facts straight.

If you are someone who feels saying such things about people like him or feel any criticism of the generation he supposedly represents is not acceptable, we will never agree but I would ask you to listen and hear a totally different view that while perhaps repellent to you, is sincerely held and formed.

Churchill represents so much that I hate about British culture and society and he was a terrible man. Let’s look at his worst hits:

Racism – Churchill was a white supremacist and is today considered a hero by people who have the same opinions. He saw Indians, whom he starved and Kurds, who he wanted to gas as ‘beastly people’ of a lesser worth and talked of wiping out the Japanese.

Whites were a stronger race according to him; better than blacks or quote ‘red Indians’ and this justified taking their place an land, mass slaughter, etc. Ironically for his modern supporters, he had more respect for Islam then they like to admit but one does not cancel out all the others.

He was also not opposed to fascism; he in fact had admiration for Franco in Spain and spoke admiringly of Mussolini in Italy.

Famine – most acts of mass starvation are caused by human action and Churchill was fundamental to the Bengal famine in India where 4 million or more died and it is estimated the Indian population suffered the equivalent of a loss up to 100 million.

Ireland – he suppressed Irish people, their culture and anyone who believed in independence including sending the brutal Black and Tans to subject the population to violent suppression, with thousands killed during the War of Independence.

Miners – during the miner strike of 1910-11, where strikers attempted to improve their terms and conditions that were being kept deliberately low. Mr Churchill decided to send in the troops and many in the working class community and especially Wales have never forgiven him.

He was a racist, extremist and enemy of the working class – simple as that. He was totally led by ego and getting his name into the history books just like some of his political decedents, although most of them have not managed to rack up the bodies that Winston has on him.

This of course feeds into the subservient attitude of today’s British (or more specifically English) culture that detests change and difference and while refusing to show decency and respect to so many types of people and viewpoints, demands obedience to the things they hold dear – such as war and dominating other parts of the world.

Every far right group, politician or general gobshite uses the war and ‘respect’ for soldiers as a shield usually for their own racism or similar hatred. It is a mindset like many religions or cults try to enforce – of not thinking or questioning what you are told. This foul representative of the ruling order somehow becomes a ‘man of the people’ through the power and privilege bestowed upon him by his class position.

In the modern context, we now see ludicrous comparisons with Brexit to the ‘Blitz spirit’ and a need to believe in Britain to get what you want; this was of course what won World War 2 and nothing to do with the Soviet army smashing the shit out of the Nazis at the expense of around 27 million soldiers and civilians on their part.

Worse, some people seem to like the idea of the Blitz; when bomber planes randomly took out houses and people every night; this is something that can only be thought by the dangerously ignorant and disconnected, not to mention a great insult to those who survived it, not to mention those not so lucky.

Winston Churchill did not win WW2; he did not even fight in it. He toured the sites of warfare after the bodies were cleared away and after the war, when the British electorate put him out of a job, he spent time writing himself into the history books; in fact many of his quotes are quite useful here – ‘history will be kind to me for I intend to write it’.

What he did is make speeches calling for unity and strength, which he acted on by leading a coalition government. But this was his job and not the only speeches he made. He also praised Mussolini, Franco and even seems to have admiration for Hitler. In fact his view as we noted earlier is that fascism was only a problem if it invaded Britain; it could do what it liked on the continent.

Winston Churchill did not save Britain in the war; everyday people fought, planned, sacrificed and died. Most importantly, the generation who fought in the war knew this.

Post-WW2: Birth of the Welfare State

The generation that fought in the war, who we lionise more than we ever talked to, had far less delusions about Winston Churchill; so much in fact that upon returning home and perhaps remembering how badly the returnees from WW1 had been treated, they demanded a better country to live in with a welfare state that took care of it’s people rather than privileged the rich.

Churchill was up for none of this – so they voted him out. A ruling class thug could never bring himself to allow the rabble to have any control over their own lives nor the country they had just fought for.

Fortunately the Labour Party was offering free healthcare via the NHS and all the benefits of a decent welfare system that treated people with decency and respect – and fortunately for all of us, the public voted for it.

Churchill’s Cheerleaders

Boris Johnson – this bell-end has written a book on the man and has nothing but unqualified and uncritical praise. For those of you not in the know, Boris Johnson is another egotistical upper class prick who has come into politics as his birthright – he is also utterly useless and never takes responsibility for his actions; sound familiar?

During the last week, when it was announced that the budget for a planned garden bridge that was never build during his time as London Mayor ran to £53 million of public funds, you would think the media might have been chasing him over this and a few other gaffs. But no, he was able to flap about John MacDonnell and the great insult to daddy Winston. Talk about a snowflake.

Also like Churchill, our Bodger Boris loves to indulge in racism such as against Muslim women and their ‘letterbox’ face vales, or claiming that when President Obama said Britain would not get preferential treatment for trade deals upon leaving the EU, that he was motivated by his ‘Kenyan roots’ to ‘hate Britain’ – so at least Boris has some understanding of British history.

Jacob Rees-Mogg – the living epitome of class privilege and the awful right wing politics that goes with it. Old Jacko cuts a ludicrous figure and that is probably the most dangerous thing about him; for like Mr Johnson he comes across as someone not to take seriously – but we really should.

Along with his retro-views on women and LGBT rights, he loves the Victorian era and was once exposed attending a dinner hosted by The Traditional Britain Group, who among other things feel no one non-white can be British and advocates other ethno-nationalist themes. They have advocated for the deportation of non-whites including Doreen Lawrence. They also hosted Simon Heffer and Richard Spencer as speakers.

His recent hit was to claim that the British invention of concentration camps during the Boar War was for their own safety and all those who died were just part of what happened years ago when more people just died…this was part of his answer to the question of Churchill.

All of which slots nicely into his hard right political position

Sadiq Khan – I don’t like to take a pop at the London Mayor as in a lot of ways I like him; but he is a centrist and on issues like this, he is a little too cautious for my liking; not perhaps a cheerleader but part of those who have equally failed to tackle the true meaning and human weight of the actions that Churchill committed.

While co-hosting a regular phone-in last week on LBC Radio, the question came up and he talked about understanding Churchill ‘in context’. What exactly the context for understanding a mass murderer who hated non-whites and the working class is, Sadiq did not go on to note sadly.

In fact this liberal unease at condemning Winston Churchill is probably more disgusting that the right wing open praise and hero worship; after all, it is their nature to cheer a right wing white supremacist whose actions led to the death of thousands – what’s your excuse liberal boy?

No doubt it relates to the hatred in liberal centrist circles for the left; during the Blair and Brown years they thought the political inevitably of capitalist realism meant we had been cast into history forever. But that is not the case and they have been having daily breakdowns ever since Corbyn became Labour Party leader.

Perception

Earlier I referred to the perception of Winston Churchill in this country and what I am specifically talking about is how he has become an icon who cannot be criticised; when people do criticise him, responses can range from complete dismissal of you as a person to outright death threats.

But it was not always such because once again we have seen a cultural movement that has taken even more drastic hold in the last thirty years’ class war.

Despite what media and modern discourse might have you believe, it is not uncommon – and was more so for the war generation – to find working class communities and people who have no time for Winston Churchill, my family included. He was seen as the elitist rich boy he was and all the things he did were informed by that and the need to preserve the status quo. People from Wales to India have no trouble assessing him based on everything he did, not just his hyped-up war record.

So many of the ideals of the far right come from Churchill; his belief in the lesser worth of other nations’ people and religions; his belief in mass slaughter; that ethnicities like Indian people ‘bread like rabbits’ and even closer to home, his contempt for the Irish and working class in general.

Subservience

All of this is also tied into British history in regards Empire and all the evils done there. Too much of English-dominated society either does not want to face this history, or has no problem with it; this is the reason for racism, xenophobia and the silly idea of English exceptionalism

Now I have my theories about why this is but none of them are complete so I may have to conclude with a question rather than an answer; why are people so subservient to power? We can look nationally, in which case no doubt it involves the class system but then America is just as bad if not worse. They of course have a class system that is rarely talked about traditionally but also the overt worship of position in hierarchy, which they probably inherited from the British. It does not matter how you got power, just that you have it.

So is it a western problem? Not entirely although that may be a particular type but plenty of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, anywhere you choose to mention has a love of ‘strong man’ leaders.

But then again many other parts of the world – from Europe to wider – have also had working class-led revolutions and Britain has not.

Recently Lord Finkelstein – a Tory Lord – published a piece in The Times saying that Churchill was a racist and life-long white supremacist. Even someone on the political opposite gets this, so what’s the problem?

Conclusion

Winston Churchill was one of the worst people Britain ever produced who cynically wrote himself into history as a more important man than he was.

I feel no affinity to country or nation and I will not surrender my critical faculties for anyone especially a self-serving member of the elite.

This brings us back to the culture war again and links into wider blathering about ‘Western Civilisation’ and how anything foreign (read non-white or Jewish) is degrading the greatness of our beloved culture – that would be the thing whose biggest exports in the last 20/25 years have been a game show about becoming a millionaire and a supposed-talent show about torturing my ears. ‘Western Culture’ is again a concept with roots in colonialism, anti-Semitism and racist assumptions about impurity brought about by mixing.

As Owen Jones pointed out, our rights and freedoms were not given to us but won by everyday civilians demanding them; suffragettes, trade unionists, political campaigners and today kids striking for the future of the planet.

The hero worship of Winston Churchill is a way of airbrushing out the work done by all these people; real people like you and me who give and gave everything as oppose to Churchill who only ever acted for himself. Hero worship and patriotism will get you nowhere and require wiping out large swaths of actual fact and history in order to make your side look better – a side to which you have added nothing, merely been born into and taken for granted that you have a right to certain things above others.

Now, for the first time in my life, we have the chance to really change society – to make life better with stronger rules and laws governing working; the opportunity for a foreign policy that does not involve terrorising weaker countries; to make life more equal and demand those with the most pay their way. We also need to get with the programme in regards climate change otherwise we will not be here much longer.

Ditch the worshipping of anyone but especially these appalling establishment toads. The class war has not managed to destroy us despite throwing everything at the job; now we need to stop doing it for them.

Recommendations

Winston Churchill by Clive Ponting (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994)

A far more honest and comprehensive study of the man’s career

Contrpoints video on The West was very informative and funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyaftqCORT4

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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As Saudi Arabia Destroys Religious Sites, One Rights Group Seeks to Save a Culture - MIDDLE EAST, OPINION

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/as-saudi-arabia-destroys-religious-sites-one-rights-group-seeks-to-save-a-culture/

As Saudi Arabia Destroys Religious Sites, One Rights Group Seeks to Save a Culture

Saudi Arabia is destroying religious and cultural sites across the country, but one group, the Al Baqee Organization, is fighting to preserve a heritage.

October is not a good month for Saudi Arabia … but then again the Kingdom somewhat had it coming if we consider the violence it has so freely dispensed over the decades. If Saudi Arabia managed to buy loyalties and influence – none stronger than that extended by the United States of America – Riyadh’s systematic disregard for human rights, nations’ sovereignty, and international law, are pushing many to reconsider their positions.

As the Associated Press puts it:

“The kingdom long has been known to grab rambunctious princes or opponents abroad and spirit them back to Riyadh on private planes. But the disappearance of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkish officials fear has been killed, potentially has taken the practice to a new, macabre level by grabbing a writer who could both navigate Saudi Arabia’s byzantine royal court and explain it to the West.”

The alleged murder of writer Jamal Khashoggi is of course but a small example of the cruelty of a regime which barbarism has been emboldened by our collective silence – a silence rooted in greed since it was bought to the tune of billions of dollars.

Saudi Arabia’s lobbying activities took to new heights in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when news transpired that 15 out the 19 terrorists were, in fact, Saudi citizens.

To protect its interests and avoid answering uncomfortable questions as to the doctrine of Wahhabism/Salafism it has imposed as ‘state religion’ on its citizens, the Kingdom went on to buy the world’s good graces. To better smooth corners and deflect blame away from its fanaticism – the fanaticism that remains the so-called Islamic radical outfits’ main ideological inspiration, Riyadh spent a reported $100 million over the next decade to improve public perceptions and retain influence in the U.S. capital.

A detailed report published in the Atlantic gives an overview of Saudi Arabia’s lobbying activities. It reads:

“A quick review of the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) database, which is where lobbyists who advocate for foreign countries must announce themselves, shows that, among other Washington firms, Hill & Knowlton, Inc. has been lobbying for Saudi Arabia from 1982 until at least 2009. Qorvis Communications, LLC has received $60.3 million in Saudi money over the past decade, and is still doing communications work for Riyadh. Hogan Lovells U.S., L.L.P., which was called Hogan & Harston until May of this year, did work for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in 2009. The Saudis paid the Loeffler Group, LLP, $10.5 million over the past 10 years, and gave Sandler Innocenzi, Inc. $8.9 million. Patton Boggs, LLP, another lobbying firm, also continues to do work for Saudi Arabia, and has earned a little over $3 million over the past decade.”

Riyadh’s push on Capitol Hill went into overdrive in 2015 after U.S. President Barack Obama decided to break bread with Iran by signing the now scrapped Nuclear Deal. The move that did not please Saudi Royals in the least as they view Iran as their arch enemy, mainly on the basis that they do not share Riyadh’s religious worldview.

To describe Saudi Arabia’s buying spree Ben Freeman writes:

“In 2016, according to FARA records, they reported spending just under $10 million on lobbying firms; in 2017, that number had nearly tripled to $27.3 million. And that’s just a baseline figure for a far larger operation to buy influence in Washington, since it doesn’t include considerable sums given to elite universities or think tanks like the Arab Gulf States Institute, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (to mention just a few of them).”

Risking Life and Freedom to Speak Out Against Saudi Arabia

Speaking against Saudi Arabia has become an almost impossible feat. Speaking against Saudi Arabia also entails some degree of danger as the Kingdom often resorts to violence to silence those voices it cannot coerce. If you recall, only weeks before Riyadh was lauded for finally allowing women to drive – what a breakthrough! – Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrest of several women’s rights activists including internationally recognized women’s rights activist Samar Badawi.

“The arrests of Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah signal that the Saudi authorities see any peaceful dissent, whether past or present, as a threat to their autocratic rule,” warned Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch in August 2018.

She added: “After the recent arbitrary arrests of businesspeople, women’s rights activists, and reformist clerics, Saudi Arabia’s allies and partners should question what ‘reform’ really means in a country where the rule of law is disdainfully ignored.”

Indeed … many things in Saudi Arabia are perceived as direct attacks to Al Saud’s absolute rule, and all offenses are punishable by death.

Saudi Arabia’s Attempt to Eradicate History

But there is an aspect of Saudi Arabia’s intolerance that remains seldom talked about – that of religious and cultural persecution.

Under the direction of Al Saud’s clergy, so that the Wahhabism doctrine would never be challenged throughout the Islamic World, the Kingdom architected the destruction of all religious and cultural sites – thus denying a people and a faith their History.

If we do nothing Islam will be what Saudi Arabia dictates it is in just a few decades – the thought warrants a deep pause if we consider that all self-professed Islamic radicals claim Wahhabism/Salafism as their matrix.

Wahhabism/Salafism although posited as a legitimate interpretation of the Scriptures is in fact not a recognized school of thought, it sits as an aberration over 1.6 billion people by the virtue of the money it wields, the governments it owns, and the guns it points at its detractors.

In 2014 Carla Power published for the Times an exposé on Saudi Arabia’s “wider government campaign to rub out historical and religious sites across the Kingdom.”

She writes: “Over 98% of the Kingdom’s historical and religious sites have been destroyed since 1985, estimates the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation in London… In recent years, the twin forks of Wahhabi doctrine and urban development have speared most physical reminders of Islamic history in the heart of Mecca. The house of the Prophet’s first wife, Khadijah has made way for public toilets.”

Al Baqee Organization Defends Religious Heritage

Silence was broken this October on the floor of the United Nations Human Rights in Geneva and the United Nations headquarter in New York, as myself and other members of the Al Baqee Organization, a grassroots not-for-profit dedicated to the defense of religious freedom and the protection of the world religious heritage, broke the status quo by demanding that Saudi Arabia be held accountable for its many and grave cultural and religious violations.

As per the UNESCO’s mandate: “Safeguarding and promoting cultural heritage in all its forms – tangible and intangible, cultural and natural, movable and immovable – are key to achieving dialogue, sustainable development and social cohesion.” Saudi Arabia has systematically and, as a matter of state policy, hacked away at such heritage so that it could imprint its worldview.

For the first time since Al Saud rose kings over Arabia, Muslims are speaking up against the abuses the silent and silenced majority has had to endure over the decades and centuries, so that they could be freed of the yoke of intolerance and fanaticism.

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#cultural heritage #Saudi Arabia #UNESCO #united nations

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fesahaawit · 7 years

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Sharing My Retirement Plans With My Dad!

[Heyo! Got another killer guest post lined up for y’all today, this time from long-time reader JW who now has a blog of his own over at The Green Swan. He just had one of those amazing conversations about life and money with his father, and thought we’d might enjoy hearing how it all went down. I think he guessed right – check it out :)]

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I have something personal to share with you all – an email from my Dad. And not just any old email… a special one, in which I’ve never received anything of the like before. My Dad was wanting to know more about my plans to retire early!

To say I was nervous when I saw his email would be an understatement…

While my Dad doesn’t know I have a blog (and neither do any other friends or family), he does know I do not want to work for the rest of my life. He knows I’ve accumulated a fair amount of wealth so far, although not the exact amount. And he knows my goal is to get out of the rat race early. I have explicitly told him this before, but that’s the extent of it.

Until earlier in January… At that point, Pandora’s Box was opened. And it started with this email. (By way of reference, my dad is currently 63 and plans to retire in 2018)

My Dad’s Email:

Hi JW,

I always do a financial review at year end and it got me thinking about you wanting to retire early. I can relate, I was always planning to retire at 50. A few things to think about (you probably have already considered these, but anyway):

— I don’t think anything greater than a 7% long term return on your investments is realistic. You don’t have to go back too many years where a huge double digit loss was happening

— College education keeps increasing.

— Health insurance is really scary in the future. I’m planning $10,000/yr/person until medicare. You want to make sure you have a good ins. plan. Who knows how much this will increase. But $20,000/yr for 20 years is $400,000.

— If you ever do decide you want or need to re-enter the work force, it’s really hard to re-enter at the salary you were making before.

When I got to my early 50s I realized:

— I would be really bored.

— I still needed a purpose in life

— By working a few more years, mom and I could have this house and possibly a second home if we wanted.

— It was also a good feeling knowing that we could retire whenever we wanted.

Anyway, a few thoughts I wanted to share. I’d love to help you reach your financial goals if there is anything I can help with.

Have a good day,

Dad

What a nice note, huh!? Needless to say, he hit on basically all the major concerns any early retiree should think about. At the time of reading this, I didn’t realize that he ever considered early retirement. I always knew that him and Mom did a good job managing their money and were financial responsible, but they did have to raise four boys and paid for half of our college costs (in-state public school tuition).

I thought about how best to respond and decided to put some thoughts on paper. I shot him the below email, and then followed up with a phone call. Below is my unedited response to my Dad.

My Email Response:

Hey Dad, thanks for the email. I didn’t realize that you were thinking of retiring early as well. What you mentioned in your email are definitely some of the key things I’ve been thinking of too. Of course it is hard to pin down hard numbers on some of those things until the day comes. But here is the basic synopsis that I’ve come up with. Let me know if this makes sense and when it would work to discuss.

I hear you on the 7%. I’ve always used 8% as an estimate when projecting my future investment balance based on the long-term historical returns of the S&P 500. Once in retirement I will likely continue to stay 100% invested in stocks, but focus on the “safe withdrawal rate” (“SWR”). There are some good online simulators for determining “FIRE” (financial independence, retire early). Have you ever checked out firecalc.com or cfiresim.com?

I would estimate my required investment balance at retirement based on a 3.0-3.5% SWR and knowing what my core expenses are with some cushion. For example, core expenses of $60K including mtg payment at 3% SWR would require $2 million in investment assets. Realistically, and conservatively, we’d probably be targeting closer to $3 million. The biggest wildcard are long-term healthcare costs in case of illness or disability, which as you mentioned would either require good health/disability/long-term care insurance and/or more cushion in our investments.

Jr’s college fund will be basically fully funded by his 3rd b’day at ~$70K. Invested in a balanced and diversified stock index portfolio, this should cover the majority, if not all, of college costs by 18 estimated at ~$250K. We’ll have the same plan to fully fund baby 2’s 529 by age 3 as well. These funds of course are considered separate from the investment assets needed for the SWR above.

Without an employer or gov’t subsidy, I’d maybe be even more conservative than $10K /yr /person. We’ll see how it evolves in the coming years with Trump though. Lots TBD in retirement including if gov’t subsidies will be means tested or not or simply based on income…and then what will our income be in retirement, etc, etc. With unknowns like these to evolve likely well into retirement, we’ll try to play it safe rather than be sorry later.

Heard you loud and clear on re-entering the workforce at prior wages. But if we needed to build back some cushion, we could do this reasonably at lower wages and even consider temporary side gigs. However, we’d have no intention of doing this. We’d rather work an extra year at the higher wages than risk having to re-enter at lower wages for a couple years.

What to do in retirement…that’s the million dollar question, huh!? I’ve always heard it is important to retire “to” something and not to retire “from” something. So I understand where you are coming from. I would be ideally retiring to: delving into the kid’s activities and development (not much unlike what you did with us); hobbies that have gone by the wayside over years like hunting and others; travel with the fam; and finding ways to volunteer for various good causes TBD.

So at this point in time, that’s the thought process. We’ll shoot for $3 million in investment assets not including 529s which will be fully funded in coming years. And it gets squishy when thinking about healthcare and disability insurance, but I have time to figure that out and adjust the plan of course.

Like I said, let me know when it works to chat. I just thought it would be easiest to lay out some of my thoughts before doing so. Thanks again for the email.

What do you think? Decent response? I wanted that to lay some ground work for a good conversation with him. And indeed it was good. We talked for quite a while.

Our Follow Up Conversation

My dad was very excited for us and our plan to retire early. He agreed with a lot of the assumptions including a SWR of 3.0-3.5% and having a baseline of $3 million, recognizing it is a lot of money but can be easy to attain when the snowball starts rolling (the FIRE-Starter that we are still in pursuit of!).

Conversation then focused on life purpose, employment in retirement if extra cash is needed, and healthcare; all three of which are somewhat related to each other. Employment, even part-time, can help fulfill my purpose in life while also help provide for some or all of the cost of healthcare and/or allow me to take advantage of employer sponsored insurance.

When your life is devoted to work it can be hard to think of what will fill that void, and the conversation kept reverting back to part time work. He mentioned how ideal it would be to be paid the same and just work less hours, and how, unfortunately, my career in banking really isn’t feasible for that. So we discussed a number of alternatives.

He mentioned there are plenty of ways to be creative with employment and there are unique opportunities out there if I look hard enough. One example he gave was that an old colleague of his who retired and began delivering RVs across the country. He also mentioned part time consulting, etc, given my banking and finance background.

Then he asked what I will do between 8-3 when the kids are in school? He thought that is when part time employment would be ideal. But what if I don’t need the money, will I be that bored that I revert back to employment? Is retiring to family not enough?

I’ll have 10 years with the kids still in the house which will be great. When they are gone, then what? Well at some point grandkids. I’ve always heard how great it is to have grandkids! :) I’m sure they’ll keep us busy and provide for a great time as well.

So kids will keep me busy and, if I’m so lucky, grandkids as well. What will I do when I get bored?

With the kids gone, Lucy and I will have more flexibility to travel and we’ll no doubt take advantage.

I enjoy reading books, magazines, blogs, etc about a wide-array of topics including history, finance, religion, nature & the outdoors, etc. Does that not provide plenty of rabbit holes to chase down?

I’ll be able to focus more on my health and fitness. It’ll be a lot easier for me to fit in a good balanced exercise program and improve my diet. I enjoy cooking at home with Lucy. We can focus more on new, unique and healthy foods for us and the family.

What about other hobbies or projects? Many hobbies have been pushed to the side as I entered the workforce. This would include hunting, playing various sports (would I be too young to enter an old man basketball or soccer club?), and following college and professional sports more closely.

There are endless great causes I could volunteer my time to as well, including perhaps at the school system in some capacity that my kids will then be attending.

We also talked about his scenario with my mom. They were basically at FI 8 years ago. He wasn’t ready to leave work though because he needed that as his purpose in life. Also, they wanted their dream home on a lake which they had recently moved to, but were still in the process of paying off.

The additional years of employment would allow them to pay that loan off and have more cushion. He also acknowledged how much greater work was knowing that he could quit at any point if he wanted or needed to (albeit then move to a less expensive home). So the “one more year” syndrome was more like eight years for them in order to have the nice lake home for the rest of their lives.

An interesting takeaway from this was when I asked him how he’d fulfill his purpose in life once he does retire from his work here shortly. He said that he didn’t think he would have the need for purpose anymore and that days spent on the lake would be what he will fill his time with.

I think that begs the question for all of us – when will we no longer need that purpose in life filled by work? At what point can we say enough is enough. I’m done climbing that corporate ladder and I’m completely satisfied with a more leisurely lifestyle?

It’s a tough question, one that many retirees struggle with (especially early retirees). I may think I will be ready, but when I’m in the moment I may not be. We all need to try to determine when enough is enough in our lives.

I could probably continue on, but there you have it. My conversation with my Dad on retiring early! And the outcome: much congratulations and excitement, as well as some things to continue to ponder.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with anything? J. Money thought the parts about not needing purpose anymore was pretty surprising to learn from my dad. Share your own thoughts below and I’ll happily answer any questions!

****** JW is a corporate banker, a small business owner, a personal finance blogger, and a family man with a wife, a kid and another on the way. He amassed his first million by age 30 and is on the path to reach financial independence and retire early in his mid-30s. JW blogs at The Green Swan to help others achieve their financial objectives and believes anyone can be on the path to retire early with the right habits and mindset. You can also find JW on Twitter (@TheGreenSwan1) and on Facebook too.

Sharing My Retirement Plans With My Dad! posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

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heliosfinance · 7 years

Text

Sharing My Retirement Plans With My Dad!

*******

To say I was nervous when I saw his email would be an understatement…

Until earlier in January… At that point, Pandora’s Box was opened. And it started with this email. (By way of reference, my dad is currently 63 and plans to retire in 2018)

My Dad’s Email:

Hi JW,

— I don’t think anything greater than a 7% long term return on your investments is realistic. You don’t have to go back too many years where a huge double digit loss was happening

— College education keeps increasing.

— If you ever do decide you want or need to re-enter the work force, it’s really hard to re-enter at the salary you were making before.

When I got to my early 50s I realized:

— I would be really bored.

— I still needed a purpose in life

— By working a few more years, mom and I could have this house and possibly a second home if we wanted.

— It was also a good feeling knowing that we could retire whenever we wanted.

Anyway, a few thoughts I wanted to share. I’d love to help you reach your financial goals if there is anything I can help with.

Have a good day,

Dad

I thought about how best to respond and decided to put some thoughts on paper. I shot him the below email, and then followed up with a phone call. Below is my unedited response to my Dad.

My Email Response:

Like I said, let me know when it works to chat. I just thought it would be easiest to lay out some of my thoughts before doing so. Thanks again for the email.

What do you think? Decent response? I wanted that to lay some ground work for a good conversation with him. And indeed it was good. We talked for quite a while.

Our Follow Up Conversation

So kids will keep me busy and, if I’m so lucky, grandkids as well. What will I do when I get bored?

With the kids gone, Lucy and I will have more flexibility to travel and we’ll no doubt take advantage.

I enjoy reading books, magazines, blogs, etc about a wide-array of topics including history, finance, religion, nature & the outdoors, etc. Does that not provide plenty of rabbit holes to chase down?

There are endless great causes I could volunteer my time to as well, including perhaps at the school system in some capacity that my kids will then be attending.

I could probably continue on, but there you have it. My conversation with my Dad on retiring early! And the outcome: much congratulations and excitement, as well as some things to continue to ponder.

Sharing My Retirement Plans With My Dad! published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

0 notes