Friday, May 23, 2003
Ok, it's a day late but here is the post on the Child Hating Right and what they are doing to children. Especially children with disabilities. Like mine. First some ground work...
Republican Congressional Members Ignore Constituents
Thousands of parents, families, advocates, educators and others are ignored A National call-in day on April 29th was organized by parents and advocates of children with disabilities to show their unified opposition to changes in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) by House Resolution 1350. Representatives Mike Castle (R-DE) and John A. Boehner (R-OH) of the Education and Workforce committee urged congressional members to ignore the phone calls and faxes of thousands, and base their decision on large educational organizations' interests --instead of children first. The concerns that HR 1350 would weaken the rights of children with disabilities to have access to a free and appropriate education were dismissed as "inaccurate". The letter lists unprecedented support from education leaders, but fails to list support from parents, families and advocates who have the greatest long term vested interest in the lifetime outcomes for children with disabilities.
The full text of the letterNow I work for an organization whose main focus is the inclusion of people with disabilities into "regular life". Up until this year this is just something I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. But now it's personal. My 4 year old son has just recently been diagnosed with
Asperger's Syndrom, which is a form of Autism. He may need to have certain accommodations to be able to succeed in a "regular" classroom with the same curriculum that all the other students have. But under IDEA (as it stands now), he is entitled to these accommodations and to the same education every other child in the United States is entitled to. Under the new version of this bill (HR 1350) schools will not be required to consider his disability in certain circumstances and make accommodations if needed. This is the first step back to the stone age (pre 1975) when school systems were allowed to take highly intelligent children who, with just a little bit of help could be wonderfully capable, contributing members of society, and shove them in the art room with crayons and paste and graduate them with absolutely no useful edcation whatsoever. Which then led to them being forced to rely on public services because they weren't equiped to support themselves.
And the fact that Special Interest groups were given additional weight by congress people at all is annoying enough but when these self same congresspeople write letters to other congresspeople encouraging them to ingnore large blocks of their constituency it borders on governmental malfeasance! And to ignore the parties most affected by the legislation is just spitting in the face of democracy.
In one of my other blogs I referred to the process of "No Child Left Behind" as "No Child With Absolutely 'Normal' Aptitude in All Testable Areas Left Behind" and that is exactly what it is. These Special Interest Groups are the Corporate Educational Institutions who rely on the tax dollars schools bring in for their bread and butter. And the tax money under "No Child Left Behind" and HR 1350 will be based on test scores. So by excluding children with disabilities from the general curriculum and thereby the general testing processes, these scores, they feel, will go up. Bringing in more money.
But by this process they will also be producing more adults who, once again, will be less capable of functioning independently in "regular life" and putting more of a drain on special services requiring more tax dollars or just not getting any services at all and living on the streets. My feeling is that GW and the rest of that lot would prefer the latter.
So now the Conservatives have declared war on the environment and on Children with Disabilities and their families. Add that to the list: the UN, the Arab nations, North Korea, France...
Quite a lot of progress for 3 years.
posted by Kimber
at 11:53 AM ::
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Wednesday, May 21, 2003
I read on one of my favorite blogs that Christie Todd Whitman was
resigning as the EPA chief. After confirming this I, of course, did the happy dance of joy! Yipee, one less evil, greedy conservative drooling over the prospect of chopping down the redwoods and sequoias and drilling holes in the caribou migration territories.
This glee was short lived though when I read the story linked above and discovered that one of the replacements being concidered was "...Josephine Cooper, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "
George W. Bush is waging WAR on the environment!!!!!! There is something in his sociopathic, schizo-effective mind that just hates the fact that there is a spot on the planet he can't strip mine, clear cut or drill into!!!!! The very thought that there might be clean breathable air and drinkable water somewhere, anywhere within his sphere of influence drives him into a slathering rage and he has to do
this.
Ok, I'm building up a good head of steam for a flat out rail here so I'd better cut it short. Tune in tomorrow when I go off on what the Child Hating Right is doing to the IDEA.
posted by Kimber
at 3:41 PM ::
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Things that make you wanna puke...
SENATE APPROVES VERSION OF BUSH TAX CUT
***********************************************************
On May 15, the Senate approved a $350 billion version of President
Bush's tax cut proposal. The bill passed on a 51 to 49 vote, with three
Democrats voting for it-Senators Bayh (D-IN), Miller (D-GA), and Nelson
(D-NE)-and three Republicans opposed-Senators Chafee (R-RI), McCain
(R-AZ), and Snowe (R-ME).
Under this Senate bill, taxpayers in the
lowest 20 percent income group would receive an average of $14 in tax
cuts over the next four years, while taxpayers in the top 1 percent
would receive $69,081 on average over that period. Earlier this month,
House lawmakers passed a $550 billion version of Bush's tax cut. A
side-by-side chart comparing the House and Senate bills and the
President's original proposal is available from the Washington Post at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/taxplan_051603.htm.
Additional information about the impact of the Senate bill is available
on the Citizens for Tax Justice website at
http://www.ctj.org.
These tax proposals sacrifice protections for millions of children to
pay for massive new tax breaks for millionaires. The cost of the
Senate's smaller tax break package is more than enough to provide full
health coverage for the 9.2 million children who are without health
insurance and Head Start's comprehensive preschool services for the 1.8
million children in America who need it to succeed in school.
posted by Kimber
at 12:08 PM ::
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Monday, May 19, 2003
You know what amazes me? (I am just going to free associate ramble here for a bit...) What amazes me is that people are still amazed by anything happening in the world today.
I went through it the first year Bush was in office. It felt like some kind of bizzarre, otherworld-like reality. As if I had been transported to the alternate universe in Star Trek where Spock wears a beard and Chekov tries to assasinate Kirk... Everything that was happening was the polar opposite of right (correct ;) ), made no sense and I spent most of my day with my jaw hanging down to my navel in stunned, shocked amazement.
But as we head into year 3 I'm no longer amazed that Bush has opened up the entire Western United states for development. There is no shock for me in the fact that not only did we find no weapons of mass destruction but that now "unnamed government sources" are saying that they wouldn't be surprised if we NEVER find any.
I feel a glimmer of interest in the fact that the entire United States of America has failed to notice that GW lied about the connection with 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, and the weapons of mass destruction. It is mildly entertaining that some folks of my ilk with a bit less jade are enraged that the government is claiming that these facts are non issues. I was like that once. I ranted and huffed until I was blue in the face about Republicans doing the same exact things (and worse) that they were screaming impeachement about during the last administration. I railed until people hated to be around me because they felt that oral sex in the oval office and lying to Congress was paramount to treason but that millions of dollars of insider government contracts and stock fraud was irrelevant.
And now this. We, the United States of America, have, for no good reason whatsoever, invaded another country, toppled their government, killed their citizens and allowed their national heritage to be looted by camera men from Fox News. And all the while the citizens of this country are putting bumper stickers on their cars saying "I Support Our Praying President" and "Support Our Freedom, Support Our Troops".
Nope, I can't get amazed about it anymore. There are days when I almost let myself become resigned to living in this awful, alternate universe and hope like hell that the planet just gets blown up quickly and puts us all out of this misery. I suppose that defeatist attitude stems mostly from being the only liberal pacifist in my area. Well, the only one that isn't a Jehovah's Witness. According to her, this is just another sign of the end days and god's kingdom will come soon to rid us of evil GW who is obviously being influenced by Satan. *sigh* Ok, the only rational liberal pacifist in the area.
Then there are the days when I remember the quote I adoped from Gallagher (yeah the guy that bashed watermelons with a big mallet) "If you don't tell ignorance and stupidity it's wrong, ignorance and stupidity will think it's ok!". But it takes a lot of energy to fight all the ignorance and stupidity in the world. And some days I am just too tired. So I sit back and watch and wonder why people get amazed anymore.
posted by Kimber
at 2:45 PM ::
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