by Duane Campbell
Bill Whalen of the Hoover Institute recounts
the difficult issues of riots in our cities and then blames Democrats and
public school teachers for the problems. “Officials can no longer ignore
Oakland riots.” ( Sac Bee Viewpoints, May 8)
What Whalen doesn’t say is that
the continuing economic crisis and joblessness among working people-
particularly the young, along with mass incarceration and the school to
prison pipeline has left many urban areas- including Oakland- islands of
despair, with a drug economy, gangs and nihilism. Add in
cases of police assault these islands may explode.
Readers should know that the Hoover
Institute is one of several conservative “think tanks”. They fund
advocates, often posing as scholars, to write advocacy pieces and semi news
items to advance their political positions. They also provide staff and public
relations advocates to get their pieces placed in news papers and television.
The problem of urban riots
is not only the police- although they have a role. The police are the
enforcement arm of a brutal and oppressive system. It is understandable
that police get blamed, and they should be held accountable when they use
oppressive police tactics. However, we should recognize that the
police are only the enforcement arm of exploitive crony capitalism.
The police are enforcing the rules.
Instead of dealing with the causes of
the violence, Whalen uses the crisis to promote one of his favorite subjects –
blaming teachers and their unions.
He is off track assigning blame for
poverty and inequality. He assumes, falsely, that changing California
laws for public school teachers can solve the problems of minority youth
in cities such as Oakland.
I cannot post the response piece
by myself and Seth Sandronsky from the Sacramento Bee today because
the Bee tightly restricts reprinting permissions.
Whalen writes: “But it’s state lawmakers who
have the power to liberate inner-city children by improving public schools. And
that won’t happen until the Democratic majority in the Legislature has the
courage to buck the teachers’ unions and do what’s responsible – such as
changing tenure rules and offering school choice. “
See the Bee article piece here.
In the online version they do include good
photos.
Advocating for more school choice
Whalen makes an absurd claim- blaming teachers and unions. Public
schools, teachers and their union lobbying efforts at the state Capitol,
have zero impact on the supply of jobs with livable wages in California. See
the Forbes
report: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasavchuk/2015/03/04/california-has-more-billionaires-than-every-country-except-the-u-s-and-china/
Tenure rules and unions did not cause these
social extremes. Its solutions require us to go to the root of poverty,
inequality and an oligarchy.
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