I’m going to start off my thoughts tonight with a little addition to last nights thoughts – BECAUSE THERE WERE 146 “unique visits” to this site yesterday. I have no idea (as I’ve mentioned before) how anyone has found my little private “journal” in the middle of nowhere – but’s it’s pretty cool for me, a 6th grade teacher, to see the traffic. It’s my experience as a 6th grade teacher that I want to use as I give President Obama and the Democrats a bit of advice prior to getting on to my discussion of one of the books I’ve just finished reading (and I really do hope to keep this one short :o). OK, one of the first things you learn as a teacher is that it’s more important for students to respect you than to “like” you. In fact, until they respect you there’s not much hope that they will like you. I often joke with my students about how I’m “everybody’s favorite teacher,” knowing full well that if the day comes when they actually agree with me I will need to regroup and change what I’m doing. Pushing them a bit farther than they want to go – and finding that “fine line” between pushing too hard – is what leads to their success and ultimately to the teacher’s feelings of success. That is, there is no success if the students aren’t “molded” and they don’t “grow.”

Transfer this philosophy to politics – and believe me, I see a lot of parallels. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A CLEAR VISION OF WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH to have any chance for success in both professions. YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT – this is where I see one politician after another coming up short – DON’T SAY ONE THING AND THEN DO SOMETHING ELSE! I see this happen in school all the time. Take for example this past year. Mid year I got a student who had been essentially “ran out of town” from another school (keep in mind this is an 11 year old boy). To give you an idea of what the challenges were, the boy started throwing the “N” word around on his first day in my classroom (his father is African American, which apparently made him feel it was OK – which, of course, it wasn’t).  For the first three or four weeks at our school he refused to even lift a pencil, let alone finish any assignments. However, I discovered that the boy had a HUGE “upside” if we could just make the right connection. Unfortunately, the administrator of the school seemed to take this as becoming “friends” (I guess, that was the best I could figure out) instead of doing what I believed (and still believe) was the right thing to do, and that was to “draw” some clear BLACK AND WHITE boundaries and then hold the boy to them. I actually got the student functioning to almost a passing level, but the behavior never improved because the administrators couldn’t force themselves to follow through on their “promises.” Like, “One more referral and you’re long term suspended.” Instead, there was one more “one more chance” after another – until I had to confront my own Principal toward the end of the year and point out that this kid would be ruined if we didn’t stop enabling his behavior – which was his TOTAL problem. Needless to say, at the end of the year, this student’s tenure in my classroom didn’t feel like a success, because he was never forced (by us) to face up to what he was actually doing wrong.

I translate this directly to President Obama and to the Democrats in Congress – who seem to be afraid to DRAW CLEAR BLACK AND WHITE LINES WITH REPUBLICANS – defining non-negotiable boundaries. I mean, it should be easy for them because we have such an easily understood document in the Constitution which has held us in such good stead for over 200 years. But, for some reason they are acting just like my previous Principal was with our students – enabling clearly WRONG (and in the case of the previous Bush administration clearly ILLEGAL) behavior. The result of this doesn’t make the behavior go away. Thinking that “Well, they’re gone now, if we just bide our time everyone will just forget about all this stuff and we can “move forward” – IS FOOLISH THINKING. I have been almost SHOCKED to see this type of thinking coming from President Obama. In the case of the Principal I mentioned I believe all the “mandates” coming down on him from “above” caused him to think that the other stuff was more important – and thus, the “eye comes off the ball” and problems begin to magnify.

In President Obama’s case, I believe his rationalization for “moving forward” is the tremendous amount of challenges he inherited causing him to think that his Presidency will rise or fall on how he handles them. However, this kind of thinking tends to lead to, in my view, the “more of the same” approach to solving problems. In education, due to the tremendous amount of “politics” being crammed down the throats of virtually every administrator in America, we’ve evolved to the point where every year there’s a new “best way” of doing things. We’ve allowed ourselves to get caught up in the “accountability” nightmare that has turned our corporations away from employee first businesses to shareholder first businesses. The party of “family values” has led us into a spiraling “black hole” that is destroying the traditional family values of this great nation. And, by “latching on” to the “moving forward” thinking philosophy we are in essence accepting this crumbling family structure in America as being OK (along with the other stuff I’ve been pointing out for so long). I’ve been trying to say for months – STOP – clean up the mess you inherited FIRST – then take the time to figure out what would truly be “progress.” Don’t tell me that Wall Street is moving upward again, therefore everything is OK – the recession is over – I, FOR ONE, AM NOT BUYING THAT LINE OF THINKING.

Now, I’m approaching 62 years old and I’m not so stupid as to think that I was going to agree with President Obama on everything – BUT THIS IDEA THAT WE CAN’T “LOOK BACK” IS RUINING MY IMPRESSION OF OUR NEW PRESIDENT! His great speeches are beginning to be no more than a bunch of words to me – in fact, I’m getting to the point where I can’t stand to listen to them. You’ve heard the saying “All show, but no go” – Well, that’s how I’m seeing President Obama. At one point I started to write a book and I titled it “lunch detention” – how a sixth grade teacher would deal with the misbehavior of the Bush administration. It never got off the ground, but I can tell you that I COMPLETELY BELIEVE that my approach would be much more beneficial to the restoration of this nation’s “soul” than the approach Obama is taking. If you read my last night’s post (or many of the others) you know that I can real off a long list of criminal activity that still has not only been not prosecuted, BUT NOT EVEN INVESTIGATED. I mean, even sixth grade students could tell that Alberto Gonzales was an pathological liar when he was testifying in front of Congress a couple years ago – yet, still, nothing has been done about it – and obviously nothing will be done about it (in fact, I just heard that he was hired as a Law Professor at Texas Tech University – what does that tell you? John Yoo, a professor at Cal, Berkely – I mean what kind of lawyers are we looking at in the future?).

And, of course, from an international standpoint, the refusal to hold our leaders accountable for clear WAR CRIMES is beyond my ability to believe. I have been disappointed in my government many times in my lifetime, but I’m starting to feel that this will be the BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT! I voted for Obama, I sent him money, I campaigned for him – I remember, my enthusiasm was tempered when he voted for the FISA legislation last year, but I told myself that he probably had an understandable reason for doing so (I wrote him, and one of his staffers wrote back assuring me he would “fix” the FISA bill once in office). But, since Obama has taken office he seems to be moving closer to where President Bush was than following the path I had understood him to set. I believe, unless there is a stark change, Obama will slowly loose his popularity with the “Progressive” movement – and, I hate to say this, but I’m seeing the kind of “hunkering down” traits that I saw with Bush – that is – the inability to admit mistakes and the tendency toward MORE secrecy instead of less. Combine this with the inability, unwillingness, or lack of courage to face up to the Republicans – and you have a potential major disaster on your hands – I TRULY HOPE I’M WRONG – but, so far, most of my greatest fears regarding President Obama, seem to be coming true.

I don’t seem to be able to write short posts, and tonight I wanted to reference the book “Three Cups of Tea” (framing my comments with the above sixth grade advice to our President) which details the actions of Greg Mortensen as he has been working In Northern Pakistan and Afganistan for the past 15+ years building schools for poor children (mainly girls) in an effort to promote peace through education. Please, if you want a good read, READ THIS BOOK! In fact, Amazon donates a percentage of their profits to the schools the book is about. The relevence of this book to me, is how this incredible man builds relationships right in the heart of the country where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are located – the very rugged northern communities of Pakistan. What you learn from reading this book is that these people (both Shia and Sunni Muslims – with a few other sects thrown in) just want to be respected. They are very poor and they are very proud – most of the different tribes have been in these areas for hundreds and hundreds of years. Mortensen’s actions are a stark contrast to our government’s actions – and the results, in both cases, are predictable.

I bring this book up, because along with all the “enabling” of Republican behavior by President Obama, the continuation of the Bush administration policies in Iraq and Afganistan are going to ruin a great opportunity that Obama has to change the mentality of the people in that region toward us, and to change the mentality of the people in our country toward them.  And, this region of the world is TREMENDOUSLY important to the entire world at this point in time (again, thanks to GW Bush).  This idea of throwing more and more troops into Afganistan and killing more and more people (many of whom are innocent civilians, including women and children) through Predator strikes and other air strikes – is what is fueling the flames of extremism. Our own response to 9/11 (invading Iraq) has been the single most effective recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups, and we seem to be continuing along the same course. No one seems to have the guts to say “The bus is headed in the wrong direction – we need to get out of the bus, and get on one headed in the right direction.” The people of this region refer to us as “infidels” because of the huge difference in lifestyles – they really don’t want what our culture offers – and, of course, there’s a lot about their culture that we don’t want – but, the reality is – the possibility of peace exists – WE JUST NEED SOME REAL LEADERSHIP! Obama broke the ice by reaching out to the Muslim communities around the world with his rhetoric – but, believe me, THEY’LL SEE RIGHT PAST THE HOLLOW RHETORIC – they might be illiterate (in many cases) but, they’re NOT STUPID!

So, what I’m saying tonight is that I’m really looking for some strong leadership from President Obama – and I’m trying to give him a little sixth grade advice on how to go about it (and, I’m feeling like he doesn’t have much time to change HIS behavior – or his support base is going to begin shrinking rapidly, and then he will be in trouble – because it will be too late then to go after the Republicans). OK, so here’s the advice – First, regarding the “mess” you inherited: Clean it up before you “move on.” For starters (and you can do this somewhat covertly) get your Justice Department going on investigations of Bush/Cheney et al – and make sure that everyone knows this is happening – have Attorney General Holter APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR – THE GUY FROM CHICAGO (A REPUBLICAN) WOULD BE OK WITH ME – and make sure there are no people immune from this prosecution – PERIOD. Next, take another look at the so-called “stimulus bill” which included a meaningless tax cut for people like me – admit there wasn’t enough stimulus in the bill, and get another bill underway that is actually aimed at creating real paying jobs for our unemployed workers – AND JUST TURN A DEAF EAR TO ALL THE REPUBLICAN WHINING – YOU DON’T NEED THOSE PEOPLE! Then, to show us all that you’re really serious about the deficit – invoke a tax on the sale of gasoline, remember the people can only pay so much for gas, at a cerain point the price causes useage to go down – so more of the price might as well be taxes – and you can raise a lot of money for some of the needed projects that will transform this economy away from Wall Street and back toward Main Street – I’d say that 20 cents per gallon should raise a lot of money (I’d be OK with 50 cents per gallon) and FINALLY, pull our troops out of Iraq and change our policy in Afganistan from a military one to a humanitarian one – and, really the Karzai government probably has to go – that might be a bit complicated (even causing us to pull out initially) – but start treating those people over there with respect and quit killing all those innocent civilians! President Obama, do the right thing and listen to a sixth grade teacher before it’s too late! (so much for keeping it short :o)