Blog Talk Radio, Dallas, TX

My Friday radio talk with Silvio Canto Jr. on issues of national security and foreign policy.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/03/09/friday-national-security-foreign-policy-issues-1

My radio commentary on Butler on Business, WAFS 1190, Atlanta's Premier Radio Station on indoctrination in schools on UN Agenda 21. I come on at the 19 minute mark of the second hour.(March 8, 2012)
http://www.cyberears.com/audio_temp/15864.mp3

Food Justice Has Arrived

“Food is one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities.” Rush Limbaugh added to this quote from the February 21, 2012 article in the New York Times, “but not for long.” Limbaugh dedicated part of his March 6 show to Tracie McMillan, a political science major who wrote a book on nutrition entitled, “The American Way of Eating.”

McMillan decries the fact that the free market decides food delivery. She proclaims that, unless government controls food delivery and supply, food injustice will continue to dominate this country. She said, “Expensive food that took time to prepare, wasn’t for people like us,” meaning blue-collar families.

As a mom and wife, I disagree.  Food that takes time to prepare is cheaper than any boxed meals you can buy in the grocery store. Potato chips and other snacks, ounce per ounce, are also more expensive than nutritious foods prepared at home. The ingredients may seem more expensive initially, but the quantity prepared in the end is larger and feeds more people, allowing for refrigeration and freezing for later use. The price per meal is thus cheaper than any fast food or prefabricated food.

According to McMillan, average Americans are denied good and fresh food. The statement is disingenuous because poor families receive electronic food benefits cards, formerly known as food stamps. Currently, 43 million Americans are on food stamps, the highest number in any administration. Additionally, their children receive 2-3 free meals at school, which, thanks to Michelle Obama’s efforts, are quite nutritious.

There is nothing in the world that prevents any American, rich or poor, from purchasing fresh ingredients in order to prepare wholesome foods. Nobody twists their arms to buy potato chips, beer, candy, and boxed meals that are not as healthy as meals prepared at home. The average American household spends 15 percent of their income on food, one of the lowest percentages in the developed world.

The ultimate liberal goal is not a fair distribution of fresh food. The market distributes goods according to supply and demand and manufacturers distribute their products according to demand. The intent is to take away our freedoms. Food is now a variable of class struggle and a form of discrimination because “the poor and downtrodden are getting junk food while the snobs get fancy food.”

According to food police at school, your mom does not know what is best for you, your government does, following Michelle Obama’s nutrition dictates. Food and the distribution of food has become a social issue in the collectivist/socialist ideology. We must all be equal in the leftist view and the government must step in to regulate food distribution and delivery.

“Average, ordinary Americans, the 99 percent, are denied expensive food that takes time to prepare.” McMillan “stares at America’s bounty, noting that so few seem able to share in it fully and she asks: ‘What would it take for us all to eat well?’” (Rush Limbaugh)

“Food is one of the only base human needs where the American government lets the private market dictate its delivery to our communities.” Tracie McMillan is thus saying, “Capitalism and the private sector are discriminating against the average, ordinary American by not delivering him quality food.” Perhaps bringing in government food agents to check children’s boxed lunches in school as it happened in North Carolina recently would solve the quandary of proper food delivery and nutrition.

I should tell McMillan about basic economics, the price mechanism that assigns the highest prices to the goods in greatest demand and then allows individual consumers to pursue their own self-interests. Price acts as a rationing device. Available supplies are distributed to match different consumer preferences as well as possible. If a centrally planned economy, socialist or communist, rations food by distributing the same amount to everyone, then everybody ends up with less of everything, sometimes experiencing severe shortages. The price system or the capitalist system allows each consumer to set his or her own priorities. If the left wants equality, then efficiency goes out the window.

Central government planning was so bad under socialism/communism that we were issued rationing coupons and a black market emerged. Government did not know best, it created chronic shortages of food and starvation, and a depressed and gaunt population, fighting in long lines on a daily basis for the last liter of milk, loaf of bread, bones stripped of meat, pat of butter, pound of flour or sugar, liter of oil, or kilo of shriveled potatoes.

The capitalist economy allocates resources well - what to produce, how to produce it, and how to distribute the resulting goods, without any central direction from the government or concern for the public interest. Socialists/communists have predicted that such unplanned system would result in chaos. However, the socialist/communist economies degenerated into dismal failures and were rejected by the people while the capitalist economic system thrived. Even Karl Marx admitted,” Capitalism is the most powerful mode of production available.”

The price mechanism or Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” always ranks potential consumers of food in the order of the intensity of their preference for that food, as indicated by the amount they are willing to spend on it.

The logic of Economics 101 flies in the face of the left and its newest “food justice” platform. The left never lets logic deter them from their true agenda, taking away our freedoms to choose, installing social justice, environmental justice, now food justice, and completing the radical transformation of America into Fabian Socialism.

The Virginians and the Power Company

Today I drove to Richmond, Virginia, for an interesting hearing, approval to implement new demand-side management programs and two updated rate adjustment clauses, euphemisms for crony capitalism. Dominion Virginia Power, a public service utility, is the beneficiary, along with homebuilders, contractors, and environmentalists.

Demand-side resources (DSM) are programs imposed by Dominion Power and paid for with taxpayer dollars via grants from the Department of Energy and other federal bureaucracies:

Residential Lighting Program (bundling)

Low Income Program
Commercial HVAC Upgrade Program (duct testing, sealing, heat pump tune-up and upgrade,   energy audit, refrigeration)
Commercial Lighting Program
Air Conditioner Cycling Program
Commercial Distribution Generation (CDG)

Three hundred homes in Virginia received energy audits, duct testing and sealing. Thousands received compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) that release toxic mercury when broken. Some Americans claim adverse health effects when CFLs are in use.

The current administration did not issue any new coal power plants or nuclear power plants permits. The demand-side resources (DSM) programs provide Dominion Power with the excuse to forgo construction of new electric generation facilities.

Virginia General Assembly declared, “It is in the public interest to promote cost effective conservation of energy through fair and effective demand side management, conservation, energy efficiency, and load management programs, including consumer education.”

By 2022, retail customers must reduce energy consumption by 10 percent. In case you wonder who is going to pay for all these upgrades, bulbs, load controls, Smart Meters, education, tune-ups, energy audits, duct testing, sealing, it is the taxpayers. The nanny state must tell citizens what to consume, when, and how much.

The docket today, PUE-2011-00093, listed environmentalists, home builders, contractors, Sierra Club attorneys, Dominion Power attorneys, and a hundred concerned citizens who believed that the hearing would cover all aspects of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI).

According to the Division of Energy Regulation Senior Utilities Analyst, “Dominion received approval from the Commission to conduct an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) pilot program in several geographic areas within its service territory and has now installed AMI meters on all homes within those selected areas. The AMI pilot program is one of several Dominion demand-side management programs that was considered and approved.”

The analyst continued, “Dominion indicated that the efficiency of the program would be compromised if customers were allowed to opt-out and, further, that the Company was not aware of any conclusive and convincing evidence that advanced metering is casually associated with an increased incidence of detrimental health effects in humans.”

All contractors, homebuilders, environmentalists (Sierra Club), and other interested attorneys who brought into court 12 huge boxes of files, repeated the same canned statements about green energy, protection of the environment, of the planet, and sustainability of energy consumption, with little regard for human needs.

When concerned citizens came to the podium, one by one, the judge told them that the hearing was not about Smart Meters. Undeterred, most citizen testifiers broached the Smart Meter issue and their negative effect on health.

A firefighter described his wife’s condition, headaches, shaking, tremors, burning skin, brain issues, insomnia, constant nerve firing, and other symptoms that have appeared since the installation of their Smart Meter.

A couple in their eighties made an impassionate appeal to have 17 Smart Meters that were installed in the proximity of their apartment removed. The man was a WWII and Korean War veteran with peripheral neuropathy. With tears in his eyes and a tone of despair, he was rhetorically wondering what kind of country we live in. What happened to our freedom? Why are we treating Americans this way?

Dr. Charles Battig, an engineer and medical doctor, argued that Dominion Power’s “avoidance of building more power plants by imposing advanced metering technology may not be to the benefit of all its customers. The desire of Dominion Power to ‘reduce delivery voltage and reduce energy usage on distribution circuits’ could be reasonably accomplished by metering trunk lines, and thereby avoiding the micro-managing of each individual customer. Health and privacy issues would be greatly muted.”

Dr. Battig further challenged the utility company’s claim that the system was set up to benefit customers. Dominion power needs tens of millions of dollars of additional “revenue requirements” which will ultimately be paid by consumers. Virginia legislation allows for “enhanced rates of return” on renewable energy projects. Customers will pay via federal and state taxes by subsidizing these programs.

“Smart metering is promoted as energy saving, and by implication, money saving for the average consumer. However, legislation is in place to ensure that the power company does not lose revenue. “Decoupling mechanism is a legislated remedy already in place, and can lead to the situation wherein the utility customer who responds to the call for less energy use, eventually pays more for using less energy… use less, pay more.” (Dr. Charles Battig)

The judge interrupted Dr. Battig while he was making the point that FCC safety data on Smart Meters was not accurate as it only addressed tissue damage. A 100-page report from SAGE Associates of Santa Barbara, Ca, “Assessment of RF Microwave Radiation Emissions for Smart Meters” released on January 1, 2011 provided evidence for more health concerns in cellular mutation, cancer, and infertility.”

Dr. Battig asked the State Corporation Commission several non-rhetorical questions that remained answered. The three-panel regulatory commission remained silent while the twelve attorneys were smiling.

Did the Commission review such relevant documents, to safeguard the public in its approval process, when it allowed Dominion Power to conduct its smart meter pilot program?

Did the Commission study the different impacts on infants, the elderly, pacemakers, the addition of smart meter RF energy to pre-existing electric field environment of the user, the proximity of smart meters to the customer, or to customers who may live in a multiple family residence with a bank of such meters next to their bedroom or nursery?

Other citizens testified that their consumption of energy has decreased but the electric bill has gone up 17 percent. Some took issue with the government control of our electric usage, telling us what to do, deciding our needs, taking our freedom to decide away. 

John Quinn, a World War II and Korean War veteran, lamented with a lot of pain in his voice, “What is happening to the United States to let a company do that to their citizens? Why are my rights taken away? Why are they not removing these meters that are killing both me and my wife?”

Freddy Boisseau was concerned that, while temperature changes during peak demand are now voluntary, they may not be voluntary in the future. His wife’s medical condition was exacerbated by excessive heat.

Boisseau believed environmental groups’ testimony was based on a global warming hoax. In his opinion, they have lied, manipulated the data, and their computer models are flawed. He added that contractors were interested in efficient home improvement at the expense of other taxpayers through government grants. Environmentalists created this problem based on lies, deception, limiting our energy generating ability, stealing our property rights, individual rights, and ultimately controlling population growth. “The environmental movement is green on the outside and red on the inside.”

Sandi Brasili opposes Smart Meters and Dominion’s expansion because our country is broke.  She believes, we don’t have an energy shortage, we have a manufactured crisis, part of the global warming hoax currently under investigation by our own attorney general in Virginia She urged the Commission to keep rates honest and not waste taxpayer dollars on building improvements.

Jacqueline Whitmore believes that most people do the right thing on their own. It is wrong to assume that people need to be controlled or that they do not have any concern for the environment. Given the high cost of food and gasoline, people monitor carefully their electricity usage.  Americans should be able to decide how they want to spend their money.

The hearing concluded with many disappointed Virginians who came to discuss the health dangers of smart meters and the vulnerability of the Smart Grid. Instead, they heard canned lectures from attorneys, Sierra Club, environmentalist groups, homebuilders, and contractors with a huge stake in the crony payout about saving 10 percent in utility bills by 2022, after spending billions of taxpayer dollars to retrofit homes that would possibly reduce usage predicted on a computer model simulation.  

Planting the UN Flag on the Earth's Oceans

The World Oceans Summit in Singapore is the latest platform for United Nations World Bank to announce its latest assault on sovereign economic decisions and freedom. The oceans are suddenly very sick and “we need coordinated global action to restore our oceans to health,” says World Bank president Robert Zoellick.

UN has decided that we  need a new partnership to “confront the problems of over-fishing, marine degradation, and loss of habitat.”  To achieve this goal, Zoellick proposes $300 million in “catalytic finance” from a coalition of countries, scientific centers, NGOs, international organizations, foundations, and the private sector.

Knowledge, experience, expertise, and investment will be gathered around a set of agreed upon goals. His next sentence, reveals the creator of this new scheme, the United Nations with its Agenda 21.  Another $1.2 billion must be raised, he said, “to support healthy and sustainable oceans.” A “sustainable” anything is the buzzword for Agenda 21. The final total would be $1.5 billion in new commitments over five years. The group will reconvene in April 2012 in Washington, D.C. for further lobbying of U.S. funds.

Zoellick suggests that marine protected areas should be 5 percent not just 2 percent. After all, 12 percent of land is protected. The earth’s water mass is so much larger, they must control more.“The world’s oceans are in danger, “send out the S-O-S, we need to save our seas.”

One billion people in developing countries depend on fish and seafood for their primary source of protein and half a billion depend on fishing for their livelihood. Fishing represents 80 percent of export for Pacific Island states and coastal nations. It is abundantly clear that this new platform is another UN Agenda 21 initiative to spread the wealth from developed countries to developing nations.

If we consider the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which aims to control mineral and oil exploration in oceans, and oceanic passage under the United Nations control with its “Agency,” the Biosphere land preserves and corridors, population density controls, rezoning of living areas, restricted mobility through decreased usage of fossil fuels as a means of locomotion, and now control of fishing on the oceans, it is evident that United Nations wants to control every aspect of our lives.

All across the U.S. efforts are underway to pass Regional plans that erase boundaries between cities, counties, and states. “We are losing our ability to influence our government policies at the same time that we are being solicited for our opinion.” This is the Delphi method of manipulating and controlling groups that may protest. (Rosa Koire)

HB 430 will expand the "Regional Cooperation Incentive Fund" and allow the fund to offer an increased amount of government grant money to planning commissions that "consolidate or coordinate" with other local planners, thus regionalize.

Regionalization is a step towards globalization because it is an unelected, unaccountable layer of government in which municipalities become borderless groups. The unelected individuals will develop comprehensive plans of land use that supersede local laws and often disregard private property rights. This parasitic layer of government will then require the local community to bring their laws and zoning in line with their dictates.

There will be 11 Mega-Regions in the United States by 2050, including parts of Canada and Mexico. (www.America2050.org)  This planning is taking place to sign up and ensnare cities. (www.iclei.org) United Nations site is very explicit about it as well. (www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/  The adoption date of these Regional plans is middle of 2013 all over the United States.

The Regional plans are implemented in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, expanding public transportation, and funding low-income housing, with slight variations, depending on the area. High-density areas, restrictions on building because of urban sprawl, Smart Growth, reduced car usage, bike paths are some of the issues presented. The keystone of Mega-Regions plans are high speed trains.

According to the Post Sustainability Institute and its Executive Director, Rosa Koire, all Mega-Region “Plans give power to regional transportation and planning boards (MPOs and COGs) through federal and state fund disbursement. In all plans, housing and transportation are linked. In all plans, population projections are hugely inflated. All plans will go forward as planned. This is a planning revolution.”

Examples of plans around the country that include the word “vision,” a buzzword of UN Agenda 21, are:

-          One Valley One Vision (Santa Clarita Valley, Ca; Montana; Las Cruces, New Mexico)

      -          Nine Counties One Vision (Tennessee)
      -          One Region One Vision (New York, Indiana)
      -          Our Florida Our Vision
      -          One Bay Area (9 counties and San Francisco Bay area)
      -          Six Towns One Vision (Lycoming County)
      -          Five Counties One Vision (Minnesota)
      -          Four States One Vision (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas)

Rosa Koire urges citizens to refuse to accept these plans, as they are not the citizens’ plans; they are destroying the government and installing an unelected regime of the UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development/ICLEI (International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives).

Environmentalists are still pushing the global warming agenda although it has been revealed as inaccurate. Thirty thousand temperature readings all over the world have actually revealed a global cooling since 1997. There is just too much money to be made from cap and trade and carbon taxes charged to hapless citizens all over the world. 

The climate scientist Richard Lindzen of MIT declared that global warming is not backed by “settled science.” “Claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a Greenhouse Effect, and that man’s activity have contributed to warming are trivially true but essentially meaningless.”

The CO2 doubling in the last 150 years represents a change in temperature rise of seven or eight tenths of one degree Celsius. Our natural body temperature varies by eight tenths of one degree Celsius.

Richard Lindzen continued that the CO2 represented a two percent change in radiation. When the sun was 20-30 percent cooler, about two billion years ago, the planet’s temperature was the same.

Dr. Lindzen continued that the slide Al Gore presented, showing melting ice caps, disappearing icebergs, receding glaciers, and rising sea levels was published by the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1922.

According to Rodney Atkinson, if Lindzen is right, we will never be able to calculate the trillions that have been spent on the advice of ‘scientists in the service of politics.’”

Americans are either overwhelmed or blissfully unaware of the UN Agenda 21 highly successful attacks from all directions. The question remains, are we going to be effective in fighting back the Green Monster, this multi-faceted assault on our freedom and our way of life? Are we going to roll back and wait to be completely taken over?

A 70-Year Old Unit

Uncle John had brain surgery last July to remove a benign tumor. The fact that this type of surgery was available to him under the former communist socialized medical system was a miracle. The fact that he survived the surgery was another miracle. He was 69 years old at the time.

For two months after he emerged from surgery, he confused past and present, living and deceased, angry with himself that he could not remember important things, words, or recognize loved ones such as his children. He lived in his own confused world while my aunt nursed him back to health.

Although communism has long been gone, the corrupt medical system and the way they operated lingers. Around the clock nursing care is still provided by family, including food, linens, baths, and expensive meds bought in private or public pharmacies and administered in the hospital. Bribes to medical staff are expected even though salaries have risen from the paltry communist era when everyone was paid equally low salaries.

I visited him in September. It was my first stop after we left the airport. John was happy to see us even though he thought I was my daughter. During the two-hour visit, we noticed the milling about of patients and their families in the hallways, no doctor or nursing staff in sight. His wife was administering medication and his diabetic shots. His son brought him lunch from a nearby restaurant who had been preparing his meals for the last two months, following the prescribed diet.

The only indication that we might be in a hospital was the bed with rails, everything else looked like a motel room with sparse amenities. There was no indication of any sterilization and the common bathroom for the entire floor had no toilet paper, the windows were wide-open for all upper floors to see inside, the tub was filthy, and an elderly lady was doing her laundry by hand in the sink.

We tried to take the tiny 4-person elevator down to the lobby but it was out of order. I wondered how they transported patients up and down the stairs.  

Stray dogs were roaming around the hospital courtyard. The gate sentry was happy with his 5-euro mandatory bribe to let us into the hospital.

Images were flashing in my mind of the luxurious lobby of our American regional hospital, the gift and coffee shops, the spotless and shiny-to-perfection linoleum floors, the professional staff milling about, the comfortable rooms with private, disinfected, and well-stocked bathrooms, the nutritious food prepared with care and served three times a day, and round-the-clock expert care from the medical staff.

Do Americans really understand what socialized medicine provides? Do they really want to have what my Uncle John has under socialized medicine? Are they willing to give up the best care in the world they have in America right now? Why? Do they really believe Michael Moore’s lies about the “excellent and free” medical care in Cuba? Do they not understand basic economics that nothing is free, somebody has to pay for it? As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”

At some point, rationing of care and drugs kicks in, no matter how old the person is. Even briberies no longer work. The patient has to be placed on a waiting list, prioritized by age.

After a few months of improvement, John developed fluid on his brain. All progress reversed. This development required surgery and the placing of a shunt to drain the fluid. He was added to the waiting list for MRI and then another waiting list for surgery. Meantime, his condition worsened. He talked very little and slept constantly.

John had become a 70-year old “unit,” he was no longer a human being who needed immediate care. Palliatives were his only options after the age of 70 because his worth was deemed small by the medical “death panel.”

I suggested more bribes to the doctors and nurses in order to move his name up the list. It seemed to have worked. They moved up his MRI this week. He is having surgery next week. His life is in God’s hands and the skill of the doctors.

People used to speak of the golden age, traveling, and enjoying life upon retirement, now it is the fear of being killed by our fellow citizens who have lost their humanity and are dismantling our excellent medical care in the name of insuring more people, particularly those who are here illegally and should be cared for by their countries.

I do not know of any hospital in the U.S. who refuses emergency care to anybody, regardless of financial status or national origin. It is illegal and unethical to do so. Yet such rhetoric helped pass Obamacare. 

I do know doctors who have stopped taking government insurance. I also know that Tricare, medical insurance for our soldiers who sacrificed so much will sky rocket, while civilian government workers who sacrificed nothing for our country will continue to benefit from their unchanged stellar insurance.

People are fighting about contraceptives, ignoring the real issues, the loss of control over one’s health and body to an omnipotent government that can take all rights away on a moment’s notice. If we live long enough, we are all going to become “units” like Uncle John.

Common Core and Universal Design for Learning

I was having a cup of inflation-stricken chili that looked a few ounces smaller than before – the Michelle food-police with her holier-than-thou dictates of nutrition must have convinced the owners of the chain to change portion size while increasing the price.

I became privy to the loud conversation of three young women in their early twenties from the nearby table. One was bemoaning the lack of a raise in three years to her $44,000 a year teaching job – she had had enough and was going to look for another job. I was wondering if anybody sent her the memo that 25 percent of college graduates in her age group, 25 and younger, are unemployed and would gladly take her job.

High school teaching and a library science degree were the source of their displeasure and the list was quite long. Who decided that filing books in a library by the Dewey system is a science?

Dealing with a liberal education curriculum, demanding administrators, unruly students who challenge any authority and come unprepared to school every day, placating helicopter parents who hover at school all day, objecting to anything American, demanding progressivism, multiculturalism in teaching methodology, or parents who only care if their children have three free meals a day away from home, can be challenging. Complicating the problem is the lack of subject matter knowledge of some teachers and the political correctness required in the classroom. All can make someone’s life quite miserable at work.

Making only $44,000 in early twenties is certainly an outrage for young people in the Obama-entitled society.  After all, they were promised a six-figure salary by their college advisor and plenty of jobs in spite of their unemployable field of study. Such overt “social injustice” can only be rectified by confiscating wealth from the rich and distributing it to the young. It is a right now to have everything that someone else has, regardless of effort or age. Why wait and build up a career and experience when you can demand full rights here and now?

You can always take to the streets with the Occupiers and burn American flags, deface buildings, cars, and squat in the middle of a busy city or a beautiful park to make your demands known. If you are a nuisance to the taxpayers who must dodge your flea-infested camp daily on their way to work while they can no longer use the park they are paying for, and you cause millions of dollars in public property damage, so be it, America is rich and can afford it.

We no longer teach a common culture, common identity, common true history, or values such as hard work, charity, morals, virtue, and the rule of law. The new freedom among the youth is anarchy. Secular education and “green” environmentalism in support of mother earth has become the new religion.

Greek universities are offering protection to the young anarchists and rioters. If they make it to campuses, the police cannot arrest them without a warrant from the university presidents who, of course, refuse to issue them. Education is encouraging anarchy and lawlessness in Greece.

Goethe, a classical liberal, warned us that democracy is incompatible with liberty. “Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are psychopaths.” Political centralization would lead to the destruction of culture. (Hans Hermann Hoppe, Ludwig von Mises Institute)

Common Core national standards, another President Obama brainchild, will implement among schools a Race to the Top competition through federal grants. If states adopt his Common Core standards, they will be exempt from the onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates.

According to the Brookings Institution, “The empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American students’ achievement. The nation will have to look elsewhere for ways to improve its schools.”

The authority to create and set standards belongs to states and school districts, not the federal government. Better yet, parents should have the power to give their children the type of education that best suits their children’s needs and abilities.

The Department of Education does not know best – it paid two Washington, D.C. organizations, the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices and The Council of Chief State School Officers, to come up with the Common Core national standards. (Pioneer Institute)

According to Lance Izumi, author of “Obama’s Education Takeover,” the President “strong-armed the states into adopting these standards through a number of devices, principally through the Race to the Top competition through federal grants.”

Awards in Race to the Top $4 billion “historic” grant scheme will go to states “leading coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform.” It was authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

“Assessments have to be developed that are valid, support and inform instruction, provide accurate information about what students know and can do, and measure student achievement against standards designed to ensure that all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace.” (Race to the Top)

My translation is, dilute education, water down curriculum, force everybody into one “successful mold,” and receive an undeserved pass, a high school diploma and a worthless college degree. Exceptionalism is discouraged; poor students are rewarded, while achievers are punished.

In my 30 years experience as a teacher, the College of Education came up with many experimental programs that promised to be a breakthrough in education and ended up as another giant waste of taxpayer dollars.

“As the nation seeks to maintain our international competitiveness, ensure all students, regardless of background, have access to a high quality education, and prepare all students for college, work and citizenship, these standards are an important foundation for our collective work.” (Arne Duncan on Core Standards)

Searching deeper into the Core Standards, the true intent is clear, “all children can and should learn to high achievement standards.” Policymakers must “endorse, fund, and recognize assessment regimes that accomplish this goal,” Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning. Really? All children can learn to high achievement standards? Our minds, IQs, learning styles, and God-given talents are so equal now that everything is possible by government fiat?

Apparently, standardized tests “fail to produce a valid and reliable measurement of what significant minorities of students actually know, especially students with disabilities, English language learners or those from varied cultural backgrounds. Without accurate measurement, accountability systems are not only ineffective, they are unethical.” (Core Standards)

It will be a fascistic world in which every person will be forced into a government-dictated and enforced, dumbed-down mold, where everybody is equally intelligent, equally capable, equally trained, equally able, and equally educated with a diploma on the wall that is not worth the paper with the fancy intaglio printing.