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Sanders: Clinton should apologize to Iraq war victims

By HANNA TRUDO

Hillary Clinton should apologize to victims of the Iraq war, according to her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

In an interview with CBS News on Wednesday, the Vermont senator ripped Clinton’s vote to authorize the war in Iraq and her foreign trade policies as secretary of state, shifting attention away from a statement he made earlier in the week to the New York Daily News arguing that victims of gun violence should not be able to sue gun manufacturers.

“There’s a case currently waiting to be ruled on in Connecticut,” the paper’s editorial board asked. “The victims of the Sandy Hook massacre are looking to have the right to sue for damages the manufacturers of the weapons. Do you think that that is something that should be expanded?”

“Do I think the victims of a crime with a gun should be able to sue the manufacturer, is that your question?” Sanders responded.

“Correct,” the board asked.

“No, I don’t,” Sanders said.

The Daily News condemned those comments, as did family members of victims who lost their lives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut, as well as several prominent Connecticut Democrats who have endorsed Clinton.

Asked about the controversy by CBS, Sanders shrugged it off.

“Well I would say that I think that it is — we are all aware of what happened in Sandy Hook is a tragedy beyond comprehension,“ he said before quickly changing topics.

“But maybe Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the families who lost their loved ones in Iraq or Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the millions of workers in this country who lost their jobs because of the disastrous trade agreements that she supported,” he continued.

cazzerina1223

I agree. I think she should. I think it is necessary to admit fault. However, I don’t think that Bernie’s holier than thou, redistribute wealth is perfect either. Hillary has gotten people from both sides of the line to work together for the last twenty-five years. Not to mention she was selected as Secretary of Defense by Obama. Obviously she’s not as shady of a character as Bernie is making her out to be. A lot of people voted to go to war. A lot of Americans were and still are sold on it. And it was a drummed up, propagandized lie that swept the nation by storm and percolated through the heartland. It ended up killing a lot of kids, costing us a lot of jobs, and creating ISIS. It’s time to realize that as well.

The Right To Bear Arms

Always interesting to see the roundup of gun death statistics. It’s as if each year, the United States is taking advantage of our massive production of guns and exploiting it. It’s like our nation is unknowingly participating in a population control experiment via murder by gun. The NRA continues to promote an agenda of “we need more guns, not less” by making sure that they up their lobbying game, help sell more guns, but take zero percent of the responsibility when we have homegrown murderers wreaking more havoc on our nation than any tagged “terrorist.”

Churches, schools, movie theaters, malls, and places people gather have turned into new hotspots for gun crime. Yet it’s obvious that we need to arm teachers, pastors, popcorn poppers, and the people at SAKS so we can really “protect” ourselves. Because the Newtown shooter could have been stopped if one teacher would have just gone to the shooting range and then brought her gun to the school, dammit. It’s interesting that the teachers who gave their lives in that school and did their best to protect those children have to go through years of school and extensive background checks and interviews before they ever get a job. Why--because we want our kids with someone safe.

But conservatives and the NRA will tell you to, “Put gun deaths in perspective,” as if we need a perspective when, as a nation, we experience a devastating school, church, or theater shooting every year. It’s an abomination that we’re supposedly the most developed country in the world and we have to make an excuse for gun deaths because the gun lobby and NRA convinces America it’s not a problem, it’s merely perspective. Instead of creating a legitimate solution to get guns out of the wrong hands, the NRA and gun lobbyists have used it as a platform to sell more guns.

Gun deaths rank right up there with motor vehicle accidents in terms of deaths per year. And the argument correlating gun deaths to vehicular deaths is all too common. Well, if guns kill people then cars kill people! We need to get rid of cars! Oh yes. Such a great argument. When all else fails, be sure to suggest that the premise of a vehicle that is meant to help get people from place to place in a speedy manner is the exact same as a weapon that is meant to inflict harm and break through flesh. But remind me again, how after 175 school shootings since 2013, I need to make sure to put gun deaths in perspective.

A woman on facebook told me I was uneducated about guns because she lived on a farm and she witnessed groups of coyotes and wolves and she needed that AK 47 to take em down. Now, my parents also live on a farm and have used shotguns, 22s, etc. to take care of the same things--and worse. If you are protecting your cattle and you fire multiple rounds out of an AK, you’ll probably end up killing your own cattle too--unless you’re very gifted with the semi-automatic weapon. Which no one really needs unless you’re in the military.

Guns are killing machines. That is the baseline premise of a gun--protection is not. If your gun is locked up, it can’t protect you and if it’s out in the open it’s not safe. Just a few weeks ago a mom who bragged that she would let her toddler handle a gun because she herself was such an aficionado at gun safety was shot by that same toddler. Putting it into NRA perspective, if she would’ve only had a gun herself, she could have protected herself and shot right back.

We don’t need to put gun deaths into perspective. We need to get perspective on what’s really hurting America. Gun deaths, heart disease, and poverty are killing Americans daily. But we put it into perspective that guns protect and our biggest threat is ISIS and ebola. ISIS and ebola would need to kill about 630,000 more people to compete with guns, heart disease, and poverty. But it’s all about perspective, right?

#gun control #civil rights

What’s Become of the Quiet Classroom

Everyday I find it more and more interesting that we look to the teens to set and enhance trends. What the teens are demanding, they seem to get. There is little to no difference within the public education classroom. Computers, tablets, iPads, and personal cell phones have made their way into the classroom so our kids can be stimulated at all times. Their need to listen to music during assignments is set in their minds so concretely that taking it away and making them focus on the material itself can seem like torture for you and for them. No music, loud noises. Add music, slow but more peaceful environment.

And you, as a teacher, give in. If the headphones keep them from chatting and creating a more chaotic classroom, you’ll take the bad with the good. The static cling of 20 headphones has become the new quiet classroom.

With paper/pencil and textbooks becoming a thing of the past, students are more ready than ever to connect to their technology or to their best friend across the room. The question remains. What is the depth of knowledge the average student can immerse themselves in when they have cognitive functions being consumed by music, lyrics, a friendly conversation, and an educational piece. It’s troubling to think that the educational piece may rank last in importance and have to compete for brain time with a text, an NCAA basketball bracket, or Kanye’s latest masterpiece.

These are some of the decisions we make everyday because the students need to have mini-action movies happening in their brains in order to successfully complete some classwork. Many times, they’re not completing homework anyway. If we would grade every piece of homework---yeesh! The teenage brain can successfully send out a hundred texts a day, Netflix and chill, and make sure they’re caught up on The Walking Dead. Homework completion is like the middle school black hole. It’s handed out one minute and then disappears without a trace the next.

So you give in on the promise of peace. You provide the notes, the daily objectives, match it up to the common core standards, make up a group game, and divulge information on the assignment that you spent an hour and 45 minutes creating. Next comes the questions; Can we take notes on our computer, can we listen to music in at least one ear, do we get to access this on our phones, do we have to play the game? On and on it continues until your excitement about your deeply moving Socratic discussion seeps out into the hallway like a jaded ghost losing interest in his own haunting victim.

With the new educational trends, we’re letting our students (more and more) dictate the way we run the classrooms. We make sure to use computers, we allow their devices so they can find more ways to “educationally” connect to their learning. Movement and music and group work and cell phones have made their way into the room and now the quiet classroom has evolved into one the room of a hundred sounds.

So, everyday we make a choice. Do we allow group work and music and 700 clicks on the keyboard in hopes of quiet chaos or do we try stimulate their brains with old school techniques of note-taking, hands-on learning and prayers for silence?

We say that teenagers think they know everything with an (oftentimes) sarcastic mouth. Why then, are they allowed dominate the classroom trends?

#classroom #education #technology #teaching

micdotcom

Watch: Bernie Sanders talks Trump, marijuana and more on Kimmel

cazzerina1223

I like this. I think if you disregard the truth and the facts, you are bound to be on the wrong side of history.

ancientpeoples

Do you think that feminist theory should be used when analyzing topics of ancient history?

Why or why not?

cazzerina1223

Absolutely. It’s history that also needs to be told. We’ve been missing out on other parts of the story.

It is Time for Islam to Stand Up to ISIS: For Religion to Stand Up to Worst Practices

Another day goes by, another terrorist attack. This time, it was an international airport and main subway station in Brussels. When will these deadly assaults stop? The US, France, and Brussels are just the latest victims of a deadly terror attacks carried out by the Radical Islamic group, ISIS.

Although no spokesman for ISIS has come forward to claim the attacks (as of yet) there has already been trickle-down talk that they were responsible and will claim responsibility soon. Another attack on innocent lives. Another disagreement between a difference in religion and lifestyle has brought Brussels--and all the others who’ve shared similar pain--to their knees.

It is always so disheartening that religion--something that is supposed to make us reach out and help and love others--is constantly the reason that peoples around the world cannot stand each other. While bombs fly and kamikaze men flood into the nearest international communication location, we only breathe heavily and point a trembling finger at “those people” and “that religion.”

The promise of religion is a double-edged sword. The concept of afterlife presents a problem, both within Christianity and Islam. Being a central component the religions share, the afterlife has turned into the springboard for planning and justifying attacks on others. When this life doesn’t mean as much and your death is the magical passageway to your spiritual apex, is it any surprise that terror attacks in the name of lifestyle and religion are being carried out around the world?

If you’re killing for Allah or God and are promised eternal life after death, why should you have any qualms or reservations about the attack? This is where the people of the world--popes, priests, pastors, etc. included--needs to stand up and amend religion so that it, like everything else, evolves to create real-world solutions instead of exclusions. These exclusions are creating more and more opportunities for people to take lives (and justify it) in the name of religion. Their death is only the beginning of their glory in the afterlife.

Putting it simply, it is time for all of us to stand up against the worst practices of religion--afterlife, discrimination, false promises, etc.--and put them aside on a global scale so we can move forward in peace instead of fear.

Islam, it’s time to stand up. Stand up to the radical people that you say don’t represent Islam. They are representing their brand of Islam through the same book and same promises you are. The practices are from the same book just taken to the extreme. Modify your religion before the world discriminates and eradicates even more than they have.

Christianity, it’s time to stand up. Stand up to the radical thumpers that promote exclusion and discriminate against science, human beings, and reality. They, again, practice their teaching from the same old (pieced together) narratives you do. They are just taken to the extreme. Modify your religion before the world discriminates and takes a stance to eliminate you and your “power.”

It’s time to stop the religious extremism before these “peaceful” peoples end each other over the false promise of a rich afterlife. You end up in the ground providing nutrients and memories for those who live on, not on a golf course in the sky.

#Politics #islamophobia #Islam #Religion #Thoughts

While the Kids were Reading Jackson...

Today during my intervention class my students labored through a short reading of Andrew Jackson’s “On Indian Removal.” It was pretty amazing to watch them as they read and had to highlight important nouns, underline paragraph topic sentences, circle conclusions, and plug in their main idea formula in order to (try and) understand the main/central idea of the piece. After all this, for most of the students, the central idea was, “Indians are bad.”

During a 15 minute discussion over the work, the students referred to their impressions of Native Americans through recall of mainstream media examples. Two examples that were brought up made me flinch. One girl speaks up, “Well my parents watch Longmire and the Indians are horrible people on there.” Another said, “Well my parents said the Indians have casinos so they can make any sort of money.” Oh boy, I thought, what has living in a glazed-over historical society done to us and our kids?

Toward the end of the discussion, the students were starting to put pieces together that they had never even considered before. They began to slowly figure out how the situation unfolded even though the words were strongly geared toward white idealism. Many of the students were starting to really think and ask questions. I was loving it. They were underlining content and were very disturbed that President Jackson could so easily persuade Congress to remove an entire people off of their homeland.

But, as Jackson pointed out, “How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions?”

Yeah, that’ll about covers it.

#History #Main Idea #Language Arts #Education #civic education