There is a certain expectation that a new president’s inaugural speech will unite the nation and present a vision of a better future for all.
Ever surprising, Trump used his inaugural speech to continue the dark and divisive themes of his campaign. Things are terrible, and he alone cane save us.
George Will, the conservative columnist, called it the most dreadful inaugural speech ever.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/20/a-most-dreadful-inaugural-address/
In his speech, Trump took a swipe at America’s public schools, saying they deprive students of “all knowledge.”
The new White House website removed the page devoted to civil rights advances and the page about LGBT rights, but added a page advertising Melanie trump’s jewelry.
And this is the the new Twitter picture of our angry president:
A professor of history at the University of California at Davis reminded the world that the term “America First” was embraced by Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. in the 1930s.
As E.J. Dionne wrote in the Washington Post, this was a very ominous Inauguration Day in modern history.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The banner on that tweet has been confirmed as 2009…note the sunshine
Ryan Collay Director Education by Design Former SMILE director OSU
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Yes, the Washington Post commented that the picture came from Obama’s first inauguration. One interested me was that Trump chose a picture of himself scowling. Why?
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He didn’t smile the entire time. Does Trump EVER smile?
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Strong Man Putin Face?
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Greg Pallast wants this shared. Found it on Truthdig… this Trump Inauguration should never have been a “Trump” one!
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_best_democracy_money_can_buy_donald_trump_stole_the_election_20170120
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Dr Ravitch
While I would agree that things are ominous I am wondering where you got your information about the website having Melania’s jewlrey advertised? We must all be cautious about potential fake news…
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Source: The Washington Post
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The reference is in the W.H. web site under the gold digger’s (that was PC) biography. With reference to QBC network or HSN.
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To fans of this site the one of the most ominous parts is the reference to “an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge,” He obviously doesn’t think any more resources should be directed to a sector already “flush with cash” and perhaps more importantly we all know where he wants to flush all that cash – into the pockets of himself and his cronies.
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My school district is “flush with cash” as it is supported by one of the wealthiest communities in the country. Fifteen miles down the road, however, there are almost no libraries in the public schools. It is much too easy to make numbers say what you want them to say.
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Remember that famous quote attributed to Willie Sutton, the bank robber?
To wit: why did he rob banks? “Because thats where the money is.”
Well, apparently that ill-intentioned (and ludicrous) bit about “an education system, flush with cash” is a dog whistle to the folks spearheading corporate education reform.
As if public schools in particular aren’t in such dire straits already…
But for those in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$? Trump is your kind of guy!
😎
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School systems are flush with cash. However, when you have the Director of this and Coordinator of that working downtown sitting on their asses with the inability to describe what their job duties entail on a day to day basis therein lies the problem. My former District has a three billion annual operating budget yet they can’t afford to pay their teachers a living wage. When I quit I had thirteen years experience and was making $43,000 only $3,000 more than a teacher with zero years of experience. The funny thing is head custodians in my former District make $55,000 which is salary that is equivalent to the salary of a teacher with twenty years experience. The money is there, it is just being siphoned off by District cronies who have zero impact on the process of education before it ever reaches a student or teacher.
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The Real One:
I apologize for not making myself clear.
Donald Trump translated into standard American English: the “education system” is “flush with cash” for the taking by those daring [immoral? shameless?] enough to steal from the classroom and teachers and students etc. in order to swell the bank accounts of a tiny group composed of the heavyweights and chief enablers and enforcers of corporate education reform.
😎
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Charles,
Trump is a man who has billions in DEBT. He won’t release his tax returns so no one can find out if he owes billions to Russian oligarchs. He leased the Old Post Office Building near the White House, and turned it into a Trump Hotel. However, the lease says clearly that NO GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL may have any financial interest in the hotel. The GAO warned that he had to give up the lease. He hasn’t. Why not? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
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If people are going to cite history, can they please put facts in context? There were some pro-Nazi types in the America First group of the 1930’s, but the vast majority of its support came from isolationists from across the political spectrum. The America First mindset disappeared completely after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war on the United States a few days later.
This professor is guilty of the Genetic Fallacy, defined by Wikipedia as follows:
“The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins or fallacy of virtue[1]) is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on someone’s or something’s history, origin, or source rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.”
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“context”: The most prominent leaders of the America First Committee were Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh, both anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizers. Yes, there were other, primarily pacifist, isolationists who were members. But, getting back to “context,” if you had been paying attention to this election, you would have known that the Donald Trump campaign played a dangerous game of footsie with fascists–American, Russian, and Austrian–to garner support from their adherents and sympathizers. Even David Duke, who Donald disavowed weakly and late, today tweeted “We did it! Congratulation [sic] Donald J. Trump President of the United States of America.” Steve Bannon is the de facto leader of the American fascist movement and is Donald’s closest White House advisor. It is not at all a leap of faith to understand that when Donald uses the term “America First,” he and his advisors like Bannon and Flynn (who do not need congressional approval and would very likely not get it if required) know exactly what they’re doing. They are using tried and true code language to their most nefarious of supporters. How’s that for “context”?
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I’m at least as informed about the recent election as you are, and I know the context in which Trump used the term America First. The vast majority of trump supporters have no idea that America First was a slogan used in the 1930’s to promote isolationism; it’s effective today as shorthand for trade policies that don’t result in massive layoffs of American workers. Bernie Sanders and Trump are quite close on the trade issue, and Sanders used to say much the same things about the negative impact of massive low-skilled immigration on blue-collar citizens . Likewise for Paul Krugman, the NY Times editorial board, Hillary Clinton, Nicholas Kristof, and many other prominent liberals. Admit it: your exclusively left-wing news sources never informed you of these facts. You now know; you’re welcome.
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I see reading comprehension is an issue as well. I specifically noted that the “America First” reference was specific code language for his fascist sympathizers and adherents. I agree with your “vast majority” characterization, but based on what I have seen, read and personally observed, few of them have historical context (there’s that word again) about much of anything. Now you can go back the American Spectator and Breitbart News to confirm your fallacies and help Make America 1850 Again.
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The vast majority of all Americans, probably at least 95% and all across the political spectrum, don’t know that America First was a slogan used by isolationists in the 1930’s. History is poorly taught in most public schools, and even most college graduates would stare blankly if you asked when the slogan America First was used prior to Trump’s ascendancy.
Just some of my news and opinion sources: The New Republic, National Review, the Nation, the Weekly Standard, Real Clear Politics, and 200+ serious history books I’ve read over the last 20 years. What non-left wing sources do you read to avoid the in-the-bubble problem? (obviously none) Do you ever cordially discuss anything with people who don’t agree with you?
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Not when people dismiss or justify code words meant to damage our social fabric. You’d think we’d find some common ground since we, according to you, are among the 5% who know the source of “American First.” I choose not ignore it.
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I doubt that Trump knows the history of the term America First, and if he does he’s not using it as pro-fascist code. I’d bet my life that 99+% of people, even very well-informed people who detest Trump, think that he refers to economic populism (trade policies) and quasi-isolationist foreign policies when he says America First. I know the history, I’ve heard Trump say America First many times before today, and I’ve never believed that it is code for pro-fascist. If that slogan were widely believed to be pro-fascist, no politician would dare say it. In 2017, for 99+% of people, America First does not have the connotation that you ascribe to it
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In the spirit of lowering the temperature of the heated rhetoric, and perhaps we will just have to agree to disagree, just to take three of many examples, do you think the verified fascist contacts and history of his most influential advisor, the verified contact between Flynn and an Austrian fascist politician whose party has a formal relationship with Putin, and David Duke’s enthusiastic advocacy among his supporters on Donald’s behalf have ANY connection to his use of “America First”? I agree with you, as a rhetorical device, it was aimed at his supporters who have economic resentments and frustrations. My point is that two messages were sent. Like the nose rubbing in the movie The Sting, part of that message was not meant to be understood by everyone. But it was intentionally used to send a message to a fascist fringe. I will even grant you that Trump may be ignorant of it. I strongly believe that Bannon was the source of the quote and that he (and Flynn, at a minimum) knew exactly what he was doing. According to the article cited above, the Anti-Defamation League agrees with me. American fascists have refined the use of code words for political purposes.
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Greg and John, maybe I missed something, but I think you agree.
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In summary and last thoughts on this topic. The idea that Trump says America First as pro-fascist code is fever swamp thinking. Ask 1000 people in a statistically valid poll what Trump means by that phrase, and you’ll hear some comment from 995 of them relating to trade policies and/or quasi-isolationist foreign policies, and plenty of agreement with Trump, including from many, many Bernie Sanders supporters. The number of people who rally behind America First as pro-fascist is far too small to be significant. America First has a different meaning for the general public of 2017 than it had for the general public of the 1930’s. Trump’s trade and foreign policies are fair game for criticism, but this type of petty criticism hurts the credibility of the accuser and harms Trump not in the least.
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John Webster
I have been involved in the movement to stop TPP since at least 2013. Have been to lectures by Lori Wallach of Global Trade Watch.
Contributed to and gone to demonstrations against fast track. Made hundreds of calls to Congress and the White House , have grabbed the phone from other workers and given their information to their congressman . You would be surprised how many people don’t realize that the intern who answers the phone goes to take a dump just like they do and are completely unable to string two words together when calling their congressman’s or Senator’s office. Anybody who has been on this blog has seen me say on many occasions that “Obama was waving a red cape in front of a ragging bull in the Mid west with big black letters TPP.
I am a recently retired member of a very large construction trade union. The quintessential blue collar worker. Guess what this is not about jobs affected by trade except for a very few. No construction worker in NY ever saw a factory. No suburban housewife on long Island ever saw a factory. There hasn’t been a factory in North East Pennsylvania in 3 decades. Most of those who voted for Trump could barely tell you how those factory job losses affected far greater parts of the economy from office services to engineering… …
As I just told a worker who worked for me and called to pat himself on the shoulder that Trump is now President . You hate Blacks more than you love your pension ,healthcare and high wages. Only in not such PC language,.right before I hung up the phone on him.
Make America Great again translates to Make America White again for the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters .
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You may be right, Diane. You know how it is with us 1 percenters. We grouse over every intellectual penny.
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John Webster said: “History is poorly taught in most public schools, and even most college graduates would stare blankly if you asked when the slogan America First was used prior to Trump’s ascendancy.”
That’s a sweeping accusation to make against most US public schools and based on some anecdotal evidence. JW sounds like Trump and most of the anti-public reformers who hate public schools. Sorry, I’m not buying that history is poorly taught in most public schools.
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Joe,
I asked some 9th graders who the president was when Pearl Harbor was attacked. They had no clue. I’ve been asking students history questions for years. I’ve had high school students tell me Canada is a state. ARGH.
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Mamie Krupczak Allegretti
I suspect that question is more relevant to my generation, than it is to young people today . I would also guess that those children were taught that sometime before they graduated HS and would remember that for quite some time afterwards.
So here is one for you and you might be forgiven for not knowing the answer, there would be good reason.
What was the largest battle fought in this country since June of 1865?
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Add this, people in the 1940s probably knew that answer .
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John, not trying to be confrontational here, but I spent more than two years of my life from 1989-91 closely monitoring David Duke when he was at the peak of his popularity in Louisiana, when he was in runoffs to become a US senator and governor. I went to many of his rallies, some with more than 4,000 rabid supporters. If they can recruit 5 true believers out of every 1000, they consider it a victory because they take a very long view (it only took one Timothy McVeigh to make a statement to the nation). Twenty six years later, the agenda he promoted–which was characterized as far right looney tunes then–has become the core agenda of the national Republican Party. He hasn’t changed, the party moved toward his ideas. When you take this fascist connection lightly, you do so not only at your peril, but our nation as well. The reason I get so passionate about this is because of my family’s history in Germany and my experiences in seeing up-close what American fascism is and what it is becoming.
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In my kindergarten / first grade levels, history instruction revolves mainly around Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Last year after reading aloud a biography of George Washington, a first grader posed a question, “Why was George Washington always riding horses?” (Hint: He did not own a car.)
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Few people here, or anywhere, have gathered enough years to have as long memories as I. As a small child, my parents would have me listen to the Catholic priest, Father Coughlin, talk on the radio about America First. He was a self avowed neo Nazi and his diatribes on weekend mornings were terrifying as he made calls to action with America First and their joined partner, the German-American Nazi Bund, in NYC.
I had no idea as to a frame of reference, with the wildly engaging shouting coming from our wooden radio…but then my father would take me to the Trans Lux Newsreel Theater to see the stacks of naked dead bodies piled high out side of the Nazi crematoriams…and he would admonish me that these were are European relatives, our family members…and that this COULD happen in America, if and with the followers of America First taking over.
It is all very clear to me now when I listen to Donald Trump, how this could indeed by our New Normal right here in River City. Right here in Los Angeles, in NYC, in Chicago, in Roanoke, in Kansas City, in Detroit, in Dallas…if people sit quietly while those military Trump surrounded himself with this morning follow his directions, as well they would under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, enforced by an unknowing 43 (for the first time since the Civil War) and reinforced by 44, with no foresight what a dictator 45 could be.
But now we know that no scenario in our time of reality TV is too far fetched to be only fantasy. It is our here and now.
I watched all the hearings, with all the liars and crooks being absolved by the Right (but actually the very WRONG) majority ‘side of the aisle.’
Our system is tantamount to failed as this fascist, with his overdressed nude model wife, and surrounded by his family clones, take charge of your and my America. I focused on the faces of Obama, Carter, and Laura Bush as this false god stood saying empty words to ignorant supporters, and all three had the same expression as they held back tears…sheer horror. I could not hold back my own tears.
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Thank you for sharing, Ellen. I couldn’t watch today, just read and saw short clip Joel shared (which cannot be made up). Your last paragraph hit me hard.
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Ellen, I could not bring myself to watch. My loathing for this man is visceral. Something inside me says, “tyrant, demagogue, fascist, greedy, insecure, never satisfied, needs more power.”
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Quick. Give me a slogan for the march in Boston tomorrow. I’m a special education teacher. Appalled by devos.
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Dump DeVos.
DeVos doesn’t care about kids.
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DeVos Devalues Children
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Divorce DeVos.
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GregB
The Facebook version was a couple of seconds longer with him railing about corrupt Washington and perhaps this belongs on the list of demagogue videos. But apparently plagiarism runs deep in the uneducated fascistic Trump camp, caught in their own web again .
Good for a laugh on this bleak day.
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Give ’em Hell tomorrow! And be sure to educate your neighbors about the education issues that bring us together.
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On that note my favorite question to friends and acquaintances is are your schools failing. Of course the answer usually comes back yes. Till you ask them why, at which point most realize that is the answer they are expected to give. Our failing schools that the Dumster assaulted again today are not the same ones that his voters send their children to.
And yes Greg before this election my overwhelming focus in most of my posts and emails was education. Because I saw it as the front line in the assault on American workers. Starting with those sugary posts from Exxon and Chevron about failing American schools . Back in 2011. An assault very similar to other Business Round Table assaults. Really Rex cares about children , Walmart cares about Children . Vomit time
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Some inspirational music to help you march:
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The schools are “…flush with cash.” Wait…what? How did everyone involved with public education miss that? Diane, my great sadness in all this coverage about DeVos is that more people NOT involved professionally in public education should be SCREAMING in rage about her nomination, diverting public tax money to non-public schools, I could go on… Even if someone favors the new leadership, how can constitutional prohibitions be thrown out the window? This needs in-depth coverage on 60 Minutes, ASAP!
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You public school teachers with your vacation homes, yachts, and club memberships! Wish the rest of us could live on Easy Street like you do.
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Got to get up at 4 so this is it .
The other call of this evening was to a friend who just got off of the phone with a 54 year old woman, who just got a job as a union teacher here on long Island. Guess who she voted for ?.
Time to make America smart again.
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The Democrats have not really been listening to labor and economic justice issues for – what – decades? . . . And the mainstream media has not been really reporting out on it . . . Yet the former has the nerve to say the GOP is oppressive to America (TRUE THAT!) while they have been equally oppressive as well, just with a lot more subtly and polish.
The media criticizes Trump and warns the public about Trump suppressing the fourth estate. Well, TRUE THAT as well, but when has the media ever been reporting on demonstrations, protests, boycotts, and labor issues in a fair and balanced way for the past 40 years?
The Democrats and GOP: Polished-refined-civil-tone-of-voice-plutocratic-aristocratic-oligarchical Polly calling the crude-vulgar-mean-spirited-plutocratic-aristocratic-oligarchical kettle black.
In the end, we, despite any labels we give ourselves, all lose. Divided we vote, divided we hate, divided we feel empowered, but divided we ALL ultimately get screwed by the overclass, which comprises the majority of both parties . . . . and divided is exactly what the overclass needs from us.
And THAT’s why Trump is the POTUS . . . .
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Nice work, Ponderosa. You’ve been spreading the lie that teachers hate knowledge these days. It’s a good bet that Trump’s advisors have been reading your comments on Diane’s blog. If not, where did they get that sound bite?
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I don’t get it, Icompleat. Rendo seems to be saying that both parties are no good. I have read in the past that he never has or will vote for the GOP and has only voted Democrat. Why the objection to what he is saying. I think he’s right . . .
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For the record, I did not vote for Trump. I am afraid of him and his cabinet.
I have never said that teachers hate knowledge; they thrive upon it, but like everyone else, teachers can well afford to be far better informed about politics and voting records. From that, one can REALLY see the political orientation of an elected official.
I’m just saying that Democrats have rightfully paid attention to identity politics for the longest time and should continue to do so, but they have not focused on labor rights and economic justice for far too long. That is a critical problem that must be acknowledged and addressed if we are to achieve a fair, just, and verdant society.
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An ugly speech. Truly ugly. But at moments it gave me a peek at a part of America I can hardly understand…part of the place where I’ve been living all along.
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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-resurrects-dark-definition-of-america-first-vision.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/
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Chris Matthews: Hitlerian Background
https://www.google.com/amp/insider.foxnews.com/amp/article/53770?client=safari
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From April 28, 2016; CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/27/opinions/trump-america-first-ugly-echoes-dunn/
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