Tag / history

by nflanagan

Empathy. Again.

A couple of years ago, I was astonished to learn that the school where I taught, for over 30 years, had declared war on… empathy. Yes, empathy, a quality I assiduously cultivated in my music classes and was—at one time—referenced in our school mission statement, as the nurturing of ‘caring individuals of all ages.’

Later, I learned that empathy was now being targeted by the Heritage Foundation.

Since then, it’s become one of those words or concepts that you see everywhere. Including from Elon Musk, who called it the fundamental weakness of Western Civilization. This was, BTW, about the time he and Big Balls were stealing your personal data from the government, under the guise of rooting out fraud. No empathy for you!

Here is some recent survey data from PRRI:

‘A new PRRI survey asked Americans whether empathy is a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society. Among the religiously unaffiliated, 83% agreed. Among Jewish Americans, 77%. Among Latter-day Saints, 65%. Among white evangelical Protestants, 42%.

The same survey found that 54% of white evangelicals agree empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from “a society guided by God’s truth.” No other major religious group put a majority behind that statement.

The widest split was over Christian nationalism. Of the people PRRI classifies as adherents, 38% called empathy foundational. Of those who reject it, 94%.’

I need to take a minute here to reflect on just what “God’s truth” means to white evangelicals. Even agnostics and atheists understand that there are some principles—love your neighbor as yourself—that are universal to world religions and pretty good guidelines for everyone, believer or non-, choosing peaceful lives. And weren’t we a nation FOUNDED on freedom of religion, or lack thereof?

I’m much more interested in the outcomes of building a school culture on caring for humans (and property, as stewardship of community resources), than the outcomes of a culture that cares first about competitive test scores.

One of my wisest teacher friends, Mary Tedrow, mused once that we used to talk about our historic purpose as teachers being building good citizens. Those citizens were our product—some went to college, some went into the workforce, some to the military, some to raising the next generation of students. Now, Mary said, our product is test scores.

And woe to the empathetic teacher who elevates building a community where students respect each other, feel responsibility for each other’s happiness and success, over competitive score-grubbing.

I’ve been thinking about the utter lack of empathy we’ve seen in midterm campaigns. If you Google “opposite of empathy” you get a range of unpleasant emotional responses, from apathy through insensitivity to contempt, heartlessness and sociopathy. None of which seems like something schools should be endorsing.

The poster child—poster ad, actually—for this lack of empathy is Vivek Ramaswamy’s zero-empathy-for- childhood-abuse advertisement featuring Amy Acton’s elderly, estranged and mentally ill mother. Salon points out that the ad also suggests there is another audience his campaign has in mind: aging MAGA voters who are obsessively angry about the phenomenon of parental estrangement.

You’ll never guess who MAGA blames for all this parental estrangement. Yup. Your local school, and its empathy-coded mission statement and libtard teachers willing to give other people’s kids extra help and second chances.

One of my favorite columnists, Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark, takes a closer look at the PRRI data, and Christian Nationalism. Read it! Standout quote: Societies that lack empathy cannot sustain either liberalism or democracy.

I think—no data to back this up—that an overwhelming majority of public school educators would agree.

JV Last, again: ‘Cultural changes produce institutional changes. To a measurable extent, the culture of American Christianity among white Protestants and, increasingly, white Catholics, has shifted toward Christian nationalism. As such, large numbers of adherents now reject foundational principles of Christianity in order to reconcile the faith to their political preferences.’

And this, lest you think this is just a Trump thing:

JD Vance does not believe in the Christian doctrine of compassion, empathy, and help to those ailing and in need. Instead, he embraces the Musk/Thiel doctrine which puts self-love first and teaches that empathy is a blight on the world.

Repeating: Societies that lack empathy cannot sustain either liberalism or democracy.

Ball’s in our court, fellow voters.

by nflanagan

Tough Talk

Scroll back with me to the presidential campaign of 2016, the so-called debates between the best qualified candidate ever to run for president, Hillary Clinton, and Biff Tannen You Know Who. Even with a decade of unprecedented political chaos intervening, those debates are memorable.

I thought I was watching Clinton destroy Trump, for varying reasons, in the first debate. She was prepared and articulate; he was a bully. He claimed she didn’t have the “stamina” to be president, and that not paying taxes made him smart. He did not follow the rules of debate, demanding more time and shouting over Clinton. I was convinced that she mopped the floor with him.

But it turned out that a lot of people found him purposeful. Or something. Remember all the Trump voters who love him because he “says what he thinks?”

An informal CNBC poll on its website found that 61% of people thought that Mr Trump won while 39% went for Mrs Clinton, but as CNBC itself points out, the poll is not scientific. A post-debate survey by Public Policy Polling of 1,002 debate-watchers found that 51% of national voters thought Mrs Clinton had won, with 40% choosing Mr Trump and 9% undecided.

There were two more debates, including a town hall format where Trump followed Mrs. Clinton around the stage, stalker-like, and the one exactly ten years ago where Hillary aptly pointed out that Putin preferred to have a puppet like Trump running the country and he snarled over her (again): You’re the puppet! You’re the puppet!

He also called her a nasty woman, and interrupted her three times as often as she broke into his answers. There was pundit talk of “male dominance.” And large percentages of viewers declared him the winner—not only of televised debates, but ultimately, at the polls.

Tough talk—name-calling, insinuations, intimidation, rudeness, shouting, domination, misleading statements bleeding into vicious lies. Why do we admire the aggressive blowhard? And what are we teaching our kids to emulate?

As a person whose entire professional career was driven by the goal of building cooperative communities of students, this is distressing to me. Of course, my secondary students had conflicts—talk to me about color guard spats at band camp sometime—but using civil language and considering the feelings of people in your chosen group, the band, were touchstones.

And civil language begins with leadership—teachers modeling both thoughtful disagreement and problem-solving. If the band director is always yelling at the kids, eventually they’re going to yell back. Then quit.

‘Former President Bill Clinton famously warned fellow Democrats that voters prefer “strong and wrong” over “weak but right.” His point was that tough talk resonates so powerfully among voters — especially low-information independents and moderates with weak ties to either major party — that strength can mask and even compensate for bad policies or poor governance.

Clinton’s mantra was a thinly veiled reference to George W. Bush’s governing failures, yet his warning is even more applicable during the Trump era.’

Remember “Boots vs. Flip-flops”—George Dubya cuttin’ brush in Crawford, Texas, while John Kerry went windsurfing? Which was supposed to prove that fumble-tongued Bush was a real man? When you look at the attack ads on James Talarico, nothing seems to have changed in TX, in the strong-and-wrong category.

It’s hard to even consider Vivek Ramaswamy’s ads against Amy Acton as ‘tough talk.’ They’re evil, abhorrent and socially damaging. And false, too—but remember that strong and wrong works on low-information voters. And we’ve certainly got plenty of those.

Pause.

So—after all my high-minded blah-blah about odious tough talk, and building community, I come here to confess my joy at seeing Democrats—finally—clapping back.

Barack Obama, tonight, speaking here in Michigan: “That well-known evil empire Canada. That historical adversary of ours. Canada! *laughs* It’s your neighbor. It’s a few minutes’ drive over the bridge! These are the people who gave us Martin Short and maple syrup. They are the nicest people! And somehow we’ve gotten them so mad.”

Obama’s genius is being funny while telling pointed truths. But there are other Democrats who have stepped out—using humor, but also biting accusation, righteous anger and verbal snark. In fact, I started a list, last year, when Gavin Newsom (or more likely, Gavin Newsom’s creative college intern) was mocking Trump’s words and actions, on Twitter and Bluesky, to hilarious effect.

Every time I saw an articulate elected Democrat call out the current administration with clear language—“travel with Natalie”—I tried to write their name down. Bonus points for verbal and pictorial humor. More bonus points for acting like a leader.

I look at the list frequently (it’s up to two pages now), to see who is still talking, being quoted and grabbing attention (in an attention economy). Your mileage may vary, of course, but keeping a list of democracy defenders has been instructive for me.

This isn’t a horse-race evaluation for 2028.  Who knows what the next two years will hold? But we do need to look for leadership—for the candidates and elected officials who will fearlessly describe the mess we’re in. And talk tough about what needs doing.

Who is both strong and right? And who will pursue justice, decency and order?

by nflanagan

Does it Matter What Other Nations Think of Us? Why?

Here’s something I might ask middle school and high school students:

What do we, as Americans, think about other countries? Suppose I asked you, right now, what you think about, say, Germany? Or Nigeria? Or Thailand? Are there better countries and not-good countries? How do we judge? Where do we get our information?

And further—what do other countries think of us? Why?

On the question of what people in other countries think of Americans:

Two weeks ago, we were in Lisbon. On our last night, we went to the top floor of our hotel to see the city spread out below us, red tile roofs and undulating hills. Only one of the six elevators in the hotel went all the way up to the Skydeck, so we had to wait several minutes for the elevator to come to take us back down. One other person — an attractive 50-ish woman— was also waiting.

Hearing us talk, she turned to us and said ‘Where ya from?’

Assuming from her accent that she was also American, we said ‘Michigan. And you?’

I’m Canadian, she said. And I want to know—do you approve of your president? Because he’s ruined my life.

She said her husband was in the oil and gas industry and tariffs had caused their business to wobble, then fail. They built a new house (for more than two million dollars) and could no longer afford the payments. She was about to lose her new dream home. She was angry, and got angrier as she talked— she would never buy an American product again, never trust an American again, etc.

Finally, she said: Do Americans have ANY idea how much the world hates him— and Americans for voting for him TWICE? I mean, really. It begs belief. We told her we were working hard on flipping Congress in the midterms, and she cut us off, sharply. I don’t care about your midterms, she said. He has to go now. The world can’t afford two more years of his bullshit.

Our elevator arrived, and she refused to get in with us. We kept apologizing. She stood there with her arms folded across her chest and her mouth pinched, shaking her head.

I have thought often about getting into this kind of conversation while traveling, and what I would say, and it all seemed like weak sauce in the moment. Her take was: you’re hurting the rest of the world by accepting him. And it’s YOUR fault for not stopping him. Immediately. Waiting two years for an election that may or may not happen is just an excuse.

We were both rattled by it. We had just come from a lovely dinner, where we ate Portuguese food and drank their awesome wine, and were happy not to turn on the TV or doomscroll the evening away. We had the means to take a vacation from the daily chaos of life during the Trump administration. We have not been threatened by ICE or lost our Medicare.

Canada is—or was—Michigan’s largest trading partner. Most Michiganders don’t perceive Canada as a ‘foreign’ country. I have friends who teach in Detroit but live in Windsor. Last year, there were joint protests with people waving signs at each other, across the Detroit River.

Most of the folks we met in Portugal and Spain were polite and friendly and willing to discuss anything. On one English-speaking tour, an American asked our guide about Portuguese politics.

He gave us a thumbnail sketch, beginning with Prime Minister/Dictator Salazar (1932-1968) and the three largest parties jockeying for power currently: the fascists, the socialists, the democratic socialists. He expressed worry that fascism was growing across Europe and relief that the democratic socialists had just returned to power in Portugal. His use of the phrase ‘democratic socialists’ caused some Americans in our group to gasp, however.

All of this made me wonder: If a European visitor to the United States asked a guide about our politics, what would he say? Where do we learn about the goals and aims of political parties? We talk about civic engagement—but what about accurate information?

When the current administration is hawking public school educators to ensure they don’t discuss politics—and 59% of Americans get their political information from social media—how are Americans supposed to understand how the world sees them?

Just asking.

Rossio Square, Lisbon. My photo.

by nflanagan

This Guy Used to Be My Congressman

And now he wants to be my senator. Again. Meet Mike Rogers.

I spent most of my life and nearly all of my teaching career in Livingston County, Michigan—a ruby-red, rural-turning-suburban area in the ring outside Detroit. My first principal used to refer to our school district as the far edge of white flight—folks with enough resources to move to a bucolic county with lots of land for their ten-acre dream homes, an hour-long commute into the city, and a population that is 94% white and less than 1% Black.

Although I have always identified as a Democrat, I used to vote in the Republican primary, because it was the only way I had some say in who was representing me in local offices and the state legislature. Beginning in 1995, Mike Rogers was my state senator, and later, my representative in Congress. He was, at the time, very much a country club Republican—bland, moderate, uncontroversial and generally well-liked. I never voted for him, but I knew lots of people who did. I also didn’t fear him.

Rogers’ family was well-known in Livingston County. His dad was a public school administrator and football coach, and his mother ran the Chamber of Commerce. One of his brothers was in the state legislature. He won local elections by wide margins, but when he decided to run for Congress, in 2000, squeaked into office by 111 votes. It was redmap gerrymandering that made his subsequent elections ironclad.

Rogers and I lived in the same small town for most of his political career. I used to see him in Meijers and at local events, shaking hands. Once, we were both on a panel at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast where the topic was education policy. Mr. Rogers’ take on education, as a congressman, was that the feds had no business making or even influencing education policy—he was Mr. Local Control. He asked me, his designated foil, what purpose a federal Education Department served.

My answer was two-fold: First, a national Ed Department can serve as center for policy research on best practices and ideas in public education, economies of scale. Why re-invent the wheel in 50 states?

But far more important was the federal role in promoting and ensuring equity and protecting civil rights. I reminded him that the original ESEA, passed in 1965, was designed to provide resources for our neediest students, to help level the playing field for millions of baby-boomer students whose states or districts weren’t particularly interested in equity.

Not Michigan! he scoffed, ignoring the obvious example of Detroit Public Schools, 50 miles down the road, a city that many of his constituents escaped, after the auto industry built enormous wealth on the backs of immigrant laborers. But who cares about children in a city whose resources have been extracted? Not his problem.

After the panel dispersed, Rogers was surrounded by obsequious local businessmen—and I hurried back to my 3rd hour class, which a colleague was generously covering until my return.

In 2015, Mike Rogers decided not to run for Congress anymore. He launched a career in radio—a kind of mild-mannered Rush Limbaugh—and moved to Florida, where he was happily ensconced in Cape Coral for nearly a decade, starting new businesses, and serving as a defense lobbyist and National Security expert for CNN. He occasionally put out feelers to see if there was a possibility of becoming President.

But. Rogers has miraculously rediscovered his Michigan roots,and is now running—for the second time– for an open Senate seat in the mitten state. He has always been a pro-NRA, anti-abortion guy, but he’s moved hard to the ugly Trumpian right; in his last senate race in 2024, he castigated his former employer, the FBI, claiming they were on a witch hunt to take down Trump for political purposes. He called the DOJ “corrupt.” 

That, of course, was two years ago. Now, he’s All Trump, All the Time.  He’s an election denier. He’s trying to raise doubts about the MI senate election he lost, in 2024. What he said two years ago about the DOJ—well, that no longer applies. They’re good guys now.

As for public education, he’s also changed his tune, now endorsing federal influence over creeping wokeness, saying that  “schools care more now about social engineering than, as my father used to say, readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic.”

Expect to hear that little bon mot often on the Rogers campaign trail this fall, along with finger-pointing about DEI and the weaponization of empathy. Plus a whole lot of anti-Muslim, free-floating racism.

Remember– Mike Rogers used to present as a country club Republican, hometown boy made good, moderate conservative, ex-FBI, and deficit-cutter.

But what happens to sort-of moderate Republicans, these days? They get primaried after one term. They get criticized by Tucker Carlson.They can’t maintain leadership in the House. Or Senate. They get the message: move rightward, appease Trump, sometimes by groveling–or get out of the way.

Mr. Rogers is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to please The King. In 2024, he bought a tear-down lakeside cottage in Michigan, moved in with his sister-in-law in his old hometown to run his campaign, and started building a new home on the lake. Which could be his Michigan address should he win, but an easy, lucrative place to sell should he lose. No risk, reward either way.

He still owns the Cape Coral mansion.

There are lots of reasons to distrust Mike Rogers, beginning with his “go as the wind blows” beliefs and policies (and place of residence). There are lots of Republicans who fall into that camp—Tommy Tuberville springs to mind.

But I keep thinking about that Chamber of Commerce breakfast, where MY sitting congressman didn’t see why children in Michigan deserved equity.


by nflanagan

 Lay off the Democrats

Full disclosure first: I am a Democrat. I sit on my county party’s executive board. I ran for county office as a Democrat in a ruby-red district (and lost but learned a lot). I have been a Democrat since my first presidential election (George McGovern, 1972), so I have seen the ups and downs of a two-party system for ages.

Here are some things I believe about partisan politics in 2026:

  • One of the two major parties better represents most Americans, a diverse bunch if there ever was one—economically, ethnically, politically, religiously, gender-wise.
  • Having multiple candidates to choose from in a primary makes parties stronger, although it can be harrowing when primary candidates go after each other.
  • Democrats are actually the party of the Big Tent, although Republicans occasionally suggest that their tent crosses boundaries.
  • We are in big trouble in 2026 on a number of fronts; counting on well-run—free and fair—elections is no longer a guarantee, for starters.
  • We need a new generation of leadership, but the way to get those new leaders elected is not to turn on the only party likely to provide support for progressivism.

Theoretically…in the midterms, we can appreciate all flavors of Democratic candidates, from avowed Democratic Socialists to outspoken Christians—because they’re being elected statewide or locally. If primaries work the way they’re supposed to, the most popular candidate perspective *in that context* will emerge as the favorite.

Here’s the thing: it may not be your preferred perspective. Which lets you choose—stick with the party you usually vote for, or decide to cross the gulf and vote for another party’s candidate who seems better, or decide not to vote. What flies in New York City may sink like a stone in, say, Iowa.

Win some, lose some. The goal is to get strong, attractive Democratic candidates and equally attractive Democratic policy ideas—then get them in office. And, as they said in The Music Man, you gotta know the territory.

Now, I am fully aware of a new generation of Democrats rising up, reaching out for things that have been pushed aside for decades: Universal health care. Affordable housing. Fair wages and worker protections. Family leave and childcare. Policies that other first-world nations have enjoyed for decades, stabilizing their workforce and making them happier.

I want those things, too. In fact, about two-thirds of Americans want universal health care, which includes plenty of Independent voters and even some Republicans. And three-quarters of Republicans—who skew older, anyway—like Medicare. I don’t think what we’re seeing in this super-heated primary season is about policy specifics, however. It’s about a desperate hope that we can stop the right-wing mutilation of the land of the free.

It makes me—as a local Democratic leader—happy to read about young, energetic candidates, willing to take on the sacred cows (both policy and human) in Congress or their statehouse. Here in Michigan, we have lots of exciting primary races. I hope we have a record-setting turnout in August, and Democrats tell us clearly what and whom they want.

Because we’re their support system—financially and in a dozen other ways. Democrats are looking for someone to take on the guy who’s fecklessly destroying the country, with his spineless minions. People want someone to fight for them, traditions be damned. But first—that someone must run. And running demands partisan support and funding.

If you only support one Democratic candidate, and your candidate loses, so you look around for someone to blame or refuse to vote for the alternate—well, may I remind you that Texas Republicans have already lined up and opened their checkbooks for a loathsome, despicable guy they impeached a few years ago?

I spend a lot of time perusing local conversations on social media—which, I realize, represent only a subset of voters.  I have been shocked by the number of posters who support a particular Democrat but are more than willing to trash the party, and in the process, trash every other candidate for that office. My guy, or bust.

I have even seen candidates—viable candidates with large followings—trash the Democratic party that they’re counting on to support them, should they make it through the primary. That boggles my mind. It’s like turning your back on family.

Robert Reich had a great column yesterday on the Common Goods we have enjoyed as Americans:

  • How we deal with disagreement
  • Truth
  • Trust
  • World leadership
  • Understanding what we owe each other as Americans
  • Political equality

Going after your preferred party damages these things. If you’re on the side of those who believe the ship can still be righted, please stop.

by nflanagan

Dirty Pool and other Metaphors

I was going to title this blog American Cesspool but then Public Notice beat me to it. And when all the good titles are taken, you know you’re talking about a national obsession.

Like all other left-leaning Americans, it seems, I feel a sense of outrage over the Reflecting Pool. Which, upon some deep reflection (get it?), isn’t perfectly rational. The Reflecting Pool is only one of dozens of strikingly memorable landmarks in Washington D.C., and it’s over a hundred years old. It’s been rebuilt and repaired numerous times, including other occasions when algae marred its surface. Maintenance of aging monuments is normal and expected, part of why we pay taxes.

What is there about the current Reflecting Pool debacle that has captured national attention? There’s the no-bid contract corruption, of course.  And the current President’s lies about vandals, somehow, causing chunks of its epoxy liner to break off—rather than acknowledging the job wasn’t done right, and needed to be done over:

‘The Reflecting Pool fiasco is of a piece with other major Trump corruption cases of the moment: the Kennedy Center renaming, the $1.8 billion slush fund, and the Epstein files. Each of these four breakthrough scandals follows the same autocratic playbook: abuse power, make a mess, then dodge accountability.’

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s current state is a metaphor for something done wrong, under fishy circumstances, ordered by someone who should be a trusted leader. The reason so many people find this particular example worth commenting on—and I confess to posting a few swamp monster “photos” myself—may be because of its limited, concrete (literally) parameters.

It doesn’t impact our national security. It’s not a war. It doesn’t address our dangerous economic inequality or inflation. It’s not the result of congressional malfeasance, or the damage to free, fair and trusted elections. It’s not the obliteration of democracy. All of which are currently Big Issues, but far more complicated, both to understand and address.

The Pool is something that everyone understands can eventually be fixed. Because it’s been fixed before. Democracy, on the other hand…

Jonathan V. Last just posted a remarkable piece about what the Trump base thinks about democracy. Based on a national ethnographic study, it goes some distance in explaining why campaigns (like Kamala Harris’s) promoting constitutional values make no impact on a significant chunk of Americans:

‘14 out of 21 participants in this study had an immediate negative reaction when asked about democracy. The people in the study describe a remarkable consistency about why they dislike democracy. It’s not that they’re misled, or mistaken. They have a coherent worldview.

It’s just not very nice.

They believe that there is a cultural schism in America, with good, God-fearing people like themselves on one side and the wicked majority on the other. They detest this imaginary majority and fear that “democracy” would allow that majority to gain political power.

They very explicitly do not want majority rule.

They want minority rule.’

It’s a great piece. Recommended. Worth repeating: They fear that democracy would allow the majority to gain political power. And democracy, done right, is a complex, multi-layered concept, difficult to define or comprehend. So the President’s fearful fan club go back to mysterious underwater vandals slicing a 350 foot gash into a pool liner, requiring the National Guard and 4000 feet of wire fencing to protect our national honor.

Or something like that.

 I now know more about pool liners, adhesion, and how to nurture single-cell organisms than I did last month. Because—like half the people in this country– I’m caught up in the simple, low-hanging fruit of yet another administrative failure, laughing at social media memes. But also knowing that the pool will eventually recover, unlike the East Wing or trust in the media.

As a veteran educator, I’ve seen this many times: Take a many-faceted problem with school organization or student learning, and reduce it to a single cause or solution, one that’s easy to understand and talk about. Then cling to that limited explanation for test scores going down or up 2-point-something percent. Or whatever.

Kids in 3rd grade not fluent readers? Well, it must be the reading curriculum, plus the outdated teachers teaching that curriculum; fix it with Science! Or—better yet—threaten kids with failing the third grade, a public humiliation that some of them never recover from. Just two of those silver bullet solutions to a far more complicated and actually important issue: creating literate citizens.

We are all drawn to the small and the specific—the problem that can be solved, or at least made fun of. Right now, however, we’re facing a host of massive, thorny problems, many of which have emerged in the past year and half. It’s not about the pool—the pool is just a metaphor for the real trauma.

Keep your eyes on the prize, not the pool.

by nflanagan

What Europeans Think of Trump

Just got home from a two-week vacation in the Czech Republic and Germany, including a week in what used to be East Germany. All of us learn from travel, of course, but this trip—planned long before last year’s election—was an incisive tutorial on how the rest of the Western world sees where we’re headed.

As of today, there are warnings against travel to the United States for citizens of Canada, Germany, England, Denmark, Netherlands, and France—probably the easiest and most accessible nations for Americans to visit.

I grew up in Michigan, where Canada hardly felt like a foreign country. I have friends who live in Windsor, but work in Detroit. College students in Michigan have routinely made pilgrimages to Ontario, where the legal drinking age is 19. Losing that easy camaraderie is huge—and that’s without taking into account the auto industry’s dependence on Canadian-made parts and trade.

I was interested and a little anxious about what the vibe would be in Europe. I’m too old for rail passes/backpacks/hostels travel—we’d be staying in hotels and led by English-speaking guides—but if you pay attention, in between historic dates and landmarks, you can hear and see what daily life is like in places that used to be Russian-controlled territories, how they see themselves in the world, and their fears for the United States.

I was also curious about my fellow American travelers. Would they agree with Jim Acosta, who said: Think of the damage done to America’s standing in the world, in the minds of young people across the globe. They see a president who is often out of touch with the real world, thoroughly corrupt and vengeful, beginning his second term launching a crypto scheme and turning government against vulnerable migrants as well as his enemies, both real and imagined.

We began our journey in Prague, a gorgeous medieval city that has been overrun by competing rulers for centuries, part of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the Kingdom of Bohemia. The old core of the city was almost untouched by WWII, but our local walking tour guides–find ‘em on the internet–occasionally pointed out architectural anomalies, calling them Communist buildings, which (local joke) come in three colors: light gray, medium gray and dark gray.

Because the walking tour groups were nationally diverse, the focus was on the enchanting city and its rich history—including the Velvet Revolution of 1989, wherein the Czechs reclaimed their own heritage and autonomy.

Traveling into Germany—the former GDP, East Germany—was revelatory. Guides were excellent—they all knew the historical markers but would often tuck bits of human perspective in their remarks.

  • Our guide in Wittenberg was born in the 1950s and grew up there. In secondary school, she said, she studied Russian. It was the only “foreign” language available. She also studied Russian in college. When she was in her 30s, and the Wall came down, she decided she wanted to learn English—and did. I never wanted to speak another word of Russian, she said darkly.
  • In Potsdam, we visited the estate where the Potsdam conference was held and the iconic photo of Truman, Stalin and Churchill was taken, before Germany was carved up. Potsdam is a beautiful town, including the upscale neighborhood where Vladimir Putin and his KGB comrades lived, in the1980s, considering what other beautiful villages and terrain they might appropriate.
  • In Dresden, we got a quick tutorial on how much of Dresden was bombed into smithereens, in February of 1945. American woman (who should, IMHO, know better) asks the guide: Who bombed this city? The allies, he replies, tactfully. You mean us? She says. Why would we do that? Well, the guide says— revenge, maybe? Later, I hear the woman ask her husband if the Germans are communists, leaving me to wonder just what we are teaching in World History classes.
  • In Torgau, where the allied armies met the Russian army, effectively shoving the tattered German army out of their homeland, April 25, 1945, five days before Hitler took his own life in a bunker. We looked at the site where the armies met, on the Elbe river. Flags from the United States, Russian and Germany have flown there for 75 years, in a memorial. The flagpoles are now empty—and have been since earlier this year, when Germany decided the peace agreement no longer applied.

Our guide in Torgau pointed out that there were a few things—free child care, for one—that made living in East Germany easier (these kindergartens were shut down as “too socialist” after the reunification). On the other hand, the omnipresent occupying Russian soldiers were brutes. His great-grandmother was shot dead in the town square, for resisting the attentions of one of them. He reminded us that Hitler came to power peacefully, and stayed there, courtesy of the Nazi party.

  • Berlin, of course, is a kind of living museum. Most powerful moment in Berlin? The square where, in May of 1933, the Nazis held their first book-burning. There’s a memorial there. Our guide said, quietly: First they burn books. Then, they burn people. But there is a little free library in the square, with hammocks and beanbag chairs. It was a chilly day—but there were children there, reading. Hope.

Everywhere we went, people were kind and hospitable. And honest. Aware of how long it takes to overcome the destruction of a great nation.  As Jen Rubin wrote, this morning:

Other countries, much older than the United States, have gone through grim, even disastrous years, decades, or centuries. And yet in Europe, the spirit of liberal democracy (however imperfect) remains alive and well. A sense of the public good still thrives, and millions of people strive to keep the achievements of Western Civilization from the clutches of fascism, xenophobia, know-nothingism, and conspiracy-mongering. The world is carrying on, albeit with dismay, as Americans struggle through its Dark Age.

Amen.

by nflanagan

RIP, Libraries and Museums

On our way home from the Network for Public Education conference, earlier this month, we jogged to the right and spent a night in Cleveland, so we could visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Our hotel, just a couple of blocks from the Hall of Fame, used to be the Cleveland Board of Education building, completed in 1931.

It’s a magnificent structure, all marble, soaring windows, colorful painted murals and wide hallways, with a bar named The Teachers’ Lounge. Who could resist?

It made me wonder about the value Cleveland currently places on their public schools, when a century ago they commissioned this monument to public education, likely assuming that generations of Ohio kids would be duly and proudly educated in Cleveland, and go on to do great things.

They don’t build ‘em like they used to—either our buildings or our midwestern dreams of progress.

The history of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District looks like the history of many big-city school districts, scarred by changing demographics and the public’s unwillingness to support all children with a free, high-quality, fully public education. Cleveland is not unique—there are still Pewabic pottery-tiled fireplaces in public schools built in the 1920s in Detroit. You can take a bike tour of historic, architect-designed schools in Chicago.

The ”high school movement”—when it became common for American youngsters to pursue education beyond the 8th grade—occurred in the first half of the 20th century. In 1910, the number of HS graduates in the United States was less than 10%, but by the outbreak of World War II, almost three-quarters of the student population attended high school. Many factors—mainly wars, rural-urban migration, and an economic depression—shaped the movement to make 12 years of education the norm.

And, of course, what was the norm for white kids did not necessarily apply to children of color. The Brown decision in the 1950s and school busing protests in the 1970s interrupted the rosy national vision of steadily increasing investment in our public services and institutions.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but America has always struggled with the concept of “all means all” –just who “deserves” to have nice things, like decent housing and basic health care. Schools. Libraries, museums and parks. A reliable, inexpensive postal service. Public universities. The kinds of services we share, places of mutual benefit. Our freedoms.

And now, we have elected a man whose fundamental life goal seems to be taking those things we share—the things we all deserve, and have worked for, as citizens in a constitutional republic– away from us.

Defunding public services and institutions. Privatizing the Post Office, which serves rural addresses that Federal Express won’t touch. Shutting down youth programs and the Summer Reading Club at your local library. Eliminating programs for veterans. Even—God help us—shutting down suicide hotlines for LGBTQ teens.

As I watch this wrenching tear-down of all the things that make for strong communities, I am staggered by this conundrum: Trump and his acolytes have embraced the idea of making America great again by attacking the very things that actually made us great, beginning with the solid belief in our future progress that drove the city of Cleveland to build a temple to public education, and finish it during the early years of the Depression, placing a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the manicured lawn in front.

Belief in our people and their future is behind untold numbers of beautiful, shared enterprises—theatres and hospitals, stadiums and churches. Monuments to philanthropy, and showcases for art and culture. National parks that tell our nation’s stories. Organizations established to help our fellow citizens.

What is behind the impulse to tear all this down, close it off, let it crumble, progress and humanity be damned? Who does this—and why?

None of this is genuinely about waste or fraud—or even evidence of out-of-control DEI thinking. How can there be too much equity or justice in a country that prides itself on inventing a new form of government?

From an article about Lindsey Halligan (see link for revelatory photo), now charged with “removing improper ideology” from Smithsonian museums:

“I would say that improper ideology would be weaponizing history,” Halligan says. “We don’t need to overemphasize the negative.” Halligan, 35, is a Trump attorney who seems to have tasked herself as a sort of commissioner — or expurgator, according to critics — of a premier cultural institution.

Trump is not much of a museumgoer. 

What he’s after is power and control and riches. The men who built the infrastructure of industrial America wanted power, control and riches as well. Some of them wanted to preserve the vile institution—slavery—that made their power and riches possible. We fought a bloody, devastating civil war over the very issue of who deserves to be represented in museums, check out books from the library, or send their children to free public schools.

And here we are, again.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was wonderful. I’ve been a handful of times, and have taken 150 eighth graders—I’ve got stories—to wade around in the history of the music that has surrounded them since birth. The museum is 100% private, funded by wealthy donors and $39.50/per ticket fees. It will not be torn down, stripped for parts or sold to the highest bidder.

As I was wandering through the main exhibit hall on the lower level, I started thinking about how the roots of rock music, like the labor of enslaved workers, were essentially stolen from African-American blues and gospel singers, mixed with rough-edged country, hillbilly and western music. And then sold to the masses, after condescending  public dismissal as unimportant and vulgar.

Power and control and riches. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

by nflanagan

Coming to Life: Woodchippers and Community Builders

Maybe it’s 35 years of working in a classroom, but here’s what I think: it’s too bad that there aren’t more teachers in Congress.

Teachers generally know how to encourage recalcitrant students, stand up to student bullies, kick butt and make it stick, not to put too fine a point on it. Congress is acting like that 7th hour class with the wrong mix of kids, people who just can’t seem to work together. And if you have to ask why it’s important for students to work together, you’ve obviously never been a teacher.

As I watch what I hope is the nascent rise of a nation coming to life, reclaiming its identity, I am reminded again and again of the basics of K-12 community-making: Be kind, a team player. Show up and persist. Build some joy into whatever you’re doing. And keep your promises. We’re in this together.

If your job involves teaching 30 unwilling 4th graders to master two-digit division, you have to show up and persist—and also build some fun into the persisting. Because joy is the end goal—having the skills to pursue a good life. Accomplishing something important.

Not sure what’s happening where you live—but here in Northern Michigan, people are paying attention and organizing. Plenty of social change movements fade away (I knit 16 pussy hats and can only locate one at the moment), but the upcoming events calendar is full. If it only takes 3.5% of the population to foment change, we can do this.

What’s on my agenda? A Zoom messaging workshop. A book group that is reading and discussing Project 2025. Even a sermon, last Sunday, on “Embracing Diversity.”

On Saturday, there was an empty-chair Town Hall, featuring a cutout of Jack Bergman, Congressional Representative for the largest—geographic—district (CD One) in Michigan. Bergman is not a Michigan native, and in fact his primary residence appears to be in Louisiana.  In 2016 and 2018 the Bergmans listed a metal storage building at 5070 South Cisco Lake Road as their single family residence. The problem with this is the fact that the building has electricity, but no rooms nor septic field and was used to store trailers and boats.

And yes, I think that it’s Michigan’s responsibility to offload an election denier and traitor to the military, where he was once a Brigadier General—especially since he has shown zero evidence of caring about his constituents, many of whom live in Michigan’s poorest and most remote counties. The ones where hospitals are dependent on Medicaid, for example. There are no Tesla dealerships in the entire Upper Peninsula.

The Town Hall was wonderful—seating was limited (and the weather was dicey) but over 1000 people attended, in person or via livestream. Questions were not pre-screened. Just people taking turns at the microphones, pouring out their anger, their pain, their uncertainty. A special education teacher (who got a rousing ovation). A ‘recovering psychiatrist’ who warned us (acknowledging the ethics violation) that we were being governed by a malignant narcissist. Moms, nurses, dishwashers, authors and physicians.

And this comment from a veteran:
“My son is a veteran. I am a veteran. My father is a veteran. My grandfather is a veteran. And my great-grandfather is a veteran. Jack Bergman, you are a veteran. You’re a jarhead like my dad… and like my father, like my entire family, you took a vow; a very important vow. You vowed to (and here, the audience joined in) defend the Constitution and the Republic against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Where the [expletive] are your vows, Jack? You are a disgrace to the uniform. You are a disgrace to the office that you hold. You are a disgrace to this country. And Jack, if you are too feeble and too afraid to stand up for what is right and to fulfill your vows, then it is time for you to step aside and let somebody else do it. Semper Fi.”

Turning to see the speaker, I noticed that the man behind me, in camo zip-up and olive drab beanie, had tears streaming down his cheeks.

I think something is happening. What we need now is showing up and persisting, keeping the faith. Remembering to have fun—because we want to live joyfully, to move forward.

In two weeks, I’ll be at the Network for Public Education conference in Columbus, Ohio.

Trump (or Musk, or whoever’s running the country) is putting public education through the woodchipper at the moment. There is already a bill filed in the MI (yes, Michigan) legislature to support shutting down the federal Department of Education, essentially saying ‘just send us the money—we’ll take it from there.’

It’s all pretty grim. I need to get together with my people, which is what I’m planning to do in Columbus. We’re in this together.

by nflanagan

Billionaire Ideas: Andrew, Bill and Elon

So—it was just one of those re-posted memes: a chalkboard suggesting that the “old days”—when the very rich built and named hospitals, schools and libraries—were preferable to whatever the very rich are doing with their money today.

There are a lot of ways to argue against that tossed-off sentiment: We shouldn’t have to rely on the beneficence of the wealthy in order to have good public services, for starters. Some of that wealth was ill-gotten, and some philanthropists were Not Good People, as well. Why can’t everybody be like McKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos)?

On the other hand, I was born in a hospital named for a local benefactor. I was a card-carrying patron of a Carnegie Library and attended college where every damned building seemed to be funded by someone with lots more money than I’d ever have.

Furthermore, Forbes magazine reinforced my belief that the 21st century uber-rich aren’t very forthcoming any more with dough for public buildings and programs: How generous are the super-rich, really? Not very, according to Forbes’ research. The members of the 2023 Forbes 400 list have collectively given more than $250 billion to charity, by our count—less than 6% of their combined net worth.

Which gets to the point of why I originally posted the meme: The mega-affluent today are busy going up in space in rocket ships, abusing low-paid, NON-unionized employees, and controlling national elections with underhanded tactics.

I’d rather have the theatres, hospitals, academic buildings and libraries. Or—here’s a thought—what about someone with fabulous wealth funding a climate change initiative? Or ending poverty?

Andrew Carnegie funded the building of 2,509 “Carnegie Libraries” worldwide between 1883 and 1929. Of those, 1,795 were in the United States: 1,687 public and 108 academic libraries. Others are scattered throughout Europe, South Africa, Barbados, Australia, and New Zealand. He also funded museums, established an endowment for international peace, supported scientific research, and other civic initiatives, including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He bought or upgraded pipe organs in over 7600 churches.

And, yup, Andrew Carnegie was a robber baron in the most derogative sense of the word, using violence and ruthlessness in controlling the ill-paid and exploited workers who built his fortune. He was also an immigrant, who came to America penniless, and you know how Americans love a rags-to-riches tale. Biographers suggest he had an attack of conscience as he aged, and spent more and more of his wealth on civic projects.

In posting the chalkboard meme, I drew a lot of commentary because I mentioned Carnegie and all those libraries. Surprisingly, a lot of the negative feedback came from librarians, who popped up with passionate responses about Carnegie’s insider trading, sending goons to beat up strikers and trying to suppress the uprisings of the great unwashed by building them libraries.

It occurred to me that those librarians were universally well-read and not about to blindly worship old, filthy rich, controlling white men. Although, you know, thanks for the library.

Still. Although nobody can exactly defend the Titans of the Gilded Age, they left a lot of architecture and institutions for us to use, more than a century later. What have our still-living titans done with their immense wealth?

Bill Gates has funded the building of computer science centers at four universities (including, ironically, Carnegie Mellon), and purchased 40 square miles in the AZ desert west of Phoenix to build his own city of 200K residents, among other projects. From Salon:

There’s a deep-seated belief in libertarian-rampant Silicon Valley that the government and our political processes are slow and messy; to that end, many techies, mad with power, have attempted to start their own partially or fully-privatized cities. Gates’ entire philanthropic vision, exemplified by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is predicated on the idea that rich people and technocrats know best how to manage the levers of society, and the rest of us peons should sit back and let the rich techies run our lives. 

If you’re an educator, you will have felt the Gates Foundation’s impact, from Common Core standards to teacher assessments to breaking up big schools into smaller ones. Have money, will implement. Then declare many of these “promising” concepts failures. Maybe the teachers weren’t following the curriculum with fidelity?

Honestly? I’d rather have buildings and state-of-the-art equipment than Billionaire Ideas changing our fundamental institutions.

Which brings us to Elon Musk, who has promised his and Donald Trump’s  proposed economic policies could lead to “initial severe overreaction” and “temporary hardship” in the economy if Trump wins the election. Trump’s mass deportations and Musk’s $2 trillion cut to federal spending could disrupt industries, lead to labor shortages, and increase prices.

Hmmm. Couldn’t he just build us a nice hospital or school or library?

Carnegie Library in Howell, Michigan.