Video Fwd:[Organizing Notes] BRITISH STUDENTS RATTLE THEIR CHAINS 영국 학생들, 수업료 인상에 반대, 속박에 저항하다

Bruce Gagnon blog
Friday, November 12, 2010
BRITISH STUDENTS RATTLE THEIR CHAINS

Text Fwd: NATO Trains Iraqi Armed Forces In Universal Military Language 나토, 이라크 무장 병력에게 영어 군사 용어 교육

* Image source: same as the link

Ar Rustamiyah – (From left) Brig. Mark Pountain, NTM-I Training, Education and Doctrine Advisory Division chief; Maj. Andrew Radzinski; Wing Cdr Paul Scott, NTM-I Fwd Ar Rustamiyah commander; and MG Claudio Angelelli, NTM-I deputy commander, meet with the first English Language teachers to arrive here Oct. 27.
(Photo by NTM-I).

Stop NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
November 10, 201

NTM-I unveils English Language Training Program

AR RUSTAMIYAH: The NATO Training Mission – Iraq began its English Language
Training Program Nov. 1 at the Iraqi Military Academy in Ar Rustamiyah (IMAR).

The course, taught by more than 100 U.S. Department of Defense and contracted
instructors, will prepare Iraqi Security Forces for specialized training in
fields requiring proficiency in English, such as aviation.

Maj. Gen. Claudio Angelelli, NTM-I deputy commander, stressed the importance of
the program to the first seven instructors Oct. 27.

"With your help, Iraq will become more established in the international
community,” said General Angelelli

"We are happy to see that everything here is prepared for the fruitful work, and
we are looking forward to begin our mission,” said Mr. Troy Brousso, English
language teacher.

Initially, U.S. contractors will teach the course while Iraqi instructors
complete instructor training. After, the Iraqi instructors will co-teach with
the contractors until a future date when the Iraqis will assume complete
responsibility for the English language program.
===========================
Stop NATO
Blog site

Text Fwd: [famoksaiyanfriends] [Michael Bevacqua,Guam]"Maolek na Finaisen" [괌, 마이클 베박쿠아] 괌 언어 사용에 대하여

* Text sent from Martha Duenas on Oct. 20, 2010

Marianas Variety
"Maolek na Finaisen"
Michael Bevacqua
Wednesday, 20 October 2010

As I wrote about in my last column, the Chamorro Language Program at UOG is organizing a “Fino’ Chamoru na Inadaggao,” or Chamorro Language Forum, where political candidates will respond to questions asked in the Chamorro language (hopefully in the Chamorro language).

This week there are three forums for the senatorial candidates, and next Monday on the 25th, the gubernatorial teams will face off.

I took some time recently in my classes at UOG to discuss with my students the importance of the forum and give them all the opportunity to write down some possible questions to be asked, which would then be translated into Chamorro. The discussion was very spirited, because I pushed my students to be very intentional about what they were going to ask. I asked them not to fall into the usual traps that these events or these questions take, where politicians are asked the most generic and pointless questions, which don’t challenge them, don’t reveal anything important about them or the issue, and allow them to merely regurgitate something they’ve already said 8,000 times that same week.

I told my students to not be chained to what the “big” and “important” issues are usually thought to be, but to instead focus on something they felt was real in their lives. I knew that the following two questions, “What are your plans to fix the economy?” and “What are your plans to fix education?” were most likely the ones they felt were the most important, but I urged them to resist simply asking what they were supposed to ask, and focus on what they felt needed to be asked.

My students naturally asked, what kind of questions are the ones that “need to be asked?” I gave a number of different examples, such as the following after one student asked whether it would be okay to ask how she might phrase a question about whether or not the candidate could be trusted. Because in my World History class we were covering the origins of Christianity, I decided to give it a bit of Biblical flavor: “Jesus Christ said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the needle of an eye than for a rich man to get to heaven. Is this something that we should take seriously when choosing our leaders? If you are a person of financial means running for office, how can people trust you to make sure that you do not govern to promote yourself or your class, but are truly interested in helping everyone else on the island?” This is something that not only the wealthy should deal with, but all leaders as well. How can you ensure that you are acting for the benefit of all or most and not just for the few who are closest to you?

Some students found this and other similar questions too confrontational, and didn’t feel that this sort of thing was appropriate and that we should be more respectful to those who are our leaders, or wish to be our leaders. I didn’t criticize them, especially on Guam, where it’s very natural to think such a thing. Others found the bluntness refreshing and liberating, and in truth, that was how I was hoping they’d respond. That is after all the feeling of not just enjoying democracy, but actually participating in it. It stems from going beyond that abstract feeling of simply being part of a democracy, but being a part of it which can make intelligent decisions your society, and does not just cast a mindless vote, but actually attempts to educate oneself and find out what is the best choice.

I received several hundred questions from my students, and wanted to share in this column some of my favorites. By far the most blunt, honest and critical question is the last one. The questions:

1) Trash is a very important issue for any island, since your space is very limited. But Guam has very little recycling. We are living in a fantasy world and not facing the fact that if we don’t truly start to recycle and stop importing more trash into this island. We might just end up capsizing! How would you propose to help wake up Guam and start making recycling a big part of our lives?

2) Do you think that we should make it required that all of our leaders in the Executive and Legislative Branches should be able to understand or speak Chamorro since it is an official language of Guam and they are the representatives of the island? Even if we don’t all speak Chamorro now, this could be a great chance to help encourage people to learn!

3) The US military has promised that new troops will be given cultural sensitivity training to help them adapt to living here in respectful ways. What kind of programs do you propose we can develop to help teach them about real Chamorro culture and real Chamorro history?

4) If aliens landed on Guam the day you are sworn into office, what would your first official act in response to their arrival?

5) Senator Frank Aguon submitted a bill last year which would increase the number of senators in the Guam Legislature from 15 back up to 21. With the rapid increase of Guam’s population, do you support an increase of senators in the legislature? Why or why not?

6) So many of Guam’s current and possible leaders have claimed that there is nothing that we can do about the US military buildup and that it is a done deal or not in our power to change. If the power was in your hands, if you were in charge of the buildup, would you stop it? How would you change it? Please do not say that it will happen no matter what, because then frankly you shouldn’t be anyone’s leader.

Video Fwd: APS News After School Program

* Video thankfully informed by M. S. on June 2, 2010. Please click the link. I don't know how to embed this.

APS News After School Program (KDAT estrella TV Albuquerque)

* M. says"

'The DOD's evil plan to teach school children how to make war.
( Click twice the 'play ' button of the video , if something is strange.)
They call this 'math.'

Text Fwd: Poll suggests public wants the Lee administration to address increase in polarization

* Image source/caption: same as the link below

'Results from the Hankyoreh public opinion poll show that polarization (38.5 percent, dark green), political strife (23.9 percent, light green), President Lee Myung-bak’s unilateral methods of governance (19.1 percent, orange) and social conflict (13.9 percent, peach) were selected as the most pressing issues facing South Korea’s society.'

Hankyoreh
Poll suggests public wants the Lee administration to address increase in polarization:
Despite worsening household situations and a desire for greater job creation measures, President Lee’s ratings remain high
Posted on : Jan.4,2010 12:33 KST

A recent survey shows that South Koreans regard polarization as the most significant pressing issue facing our society. The results also indicate that citizens want the Lee administration to focus most of its energies in 2010 on job creation policies that increase employment security.

A public opinion poll conducted by Research Plus commissioned by the Hankyoreh shows when asked what the biggest issue facing South Korean society at the present time is some 38.5 percent of respondents selected polarization resulting from the collapse of the middle class and an increase in irregular work. Some 23.9 percent selected a distrust of politics due to political disputes, 19.1 percent chose conflict and discord attributed to President Lee Myung-bak’s unilateral governing methods, and 13.9 percent chose social conflict resulting from strikes by labor unions and other causes.

When asked which economic policies the Lee administration should emphasize most strongly in 2010, 45.9 percent of respondents chose job creation measures, including employment security, 31.8 percent chose price stability measures that includes the cost of essentials, 11.8 percent chose protections for small- and medium-sized businesses, and 7.6 percent chose tax cuts.

A significant number of citizens indicated that they believe areas such as inter-Korean relations, media freedoms, human rights and the advancement of democracy have floundered or experienced regression during the Lee administration’s first two years. In particular, a majority of respondents selected skyrocketing private education costs and deteriorating working class livelihoods as areas of concern despite the Lee administration‘s emphasis on efforts to lighten the private education burden and pursue moderate pragmatism and working class-friendly policies.

Some 53.3 percent of survey participants said that their private education burden had increased over the previous two years. Another 33.7 percent said the burden was more or less the same as before, while only 6.5 percent said it had decreased. Although President Lee has made private education expenses a major area of education policy since taking office, the survey results indicate that South Koreans are not feeling the effects of the administration’s efforts.

A large number of respondents, 43.3 percent, said that media freedoms had deteriorated, while 42.2 percent said they were similar to before, and a mere 10 percent felt they had improved. The survey results the public‘s response to the parachute appointment of the YTN president, the improper dismissal of KBS President Jung Yun-joo, and the resignation of media personality Kim Je-dong that have become symbols of the Lee administration’s approach to media policy.

When asked how they believed conflict among South Korea’s citizenry had changed, 48.2 percent of respondents said it had increased. A smaller number, 37.2 percent, said it was similar with previous levels and 11.4 percent said it had decreased.

In response to a question about the political neutrality of public prosecutors, 46.6 percent respondents found it was similar to before, 37.6 percent found it to be worse and that prosecutors are “brutal to dead power and subservient to living power.” Only 7.7 percent of respondents found an improvement in prosecutors’ political neutrality.

Other results show that South Koreans view areas such as human rights, democracy and social welfare for the poor as stagnant or in regression with no major improvements made during the two years of the Lee administration. On the item of human rights and democracy, 48.1 percent of respondents said they were roughly the same as before and 34.2 percent said they had deteriorated. On the item of social welfare benefits 34.7 percent said they were similar to previous levels and another 34.7 percent said they were worse.

Meanwhile, some 56.7 percent of respondents expressed support for President Lee’s governance, with 11.0 percent responding with “a very good job” and 45.7 percent with “a good job in general.” Analysts suggest a favorable assessment and expectations regarding the President’s management of the economy have played a large role in his approval ratings. On the issue of President Lee’s management of the economy during his two years in office, the 53.8 percent who expressed favorable views, including the 6.3 percent who said he was doing “a very good job,” and 47.4 who said a “good job in general,” had a ten percentage point margin over the 43.8 percent that expressed negative views. Around 34.2 percent said President Lee had done a “poor job in general” and 9.6 percent said he had done “very poorly.” However, when asked about improvements in household situations over the past two years, 59 percent of respondents said it was unchanged, and 34 percent said it was worse.

The nationwide telephone survey of 1,000 adults age 19 or older was conducted over a period of two days starting Dec. 29 and has a plus or minus 3.1 percent margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

* Related article

Hankyoreh
[Analysis] President Lee’s third year hurdles and expected Cabinet shake-up:
Lee administration makes preparations to campaign hard for Sejong City alternative plan and to avoid a lame-duck presidency following the June regional elections
Posted on : Jan.4,2010 12:31 KST

Text Fwd: MR.BIG IS CALLING

* Text from Bruce Gagnon's blog

Sunday, June 07, 2009
MR. BIG IS CALLING

The military is moving to take over our public schools. All across America the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the Space Command are worming their way into control of schools. Even in other countries a similar move is underway to militarize education.

As local communities face fiscal crisis and job losses they are forced to cut back on education spending. As they cut funding parents worry about what kind of future their children will have.

Enter Mr. Big.

Mr. Big has all the dough these days. Mr. Big promises to impose discipline in school. Mr. Big is hiring. Mr. Big promises college funding to kids if they join Mr. Big's cult. Mr. Big promises to make a "man" out of any boy or girl who joins the cult.

From Chicago to Colorado Springs, from Hawaii to Atlanta this trend is accelerating at a break neck pace.

According to the Associated Press, "The Marines are talking with at least six districts - including in suburban Atlanta, New Orleans and Las Vegas - about opening schools where every student wears a uniform, participates in Junior ROTC and takes military classes."

Of course these military schools are targeting the poor and minority communities who have declining tax bases and growing unemployment. Rich kids, who attend well funded white schools, need not apply.

The Chicago school system, where Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was a big booster of military schools, has opened five public schools since 1999 based on a military academy model. Over 10,000 students attend the schools, which offer college preparatory courses combined with a military curriculum.

An article, published by The Raw Story reported, "Pauline Lipman, a professor at the University of Illinois, is disturbed by the almost exclusively minority and inner-city focus of the program. 'Why are they good schools for low-income, African-American and Latino students and not good school for affluent white kids?' she asks. 'Are we saying that those students need a different kind of discipline?'

"Lipman and Darlene Gramigna of the American Friends Service Committee are both concerned about the militarization of the school system and suspect that the program is intended as a tool for military recruitment. 'It would be really naive to think that the military would, in fact, be expanding these schools and these programs if the schools were not about recruiting students,' said Lipman."

This is how Hitler did it in Nazi Germany. He went after the youth and indoctrinated them in the ways of the military. Mussolini in Italy followed Hitler's model of youth indoctrination in order to create generational support for his fascist state.

An old friend in Germany told me that she never questioned Hitler's youth movement as a vehicle for her Nazi indoctrination. It was what all the other kids were exposed to as well and it all seemed normal she said.

When you remember that the Pentagon is saying that America's role under corporate globalization will be "security export" this all begins to fit together.

The military industrial complex is militarizing the culture of our nation to prepare for endless war.

Watch out for free gifts from Mr. Big.

See the PBS NewsHour video report on the controversy here

Video Fwd: Lazy Iraqi Police get motivational speech

Site informed in Bruce Gagnon's Space4Peace(Organizing Notes) blog
Monday, March 16, 2009
SHOWING THEM OUR BETTER SIDE



“And now ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure. A five-minute diatribe by one of our noble American military (heroes) in Iraq instructing a group of Iraqi policemen how to be "men" and how they should go out and kill them some bad guys. As I listen to this I can't help but see the picture in my mind of Gen. George Crook instructing the Apache scouts on how they need to step it up and go out and find Cochise and Geronimo who are hiding in the mountains of Arizona so the US can capture and kill them.

Today Geronimo's skull sits in the Skull & Bones Tomb at Yale University where the Bush family and Sen. John Kerry both cut their teeth on learning Empire 101.

It's no wonder the people of Iraq love us the way they do.”

Text fwd: International students receive riverine training in U.S.

http://www.pacom.mil/web/site_pages/media/news%20200903/20090312-WHINSEC.shtml
International students receive riverine training in U.S.
By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class(AW/SW) RJ Stratchko
Naval Special Warfare Group Four

STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. (Mar. 12, 2009) -- Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School (NAVSCIATTS) and the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) conducted a joint Field Training Exercise (FTX) Mar. 6 on Stennis Space Center, Miss.

The training was the first time ever that NAVSCIATTS and WHINSEC worked together in a joint effort, and students represented 24 different partner nations (including several within the U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility).

"It's a phenomenal opportunity for two organizations that have been doing security cooperation for years to come together in joint efforts enhancing their skills and expertise by bringing a number of countries together to execute training pertinent to the challenges that we all face," said Col. Felix L. Santiago, commandant, WHINSEC. "It's truly remarkable to see that this training is able to make a difference when folks return to their countries and implement the skills in mitigating the threats."

NAVSCIATTS and WHINSEC schoolhouses train international students in maritime and ground based operations respectively. Both have particular strengths in cultural sensitivity and bi-lingual instructor cadre language capabilities enabling students to focus more on training and less on language barriers.

• For more reading

Text Fwd: USFK Looking to Enroll Korean Students in DOD Schools

* Image Source*

In the original article below

http://rokdrop.com/2009/02/27/usfk-looking-to-enroll-korean-students-in-dod-schools/

February 27th, 2009 at 6:08 pm USFK Looking to Enroll Korean Students in DOD Schools
in: USFK

Is USFK so desperate for cash that now they want to recruit Korean students to attend DOD schools in order to help pay for new facilities?

The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) made an official proposal to the Korean education ministry Thursday to allow Korean students to attend schools at its camp in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

The plan was unveiled when USFK Commander Gen. Walter Sharp met Education, Science and Technology Minister Ahn Byong-man in Seoul, ministry officials said.

Pyeongtaek will accommodate a new centralized U.S, base here.

In return for enrollment of Korean students at the base schools that will adopt the American education curriculum, the Korean government was asked to share a certain amount of the cost involved in building the schools.

The Korean government has yet to respond to the proposal. “We cannot say anything for now but Minister Ahn listened to the commander,” an official, who declined to be named, said. [Korea Times via reader tip]

It just makes me wonder where all the economic stimulus money the DOD received has gone to if USFK cannot even afford to build new schools on its own for its soldiers’ children?