Plessner Chronicle Blog

I spent 16 years in education never having been in a classroom with a student of color (except for two Korean veterans of the Korean War) so I remember “separate but equal” education.The historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision, in which the U. S. Supreme Court decided that separate but equal was in truth separate and grossly unequal, happened in my young lifetime. I have vivid recollections of life in Midwestern America both before and after America tried to eliminate racial segregation in public schools.My home town of Richmond Heights, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, contained a small African-American enclave in an otherwise all-white city. High school students from that neighborhood got on their own bus each morning to be driven right past our whites-only high school to a blacks-only high school in Webster Groves, the next suburb. (I have no idea where their grade school students got their education.)

Now an ultra-conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has advanced a process to disassemble all of that and their first, most blatant attack on our efforts to enable ALL children to get the best education possible has shown them for what they are. Read the rest of this entry »

I am going to tell you something that will probably make some of my friends very angry:

The neo-conservatives who controlled Bush foreign policy believed that it was in Israel’s and our best interests to let the Palestinians suffer and the Syrians and Iranians go their own way. The result has been that their own way included financing, training and arming groups like Hezbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight of the ten guys running for the Republican nomination for president make Dan Quayle, Clarence Thomas and George W. Bush look like geniuses. Only John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have any claim to national leadership and those claims are beginning to look increasingly weak.John McCain, though beloved and deserving of our thanks for his sacrifices and dedication, is beyond the job in years and gravitas. His submission to humiliation by the Bush White House and his advocacy of an increased war effort in Iraq make him look too weak on one hand and too wrong on the other.

McCain and Giuliani may be up to the task but, when compared to the Democratic candidates, the rest of this group looks like a gang that can’t think straight. Read the rest of this entry »

The Republicans are at it again. George W. Bush and his minions lied us into a war that is the worst blunder in American history and when we finally have to withdraw in defeat, it will be the Democrat’s fault.

The horrific incompetence of the Bush administration results in a divided, self-destroying Iraq and it’s the Iraqi Politicians’ fault for not leading a country divided by a millennium of hatred to peace.

The president’s ideologically-driven decision to pull our troops out of Afghanistan enabled Al Qaeda to shift resources and primary activities into Iraq for the first time and it’s all Al Qaeda’s fault. Read the rest of this entry »

After watching the Republican presidential candidates in the “debate-that-wasn’t-really-a-debate”, I almost feel sorry for the Republicans. (You may not believe it but I am a former fourth generation Republican!)There was a time when Republicans could select a presidential candidate with appeal to a broad cross section of Americans. But no more! These days too many Republican politicians have to bow to extremely conservative supporters and religious leaders who seem to have political life-or-death control over their careers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The George W. Bush plan for ending his war on Iraq is becoming increasingly clear. The New York Times, in an article by David E. Sanger, reports that “the Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisors now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited.”

By pushing any evaluation beyond the times established by Congress in the recent bills which the president has vetoed or promised to veto, the president is creating a situation in which a much longer commitment of front line troops will be required.

This will cause American soldiers and Marines patrolling the treacherous streets of Baghdad to remain well into late 2008. This will require longer deployments of more troops — regular, National Guard and Reserves — than ever before, causing more deaths and casualties to our troops in the field.

It will also allow George W. Bush to force the decision to withdraw from Iraq on the next president, presumably a Democrat. That way the president and future Republican politicians can blame Democrats for “losing” the war in Iraq. The president then can salvage some shred of his so-called legacy.

It won’t matter much to the president or his fellow Republican politicians that as many as 1,000 additional military lives will be lost because of his feckless leadership, but it will cause additional havoc to thousands of American service men and women, their families and the many thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians caught up in this horrific war, brought to them by an American Republican administration.

Every American citizen should remember that — today, tomorrow and in coming elections.

The Constitution, Article II, Section 1, paragraph 8

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: — “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

February 4, 2007 – It is now imperative that the Congress of the United States remove from office president George W. Bush and vice president Richard Cheney for their failures to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Read the rest of this entry »