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A Review of ‘Last Days in Ocean Beach’ by Jim Miller; Coping With the End of the World As We Know It

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Last Days in Ocean Beach by Jim Miller – Book Release Event Friday, April 20, 7-9pm at the Ocean Beach Green Center

Editor’s Note: We’re giving Jim Miller’s column a week off to celebrate the publication of his new book.

By Ian Duckles

Jim Miller’s new book Last Days in Ocean Beach (City Works Press, 2018), explores the question of how to live one’s life in the face of looming catastrophic climate change. The novel, like life, is challenging, depressing, hopeful, sad, and filled with moments of incredible beauty and incredible tragedy and is highly recommended.
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Shedding Light on Marshall Tuck’s Shady Money Trail

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Recently, when the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction, they did so because, according to their editorial board, he has “the skills and vision to bring about needed change” and would stand up to “the status quo” (read: teachers’ unions).  

While it has become quite common for mainstream corporate media outlets to blindly parrot the rhetoric of corporate education reformers, in this case, it is an exercise in doublethink of Trumpian proportions.  Far from being a populist outsider fighting the establishment, Tuck is the pure product of the billionaire class.

A few weeks back, I wrote about how Tuck’s bid for Superintendent of Public Instruction should not be allowed to slide under the radar because his effort to defeat his opponent, stalwart progressive Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, was a case study of the ways right-wing money is trying to infiltrate Democratic politics.  More specifically, I noted that “it’s not just the usual California members of the billionaire boys club that are backing Tuck this time.  

Updated 2018-10-09   [Read more…]

Back to the Spring Rituals of Baseball

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Baseball is back, and, as I do every year—no matter how bad the Padres are—I enjoy re-immersing myself in the game.  And, as opposed to our president who argues in this ridiculous interview that talent comes strictly from innate ability and is made manifest on the Social Darwinist proving ground of sport, I know that it’s all about focus and work.  Perhaps the most important thing of all is failure that leads to more focus and work and honing one’s craft.

You alone with the thing itself.

On the diamond this cliché holds true: even the best players fail most of the time, sometimes quite badly.  You strike out, commit an error, miss a sign, fail to hit the right spot with your pitch.   [Read more…]

If the Democrats Want a Wave Election, Don’t Sell Out Main Street in Favor of Moneyed Interests

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I have long thought that if you wanted to look back to find one of the key moments that showed how out of touch the Democratic establishment was on economic issues that it might very well blow the 2016 Presidential election, you’d likely want to revisit the debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  

Indeed, in 2015, in the wake of the riots in Baltimore, I observed how President Obama could sound great on some social justice issues while badly missing on key economic ones…

That’s why recent news stories about the national Democratic Party’s efforts to “contain” Elizabeth Warren once again are concerning.  As a recent Politico story notes, there have again been rumblings that Warren’s fierce condemnation of the rollback of the Dodd-Frank law was harshing the mellow of the neoliberal wing of the party   [Read more…]

The National School Walkout: Welcome to the Future

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Sometimes just the act of standing up against injustice starts to make things right.  Speaking the truth to power can be redemptive. That’s how it felt last week as I watched my own family and my students (who I love like family) take part in the National School Walkout Day.  If you are middle-aged like me and have participated in too many protests and political activities to count, it’s easy to start to see activism as work, a job that needs to be done but takes its toll– particularly in these grim times.  You get tired, weary of the endless fight.

Then, once in a while, something happens that gives you renewed life, helps you see the world again with fresh eyes.

That’s what watching my kid get ready for the Roosevelt Middle School Walkout did for me. One night as he was talking about the planning with me, I asked him why he believed it was important for him to do this.     [Read more…]

Notes from the Class War: the West Virginia Strike Shows That Solidarity Wins

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In the early days of the Trump administration, most savvy observers were quick to note that, populist bluster aside, Trump’s policies would be a disaster for America’s already historic level of economic inequality.  As economist Charles Ballard wrote in The Hill, “the main thrust of policy proposals from President Trump is to maintain, and even accelerate, the anti-egalitarian policies of recent decades.”

A year later, it’s now abundantly clear that the anti-egalitarian nature of this administration has only poured gasoline on the fire.  Thus, as Alex Henderson noted in an Alternet piece  last week, “The reality is the United States is now home to some of the worst income inequality in the developed world, and thanks to the recent passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, this wealth gap will grow exponentially wider.”  

Indeed, as Henderson outlines, the gap between Trump’s bogus populist rhetoric and this governing policy is breathtaking   [Read more…]

Marshall Tuck’s Dirty Secret: How Right-Wing Money Infiltrates Democratic Politics

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Recently in the lead up to the Janus vs. AFSCME case that hit the Supreme Court last week, I wrote several columns focusing on the impact of the Koch brothers’ network’s attack on the union movement, the Democratic Party, and public education.  Thus, I was cheered to learn that the California Democratic Party overwhelmingly endorsed the stalwart progressive Tony Thurmond over Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

While this is a low-profile affair as statewide races go, it is important because lots of moneyed interests see it as a way to push their agenda under the radar here in super blue California.  As I noted during Tuck’s last failed campaign for the same office, he is a stealth front man, “the pure embodiment of the reckless, unaccountable arrogance of corporate education reform”   [Read more…]

Teachers, Guns, and Money

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The generalized rage and indiscriminate, spectacular violence that characterized the first year of the Trump era shows no sign of abating.  In the wake of yet another horrifying mass murder at a school in Florida, the President’s response is to meet senseless violence with the threat of more violence.  

Speaking to justify his breathtakingly stupid proposal to arm teachers as a defense against school shootings, Trump opined that if the educators at Stoneman Douglas High School had weapons they would have stopped the attack, “A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened.”  

The logic of Trump’s cartoon Western version of the world is chilling.  As the New York Times reported, the key to Trump’s plan is to give teachers bonuses for packing heat on campus   [Read more…]

Working People’s Day of Action: February 24 from 3:30-5 p.m. at Convention Center Park

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This coming Saturday, thousands of workers, along with their families, friends, and allies in the community, will gather in San Diego to stand up for the rights of working Americans in the face of the impending Janus vs AFSCME decision by the Supreme Court that aims further rig the system against us.  Against this assault, we will continue to insist on our right to form strong unions, raise our collective voice, and fight for equitable pay, affordable health care, civil rights, strong communities, and quality public education for all.  

The only political mechanism American workers have ever had to address this is the labor movement and that is why most Americans should care about the fate of the labor movement, whether they are in a union or not.  

So come on out this Saturday and stand with the American labor movement.  The new Robber Barons of the Trump era can only prevail if we let them divide us.  United, we can fight back and win a better future.     [Read more…]

“Money is Speech”: The Twisted Logic the Supreme Court Will Likely Use to Screw American Workers

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In the wake of my last column on the agenda of the billionaire backers of the Janus vs. AFSCME case soon to be heard by the Supreme Court, the Los Angeles Times published a solid piece that outlined the broader context and suspect reasoning guiding this shameless attack on American labor…

While it’s abundantly clear why progressives should be disturbed by this naked power grab, not all the dissent is coming from the left.  Even those with little sympathy for the Democratic Party have noted how brazenly this case distorts the notion of “free speech…”

It is also unlikely that most Americans if they had a say in the matter, would agree that “money is speech” or that there was any noble right at stake when the Court ruled in favor of unlimited corporate campaign spending in the Citizens United case.  One might also reasonably assume that not many Americans are too sanguine about the corrosive effect this rigging of our political system has had on our democracy.       [Read more…]

The Koch Network’s War on Unions is a War on Democrats, Education, and Democracy

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There’s blood in the water.  That’s the sense that the money behind the American Right has as we head into the second year of the Trump era.  And with recent polls showing the big Democratic polling edge ebbing, the sharks are beginning to circle.  

But, as unsettling as that is, there is a lot more at stake than just one election cycle.  

As Doug Porter ably reported last week, the Koch network got together in Indian Wells to sip cocktails and discuss how they could invest $400 million to promote their politics and policies in the upcoming election cycle.  That alone is very bad news for those of us hoping that a Democratic wave might sweep the Republican majority out of the House of Representatives, but the aim of this incredibly powerful group of billionaires is not just to win one election but to win the long war.   [Read more…]

Two Bad Ideas for Higher Education in the Governor’s Budget Proposal

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It’s the first week of classes in the San Diego Community College District where I teach, and, as has become almost an annual ritual, the new year comes with a number of suspect education reforms from Sacramento.  

Jerry Brown released his budget proposal recently, and unfortunately, there are two big, bad ideas that the Governor would like to be part of his higher education legacy: a new fully online college and performance-based funding.  What unites these initiatives is that they are both driven more by corporate education reform ideology than sound pedagogy or evidence that they will be effective in reaching their stated aim.  

I’ll start with the online college.  Governor Brown, California Community College Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, and other advocates for a new fully online statewide college claim that it is not meant as competition for the programs that already exist in our colleges.  This new college, they argue, is aimed at serving a population not being reached by community colleges at present—working adults, 48% of whom are in Spanish speaking households.       [Read more…]

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