Mitt, Mohammed, Teachers, and Tension

Hasn’t it been a tumultuous 2 weeks? Anyone reading this article and keeping an even a sideways glance on world events, presented in mainstream and alternative media alike, knows that the Arab Spring has become the Arab storm. And, in the US, the controversy about a home made film depicting Mohammed, the founder of Islam, as a lecher and pedophile, which ignited tensions and religious intolerances ready for such a spark, has also brought the discussion of America’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech into poignant debate. While teachers in Chicago assert their rights of workers to bargain collectively for fairness, members of the powerful seek to stifle their rights to free speech denigrating the strike as a blow to children. What a shaming? Then, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney employs a New Age-ism as a slur about half the population of the US, calling them victims who feel entitled to government support. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Mr. Romney apparently has never heard of the historic concept of the social contract. Apparently, the only contracts he concerns himself with are the ones he breaks with employees of the companies he gutted at Bain (bane?), or those oaths of allegiance to his has pledged to his ultra-wealthy constituents. Continue reading »