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Adam Bessie is an assistant professor of English at Diablo Valley College, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a co-wrote a chapter in the 2011 edition of Project Censored on metaphor and political language, and is a frequent contributor to dailycensored.com, truthout, media-ocracy on diverse issues in education, culture and politics. Follow my essays on Twitter: adambessie
Monday, November 22, 2010 TSA and The Junk Man: The Thanksgiving Trojan Horse
The Junk Man is a marionette for the anti-government, neo-conservative agenda, an agenda that thrives on our fear and paranoia, and the TSA controversy has presented yet another opportunity to focus the newscycle on attacking the government, and to encourage privatization, de-regulation, and the free market.
Monday, November 1, 2010 Curing our National Case of Hypochondria
We have become a nation of hypochondriacs, convinced every cough is tuberculosis, every bump is cancer, and every sneeze is the swine flu. So scarred are we by 9/11, we find the terror in the innocuous, we see foreboding omens in the everyday.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 The Myth of the Bad Teacher (8 comments)
In this political season of faux anti-establishment anger born of very real economic desperation, public educators have become the villain du jour, their reputations collateral damage in the war against "big government.
Friday, October 1, 2010 The Rise of Penthouse Punk
The Penthouse Punk is a new breed, with the money of a stockbroker, the views of a neo-conservative economist, but the anti-establishment rhetoric of a black-hooded anarchist chucking rocks at cops in a riot.
Monday, August 2, 2010 Public Education Under Attack By Bay Area Media
While this seems a minor oversight, this one cover story is a front in a larger ideological war -" supported by the Republican Party -" to dismantle the public school system in favor of a "free enterprise system" of charter schools, with "school choice."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Myths of Main Street: What does it really mean to "Go Local"? (1 comments)
n the face of raging distrust of corporations and the federal government, localism is no longer provincial, it's no longer cheesy, but cool. But what does it really mean to "go local"?
Saturday, June 13, 2009 The Oakland School Borg? (1 comments)
Does a return to more conservative values in school dress codes, strict discipline, and absolute obedience to authority ensure that we can educate students better?
Monday, April 27, 2009 Where are the Teachers? (2 comments)
Not a single community college teacher was on the panel, a panel focused on problems facing community colleges. Huh? This is like not asking cardiologists to join the discussion on the heart, or holding a cooking show without a chef.
Saturday, February 14, 2009 Octuplets are More Sexy than Education (3 comments)
We need the public to take education as personally as they take Nadya Sulman's reproductive habits.
Friday, February 6, 2009 What Do Students Learn from Multiple-Choice Tests? (5 comments)
Multiple-choice tests - with their orderly rows of bubbles, and authoritative, syntactically clear solutions - construct a polished marble facade of truth, convincing students that there are clear, unambiguous answers in the world.
Thursday, February 5, 2009 Welcome, Conquistadors!
Welcome, Conquistadors! You can put your muskets down. Your beach front property is hidden this a-way!
Monday, January 19, 2009 It's Oscar (Grant) Season!
Unlike Slumdog Millionaire, the social ills that Oscar Grant's shooting exposes can't be solved quickly and easily, by an appearance on a game show.
Thursday, January 8, 2009 Should Obama Be A Liberal Bush? (6 comments)
Has Obama crossed the line from compromise to complicity?
Saturday, January 3, 2009 Moving Off Bush St.
Moving from Bush St. isn't just Obama's job. It's not just the President-elect's task to change the political landscape, to move us from a culture of fear and terror and partisanship. It's also our job.
Friday, December 12, 2008 Part II: Obama is Hitler? WTF? (7 comments)
Go skip to the comments now, if you like. You get my point I give you permission.
Monday, December 1, 2008 Obama is Hitler? WTF? (52 comments)
And no doubt, the powerful orator like Obama, like Martin Luther King, like Ronald Reagan, like Jim Jones, and Hitler can move the masses to action. But this is where the analogy ends.
Friday, October 31, 2008 Will my college students vote? (4 comments)
Will my college students vote? Will they play a role - even a decisive one - in this election? And more broadly: what part do they see themselves playing in politics in general?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 The Savage Nation Party? (4 comments)
Conservative commentator Michael Savage's vitriol with the Republican ticket speaks to the fragmentation of support for McCain in the "die hard" conservative base he speaks to daily, and more broadly, it suggests another sign of McCain's slowing momentum. But don't applaud yet.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Joe the Plumber for President (3 comments)
Joe the Plumber should be considered seriously as a Presidential Candidate.
Friday, October 3, 2008 Palin: Rebel Without a Brain (1 comments)
Palin framed herself as a rebel last night, as a revolutionary who is qualified to change the culture of Washington because she doesn't understand it. The rebellion she's leading? To make erudition not only a prerequisite for high office.
Thursday, September 18, 2008 "WHAT NEXT?" A Teacher's Perspective on Change
Students in my community college English course didn't seem to feel too much a part of "America's History," nor a part of it's future. And after 8 years under Bush, we know this feeling of "passionate paralysis" well.
Friday, September 5, 2008 Coffee with Sarah Palin
Palin is a symbol, sure. But what she represents is the popularity of pre-scientific thought which has plagued our nation the last 8 years.
Thursday, August 28, 2008 My Students Have Cooler Phones than I
Today's American college student has more technology in her pocket than some small African country you've never heard of, which could easily be looked up in seconds on Wikipedia (if someone was actually bored enough in class to do this). The author, a college English instructor, wonders about why his students have such awesome technology - and why it is so, so much better than his clunker, which can only make calls (OMG!).
