Hitting Left, Episode #223 with guest Diane Ravitch
We find lots of common ground on education. Not so much on Israel, Gaza, & student protests.
My guest yesterday was Diane Ravitch. Diane was one of the first guests on Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers back in 2017 and then again in 2020. It’s hard to believe this is our 8th year on the air and that we both are still at it, fighting the good fight to save public education, from what she once called, “the Billionaires Boys Club.”
She’s a historian of education, author of many books, and former NYU professor. She’s spent her career researching and analyzing education policy and advocating for public education for all students. Additionally, she served as a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under George Bush 1 and later, flipped, sharply criticized her old friends and on the right, and became an activist on behalf of public schools.
Her blog is one of the leading education forums in the world, having received more than 42 million page views. She supports the importance of teacher unions and democratic public schools and she’s highly critical of high-stakes standardized testing and the privatization of public schools.
We spent the first half of Friday’s show on common ground, talking mostly about post-pandemic education, Diane’s disappointment with Pres. Biden and his Education Sec. Miguel Cordona, and the imposition of MAGA curriculum in red-state schools.
There was some, but not much common ground when the discussion turned to Israel, Gaza, and the student protest movement. She says the student anti-genocide protests are “one-sided” and should also be directed at Hamas.
She is especially upset at the slogan, “From the river to the sea…” which she claims, means the destruction of Israel. To me, it’s a strange argument. After all, why should Palestinians being free imply the destruction of Israel, unless the state only exists to keep them unfree? Why couldn’t it mean, for example, an end to apartheid laws, displacement, and ethnic cleansing, and for full equality for all citizens, Jews, Muslims, and others?
I also pointed out that she has no such problem with imperialist and colonial phrases such as, “From sea to shining sea” or “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
I don’t think our differences on Israel/Gaza are reconcilable — at least right now — but the give-and-take was amicable and we were both left standing (no bats) at the end and still friends.
You can listen to the entire show here.
Michael, I don't dispute anything you say in your first paragraph. I agree that you've been clear and forthright in your criticism of the US/Israeli war against Palestinians, especially in Gaza. Given that you invite guests to Hitting Left, why invite someone who supports those in power who "provide the weapons and wage war and genocide against civilians (especially children)?" No decent person does that and should not be given a platform by you to spread such views even in the face of your disagreements with them. One's views on the slaughter in Gaza touches on the deepest recesses of one's humanity. It's not just another issue, but THE issue and needs to be treated like no other. Amicability, civility, common ground toward such people shouldn't even arise as a question. Knowledgeable people need to be heard and would appreciate a platform such as yours to explain their opposition to the extraordinary crimes against humanity taking place in Gaza. I respectfully urge you to save your precious invites for them.
Why should your disagreements on the US/Israel genocidal war on Gaza be amicable? Why is her reduction of the history of the Israeli settler-colonial state to Hamas' legally valid armed struggle against the Israeli occupation considered just a matter of political difference rather than an objective falsification of history? Why, at this point, after the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the forced starvation of Gaza, is she not regarded by you as a collaborator with war crimes in their most brutal sense? May I remind you that tolerance is not an overarching moral principle. She, like other apologists for the US/Israel aggression and oppression of Palestinians, should be treated deservedly as pariahs.