Alfie Kohn

@alfiekohn.bsky.social

3.1K followers 21 following 1.8K posts

author and lecturer on topics in education, parenting, and human behavior....
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Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer in the areas of education, parenting, and human behavior. He is a proponent of progressive education and has offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society more generally, drawing in each case from social science research. .. more

Education 68%

Psychology 10%

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · Aug 12

"Podcast" comes from the Latin "paudus" (meaning "to half-listen to") and "casteratum" (meaning "while preparing food"). Mine is called "KOHN'S ZONE: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Education & Kids." New episodes are posted on the 1st & 15th of each month: www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 13h

www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-vene...

....Fascists don't need a reason for this war or that war because they believe that war is a good in itself. Force is exciting and fun; using bombs and guns shows you're strong. Trump's a bully; he likes bullying.

Attacking Venezuela for oil is despicable and evil; murdering fisherman because you're a racist who believes the lives of non-white people are worthless is horrific and disgusting. But launching an invasion because you like to watch the speed and the violence is in some respects even worse.

As political science professor Elizabeth Saunders said, “we have the foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship” — and the dictator's personal preference is to watch TV shows in which the US military blows things up at his whim. What could go wrong?

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 17h

If we focus on "drugs, or on Maduro’s personal corruption, rather than on the world’s most powerful nation attacking a less powerful nation to protect its own economic interests—that is the extent to which the national conversation has been derailed by propaganda": is.gd/0iATKm

What do we call it when a stronger person decides to rob a weaker person because he can? It is just gangsterism. We are the most dangerous gangsters in the world today. Not in the sense of being charming rogues or alluring antiheroes. We are the bad guys. Americans, as a people, are extremely allergic to the belief that our nation is a malign force in the world. It goes against our national mythology, it goes against our national education, it goes against the natural human impulse to imagine ourselves as good people. Additionally, under our current regime, it goes against a deliberate program of quasi-religious nationalist propaganda now being rolled out as fast as possible through every channel of the government's power. Even the most credible news outlets in America can rarely bring themselves to portray us in the cold, accurate light that our conduct deserves. And the number of credible news outlets is shrinking as they are systematically being taken over by regime allies in order to broaden the larger propaganda campaign we are all living through.

Reposted by Serge Guimond, Seema Jayachandran, Ryan Enos , and 5 more Serge Guimond, Seema Jayachandran, Ryan Enos, David R. Miller, Alfie Kohn, David Waldstreicher, Farah Mendlesohn, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 17h

A reminder that the US killed 80 people in Venezuela, and it would be nice if the US media cared enough to think that the life of a grandmother in Caracas whose building is destroyed by a US bomb matters as much as the life of a person in the US.

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 18h

There really is a psychiatric common denominator here: The same grandiosity underlies his sense of entitlement to sexually abuse women and to invade countries (and plunder their resources).

Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 22h

Is it not clear that a muted response to Venezuela—a failure to push back by those with powerful platforms—will further convince Trump he can keep going & invade another country?

Did we not learn the pattern in 2016? “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”

www.americaamerica.news/p/this-is-wh...

This Is What Happens When America Goes Mad

Vote in Donald Trump, surround him with sycophants, expect an insane circus. The lawlessness and chaos was so knowable, alas.

www.americaamerica.news

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Scott A. Imberman, Alfie Kohn , and 1 more Brendan Nyhan, Scott A. Imberman, Alfie Kohn, Nathan P. Kalmoe

🦃 Seth Masket 🦃 @smotus.bsky.social · 22h

People informed about the attack beforehand: NYT, WaPo, oil executives
People not informed: Those with the sole power to declare war

Trump Reveals He Gave US Oil Companies a Heads Up ‘Before and After’ Maduro Raid

Trump revealed that American oil companies were informed in advance of the raid on Venezuela that led to the capture of the country’s president.

www.mediaite.com

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 22h

This Is What Happens When America Goes Mad

Vote in Donald Trump, surround him with sycophants, expect an insane circus. The lawlessness and chaos was so knowable, alas.

www.americaamerica.news

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 1d

Not just focusing only on those orders but repeating Israel's despicable lie that anything involving criticism of its war crimes is antisemitism

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 1d

Attention social studies teachers:
Ideal teachable moment -- a unit on how empires and tyrants engage in wars of conquest and plunder, from Attila and Alexander to Napoleon and ... say, what do we have here? why, it's the front page of today's newspaper!

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 1d

cc: Schumer, Jeffries....

Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 1d

I don't see what's hard about telling Americans the truth: The aged lying self-obsessed president who tariffed your stuff while blocking the Epstein Files & taking multiple cognitive tests just started a war you didn't ask for, for no coherent reason other than he thinks it makes him look good on TV

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 1d

Reposted by Stephen M. Walt, Alan Richardson, David R. Miller , and 5 more Stephen M. Walt, Alan Richardson, David R. Miller, Samantha Brennan, Peter Jacobsen, Alfie Kohn, Mark Rice, Ann Bartow

Tero Kuittinen @teroterotero.bsky.social · 2d

Nightmarish. CBS News is now running straight state propaganda. They handed Hegseth all three segments and are now tweeting flattering sound bites.

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

"Trump’s...desire to grab the territory & natural resources of other countries has been held in check...by his fear of entanglement in foreign wars....[so] the worst thing about the Maduro rendition is that it worked....He [is] a 19th-century imperialist, but with 21st-century weapons": is.gd/LScsq0

The ‘Putinization’ of US foreign policy has arrived in Venezuela

Trump is no longer bending the rules – he is demolishing them, with consequences far beyond Caracas

is.gd

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders, Will Jennings, Daniel W. Drezner , and 8 more Elizabeth Saunders, Will Jennings, Daniel W. Drezner, David R. Miller, Jacob T. Levy, Stephen Jones, Alfie Kohn, Daniel Kuehn, Stuart White, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 2d

It’s sobering to look back on the run-up to the Iraq war—a period of unceasing chattering-class debate, elaborate official lies, media complicity, unavailing global protest, in the end a giant stitch-up—and have it seem like some sort of paradise of public deliberation compared to these gangsters.

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

Whether it works out well for the aggressors is a distant second concern to its impact on their victims

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

I guess they were finished stepping over dead bodies in Gaza as they evaluated beachfront properties

Dan Osborn @osbornforne.bsky.social · 2d

And there ya have it…

Officials from top Wall Street firms will be traveling to Venezuela to investigate “investment prospects” of the country. “The trip will feature about 20 officials from the finance, energy and defense sectors.”

Finance Industry Eyes Investment Opportunities in Venezuela

Some on Wall Street are already considering possible investment opportunities in Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, according to Charles Myers, chairman of consulting firm Signum Globa...

www.wsj.com

Reposted by Jan W. Mueller, Michael Wagner, Ken Caldeira , and 12 more Jan W. Mueller, Michael Wagner, Ken Caldeira, Christopher Wright, Rosemary A. Joyce, Robert B. Reich, Bessma Momani, Peter Jacobsen, Daryl Adair, Alfie Kohn, Tim Stephens, Prokla Redaktion, Karen O’Leary, Manisha Sinha, Steve Murdoch

Dan Osborn @osbornforne.bsky.social · 2d

Finance Industry Eyes Investment Opportunities in Venezuela

www.wsj.com

Reposted by Adrian Daub, Glenn H. Shepard, Peter Jacobsen , and 3 more Adrian Daub, Glenn H. Shepard, Peter Jacobsen, Alfie Kohn, Henrik Skaug Sætra, Manisha Sinha

Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 2d

Well, it was either all this or another black person in a Star Wars movie

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

And, alas, they and Vance may be *our* legacy

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

Trump = Moe
Maduro = Calvin
Oil = lunch money

Reposted by Shibley Telhami, Richard S.J. Tol, Brendan Nyhan , and 10 more Shibley Telhami, Richard S.J. Tol, Brendan Nyhan, American Library Association, Melissa Johnson, David R. Miller, Michael D. McDonald, Mark Priestley, Alfie Kohn, Steven S. Taylor, Alexandra Cirone, Nicolai von Ondarza, David Darmofal

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Trump on Venezuela: "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition"

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 2d

And "regime change" is itself a euphemism for the crime of overthrowing another country's government

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Alfie Kohn

Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 2d

I'm glad that Congress isn't alive to see this

Reposted by Joe R. Feagin, David H. Kaye, Eric Goldman , and 6 more Joe R. Feagin, David H. Kaye, Eric Goldman, Charles W. Smith, Els Torreele, James Goodwin, Mark Priestley, Alfie Kohn, Mark Rice

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 2d

People are going to try and lure you into debates about whether Maduro was a good guy or not and the thing is, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of discussing whether violent kidnappings and extrajudicial murders by the US government are ok. No, they aren’t! End of convo.

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 3d

"The dictionary defines 'state-dominated media' as..."

Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 3d

SAT scores are often mistaken for a marker of merit among those who know nothing about the test. Doubly absurd to use something from a prof's teenage years, of course, but important to know that scores of SATs, like most stand. tests, are linearly correlated with family income.