so msnbc is doing their little educational summit so that everyone can come and express their agreement with arne duncan, showing our commitment to america's future by uttering the same cliches in unison. colin and alma powell were on, and expressed the basic insight that the key to education in a free society is much, much more authoritarianism. indeed, he appeared to assert, much to the enthusiastic agreement of all present, that the real key to education is inducing stockholm syndrome among all students, traumatizing them so severely that they end up identifying with their captors:

joe scarborough: so he talks about the -- the general talks about how kids need to stay still and they need to focus and they need to mind the teachers. and i think that was the greatest shock when we went up to the harlem village academy and we were telling the story yesterday to the panel. i have -- i was in congress for four terms and probably spoke to 1,000 different classrooms. i have never seen a classroom better behaved, more focused. they were required to keep eye contact, to keep their chin up. they, in fact, they did not allow them to go into classrooms for a week and a half until they learned these basic things. in football it starts with blocking and tackling. here it starts with these basics that the general just talked about.

powell: that's what we do in the army.

scar: don't let them sleep.

powell: the army is a great example. we bring young kids in. we cut their hair off. we put them all in the same uniform.

powell: strip them of everything.

scar: including their mothers and fathers

powell: including their mothers and fathers and everyone else who spoiled them during their first 18 years of their life. and then we give them a new mommy and daddy called the drill sergeant, and he starts screaming at them. and they detest him until about the 8th week and then a transformation takes place and all they want to do is please him.

scar: right.

powell: they gain his respect and he gains their respect. it's the same way you teach kids.

i just want to remark that you have precisely as much right to come seize arne duncan's children under force and re-train them as arne duncan has to do the same to yours.