Let’s talk now about another issue that has been thoroughly twisted by the plutocrats/corporate ruling class: what happens to your money when you don’t need it anymore.
They have a vested interest in twisting this, and they work the average American into a twirl about it, even though it will probably never be a consideration for that American. For example, they let that American think that the life insurance proceeds he is leaving his kids will be subject to the estate tax (in almost every instance, they won’t).
Warren Buffet, the 2nd richest man in America, Bill Gates, the richest man in America, and Andrew Carnegie, the richest man who ever lived: Know what all of them believe and believed? In the estate tax. You know, that “death tax,” in the lexicon-twisting language of the corporate class.
Why do they believe in it when most of the rich don’t? Because they believe that inherited wealth is a danger to this democracy. And because they believe that the very wealthy who do not give a large portion of their wealth away for the public benefit before they die should give away up to around half of it to the people (through their government) when the wealthy don’t need it anymore [am assuming here that there is no need for money in the afterlife, nor any way to get it there if there was :)].
I say up to around half, because for the vast majority of Americans, their estates won’t pay ANY estate tax when they die. The exemptions are so large ($1 million plus), and with this being a net figure (that is, assets minus debts—including mortgages), this exemption is even more significant. And I say UP to around half, because the rate starts out low and only gradually moves up.
And this is the least burdensome tax there is. It only affects your money after you don’t need your money anymore. And only the money you didn’t already give away, to people (you can give thousands away a year to each person with no complications) or to organizations (effectively unlimited).
Buffet has been lucid in articulating what Carnegie implicitly feared: concentrated, inherited wealth’s effect on democracy and democratic processes. Unearned money buys power, arrogance, and self-service. It siphons the life out of democracy, leaving the appearance, the shell, of democracy while the amorphous plutocracy rules. 10-20% of today’s multimillionaires inherited it—and the percentage is rising.
Buffet also feels that those who have done so well because of the rules, the laws, the support, the work, the productivity, the freedom, the protection of the American system and society should give back. So did Carnegie, obviously, and so does Gates. As Buffet has said many times, he would not be “Warren Buffet, Billionaire” if he had been born in Bangladesh (no offense to Bengalis intended).
Robert H. Frank, professor at Cornell, has argued in the Huffington Post that luck contributes heavily to success, and that “well-paid Americans owe an enormous, if rarely acknowledged, debt to the social investments that supported their success.”
Well over one-third of the self-made wealthy say they were just in the right place at the right time. Yes, hard work and talent increase the odds, but the chance of success is still small—so many incredibly able and dedicated individuals do not become wealthy. And since genes and environment seem to largely account for all significant differences among individuals, someone born talented and raised to be hard-working and diligent is, as someone has said, pretty incredibly lucky to begin with.
There are other reasons that unearned (inherited) wealth has bad effects too. Unless great care is taken, inherited wealth often enfeebles or corrupts the succeeding generations, whose privilege guts their innovative drive for anything except perverting the system to hold onto and accumulate more wealth and power. This makes them individual tragedies in many cases, but the danger to the society is the greater concern. The three very wealthy gentlemen recognize and recognized that concentrating wealth into the hands of the very few is a prescription for plutocratic oligarchy, not a democracy, and that oppression could even result. Money buys influence. If the money is not shuffled around sufficiently and regularly, then the idea of equal opportunity goes from being the American dream to the never possible. Interesting that these three gentlemen all came from unwealthy backgrounds (although Gates had an upper middle class background, which could be considered wealthy).
Buffet believes abolishing the estate tax “would encourage an aristocracy of wealth rather than merit.” Obama 190
“When you get rid of the estate tax,” Buffet says, “you’re basically handing over command of the country’s resources to people who didn’t earn it. It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the children of all the winners at the 2000 Games.” Obama 191
The rich who want to keep every penny for themselves and their descendants don’t take into account “all the public investment that lets us live the way we do,” Buffet says. “Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner. But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing—and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.” Buffet, in Obama 191
“We will have to stop pretending that all cuts in spending are equivalent, or that all tax increases are the same. Ending corporate subsidies that serve no discernible economic purpose is one thing,” (Obama 191) batting away the hands that want help getting back up after being knocked down is another thing entirely. Calling a rescinding of tax CUTS (to those who benefitted the most) an INCREASE is self-serving duplicity, conflating “in the minds of voters the very real tax burdens of the middle class and the very manageable tax burdens of the wealthy.” Obama 192
As Obama relates, given the large exemptions, not a single family farm in the country has been lost as a result of the estate tax. But the super-rich shouters want you to think so, because they want the break, and they need your emotional ignorance to get it.
Since 1970, income of the average worker has been flat or has declined after inflation. Yet the top .01 percent have seen their income average quintuple. Distribution of wealth is now so skewed that levels of inequality are now higher than they were in the time of the Robber-Barons of the late 19th century.
Except the shouters say you can’t talk about this stuff. “Stirring up class conflict” is how they put it. Interesting that most of them are part of, or highly connected to, the moneyed elites. And those moneyed elites have generally gone to the same schools, generally moved in the same circles, and generally are out of touch with most of America. There’s a reason you can’t find anyone to really regulate Wall Street. It’s because nearly everyone is from the same general mold.
No one should begrudge wealth honestly earned. Government should not cast greedy eyes at anywhere near the majority of a living person’s wealth. But as Buffet and Obama intimate, it is important to know when is enough. Ostentatious wealth and crass materialism serve neither individuals nor society, and the underlying yearning for more, more, more, when someone already has enough, can be destructive. To earn more, often as a side benefit to productive activity, as Buffet does, is no danger. To crave more and manipulate more, to be utterly selfish and often ruthless, can be a danger.
“Once your drapes cost more than the average American’s yearly salary, then you can afford to pay a bit more in taxes.’ Obama 193. Yet even that “bit more” sends the howl meter off the scale. Howling from a class that have benefitted fantastically disproportionally from the events of the last 30 years.
Those clamoring for a total end to estate and gift taxes never talk about how that revenue would be made up. It's a question that needs answered, because those taxes raise considerable revenue, several tens of billions a year at the federal level alone, not to mention at the state level.
Is there no societal or communal fellowship, no responsibility to our fellow citizens and society? If so, we are all free-riders on the financial, material, infrastructure, institutions, and social structures created by our forebears, and if we do not care for and reinvigorate all that, it will dissipate, and we will stricken our descendants.
I wouldn’t think we’d want that. We are already on track to be one of the most selfish societies ever. Surely we can come to see our common interests, and surely we love our children and grandchildren and their society—and by extension our future generations—enough to think of them and not just the short-term and our own particular families.
Here’s a revelation: You don’t owe your descendants any wealth. What you owe them is a society and hopefully world that is at least as good as it was when you came into it, and you owe them opportunity. If everyone knew that was the case, inherited wealth would lose most all its divisive and destructive qualities, because there wouldn’t be any, save some basic heirlooms or modest land and other things—essentially the exemption limits we have now. It would transform much selfishness, much fixation on the transitory things of this life. And our society would benefit. For when a person would know that, yes, they can enjoy the fruit of their labor for their life, and then, when they don’t need it anymore, it largely goes back to the society from which it sprung, they will look at life very differently. The perpetual, ruthless struggles to advance one’s family over others will largely dissipate. Of course, that will require a change in cultural values to successfully effect.
Obama quotes Ben Franklin’s words to his mother on why he devoted so much time to public service: “I would rather have it said, ‘He lived usefully,’ than, ‘He died rich.’” (361)
Ah Ben, we need heed your wisdom.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Welcome Back Madame!
Zeus never needed a good reason to hurl the zap; don’t take it personally! :)
One thing I meant to say when I spoke about Obama acting differently from the book, or even as he was as a candidate: Did you notice that the “maverick” John McCain also acted differently in the 2008 election, and most especially in his 2010 Senate re-election? Maybe Corpatia has a Tantalus Field (Trek reference alert!), lol!
On front after front, on issue after issue, our society fails or even creates problems, and fails to fix them or sometimes even address them. But with the blathering blanket statement that “education is the answer!” they throw these problems at already beleaguered schools and teachers and command, “Fix them! Oh, and by the way, also do that reading, writing, arithmetic stuff too. Somehow. In your spare time. What are we paying you (barely) for anyway? Be happy you have a job. If your job were really important, you’d be making money and have prestige, so don’t dare complain.” And sales tax forgiveness and tax deductions still don’t go far in making up very much of the painful outlay dedicated teachers make in buying supplies for their classrooms and students.
Requiring board members, teachers, administrators, and elected officials to have their children in the system would indeed be a BIG spur to correction of education problems. Same thing for Social Security and our elected federal representatives.
I was from the first inherently suspicious of the premise (that charter schools are the cure-all and that teachers unions are responsible for much to most of what is wrong in education) of the “documentary” Waiting For Superman. My suspicions were confirmed when Dana Goldstein did an article about some key facts missing from the film, such as: 80% of charters are no better than regular public schools (some are even much worse), some charter school teachers are happily unionized, and there are some nationally recognized public schools that successfully educate poverty-level children. My goad was even more, well, goaded, when the film talked about the Finnish educational system being the best in the world (it may be; you know how fond I am of Finland!), but then conveniently left out (presumably because it would have dessicated the film’s premise) that those teachers are unionized, have tenure, and that Finland, being one of the Scandinavian state-capitalism hybrid societies, has a cradle-to-grave social welfare system. And further, maybe those teachers and schools do so well because, with universal daycare and healthcare, first-rate public transportation, and a community ethic, the children, parents, and teachers are not crushingly burdened or distracted—maybe teaching and learning can readily take place.
Too often this fast-paced society, so fond of false or meaningless praise for children, praises little to nothing concerning adults. I have known grown men to get an award (usually NOT from their employer) after 30 years of working and break down at the positive recognition.
Excellent story about Fiorello. I once heard that story related by a minister who compared it to Christ’s paying of humanity’s fine.
Your own story proves by opposing example most of the entire premise of Vance Packard’s now 40 year old book (A Nation of Strangers).
Your son’s class story is one all too familiar to all too many teachers across the nation. See, America, what your enabling has brought to you. And the communication matter is one in which the students just aren’t going to do it if it’s not their preferred way (usually Facebook, Twitter, or the like).
It is easy to blame the public school system, but we need be careful we aren’t necessarily blaming the usually beleaguered teachers. Teachers are very frustrated. One teacher came under fire (itself a sign that something is deeply wrong at the societal level) for calling students unmotivated, and for even saying it so they could see or hear it. In her words, the students are “rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying. They get angry when you ask them to think or be creative. The students are not being held accountable. They want everything right now,” and are let off the hook at school, at activities, and at home. "Parents are more trying to be their kids' friends and less trying to be their parent," the teacher, Natalie Munroe, told the Associated Press after her blog became widely known.
One of the brighter students agreed with her that high school and higher kids don’t want to do anything. However, this student feels it is the teacher’s job to GIVE STUDENTS MOTIVATION TO LEARN.
Here lies error—the teacher being held accountable to give extrinsically, and completely, what should, and really largely in the long-run only can be, intrinsic.
On other subjects you’ve touched on, if only America was not so arrogant and phobic, we might take a lesson from our European cousins on energy and environment, and travelers such as yourself could help spread the word. Far fewer of you than there should be; “the harvest is great and the laborers are few.”
There are yet other points to take up related to Obama’s book, and I will be on them very shortly.
Again, welcome back to the country, and welcome back to good health!
One thing I meant to say when I spoke about Obama acting differently from the book, or even as he was as a candidate: Did you notice that the “maverick” John McCain also acted differently in the 2008 election, and most especially in his 2010 Senate re-election? Maybe Corpatia has a Tantalus Field (Trek reference alert!), lol!
On front after front, on issue after issue, our society fails or even creates problems, and fails to fix them or sometimes even address them. But with the blathering blanket statement that “education is the answer!” they throw these problems at already beleaguered schools and teachers and command, “Fix them! Oh, and by the way, also do that reading, writing, arithmetic stuff too. Somehow. In your spare time. What are we paying you (barely) for anyway? Be happy you have a job. If your job were really important, you’d be making money and have prestige, so don’t dare complain.” And sales tax forgiveness and tax deductions still don’t go far in making up very much of the painful outlay dedicated teachers make in buying supplies for their classrooms and students.
Requiring board members, teachers, administrators, and elected officials to have their children in the system would indeed be a BIG spur to correction of education problems. Same thing for Social Security and our elected federal representatives.
I was from the first inherently suspicious of the premise (that charter schools are the cure-all and that teachers unions are responsible for much to most of what is wrong in education) of the “documentary” Waiting For Superman. My suspicions were confirmed when Dana Goldstein did an article about some key facts missing from the film, such as: 80% of charters are no better than regular public schools (some are even much worse), some charter school teachers are happily unionized, and there are some nationally recognized public schools that successfully educate poverty-level children. My goad was even more, well, goaded, when the film talked about the Finnish educational system being the best in the world (it may be; you know how fond I am of Finland!), but then conveniently left out (presumably because it would have dessicated the film’s premise) that those teachers are unionized, have tenure, and that Finland, being one of the Scandinavian state-capitalism hybrid societies, has a cradle-to-grave social welfare system. And further, maybe those teachers and schools do so well because, with universal daycare and healthcare, first-rate public transportation, and a community ethic, the children, parents, and teachers are not crushingly burdened or distracted—maybe teaching and learning can readily take place.
Too often this fast-paced society, so fond of false or meaningless praise for children, praises little to nothing concerning adults. I have known grown men to get an award (usually NOT from their employer) after 30 years of working and break down at the positive recognition.
Excellent story about Fiorello. I once heard that story related by a minister who compared it to Christ’s paying of humanity’s fine.
Your own story proves by opposing example most of the entire premise of Vance Packard’s now 40 year old book (A Nation of Strangers).
Your son’s class story is one all too familiar to all too many teachers across the nation. See, America, what your enabling has brought to you. And the communication matter is one in which the students just aren’t going to do it if it’s not their preferred way (usually Facebook, Twitter, or the like).
It is easy to blame the public school system, but we need be careful we aren’t necessarily blaming the usually beleaguered teachers. Teachers are very frustrated. One teacher came under fire (itself a sign that something is deeply wrong at the societal level) for calling students unmotivated, and for even saying it so they could see or hear it. In her words, the students are “rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying. They get angry when you ask them to think or be creative. The students are not being held accountable. They want everything right now,” and are let off the hook at school, at activities, and at home. "Parents are more trying to be their kids' friends and less trying to be their parent," the teacher, Natalie Munroe, told the Associated Press after her blog became widely known.
One of the brighter students agreed with her that high school and higher kids don’t want to do anything. However, this student feels it is the teacher’s job to GIVE STUDENTS MOTIVATION TO LEARN.
Here lies error—the teacher being held accountable to give extrinsically, and completely, what should, and really largely in the long-run only can be, intrinsic.
On other subjects you’ve touched on, if only America was not so arrogant and phobic, we might take a lesson from our European cousins on energy and environment, and travelers such as yourself could help spread the word. Far fewer of you than there should be; “the harvest is great and the laborers are few.”
There are yet other points to take up related to Obama’s book, and I will be on them very shortly.
Again, welcome back to the country, and welcome back to good health!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Gaining Momentum
Professor J,
As is so often the case there is one more thing. Or two, or three. :)
My son came in yesterday and recounted what had happened in his Sociology class. It relates so clearly to some of your recent comments on education that I thought you might find it interesting or perhaps depressing, as I did.
He arrived in class and turned in two labs that were due. While he was doing this a couple of other students asked what he was doing, he explained; they looked bewildered. "The professor sent out an e-mail." he told them. More blank stares. It was a test day so the prof. asked if everyone had a Scantron. A forest of hands went up of those that didn't. Apparently the bookstore was out. Off goes the teacher in search of test sheets. The entire time students are straggling in, several minutes late. He returns with the test sheets and disburses them. Two girls come in (now many minutes into class time) and announce that they don't have the necessary sheets either. As the prof leaves again for more supplies he says, "Anyone need anything while I'm out, barbecue or a beer?" When he returns he asks if everyone has a pencil. Another rash of hands go up. The two girls announced they are going to "share one." One girl just picks up her things and leaves.
When my son finished telling me this he told me he was "baffled" by the behavior, especially the fact that no one seemed concerned in the least about being so unprepared or embarrassed by their behavior, and certainly not sorry for wasting everyone's time. He asked me "What do you think it is?"
"Don't you read our blog? The Professor just covered that."
;)
My son blamed the public school system (even a small bit of the behavior exhibited in that classroom would have resulted in a zero in his private high school and no sympathy for the student at home) and added that he thought it is far too easy to get into a university.
You've covered in recent posts some of the ideas and attitudes that have brought this about. To hear the crippling result described by a member of the next generation is however, eye opening.
While traveling in Europe we saw much in the way of energy efficiency that made us think that we are light years behind here at home. The biggest thing that my daughter and I noticed on this trip were the wind farms. Clearly visible from the air while flying over Germany, we then saw many of them in Italy and Greece. And for all the late Senator Kennedy's (and uber environmentalist RFK's) whining about them ruining the view if they were installed off his beloved Hyannis Port, they are, even in large numbers quite aesthetically pleasing. They have an almost sculptural element about them. Never once (even in the most breathtaking landscapes) did anyone in our group voice an opinion that they detracted from our overall experience. In other areas we saw on hillsides, large expanses of solar panels which also were not any big detraction from the landscape.
I wonder as you do, what Obama thinks of nuclear power now. Germany's Chancellor Merkel was quick to act and today I read that Germany will begin fading out their nuclear power use altogether, counting the costs too high. She gets credit for being decisive, aided of course by the fact that they are further along the road to sustainability than most other countries. The French, getting the lion's share of their energy from nuclear power plants will have a harder time of transition.
You touched on abortion. I don't think your idea about both sides being able to present their case to the mother is a bad one. My overall feeling on this is that I'd like to see it sent down to the states to decide. They just passed a 3 day waiting period in South Dakota. The pro-choice side is up in arms. Why? What could possibly be the negative in asking a woman (or a couple) to give careful consideration to a decision, with life long consequences either way, careful thought?
You covered far more while I was away than I can respond to, but as we both know many of these subjects and ideas will be resurfacing sometime soon. ;)
As is so often the case there is one more thing. Or two, or three. :)
My son came in yesterday and recounted what had happened in his Sociology class. It relates so clearly to some of your recent comments on education that I thought you might find it interesting or perhaps depressing, as I did.
He arrived in class and turned in two labs that were due. While he was doing this a couple of other students asked what he was doing, he explained; they looked bewildered. "The professor sent out an e-mail." he told them. More blank stares. It was a test day so the prof. asked if everyone had a Scantron. A forest of hands went up of those that didn't. Apparently the bookstore was out. Off goes the teacher in search of test sheets. The entire time students are straggling in, several minutes late. He returns with the test sheets and disburses them. Two girls come in (now many minutes into class time) and announce that they don't have the necessary sheets either. As the prof leaves again for more supplies he says, "Anyone need anything while I'm out, barbecue or a beer?" When he returns he asks if everyone has a pencil. Another rash of hands go up. The two girls announced they are going to "share one." One girl just picks up her things and leaves.
When my son finished telling me this he told me he was "baffled" by the behavior, especially the fact that no one seemed concerned in the least about being so unprepared or embarrassed by their behavior, and certainly not sorry for wasting everyone's time. He asked me "What do you think it is?"
"Don't you read our blog? The Professor just covered that."
;)
My son blamed the public school system (even a small bit of the behavior exhibited in that classroom would have resulted in a zero in his private high school and no sympathy for the student at home) and added that he thought it is far too easy to get into a university.
You've covered in recent posts some of the ideas and attitudes that have brought this about. To hear the crippling result described by a member of the next generation is however, eye opening.
While traveling in Europe we saw much in the way of energy efficiency that made us think that we are light years behind here at home. The biggest thing that my daughter and I noticed on this trip were the wind farms. Clearly visible from the air while flying over Germany, we then saw many of them in Italy and Greece. And for all the late Senator Kennedy's (and uber environmentalist RFK's) whining about them ruining the view if they were installed off his beloved Hyannis Port, they are, even in large numbers quite aesthetically pleasing. They have an almost sculptural element about them. Never once (even in the most breathtaking landscapes) did anyone in our group voice an opinion that they detracted from our overall experience. In other areas we saw on hillsides, large expanses of solar panels which also were not any big detraction from the landscape.
I wonder as you do, what Obama thinks of nuclear power now. Germany's Chancellor Merkel was quick to act and today I read that Germany will begin fading out their nuclear power use altogether, counting the costs too high. She gets credit for being decisive, aided of course by the fact that they are further along the road to sustainability than most other countries. The French, getting the lion's share of their energy from nuclear power plants will have a harder time of transition.
You touched on abortion. I don't think your idea about both sides being able to present their case to the mother is a bad one. My overall feeling on this is that I'd like to see it sent down to the states to decide. They just passed a 3 day waiting period in South Dakota. The pro-choice side is up in arms. Why? What could possibly be the negative in asking a woman (or a couple) to give careful consideration to a decision, with life long consequences either way, careful thought?
You covered far more while I was away than I can respond to, but as we both know many of these subjects and ideas will be resurfacing sometime soon. ;)
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Catching Up...Slowly
Well, Professor J, you are a pretty good one man show! Our readers are sure to lament my return. Thank you for doing such a brilliant job while I was away, and then ill. Pneumonia wasn't exactly what I had intended to pick up in Greece. I still don't know what I did to anger Zeus enough to have him hit me with that unfortunate thunderbolt. ;)
Where to start? I mean, since you were so laconic in my absence. :)
Let's start with education. I thought your proposed solutions to be spot on. The tying of everything to test scores only leads to, as you pointed out, the abysmal result of "teaching to the test" which hardly resembles what I think of when I think of education. Excellent idea about pairing up new teachers with experienced ones, and peer reviews as opposed to leaving all the power for those decisions with the administration. In our own paper on Sunday were these comments in a lengthy article on the challenging logistics of of job-evaluation for teachers:
"For the first time, 50 percent of teacher's job reviews will be tied to student achievement. The other half will be based on how principals view their work, taking into account both professionalism and content knowledge."
A local Spanish teacher voiced the obvious problem with connecting everything to a test score, " It scares me because I am being judged on a student's one time shot at a test."
A more rational and holistic approach is advanced by the coordinator of our city schools' Office of Teacher Effectiveness Measurement: "...it's possible that the team of approved observers will stretch to include teacher peers, students and parents. We are still working to identify appropriate measures for stakeholders."
It's too much to ask of parents, whose children get one shot at an education to ask them to put up with bad schools while the bureaucrats waste time deciding what to do, a sentiment espoused by Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the D.C. public schools, and shared over the weekend on C-Span's Book TV. She's correct when she says (I'm paraphrasing.) that if I have a second grader I'm not going to want to hear that the schools will be better in 5 years.
Parents and students (the stakeholders) would at least feel empowered and encouraged by being made part of the process. It should be made a requirement for school board members, teachers, and administrators to have their children enrolled in the very schools that they are involved in making decisions for. I'd add to that every elected official up and down the line. I have a feeling that real change would come a bit quicker if that were the case.
Teachers aren't given all the credit they deserve for how hard they work. When home schooling and shopping at stores for educational resources it was very common to see teachers agonizing over things they wanted to purchase for students to enrich their experiences, but it was clear many of them were buying these items with their own money, it simply wasn't possible for them to do all they wanted. Yes, they get a break on the sales tax and get to claim a deduction at the end of the year, but they are paying out of pocket up front.
Recently our church, had a luncheon for all the public school teachers who wished to attend, an effort to lift them up, pray for, and encourage them. A thousand or so showed up. The church provided bags of school supplies along with lunch to them as a gift and show of love and support for all their hard work and dedication. Many broke down in tears. Over paper and erasers and markers. Well that, and the fact that someone was recognizing their efforts and letting them know their hard work was not going unnoticed and unappreciated.
I found Obama's mother's attitudes on faith intriguing as well. And those church ladies (and men), well, we've all seen them haven't we? Where is, not only our grace (OUR only hope) toward others, but our graciousness? Christians haven't done a good job here. All too often we say we "hate the sin but love the sinner" only to often behave in ways that reveal quite the opposite is true. One of my favorite authors, Phillip Yancey does an excellent job of dealing with these issues in his book, Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church. We have little tolerance for the faults and weaknesses of others, (as you say "There but for the grace of God...") but make exceptions and excuses for our own. We love our rules above relationships. We seek comfort at the risk of compassion.
In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells the story (which I'm paraphrasing) of New York's Mayor LaGuardia showing up at night court in the city's poorest ward, releasing the judge for the evening and taking the bench himself. After a while a woman came before him who was accused of stealing bread to feed her grandchildren. The victim refused to drop the charges. She was in tatters the daughter's husband had left and the children were destitute and sick. LaGuardia told the woman he must uphold the law and it was to be ten days in jail or a ten dollar fine. While he was saying this he was reaching into his own pocket. He fined himself and everyone in the room for "living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat." He then ordered the bailiff to collect the fines and hand them over to the woman. So everyone in the room from policemen to petty criminals paid the fine and gave the mayor a standing ovation.
A lesson in grace...and wisdom.
In Continuous Barrage you outlined beautifully the combination of stresses on modern American families. I couldn't help feeling fortunate as I read your words for a number of reasons. Living in a community that my husband grew up in means that my children were likely to hear. "Is your daddy______?" around town. Little reminders to behave. It means too that I have a plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc. that are longtime friends and not strangers. People to who, if the work isn't finished and I have to leave, I can simply say "Lock up when you're finished." The polar opposite of what many resort to now, using something like Angie's List where we use the opinions of strangers to locate still more strangers to come work in our homes hoping they are honest and reliable. An added yet common layer of insecurity.
Grandparents nearby meant I never had to fret over the quality of the sitter. (If anything my sitters thought I was unqualified to care for their darlings! ;)) The love and support of friends of 30 years and more. We move from place to place in our society, often for no other reason than that there will be more money. We get more of what we think we need and seldom recognize the full and complex costs.
So glad to be back! :)
Where to start? I mean, since you were so laconic in my absence. :)
Let's start with education. I thought your proposed solutions to be spot on. The tying of everything to test scores only leads to, as you pointed out, the abysmal result of "teaching to the test" which hardly resembles what I think of when I think of education. Excellent idea about pairing up new teachers with experienced ones, and peer reviews as opposed to leaving all the power for those decisions with the administration. In our own paper on Sunday were these comments in a lengthy article on the challenging logistics of of job-evaluation for teachers:
"For the first time, 50 percent of teacher's job reviews will be tied to student achievement. The other half will be based on how principals view their work, taking into account both professionalism and content knowledge."
A local Spanish teacher voiced the obvious problem with connecting everything to a test score, " It scares me because I am being judged on a student's one time shot at a test."
A more rational and holistic approach is advanced by the coordinator of our city schools' Office of Teacher Effectiveness Measurement: "...it's possible that the team of approved observers will stretch to include teacher peers, students and parents. We are still working to identify appropriate measures for stakeholders."
It's too much to ask of parents, whose children get one shot at an education to ask them to put up with bad schools while the bureaucrats waste time deciding what to do, a sentiment espoused by Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the D.C. public schools, and shared over the weekend on C-Span's Book TV. She's correct when she says (I'm paraphrasing.) that if I have a second grader I'm not going to want to hear that the schools will be better in 5 years.
Parents and students (the stakeholders) would at least feel empowered and encouraged by being made part of the process. It should be made a requirement for school board members, teachers, and administrators to have their children enrolled in the very schools that they are involved in making decisions for. I'd add to that every elected official up and down the line. I have a feeling that real change would come a bit quicker if that were the case.
Teachers aren't given all the credit they deserve for how hard they work. When home schooling and shopping at stores for educational resources it was very common to see teachers agonizing over things they wanted to purchase for students to enrich their experiences, but it was clear many of them were buying these items with their own money, it simply wasn't possible for them to do all they wanted. Yes, they get a break on the sales tax and get to claim a deduction at the end of the year, but they are paying out of pocket up front.
Recently our church, had a luncheon for all the public school teachers who wished to attend, an effort to lift them up, pray for, and encourage them. A thousand or so showed up. The church provided bags of school supplies along with lunch to them as a gift and show of love and support for all their hard work and dedication. Many broke down in tears. Over paper and erasers and markers. Well that, and the fact that someone was recognizing their efforts and letting them know their hard work was not going unnoticed and unappreciated.
I found Obama's mother's attitudes on faith intriguing as well. And those church ladies (and men), well, we've all seen them haven't we? Where is, not only our grace (OUR only hope) toward others, but our graciousness? Christians haven't done a good job here. All too often we say we "hate the sin but love the sinner" only to often behave in ways that reveal quite the opposite is true. One of my favorite authors, Phillip Yancey does an excellent job of dealing with these issues in his book, Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church. We have little tolerance for the faults and weaknesses of others, (as you say "There but for the grace of God...") but make exceptions and excuses for our own. We love our rules above relationships. We seek comfort at the risk of compassion.
In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning tells the story (which I'm paraphrasing) of New York's Mayor LaGuardia showing up at night court in the city's poorest ward, releasing the judge for the evening and taking the bench himself. After a while a woman came before him who was accused of stealing bread to feed her grandchildren. The victim refused to drop the charges. She was in tatters the daughter's husband had left and the children were destitute and sick. LaGuardia told the woman he must uphold the law and it was to be ten days in jail or a ten dollar fine. While he was saying this he was reaching into his own pocket. He fined himself and everyone in the room for "living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat." He then ordered the bailiff to collect the fines and hand them over to the woman. So everyone in the room from policemen to petty criminals paid the fine and gave the mayor a standing ovation.
A lesson in grace...and wisdom.
In Continuous Barrage you outlined beautifully the combination of stresses on modern American families. I couldn't help feeling fortunate as I read your words for a number of reasons. Living in a community that my husband grew up in means that my children were likely to hear. "Is your daddy______?" around town. Little reminders to behave. It means too that I have a plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc. that are longtime friends and not strangers. People to who, if the work isn't finished and I have to leave, I can simply say "Lock up when you're finished." The polar opposite of what many resort to now, using something like Angie's List where we use the opinions of strangers to locate still more strangers to come work in our homes hoping they are honest and reliable. An added yet common layer of insecurity.
Grandparents nearby meant I never had to fret over the quality of the sitter. (If anything my sitters thought I was unqualified to care for their darlings! ;)) The love and support of friends of 30 years and more. We move from place to place in our society, often for no other reason than that there will be more money. We get more of what we think we need and seldom recognize the full and complex costs.
So glad to be back! :)
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Upward
People disgusted with capitalism sometimes lament that the other systems have not really been tried, that the powerful and ambitious hijacked and perverted them. While that may be the case, it might also be that such hijacking and perverting were inevitable. It is a natural, if often tragic, aspect that leaders often seek privilege for themselves (their reward in their eyes for all they do as leaders).
Many European companies do not have CEO pay any higher than 7-10 times that of the lowest paid worker. In 1980, the average CEO pay in America was 42 times that of the average hourly worker. By 2005, it was 262 times. As Obama rightly relates, this has had little to do with improved performance. “In fact, some of the country’s most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge drops in earnings, losses in shareholder value, massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers’ pension funds” (where those funds even exist anymore) at a time when average workers’ income was flat or in decline. (62) Where is the sharing with employees of the effects of bad times in the company, let alone sharing in the productive gains of good times? Those CEOs are big on getting concessions from union members during “hard times,” but don’t want to sacrifice at all themselves.
This is Robber-Capitalism in action. Protected by insulated and pliant boards, and a political system and media they heavily influence (and sometimes control), they don’t have to be fair, or show remorse, or be accountable. They ARE the power. And every time those who champion “freedom,” “democracy,” “free markets” and the like so loudly, while at the same time condemning so strongly the very idea of government, they merely reinforce the death-grip of the enslaving class. Every time they speak out about some cultural issue while remaining mute about corporate malfeasance against the republic and its citizens, it is not just a mark of hypocrisy, it is serving the masters with invisible self-chains.
“We ran up the national credit card so that the biggest beneficiaries of the global economy could keep an even bigger share of the take.” Obama 188, where he sounds just like David Stockman today (but the Obama of today has been relatively silent on the matter).
We still wave away the fact that we acquiesced, with barely even a breath of acknowledgement, let alone regret, to: two wars, military budget nearly doubled, prescription drug entitlement, earmarks that went up by 2/3rds, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and from budget surpluses to massive debts. It IS collective denial. We made this shiv (in my friend’s T9 speak). The bulk of this debt is the result of tax cuts, 99% of which went to the top 5%. And yet what do we show approval of? 60% approved, apparently (if we can believe big business-controlled media) of the recent extending the tax cuts for all that got us in this mess. We ran up the debt, putting us in debt to foreigners who might not have our best interests at heart.
“If there’s class warfare going on in America, then my class is winning.” (Warren Buffet, 2nd richest man in the world). As Obama relates, even without tax shelters or a tax planner, Buffet pays a lower effective tax rate than his receptionist, or average Americans in general. In fact, his rate is about half his receptionist’s. This is because, like most wealthy Americans, nearly all of his income comes from dividends and capital gains, two things generated by the buying, holding, and selling of corporate stock and stock related financial instruments, and two things taxed at rates nearly one third of what they were thirty years ago. See any pattern here? Corporations and the “elites” who run them have manipulated the system to give themselves the most benefit, regardless of what it does to anyone else, and regardless of what that does for education, for infrastructure, for research and development, for safety nets that allow citizens to feel they have a chance to make it economically and to feel like actual citizens instead of used up and discarded commodities. All of those things are not only starved from lack of money coming to them, but must be propped up on money borrowed from foreigners.
I don’t like taxes on productive things, like employment, or buying a house and fixing it up and selling it for a profit. Those things are economically productive, and produce tangible benefit to individuals and society. Manipulating stock prices (as CEOs and hedge funds do) to make money, on the other hand, largely benefits only the individuals and small group of investors involved, and worse, often comes at the expense of economic productivity, as short-term and short-sighted decisions are made selfishly by closing plants, slashing labor, slashing research budgets, etc. All of which affect the long-term negatively, and often to the detriment of the society that has to pay those costs directly and indirectly.
Assuming (perhaps a bit of fantasy given corporate influence) that Americans could force their representatives to address this, they would also have to address it at the international level, for the system has become worldwide. Which runs into American fear of supra-nationalism or international governing agreements, a fear ingeniously and deviously fomented and manipulated by the corporate ruling class because it allows that class to always threaten the ultimate escape valve. What is that valve, you say? That if Americans and their representatives ever start to make rumbling noises about reining in this system of corporate excess and exploitation, the corporations and their money will largely move off-shore somewhere, leaving the American economic and financial system to collapse. Without new international agreements, what they threaten is very doable. Certainly the money could move in a matter of hours, probably only minutes. All because they have set it up that way.
Perhaps we know why George Carlin said, “America, you’re owned.”
Since we’re fantasizing here, if the above limitations were not the case and we wanted to change things, we would give the wealthy class a direct incentive to quit starving government of its needed things and quit transferring government’s money to themselves indirectly via unneeded things. How? By upping the capital gains rate back to the 40% it was 30 years ago, but this time only for the sale of financial instruments. And set it so this capital gains tax disappears entirely once the national debt is paid off.
I know, I know, if I think like this too much, I might be participating in the general illusion/delusion culture too! :)
Many European companies do not have CEO pay any higher than 7-10 times that of the lowest paid worker. In 1980, the average CEO pay in America was 42 times that of the average hourly worker. By 2005, it was 262 times. As Obama rightly relates, this has had little to do with improved performance. “In fact, some of the country’s most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge drops in earnings, losses in shareholder value, massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers’ pension funds” (where those funds even exist anymore) at a time when average workers’ income was flat or in decline. (62) Where is the sharing with employees of the effects of bad times in the company, let alone sharing in the productive gains of good times? Those CEOs are big on getting concessions from union members during “hard times,” but don’t want to sacrifice at all themselves.
This is Robber-Capitalism in action. Protected by insulated and pliant boards, and a political system and media they heavily influence (and sometimes control), they don’t have to be fair, or show remorse, or be accountable. They ARE the power. And every time those who champion “freedom,” “democracy,” “free markets” and the like so loudly, while at the same time condemning so strongly the very idea of government, they merely reinforce the death-grip of the enslaving class. Every time they speak out about some cultural issue while remaining mute about corporate malfeasance against the republic and its citizens, it is not just a mark of hypocrisy, it is serving the masters with invisible self-chains.
“We ran up the national credit card so that the biggest beneficiaries of the global economy could keep an even bigger share of the take.” Obama 188, where he sounds just like David Stockman today (but the Obama of today has been relatively silent on the matter).
We still wave away the fact that we acquiesced, with barely even a breath of acknowledgement, let alone regret, to: two wars, military budget nearly doubled, prescription drug entitlement, earmarks that went up by 2/3rds, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and from budget surpluses to massive debts. It IS collective denial. We made this shiv (in my friend’s T9 speak). The bulk of this debt is the result of tax cuts, 99% of which went to the top 5%. And yet what do we show approval of? 60% approved, apparently (if we can believe big business-controlled media) of the recent extending the tax cuts for all that got us in this mess. We ran up the debt, putting us in debt to foreigners who might not have our best interests at heart.
“If there’s class warfare going on in America, then my class is winning.” (Warren Buffet, 2nd richest man in the world). As Obama relates, even without tax shelters or a tax planner, Buffet pays a lower effective tax rate than his receptionist, or average Americans in general. In fact, his rate is about half his receptionist’s. This is because, like most wealthy Americans, nearly all of his income comes from dividends and capital gains, two things generated by the buying, holding, and selling of corporate stock and stock related financial instruments, and two things taxed at rates nearly one third of what they were thirty years ago. See any pattern here? Corporations and the “elites” who run them have manipulated the system to give themselves the most benefit, regardless of what it does to anyone else, and regardless of what that does for education, for infrastructure, for research and development, for safety nets that allow citizens to feel they have a chance to make it economically and to feel like actual citizens instead of used up and discarded commodities. All of those things are not only starved from lack of money coming to them, but must be propped up on money borrowed from foreigners.
I don’t like taxes on productive things, like employment, or buying a house and fixing it up and selling it for a profit. Those things are economically productive, and produce tangible benefit to individuals and society. Manipulating stock prices (as CEOs and hedge funds do) to make money, on the other hand, largely benefits only the individuals and small group of investors involved, and worse, often comes at the expense of economic productivity, as short-term and short-sighted decisions are made selfishly by closing plants, slashing labor, slashing research budgets, etc. All of which affect the long-term negatively, and often to the detriment of the society that has to pay those costs directly and indirectly.
Assuming (perhaps a bit of fantasy given corporate influence) that Americans could force their representatives to address this, they would also have to address it at the international level, for the system has become worldwide. Which runs into American fear of supra-nationalism or international governing agreements, a fear ingeniously and deviously fomented and manipulated by the corporate ruling class because it allows that class to always threaten the ultimate escape valve. What is that valve, you say? That if Americans and their representatives ever start to make rumbling noises about reining in this system of corporate excess and exploitation, the corporations and their money will largely move off-shore somewhere, leaving the American economic and financial system to collapse. Without new international agreements, what they threaten is very doable. Certainly the money could move in a matter of hours, probably only minutes. All because they have set it up that way.
Perhaps we know why George Carlin said, “America, you’re owned.”
Since we’re fantasizing here, if the above limitations were not the case and we wanted to change things, we would give the wealthy class a direct incentive to quit starving government of its needed things and quit transferring government’s money to themselves indirectly via unneeded things. How? By upping the capital gains rate back to the 40% it was 30 years ago, but this time only for the sale of financial instruments. And set it so this capital gains tax disappears entirely once the national debt is paid off.
I know, I know, if I think like this too much, I might be participating in the general illusion/delusion culture too! :)
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Oh Bam! Part B
Yes, yes, I know. I am all out of order. I should have put this one right after Part A, and I caused Madame unneeded consternation for my poor organization. Apols!
Today’s bag of wind deals mostly with international things, and as Madame is soon returning from her travels, perhaps it is apropos!
Obama’s description of Indonesia is a familiar pattern. A history of US short-sighted meddling, a meddling that betrayed several principles of democracy that the US supposedly stands for, ultimately rebounded on the US. Not only did the initial meddling in 1965 to remove an elected, popular nationalist leader and replace him with an “anti-communist” strongman lead to the massacre of hundreds of thousands initially and tens of thousands in subsequent years—there is sinful blood on our hands aplenty—but it was for naught. Indonesia, the fourth most populated nation in the world, is no longer an exporter but is now a net importer of oil, and the rampant corruption we both encouraged and turned a blind eye to further dragged on an economy that was transformed under Chicago school principles—principles that furthered globalization and enrichment of multinationals and their Western and Western-connected enterprises (including Chinese). When the bottom fell out in the Asian Crisis of 1997, a crisis both fueled and exacerbated by Wall Street speculators and the Western-controlled IMF, the austerity measures directed and largely taken (a few of which WERE needed to deal with the effects of corruption) further marginalized and made desperate large sectors of the population, and further environmentally degraded a nation already hard-pressed by population pressures.
Given that Indonesia has so many Muslims that it is the largest Muslim nation in the world, the ground for radicalization had been well fertilized. Enter into this picture another factor of American short-sightedness: our addiction to fossil fuels, particularly oil. With the US having to import large amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia, etc., the US is transferring large amounts of its wealth to an area of the world that, to put it charitably, does not cherish American interests or values. Leaving aside for future historians to scratch their heads at how insanely, self-destructively idiotic that is in nearly every measure of long-term interest, the question here is to what use is much of that money put to. The answer is that too much of the money is put into the advancement of Wahabist Islam, previously a minor sect of Islam that believes in the radical, theocratic, intolerant, repressive, often-violent ,and thoroughly anti-Western advancement of this theology/ideology of severe and mandatory Islamic law in all Muslim nations and communities, and eventually of Islamicizing all other nations. A more notable individual example of this philosophy is Osama bin Laden, who is a highly educated Saudi billionaire. Unfortunately, too many Americans, many of whom have little knowledge of Islamic history, doctrine, culture, etc., now perceive that Wahabist Islam IS Islam, a perception that further fuels polarization of views, options, and fears.
Under the weight of all the Western-induced transformation and with its obvious marginalizing and impoverishing effects on so many, the traditionally relaxed, tolerant, and culturally influenced form of decidedly non-Arab Islam that had been the hallmark of Indonesia began to change. Into this hotbed of discontent poured money to found Wahabist schools and mosques, and the production of Wahabist religious figures to spread Wahabist doctrines. The veils and burkhas among a rapidly increasing number of women are just one outward sign of change; it is the influence politically, and the violence, extremism, and terrorism, that is even more notable.
All an example of blowback. Whether it be that one, or the “seismic repercussions” (to use Obama’s words) of American intervention in Iran in 1953 that continues to haunt us to this day, Americans tend not to see connections. An ahistorical nation, we do not see history as very relevant, an aspect that repeatedly gets us and our country into trouble and undermines our long-term interests. If a nightclub is blown up in Indonesia, Americans scratch their heads and mutter words about how “crazy people are over there.” But for too many people across the ocean, America is a puzzling and infuriating hypocritical betrayer of its professed principles of fairness, freedom, self-direction, and “free-markets.” While there is some admiration for Americans and even to a certain extent American society with all its melting pot, efficiently business-like, and generally peaceful aspects of choice and possibility, there is often virulent resentment and even hatred for American government and American international business that, to the marginalized, appear to be the evil sources of most all their troubles. And indeed, our country’s actions and inactions (and, as a people, our culpable ignorance of those actions and inactions) has been a direct contributor to those resentments.
Obama reminds us in summary form that to see our own history as a someone from another country sees it is quite different from our own self-illusions, delusions, and willful masking and ignoring. We are against geographic conquest and raw power grabs, yet our history was full of them. We are against the repression and forcible removal of native peoples, yet our own history is full of that sort of behavior. We profess outrage at the meddling of others into the affairs of other countries (and outrage isn’t the word if the meddled country happens to be the USA), yet see it as perfectly justifiable that we meddle in the affairs, and even intervene outright, into any country we wish.
“The United States and other developed countries constantly demand that developing countries eliminate trade barriers that protect them from competition, even as we steadfastly protect our own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor countries out of poverty. In our zeal to protect the patents of American drug companies, we’ve discouraged the ability of countries like Brazil to produce generic AIDS drugs that could save millions of lives” Obama 317-8. He goes on to talk about the American-backed IMF forcing things on other countries that Americans have not done on themselves—indeed, has shown a decided lack of courage in inflicting that much hardship on themselves, yet see no problem in directing it on others. He also talks about what the World Bank has done and why it is such a reviled institution in many parts of the globe.
Obama is surprisingly hard on Africa, and shows little understanding of the colonial legacy and how abysmally unworkable the groupings of people from that legacy have been.
But I agree with him when he says “Disorder breeds disorder; callousness toward others tends to spread among ourselves.” The problem of failed states, so aptly demonstrated by Lester Brown, is inescapable. They affect all of us.
Obama touches on the American fear of submitting itself to the same stipulations it demands of others. International law, courts, agreements, etc. are strongly supported and even enforced for everyone else, but suggesting that America be subject to the same standards conjures up wild and inflamed visions of external dictators, one-world anti-Christs, and Constitution-snuffers.
The picture is quite a bit more complex. On the one hand, America’s karmic wariness of its sins catching up to it is justified, and that judgment from the rest of the world might be a bit harsh. Yet in many ways, America’s own spendthrift and debt-fueled ways, short sighted materialism, and obeisance to Robber-Capitalism have already handed over much future foreign influence or even control. But also, if we profess to proclaim that we believe in democratic principles of representation, and we have representation internationally, our reluctance to participate in a larger governing structure seems hypocritical in the extreme. Given globalization and the environmental threats that respect neither geography nor political entities, this lack of our willingness to cooperate internationally only sets us up for further blowback, let alone failure in addressing those challenges. And if we irrationally fear every aspect of supra-nationalism, we are going to be the backward, disorganized, weak, and primitive low-brows that future civilizations from space might feel are at best worthy only of dismissal, exploitation, subjugation, or destruction. Right now, the rest of the world still wants our participation and even leadership in the institutional frameworks we set in place and that they bought into. When we reject that time and again, we undermine our long-term interest—and not just from our hypocrisy either. Instead of fixating on the hypocrisy that also exists at the UN--anti-Zionist blathering, repressive countries serving on human rights commissions, exploitative bureaucrats who do nothing but for themselves, etc.—we should strengthen the institutions we need for international cooperation to address the failing states of our civilization, and in the process we can address ALL the hypocrisy, including our own. Whether it is pandemic prevention and control, nuclear proliferation prevention and control, or the prevention and control of violent conflict, a properly strengthened (and ideally reformed) UN is vital.
Blowback can be internal too. Racial steering and panic peddling that drive white families away from neighborhoods irrationally; small incomes, violent streets, underfunded playgrounds, parks. And the schools, yes, the schools. Not only do they try to adjust to scant funding, but the whole phenomenon of indifference—nay, write-off—from the rest of society, merely breeds hordes of the disaffected, angry, despairing, and desperate who not only thoroughly disbelieve in the system, but lack any ethical compunction when operating in and around it. The results are tragic—and predictable—and they affect the greater society.
Obama does a good job of summarizing how we lost our way in the Cold War, creating something and becoming something that transformed us for the worse and weakened us in the process. He questions rightly the polarized and distorted views of the various “hawks” and “doves.” He takes to task the left for ignoring Iron Curtain brutality and only focusing on the rightist kind, or not sharing blame between corrupt leaders and multinationals. Yet he shows a myopic simplicity, an ingrained and unexamined acceptance of certain precepts, that keeps him mired today. He says at the time that he thought “given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do.” More myopic fixation on the immediate “enemy” and whatever geography that enemy might involve themselves in. Where was and is the long-term interest of the US in Afghanistan? It doesn’t exist, except at most in the aspect of reducing failed state status by encouraging and assisting the development that its people want, and even then indirectly, recognizing those with regional interest and influence might have priority.
And like the gospel too many conservatives follow, he over-ascribes credit for the Cold War’s end. All that increased spending by Reagan did was to take a terminal cancer-ridden dangerous criminal and get him to spend his last remaining funds on protecting his crap from us rather than keeping himself alive a little longer. The Soviet Union’s elites already knew the house was giving way. Gorbachev was only premier among them in recognizing that, and it is Gorbachev, not Reagan, who deserves much credit in advancing a philosophy that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. And all those extra trillions we spent? More treasure—borrowed treasure at that—we could never get back and that served no constructive economic or social purpose.
Obama does a fair job of giving us a look at how we took the goodwill and sympathy of the world over 9/11—sympathy that ranged from France to Egyptians in their streets and mosques—and drove the Taliban from power and inflicted deep and telling blows against Al-Qaeda (although with one marked decision failure). But then we took the goodwill and sympathy and squandered it and even reversed it. First by essentially leaving the Afghans with no resources or helping hands (and setting the stage for the Taliban’s resurgence), and secondly and even more importantly, diverting our attention, our focus, and our resources in the pursuit of something nearly entirely manufactured—the “threat” of Iraq. When the rest of the world did not follow us, we should have gotten a clue, but we didn’t. When no one stopped to think about why Saddam would try to conceal whether he had “weapons of mass destruction” (which, even if he had had them, might have been at most a few small biological weapons and a number of chemical ones—pretty low impact as far as WMDs go), we played squarely into the hands of Iran, the enemy he was trying to fool—and the foe whose lack of a credible enemy in present-day Iraq gives them license to threaten severe regional and world actions to our deep regret. Gods, we Americans are so short-sighted, arrogant, and trusting of those who don’t deserve our trust!
And those who questioned the unilateral invasion of Iraq and anything about how it was handled? Accused of being unpatriotic, of even aiding and abetting terrorists! The idea of loyal opposition, which Jefferson thought he emplaced following the expiration of the sickening Alien and Sedition Acts, were brushed aside in 2003 by those with an agenda of their own and willing to cynically use whatever means necessary to accomplish it, pushing aside the Constitution and manhandling lives at their whim. The history of this period will not be kind.
Today’s bag of wind deals mostly with international things, and as Madame is soon returning from her travels, perhaps it is apropos!
Obama’s description of Indonesia is a familiar pattern. A history of US short-sighted meddling, a meddling that betrayed several principles of democracy that the US supposedly stands for, ultimately rebounded on the US. Not only did the initial meddling in 1965 to remove an elected, popular nationalist leader and replace him with an “anti-communist” strongman lead to the massacre of hundreds of thousands initially and tens of thousands in subsequent years—there is sinful blood on our hands aplenty—but it was for naught. Indonesia, the fourth most populated nation in the world, is no longer an exporter but is now a net importer of oil, and the rampant corruption we both encouraged and turned a blind eye to further dragged on an economy that was transformed under Chicago school principles—principles that furthered globalization and enrichment of multinationals and their Western and Western-connected enterprises (including Chinese). When the bottom fell out in the Asian Crisis of 1997, a crisis both fueled and exacerbated by Wall Street speculators and the Western-controlled IMF, the austerity measures directed and largely taken (a few of which WERE needed to deal with the effects of corruption) further marginalized and made desperate large sectors of the population, and further environmentally degraded a nation already hard-pressed by population pressures.
Given that Indonesia has so many Muslims that it is the largest Muslim nation in the world, the ground for radicalization had been well fertilized. Enter into this picture another factor of American short-sightedness: our addiction to fossil fuels, particularly oil. With the US having to import large amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia, etc., the US is transferring large amounts of its wealth to an area of the world that, to put it charitably, does not cherish American interests or values. Leaving aside for future historians to scratch their heads at how insanely, self-destructively idiotic that is in nearly every measure of long-term interest, the question here is to what use is much of that money put to. The answer is that too much of the money is put into the advancement of Wahabist Islam, previously a minor sect of Islam that believes in the radical, theocratic, intolerant, repressive, often-violent ,and thoroughly anti-Western advancement of this theology/ideology of severe and mandatory Islamic law in all Muslim nations and communities, and eventually of Islamicizing all other nations. A more notable individual example of this philosophy is Osama bin Laden, who is a highly educated Saudi billionaire. Unfortunately, too many Americans, many of whom have little knowledge of Islamic history, doctrine, culture, etc., now perceive that Wahabist Islam IS Islam, a perception that further fuels polarization of views, options, and fears.
Under the weight of all the Western-induced transformation and with its obvious marginalizing and impoverishing effects on so many, the traditionally relaxed, tolerant, and culturally influenced form of decidedly non-Arab Islam that had been the hallmark of Indonesia began to change. Into this hotbed of discontent poured money to found Wahabist schools and mosques, and the production of Wahabist religious figures to spread Wahabist doctrines. The veils and burkhas among a rapidly increasing number of women are just one outward sign of change; it is the influence politically, and the violence, extremism, and terrorism, that is even more notable.
All an example of blowback. Whether it be that one, or the “seismic repercussions” (to use Obama’s words) of American intervention in Iran in 1953 that continues to haunt us to this day, Americans tend not to see connections. An ahistorical nation, we do not see history as very relevant, an aspect that repeatedly gets us and our country into trouble and undermines our long-term interests. If a nightclub is blown up in Indonesia, Americans scratch their heads and mutter words about how “crazy people are over there.” But for too many people across the ocean, America is a puzzling and infuriating hypocritical betrayer of its professed principles of fairness, freedom, self-direction, and “free-markets.” While there is some admiration for Americans and even to a certain extent American society with all its melting pot, efficiently business-like, and generally peaceful aspects of choice and possibility, there is often virulent resentment and even hatred for American government and American international business that, to the marginalized, appear to be the evil sources of most all their troubles. And indeed, our country’s actions and inactions (and, as a people, our culpable ignorance of those actions and inactions) has been a direct contributor to those resentments.
Obama reminds us in summary form that to see our own history as a someone from another country sees it is quite different from our own self-illusions, delusions, and willful masking and ignoring. We are against geographic conquest and raw power grabs, yet our history was full of them. We are against the repression and forcible removal of native peoples, yet our own history is full of that sort of behavior. We profess outrage at the meddling of others into the affairs of other countries (and outrage isn’t the word if the meddled country happens to be the USA), yet see it as perfectly justifiable that we meddle in the affairs, and even intervene outright, into any country we wish.
“The United States and other developed countries constantly demand that developing countries eliminate trade barriers that protect them from competition, even as we steadfastly protect our own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor countries out of poverty. In our zeal to protect the patents of American drug companies, we’ve discouraged the ability of countries like Brazil to produce generic AIDS drugs that could save millions of lives” Obama 317-8. He goes on to talk about the American-backed IMF forcing things on other countries that Americans have not done on themselves—indeed, has shown a decided lack of courage in inflicting that much hardship on themselves, yet see no problem in directing it on others. He also talks about what the World Bank has done and why it is such a reviled institution in many parts of the globe.
Obama is surprisingly hard on Africa, and shows little understanding of the colonial legacy and how abysmally unworkable the groupings of people from that legacy have been.
But I agree with him when he says “Disorder breeds disorder; callousness toward others tends to spread among ourselves.” The problem of failed states, so aptly demonstrated by Lester Brown, is inescapable. They affect all of us.
Obama touches on the American fear of submitting itself to the same stipulations it demands of others. International law, courts, agreements, etc. are strongly supported and even enforced for everyone else, but suggesting that America be subject to the same standards conjures up wild and inflamed visions of external dictators, one-world anti-Christs, and Constitution-snuffers.
The picture is quite a bit more complex. On the one hand, America’s karmic wariness of its sins catching up to it is justified, and that judgment from the rest of the world might be a bit harsh. Yet in many ways, America’s own spendthrift and debt-fueled ways, short sighted materialism, and obeisance to Robber-Capitalism have already handed over much future foreign influence or even control. But also, if we profess to proclaim that we believe in democratic principles of representation, and we have representation internationally, our reluctance to participate in a larger governing structure seems hypocritical in the extreme. Given globalization and the environmental threats that respect neither geography nor political entities, this lack of our willingness to cooperate internationally only sets us up for further blowback, let alone failure in addressing those challenges. And if we irrationally fear every aspect of supra-nationalism, we are going to be the backward, disorganized, weak, and primitive low-brows that future civilizations from space might feel are at best worthy only of dismissal, exploitation, subjugation, or destruction. Right now, the rest of the world still wants our participation and even leadership in the institutional frameworks we set in place and that they bought into. When we reject that time and again, we undermine our long-term interest—and not just from our hypocrisy either. Instead of fixating on the hypocrisy that also exists at the UN--anti-Zionist blathering, repressive countries serving on human rights commissions, exploitative bureaucrats who do nothing but for themselves, etc.—we should strengthen the institutions we need for international cooperation to address the failing states of our civilization, and in the process we can address ALL the hypocrisy, including our own. Whether it is pandemic prevention and control, nuclear proliferation prevention and control, or the prevention and control of violent conflict, a properly strengthened (and ideally reformed) UN is vital.
Blowback can be internal too. Racial steering and panic peddling that drive white families away from neighborhoods irrationally; small incomes, violent streets, underfunded playgrounds, parks. And the schools, yes, the schools. Not only do they try to adjust to scant funding, but the whole phenomenon of indifference—nay, write-off—from the rest of society, merely breeds hordes of the disaffected, angry, despairing, and desperate who not only thoroughly disbelieve in the system, but lack any ethical compunction when operating in and around it. The results are tragic—and predictable—and they affect the greater society.
Obama does a good job of summarizing how we lost our way in the Cold War, creating something and becoming something that transformed us for the worse and weakened us in the process. He questions rightly the polarized and distorted views of the various “hawks” and “doves.” He takes to task the left for ignoring Iron Curtain brutality and only focusing on the rightist kind, or not sharing blame between corrupt leaders and multinationals. Yet he shows a myopic simplicity, an ingrained and unexamined acceptance of certain precepts, that keeps him mired today. He says at the time that he thought “given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do.” More myopic fixation on the immediate “enemy” and whatever geography that enemy might involve themselves in. Where was and is the long-term interest of the US in Afghanistan? It doesn’t exist, except at most in the aspect of reducing failed state status by encouraging and assisting the development that its people want, and even then indirectly, recognizing those with regional interest and influence might have priority.
And like the gospel too many conservatives follow, he over-ascribes credit for the Cold War’s end. All that increased spending by Reagan did was to take a terminal cancer-ridden dangerous criminal and get him to spend his last remaining funds on protecting his crap from us rather than keeping himself alive a little longer. The Soviet Union’s elites already knew the house was giving way. Gorbachev was only premier among them in recognizing that, and it is Gorbachev, not Reagan, who deserves much credit in advancing a philosophy that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. And all those extra trillions we spent? More treasure—borrowed treasure at that—we could never get back and that served no constructive economic or social purpose.
Obama does a fair job of giving us a look at how we took the goodwill and sympathy of the world over 9/11—sympathy that ranged from France to Egyptians in their streets and mosques—and drove the Taliban from power and inflicted deep and telling blows against Al-Qaeda (although with one marked decision failure). But then we took the goodwill and sympathy and squandered it and even reversed it. First by essentially leaving the Afghans with no resources or helping hands (and setting the stage for the Taliban’s resurgence), and secondly and even more importantly, diverting our attention, our focus, and our resources in the pursuit of something nearly entirely manufactured—the “threat” of Iraq. When the rest of the world did not follow us, we should have gotten a clue, but we didn’t. When no one stopped to think about why Saddam would try to conceal whether he had “weapons of mass destruction” (which, even if he had had them, might have been at most a few small biological weapons and a number of chemical ones—pretty low impact as far as WMDs go), we played squarely into the hands of Iran, the enemy he was trying to fool—and the foe whose lack of a credible enemy in present-day Iraq gives them license to threaten severe regional and world actions to our deep regret. Gods, we Americans are so short-sighted, arrogant, and trusting of those who don’t deserve our trust!
And those who questioned the unilateral invasion of Iraq and anything about how it was handled? Accused of being unpatriotic, of even aiding and abetting terrorists! The idea of loyal opposition, which Jefferson thought he emplaced following the expiration of the sickening Alien and Sedition Acts, were brushed aside in 2003 by those with an agenda of their own and willing to cynically use whatever means necessary to accomplish it, pushing aside the Constitution and manhandling lives at their whim. The history of this period will not be kind.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Continuous Barrage
Our culture is full of trends that incense all sides (and also interesting that all “sides” feel put upon by “the system.”).
Obama has tried to govern instead of being a transforming figure. Held hostage to the Ivy League brotherhood, it seems. Where is a real strategic review? We have some measures of operational and tactical brilliance, but a general wrongheaded strategy.
We send at least $300B a year to foreign oil producers, many of whom are directly or indirectly hostile to us. Our lack of energy independence means we are funding our enemies. And that’s just the direct money. The indirect effects of our oil addiction run into the trillions. Plus all that money is needed money, vitally needed money, that is not spent on investing in worthwhile things—worthwhile things for America itself and ourselves.
While Obama’s understanding of the effects of oil addiction is good, his prescriptions are often uneven or off. Trumpeting ethanol and E85 pumps? Foolish, wrongheaded. Ethanol is an utterly losing proposition for a lot of reasons, grain competition (in a world already short of grain), just one of them. Some of his other prescriptions are equally as wooly headed.
Obama’s chapter on politics is a sobering appraisal of how we have a system—media included, not just the parties, pundits, and special interests—that is disgustingly sick.
He well describes how the “balancing act between self-interest and community” has become wobbly. In Washington, Obama says, the scrambling for campaign money, amidst a distracted (or worse) press/media, and with lobbyists pressing on representatives relentlessly, means representatives’ views become distorted, and survival-at-all-costs becomes paramount.
This idea has become ingrained that you don’t SERVE in government anymore, except perhaps to serve yourself. No, government employment becomes merely a springboard to go on to something else, something jazzier or at least more lucrative. The number of those who champion the plight of the voiceless is small.
As Obama points out, 20% of all patients account for 80% of the healthcare usage in this country. And "his" plan, which the health care industry diluted, looked not bad given that premise. The entire tenor of that showed his lack of executive experience and his tax cutting and spending cut evasion showed his lack of firmness. Nuance and complexity in him appear to be very good, but compromise and weakness are displayed excessively, leading to charges of weak principles. Even in his book, Obama flubs words frequently, using some terms that would be better unsaid or said a different way.
I agree with Obama that government is both shaped by, and shapes , culture—for better and for worse. We probably have skewed views of what government can and should do. Our system is, by its nature, one where government to accomplish something is hard. Government to demolish, things, however, is easy if you know how to work the right levers or withhold or divert the money. And we have seen it is all too easy, chillingly easy, to stifle dissent.
A government can’t provide everything and shouldn’t even if it could. But a government that provides too much can indeed take away much—or even effectively enslave.
As a fellow teacher has said, those who decry government in general get a little hem-hawed when it comes to specifics. Funding Justice Dept? Military? Center for Disease Control? CIA? NSA, FAA, highways, clean water, safe food, police and fire protection, teachers, public parks and lakes, a congressman’s office we can call to get some resolution, etc.? It’s naïve or uninformed to think these do not have a cost or aren’t worthwhile; it’s hard to imagine present day civilization without them.
Neo-conservatives fail to understand or acknowledge what their lives cost on a local, state, and national scale, or, even when they do, their wealth makes it all invisible anyway. Leaving most everything up to voluntary participation is, at best, often inefficient. A person may want to use the roads, for example, but doesn't want to pay for them, counting on someone or someones to pay or upkeep (this is a phenomenon known as free-riding or tragedy of the commons).
Democrats rarely recognize that taxes have a ceiling. Republicans rarely recognize that taxes also have a floor, that you can’t cut taxes too much without defunding those things I just mentioned. Libertarians sometimes get fantasy-like, or a little extremist, or even almost anarchist, when discussing not supporting “the government,” like it is some robot entity to be unplugged. For comparison, there are places in the world where there is no government, no rule of law, where complete “freedom” exists. I’m rather guessing that places like Somalia are not where most people would want to go, however.
America suffers from being too individualistic a society, and yet the things we are doing are setting us in an even further intensification of this hyper-individualism, where everyone (or at least whatever nuclear family exists) is on their own.
We then get a kind of arrogance and disdain that builds up: The healthy, wealthy, and/or lucky hold in contempt those who aren’t, forgetting the adage that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Yes, we don’t need to rescue people from their willful stupidity or lack of work ethic or character, but we also don’t need to discard people who merely have little money, or are sick, or are down on their luck. We should remember the connection of humanity, and that a globalized world has only made that more intensely so. Not only does discarding them diminish us as human beings, but it also sets in motion the plight of the desperate, which we, if we were paying attention, should know by now: desperation leads to having little to live for, which means having little to fear, which can mean being very angry, which can mean being susceptible to demagogues who twist and radicalize and make lethal pawns willing to die and take a lot of other people and places with them. Or bring on repression.
It isn’t too much to expect that working full-time should pay something livable. Not extravagant, not with all the “things” that Americans have told themselves (and been marketed to) that they “need,” but with the basics. Enough to live a basic and healthy life, but one that would still leave great desire in the moderately ambitious to want to achieve more.
Yet we don’t have that today. We have not just one parent, but two, working, and still not being able to make it, because minimum wage is too little when the nuclear family must provide for everything, with no underlay by the society in anything—child care; quick, safe, and affordable public transportation; basic health programs; healthy and affordable local food; integrated neighborhood law officers, etc.
The stress on American families? Immense and intense. Two working parents, or worse, one parent period. With our individuality extremism, combined with all the things which disconnect us, the nuclear family has to do it all—meeting the bills, looking after children, maintaining a household, and trying to maintain a relationship, are just the key ones, let alone if taking care of a parent or something else is added. This leads to high levels of stress, and as we know but rarely do anything about, stress has extreme impacts on health, even long-term health, plus productivity, work, energy, enthusiasm for life, and of course relationships. One of the stats that Obama cites (336), that parents today have 22 fewer hours a week to spend with their kids than they did in 1969, is an obvious reflection of the fact that both probably must work, and that employers are more demanding of time than ever. Children are left at home in front of the TV or computers, or with sub-standard sitters. Employed mothers lose an hour of sleep a day trying to get it all done.
“Not my problem. I’m not my brother’s keeper. I/we are going to move somewhere better.” And so Americans have paid premium prices for homes in safe neighborhoods with better schools. But their incomes have not really risen to do so, especially when all the expenses of daycare, second cars, etc. are factored (I have read the book Obama references on this). More stress. We keep thinking we can always run away from the problems, and keep them “there.” But as I’ve said many times in this forum, that is an illusion.
Americans have often been foolish too. Preschool tuition money (and preschool much of anything outside of play with other children and respect for parents and adults in general) is largely wasted, I’m afraid, so I disagree with Obama there. Forcing kids to go to college (what happened to the desire when they were READY?), and then paying the tuition, only to have emotionally immature Johnny do poorly, largely from apathy, is another unnecessary drainer. Buying houses that are too big, or worse, constantly house hopping for something “better” or the “dream home,” only to find that mortgage companies and banks have taken all your money in fees and interest and you haven’t made any progress; no sanity in that.
Employees have not been sharing in the rising productivity, much of which has come from those employees. This is eerily and disturbingly reminiscent of the 1920s, when employees also did not share in rising productivity. As their wages fell further and further behind, they borrowed more and more to try to keep up, but it was a house of cards waiting for the fall. That is one of the reasons why historians like to say that the Depression was coming one way or another, and for some, had already been in place. The Crash of 1929 was therefore merely the catalyst, the accelerator, the match, the lead domino (choose your metaphor), not the cause. It merely brought into immediacy the forces that were moving in that direction anyway.
While I think Obama is correct that unions need less discrimination against them, and that labor in general needs more protection (instead of the anti-protection it has had in many cases), I do not necessarily agree with him that unions should be allowed to form on the basis of signed cards. The case for not having a secret ballot has never been a convincing one to me, especially when those ballots are protected by outside independent parties or by government. He cites no counter-evidence, so this looks to me like an unexamined proposition.
Obama and others question idolizing the free-market. So do I. They question how easy and how often we have reached for the militarism lever in the last 60 years. So do I.
Obama mentions that Jeremiah Wright gave him the phrase that became the title of the book. Wright’s a mixed figure. On the one hand, Wright’s an angry person with questionable judgment in how he speaks, and with little graciousness. On the other, whatever he says gets dismissed out of hand, when we would be wise to pay attention to underneath are some things that are instructive if we overlook the messenger.
Anyone begging for mercy yet? More waiting in the wings! :)
Obama has tried to govern instead of being a transforming figure. Held hostage to the Ivy League brotherhood, it seems. Where is a real strategic review? We have some measures of operational and tactical brilliance, but a general wrongheaded strategy.
We send at least $300B a year to foreign oil producers, many of whom are directly or indirectly hostile to us. Our lack of energy independence means we are funding our enemies. And that’s just the direct money. The indirect effects of our oil addiction run into the trillions. Plus all that money is needed money, vitally needed money, that is not spent on investing in worthwhile things—worthwhile things for America itself and ourselves.
While Obama’s understanding of the effects of oil addiction is good, his prescriptions are often uneven or off. Trumpeting ethanol and E85 pumps? Foolish, wrongheaded. Ethanol is an utterly losing proposition for a lot of reasons, grain competition (in a world already short of grain), just one of them. Some of his other prescriptions are equally as wooly headed.
Obama’s chapter on politics is a sobering appraisal of how we have a system—media included, not just the parties, pundits, and special interests—that is disgustingly sick.
He well describes how the “balancing act between self-interest and community” has become wobbly. In Washington, Obama says, the scrambling for campaign money, amidst a distracted (or worse) press/media, and with lobbyists pressing on representatives relentlessly, means representatives’ views become distorted, and survival-at-all-costs becomes paramount.
This idea has become ingrained that you don’t SERVE in government anymore, except perhaps to serve yourself. No, government employment becomes merely a springboard to go on to something else, something jazzier or at least more lucrative. The number of those who champion the plight of the voiceless is small.
As Obama points out, 20% of all patients account for 80% of the healthcare usage in this country. And "his" plan, which the health care industry diluted, looked not bad given that premise. The entire tenor of that showed his lack of executive experience and his tax cutting and spending cut evasion showed his lack of firmness. Nuance and complexity in him appear to be very good, but compromise and weakness are displayed excessively, leading to charges of weak principles. Even in his book, Obama flubs words frequently, using some terms that would be better unsaid or said a different way.
I agree with Obama that government is both shaped by, and shapes , culture—for better and for worse. We probably have skewed views of what government can and should do. Our system is, by its nature, one where government to accomplish something is hard. Government to demolish, things, however, is easy if you know how to work the right levers or withhold or divert the money. And we have seen it is all too easy, chillingly easy, to stifle dissent.
A government can’t provide everything and shouldn’t even if it could. But a government that provides too much can indeed take away much—or even effectively enslave.
As a fellow teacher has said, those who decry government in general get a little hem-hawed when it comes to specifics. Funding Justice Dept? Military? Center for Disease Control? CIA? NSA, FAA, highways, clean water, safe food, police and fire protection, teachers, public parks and lakes, a congressman’s office we can call to get some resolution, etc.? It’s naïve or uninformed to think these do not have a cost or aren’t worthwhile; it’s hard to imagine present day civilization without them.
Neo-conservatives fail to understand or acknowledge what their lives cost on a local, state, and national scale, or, even when they do, their wealth makes it all invisible anyway. Leaving most everything up to voluntary participation is, at best, often inefficient. A person may want to use the roads, for example, but doesn't want to pay for them, counting on someone or someones to pay or upkeep (this is a phenomenon known as free-riding or tragedy of the commons).
Democrats rarely recognize that taxes have a ceiling. Republicans rarely recognize that taxes also have a floor, that you can’t cut taxes too much without defunding those things I just mentioned. Libertarians sometimes get fantasy-like, or a little extremist, or even almost anarchist, when discussing not supporting “the government,” like it is some robot entity to be unplugged. For comparison, there are places in the world where there is no government, no rule of law, where complete “freedom” exists. I’m rather guessing that places like Somalia are not where most people would want to go, however.
America suffers from being too individualistic a society, and yet the things we are doing are setting us in an even further intensification of this hyper-individualism, where everyone (or at least whatever nuclear family exists) is on their own.
We then get a kind of arrogance and disdain that builds up: The healthy, wealthy, and/or lucky hold in contempt those who aren’t, forgetting the adage that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Yes, we don’t need to rescue people from their willful stupidity or lack of work ethic or character, but we also don’t need to discard people who merely have little money, or are sick, or are down on their luck. We should remember the connection of humanity, and that a globalized world has only made that more intensely so. Not only does discarding them diminish us as human beings, but it also sets in motion the plight of the desperate, which we, if we were paying attention, should know by now: desperation leads to having little to live for, which means having little to fear, which can mean being very angry, which can mean being susceptible to demagogues who twist and radicalize and make lethal pawns willing to die and take a lot of other people and places with them. Or bring on repression.
It isn’t too much to expect that working full-time should pay something livable. Not extravagant, not with all the “things” that Americans have told themselves (and been marketed to) that they “need,” but with the basics. Enough to live a basic and healthy life, but one that would still leave great desire in the moderately ambitious to want to achieve more.
Yet we don’t have that today. We have not just one parent, but two, working, and still not being able to make it, because minimum wage is too little when the nuclear family must provide for everything, with no underlay by the society in anything—child care; quick, safe, and affordable public transportation; basic health programs; healthy and affordable local food; integrated neighborhood law officers, etc.
The stress on American families? Immense and intense. Two working parents, or worse, one parent period. With our individuality extremism, combined with all the things which disconnect us, the nuclear family has to do it all—meeting the bills, looking after children, maintaining a household, and trying to maintain a relationship, are just the key ones, let alone if taking care of a parent or something else is added. This leads to high levels of stress, and as we know but rarely do anything about, stress has extreme impacts on health, even long-term health, plus productivity, work, energy, enthusiasm for life, and of course relationships. One of the stats that Obama cites (336), that parents today have 22 fewer hours a week to spend with their kids than they did in 1969, is an obvious reflection of the fact that both probably must work, and that employers are more demanding of time than ever. Children are left at home in front of the TV or computers, or with sub-standard sitters. Employed mothers lose an hour of sleep a day trying to get it all done.
“Not my problem. I’m not my brother’s keeper. I/we are going to move somewhere better.” And so Americans have paid premium prices for homes in safe neighborhoods with better schools. But their incomes have not really risen to do so, especially when all the expenses of daycare, second cars, etc. are factored (I have read the book Obama references on this). More stress. We keep thinking we can always run away from the problems, and keep them “there.” But as I’ve said many times in this forum, that is an illusion.
Americans have often been foolish too. Preschool tuition money (and preschool much of anything outside of play with other children and respect for parents and adults in general) is largely wasted, I’m afraid, so I disagree with Obama there. Forcing kids to go to college (what happened to the desire when they were READY?), and then paying the tuition, only to have emotionally immature Johnny do poorly, largely from apathy, is another unnecessary drainer. Buying houses that are too big, or worse, constantly house hopping for something “better” or the “dream home,” only to find that mortgage companies and banks have taken all your money in fees and interest and you haven’t made any progress; no sanity in that.
Employees have not been sharing in the rising productivity, much of which has come from those employees. This is eerily and disturbingly reminiscent of the 1920s, when employees also did not share in rising productivity. As their wages fell further and further behind, they borrowed more and more to try to keep up, but it was a house of cards waiting for the fall. That is one of the reasons why historians like to say that the Depression was coming one way or another, and for some, had already been in place. The Crash of 1929 was therefore merely the catalyst, the accelerator, the match, the lead domino (choose your metaphor), not the cause. It merely brought into immediacy the forces that were moving in that direction anyway.
While I think Obama is correct that unions need less discrimination against them, and that labor in general needs more protection (instead of the anti-protection it has had in many cases), I do not necessarily agree with him that unions should be allowed to form on the basis of signed cards. The case for not having a secret ballot has never been a convincing one to me, especially when those ballots are protected by outside independent parties or by government. He cites no counter-evidence, so this looks to me like an unexamined proposition.
Obama and others question idolizing the free-market. So do I. They question how easy and how often we have reached for the militarism lever in the last 60 years. So do I.
Obama mentions that Jeremiah Wright gave him the phrase that became the title of the book. Wright’s a mixed figure. On the one hand, Wright’s an angry person with questionable judgment in how he speaks, and with little graciousness. On the other, whatever he says gets dismissed out of hand, when we would be wise to pay attention to underneath are some things that are instructive if we overlook the messenger.
Anyone begging for mercy yet? More waiting in the wings! :)
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Montage Barrage
The doctor with the thoughtful views who disagreed with Obama yet wrote to him (195-196). I wonder what that doctor is thinking now. And I wonder what Obama thinks now: does he still presume good faith, after all the criticism (a fair amount of it deserved) that he has received from all quarters?
While a bit streamlined, I thought Obama’s explanation of where the evangelical movement came from, and where they were during the 50s and 60s, works as well as most others. It’s a pattern, however, that has from the very first European landing, bubbled under the American fabric.
As I was reading about the characteristics of Obama’s maternal grandparents—she rational and stubborn and skeptical of anything she couldn’t see, feel, touch or count, he the restless dreamer, rebellious, unable to discipline enough his appetites, yet with broad tolerance of other people’s weaknesses, including his own—I thought, gee, maybe I’m a combination of those two! :)
I was a little oversensitive to his mother’s remembrances of “respectable church ladies who were always so quick to shun those unable to meet their standards of propriety, even as they desperately concealed their own dirty little secrets; the church fathers who uttered racial epithets and chiseled their workers out of any nickel they could. For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty, and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.” (Obama 203). I was oversensitive because I know all too well a place with too many people with too many of those properties.
I was intrigued by his mother’s broad religious knowledge of many different world faiths. And by her desire that would become his: to build community, and make justice and compassion real.
I was also intrigued that Obama puts it so plainly (204) that his parents divorced when he was 2; that although his father was raised a Muslim, by that time his father had become an atheist who thought religion in general was like the mumbo-jumbo superstition of the witch-doctors of his Kenyan youth. And Barack’s step-father’s tepid practice of his Muslim faith. And Barack going to first Catholic school and then Muslim school over a period of 5 years. I was intrigued because there it is so plain, and yet Obama, both with and through his father and without, has been drawn heavily by the media and critics with the Muslim brush. Leaving completely aside the separate issue of whether being a Muslim in any way tarnishes or that it shades one’s views as an American, it is fascinating that the real picture is there and there’s not much to it. While Obama can take some criticism for later silently listening to the tirades of angry and perhaps irrational pulpit masters (who, regardless of whether they had justification for some of their feelings, clearly went into excess), his critics seem to want to paint a “tainted” picture that isn’t there, regardless of whether it would be “tainted” even if it was.
The joblessness, drugs, escapism, apathy, hopelessness, and desperation that characterized too many of our inner cities and abandoned rural sites, and which got ignored by the mainstream, has now become mainstream itself in far too many cases. I don’t know if that’s karma, but it is an example of how we are, in Martin Luther King’s words, connected even when we don’t know it, and that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Take Faith, a whole chapter of Obama’s. Secularists are off-base, Obama relates, with debilitating consequences, in seeking to remove all religion, faith, and faith “values,” from both education and public life. In a nation where parents are often exhausted, overburdened, put upon, and disconnected from a social and supporting structure, this has meant a reinforced ethical vacuum, and America reaps the bitter harvest of what it has sewn thereby. Yet secularism’s opposite number, evangelical fundamentalism, has also done us no favors. Roe vs. Wade could well have been overturned a long time ago, and power to regulate or not regulate abortion returned to the individual states and communities, if pluralistic democracy had been respected. Merely invoking the precepts of a church or church as CERTAIN universality, or being yet another one of the many religious groups to claim they KNOW God’s will, has not helped matters. To persecute, and even kill, IN THE NAME OF GOD, has emplaced much of the same Crusader zeal as the Middle Ages—and with the same effect on those who do not believe the exact same things: resentment, revulsion, intransigence, fear, and a profound lack of respect or willingness to listen to persuasion.
“It would be helpful, for example, if in debates about matters touching on religion—as in all of democratic discourse—we could resist the temptation to impute bad faith to those who disagree with us. In judging the persuasiveness of various moral claims, we should be on the lookout for inconsistency in how such claims are applied: As a general rule, I am more prone to listen to those who are as outraged by the indecency of homelessness as they are by the indecency of videos.” (Obama 221). He wonders if we should perhaps leave more things to individual conscience and evolving norms. And he goes on to subtly dig at those who rail about “the coercive arm of the state” but see nothing amiss in demanding that coercive arm enforce THEIR beliefs.
He tries to take a little heat out of the issue by pointing out that many anti-abortion folks make exceptions for rape and incest, and many pro-choice advocates make exceptions about late-term abortions. While this might point out the inconsistency of each “side’s” arguments, he recognizes that it won’t go far in closing the differences. The cynic might portray all this as merely setting the stage for a political run, and it might have been, but the questions raised are valid ones it appears to this writer. I have often said that the two viewpoints should be able to present their cases to each mother contemplating an abortion (and I think the anti-abortion side should go last if they want, as they are like the defense in a court case). On great issues of wrenching personal choice and ambiguity in the eye of at least a large minority, that seems more in keeping with the American way of how to address.
I found Obama’s personal experience of being initially opposed to same-sex marriage, and then having it made personal to him rather than abstract or general idea, to be revealing. He said the personal story made him come to feel that “hate the sin but love the sinner” still carries an inherent judgment, and that plank-eye condemning can be arrogant and unloving. Like Ben Franklin, he chose to “doubt a little of his infallibility,” and also allow more emphasis on the love and tolerance of the Sermon of the Mount than on passages from Paul to the Romans.
As a parent, I related to his feelings about his own children and the stories of violence against children. Watching my own father die, I understood Obama’s words about what his mother went through and the questions and uncertainties. Once again, the cynic might feel it is all carefully framed, but I don’t think so. What he said resonated with authenticity, because I had been where he was.
How giddy the largely black audience was for former President Clinton at Rosa Parks’ funeral seems to me another reason he is despised so much by many white male southern politicians.
The indifference toward inner city black communities, exemplified by New Orleans but not focused on it: Obama names an elephant that won’t go away. And then comes page 230.
Surreal. First there is a cadre of the Bush Administration, who trumpet big pledges and promises, show no admitting of fault or remorse, and then proceed to hand out many hundreds of millions of dollars to contractors who rape the taxpayer blind, exploit the desperate, and use little to no locals in the rebuilding “effort.” All the supposed outrage and determination to do something about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast faded away, in typical fashion, with America’s short and fractured attention span. The nation showed it had a conscience, but a brief one. Yet if Obama thought there was going to be a renewed “war on poverty” because of it, he was twice deluded: first for believing that government’s “war” on anything has solved much except to enrich special interests and fritter the taxpayer’s money away, and secondly, for thinking that enough focus could be amassed to do so, and believing that there was will there do it, which there wasn’t.
But I agree with him that, as deeply flawed as it is, this multicultural society we have is like no other. And I also recognize that Obama’s feelings on page 233 are something that I, as a still majority member, cannot have felt, and it is useless to pretend that I can know what that’s like. Race is complicated, race still matters, race is still unfinished.
It is simply not possible for a non-minority to fully understand the thoughts and feelings of a minority. But Obama tries to give us a little peek on page 236, and if we are open to it, perhaps a little more understanding (and maybe even acceptance) of the not-so-obvious hurdles, some of which go deep. And he says it is the personal interactions that transform, that “can wear down, in slow, steady waves, the hatred and suspicion that isolation breeds.” (238)
The description of successful African-American communities of the past is perhaps a prescription of what many communities need today: Parents who “whupped their children’s behinds when they got out of line, and looked out for all the children on the block.” (242)
Whites tend to think of racial equality as finished business. Blacks think of it as anything but. The truer picture, as Obama points out (243) are matters the society shies away from only at its peril. The story of race needs to be read with open eyes and open heart.
And the violent desperate of the abandoned inner cities are siblings to those with nothing to lose all over the globe. An uncaring system thinks it can cut loose its problems, but finds that they rebound on them, often destructively. And the climate of fear they generate degrades the quality of life for nearly all outside their confines. A system built on deliberate or at least uncaring inequality has only itself to blame.
Obama’s words about Mac, who gives ex-cons a second chance, but is tough love with them, was inspiring. And the things Obama asks us about where we commit our resources, and yet don’t commit even a fraction to things that prevent expenditures and pay for themselves, are hard-looks at our sense of priorities, our (over)willingness to be led in certain paths and unwilling to venture in others. Fareed Zakaria’s TIME article of March 14, 2011 says much of the same thing.
Obama gets into the complicated issues on immigration and his concise portrait is one of the best brief treatments of it out there.
Okay, enough for now. But there is still MORE to come! :)
While a bit streamlined, I thought Obama’s explanation of where the evangelical movement came from, and where they were during the 50s and 60s, works as well as most others. It’s a pattern, however, that has from the very first European landing, bubbled under the American fabric.
As I was reading about the characteristics of Obama’s maternal grandparents—she rational and stubborn and skeptical of anything she couldn’t see, feel, touch or count, he the restless dreamer, rebellious, unable to discipline enough his appetites, yet with broad tolerance of other people’s weaknesses, including his own—I thought, gee, maybe I’m a combination of those two! :)
I was a little oversensitive to his mother’s remembrances of “respectable church ladies who were always so quick to shun those unable to meet their standards of propriety, even as they desperately concealed their own dirty little secrets; the church fathers who uttered racial epithets and chiseled their workers out of any nickel they could. For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty, and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.” (Obama 203). I was oversensitive because I know all too well a place with too many people with too many of those properties.
I was intrigued by his mother’s broad religious knowledge of many different world faiths. And by her desire that would become his: to build community, and make justice and compassion real.
I was also intrigued that Obama puts it so plainly (204) that his parents divorced when he was 2; that although his father was raised a Muslim, by that time his father had become an atheist who thought religion in general was like the mumbo-jumbo superstition of the witch-doctors of his Kenyan youth. And Barack’s step-father’s tepid practice of his Muslim faith. And Barack going to first Catholic school and then Muslim school over a period of 5 years. I was intrigued because there it is so plain, and yet Obama, both with and through his father and without, has been drawn heavily by the media and critics with the Muslim brush. Leaving completely aside the separate issue of whether being a Muslim in any way tarnishes or that it shades one’s views as an American, it is fascinating that the real picture is there and there’s not much to it. While Obama can take some criticism for later silently listening to the tirades of angry and perhaps irrational pulpit masters (who, regardless of whether they had justification for some of their feelings, clearly went into excess), his critics seem to want to paint a “tainted” picture that isn’t there, regardless of whether it would be “tainted” even if it was.
The joblessness, drugs, escapism, apathy, hopelessness, and desperation that characterized too many of our inner cities and abandoned rural sites, and which got ignored by the mainstream, has now become mainstream itself in far too many cases. I don’t know if that’s karma, but it is an example of how we are, in Martin Luther King’s words, connected even when we don’t know it, and that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Take Faith, a whole chapter of Obama’s. Secularists are off-base, Obama relates, with debilitating consequences, in seeking to remove all religion, faith, and faith “values,” from both education and public life. In a nation where parents are often exhausted, overburdened, put upon, and disconnected from a social and supporting structure, this has meant a reinforced ethical vacuum, and America reaps the bitter harvest of what it has sewn thereby. Yet secularism’s opposite number, evangelical fundamentalism, has also done us no favors. Roe vs. Wade could well have been overturned a long time ago, and power to regulate or not regulate abortion returned to the individual states and communities, if pluralistic democracy had been respected. Merely invoking the precepts of a church or church as CERTAIN universality, or being yet another one of the many religious groups to claim they KNOW God’s will, has not helped matters. To persecute, and even kill, IN THE NAME OF GOD, has emplaced much of the same Crusader zeal as the Middle Ages—and with the same effect on those who do not believe the exact same things: resentment, revulsion, intransigence, fear, and a profound lack of respect or willingness to listen to persuasion.
“It would be helpful, for example, if in debates about matters touching on religion—as in all of democratic discourse—we could resist the temptation to impute bad faith to those who disagree with us. In judging the persuasiveness of various moral claims, we should be on the lookout for inconsistency in how such claims are applied: As a general rule, I am more prone to listen to those who are as outraged by the indecency of homelessness as they are by the indecency of videos.” (Obama 221). He wonders if we should perhaps leave more things to individual conscience and evolving norms. And he goes on to subtly dig at those who rail about “the coercive arm of the state” but see nothing amiss in demanding that coercive arm enforce THEIR beliefs.
He tries to take a little heat out of the issue by pointing out that many anti-abortion folks make exceptions for rape and incest, and many pro-choice advocates make exceptions about late-term abortions. While this might point out the inconsistency of each “side’s” arguments, he recognizes that it won’t go far in closing the differences. The cynic might portray all this as merely setting the stage for a political run, and it might have been, but the questions raised are valid ones it appears to this writer. I have often said that the two viewpoints should be able to present their cases to each mother contemplating an abortion (and I think the anti-abortion side should go last if they want, as they are like the defense in a court case). On great issues of wrenching personal choice and ambiguity in the eye of at least a large minority, that seems more in keeping with the American way of how to address.
I found Obama’s personal experience of being initially opposed to same-sex marriage, and then having it made personal to him rather than abstract or general idea, to be revealing. He said the personal story made him come to feel that “hate the sin but love the sinner” still carries an inherent judgment, and that plank-eye condemning can be arrogant and unloving. Like Ben Franklin, he chose to “doubt a little of his infallibility,” and also allow more emphasis on the love and tolerance of the Sermon of the Mount than on passages from Paul to the Romans.
As a parent, I related to his feelings about his own children and the stories of violence against children. Watching my own father die, I understood Obama’s words about what his mother went through and the questions and uncertainties. Once again, the cynic might feel it is all carefully framed, but I don’t think so. What he said resonated with authenticity, because I had been where he was.
How giddy the largely black audience was for former President Clinton at Rosa Parks’ funeral seems to me another reason he is despised so much by many white male southern politicians.
The indifference toward inner city black communities, exemplified by New Orleans but not focused on it: Obama names an elephant that won’t go away. And then comes page 230.
Surreal. First there is a cadre of the Bush Administration, who trumpet big pledges and promises, show no admitting of fault or remorse, and then proceed to hand out many hundreds of millions of dollars to contractors who rape the taxpayer blind, exploit the desperate, and use little to no locals in the rebuilding “effort.” All the supposed outrage and determination to do something about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast faded away, in typical fashion, with America’s short and fractured attention span. The nation showed it had a conscience, but a brief one. Yet if Obama thought there was going to be a renewed “war on poverty” because of it, he was twice deluded: first for believing that government’s “war” on anything has solved much except to enrich special interests and fritter the taxpayer’s money away, and secondly, for thinking that enough focus could be amassed to do so, and believing that there was will there do it, which there wasn’t.
But I agree with him that, as deeply flawed as it is, this multicultural society we have is like no other. And I also recognize that Obama’s feelings on page 233 are something that I, as a still majority member, cannot have felt, and it is useless to pretend that I can know what that’s like. Race is complicated, race still matters, race is still unfinished.
It is simply not possible for a non-minority to fully understand the thoughts and feelings of a minority. But Obama tries to give us a little peek on page 236, and if we are open to it, perhaps a little more understanding (and maybe even acceptance) of the not-so-obvious hurdles, some of which go deep. And he says it is the personal interactions that transform, that “can wear down, in slow, steady waves, the hatred and suspicion that isolation breeds.” (238)
The description of successful African-American communities of the past is perhaps a prescription of what many communities need today: Parents who “whupped their children’s behinds when they got out of line, and looked out for all the children on the block.” (242)
Whites tend to think of racial equality as finished business. Blacks think of it as anything but. The truer picture, as Obama points out (243) are matters the society shies away from only at its peril. The story of race needs to be read with open eyes and open heart.
And the violent desperate of the abandoned inner cities are siblings to those with nothing to lose all over the globe. An uncaring system thinks it can cut loose its problems, but finds that they rebound on them, often destructively. And the climate of fear they generate degrades the quality of life for nearly all outside their confines. A system built on deliberate or at least uncaring inequality has only itself to blame.
Obama’s words about Mac, who gives ex-cons a second chance, but is tough love with them, was inspiring. And the things Obama asks us about where we commit our resources, and yet don’t commit even a fraction to things that prevent expenditures and pay for themselves, are hard-looks at our sense of priorities, our (over)willingness to be led in certain paths and unwilling to venture in others. Fareed Zakaria’s TIME article of March 14, 2011 says much of the same thing.
Obama gets into the complicated issues on immigration and his concise portrait is one of the best brief treatments of it out there.
Okay, enough for now. But there is still MORE to come! :)
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Eddie U. Cation, Where Art Thou?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I believe. Great line, although I think both he and Sean Connery answering to “Dr. Jones” vis a vis the pretty blonde, was, while perhaps not more enlightening, just as good. :)
I’d like to think Obama actually believed it when he wrote it too. The alternative would mean that politics really is as cynical and self-serving as it appears. And yes, he does act differently. Either he (and his family?) got threatened and then controlled, or he found out that real power is elsewhere and he became disheartened, or he made accommodation to present reality instead of trying to effect change with few insiders willing to help him (and he didn’t want to end up like Carter), or that what he does do doesn’t get any attention or traction, or any of a dozen or more explanations. The bottom line is indeed that he doesn’t act like the author of the book. Now, if you remember your Gibbon, we can see why Diocletian wanted to get away from the corrupting, controlling, twisted (and demonstrably murderous) political cesspool that was Rome and why he (Diocletian) moved the power center elsewhere.
The arrogance and narcissistic ways of Obama hindered whatever real objectives he had in health care reform (which, in typical Washington fashion, helped some things, made other things worse, added to burdens, furthered unsustainability, and fattened the future purses of the members of the Consortium). Obama is a problem solver, in his mind at least. He thinks policy problems out, although perhaps not through. Healthcare, along with plenty more besides, is a bankrupting train wreck coming (indeed, it’s in plain sight), and he wanted to tackle it, and deserves praise for the wanting. Of course, the corrupting system used up so much of his political capital to try to fix the nearly unfixable (the problem only appears to be just a mechanical one; it’s really a structural one and cultural one as well) that it seemed to take the wind out of his sails. Perhaps in his mind he felt punished for trying to do a good deed. Yet the man seems incapable of acknowledging that his own arrogance and narcissism contributed to the distaste many felt about the law or the process. In his defense, it must have been galling to see how this 1200 page law, rarely read and even less understood, was misrepresented, selectively focused or referenced, or even lied about by those who merely wanted to do him political damage.
As for what part of his wealth he might want to leave his daughters, ah, Madame, that is a whole long discussion we are going to have soon!
Critique of his foreign policy will come in future postings, but I will say this: the man’s smart enough to know that he’s been handed a pretty big pile of legacy crap, and he’s trying to manage it. He isn’t trying to transform it very much, however, again because maybe he (and the country) doesn’t have the political and economic legs, and so he is reactive and transitional. He’s not a great risk taker, perhaps partly or largely because of all that. I posted a piece on blowback on the Professor side (that’s not a shameless plug, really) that explains this further. And with those (China perhaps) who often make better economic decisions than we do increasingly questioning, and in the future maybe dictating, his job in unenviable. This isn’t John Kennedy at the height of American power, certainly.
All right. Let’s turn to one of the points you brought up and that was a portion of his book: education.
“Money does matter in education—otherwise why would parents pay so much to live in well funded suburban school districts?—and many urban and rural schools still suffer from overcrowded classrooms, outdated books, inadequate equipment, and teachers who are forced to pay out of pocket for basic supplies. But there’s no denying that the way many public schools are managed poses at least as big a problem as how well they’re funded.” Obama 161
As Obama relates, and this teacher verifies, study after study shows that the most important thing in determining how well a student does is not economics or ethnicity, but who the student’s teacher is. Yet we do the opposite of what’s necessary to get good teachers. Instead of mentoring by pairing up new teachers with master teachers, we throw new teachers at the wall and hope they stick, or worse, treat them in isolation. Instead of giving proven teachers more control over what happens in their classrooms, we micromanage them and load them up with all sorts of things that have nothing to do with teaching or learning. We hold them to ridiculously simplistic test scores which they have limited control of and that don’t take into account many, many other factors, among them an often dumbed-down curriculum because under-the-gun administrators force the teachers to teach to the test so they don’t lose funding due to No Child Left Behind. Instead of paying teachers like the highly vital professionals they are in teaching our forming young citizens, we grudgingly dole out poverty wages. Instead of shared governance in their schools, teachers are dictated to by administrators whose numbers have grown tremendously while teachers’ numbers, pay, and status have stagnated at best. And teachers rarely get to peer review each other, or even have input. The bulk of teachers know who the poor-quality apples are, and want to have the influence to improve those teachers—and failing that, get rid of them. But they don’t have that power; politically influenced administrators or petty and selfish self-serving union officials do.
To add insult to injury, we have not only done all the above and failed to compensate most teachers anywhere near what they’re worth, we have furthermore robbed them of the respect that other cultures give those whose responsibility it is to teach future functioning adult citizens, and to keep informed the present ones. And now we attack, as demonstrated in the current budget battles, what little those teachers have. Lots of people like to criticize teachers, or focus on those who “have it easy,” but say little about the multitudes who toil, long into the nights and weekends, in trying to do an impossible job.
And we need one more thing too: quit babying students. Quit trying to “take care of them,” to process them through the system. No. When they fail, they need to fail. They need to meet real and meaningful consequences that they can’t get out of, but that will teach them early and hard lessons that they can learn from and overcome. In other words, quit pandering to backgrounds, home life, and a dozen other things; have empathy and understanding, but then go on to treat everyone effectively fairly and equally—and let them know that’s how it is in school, and the world. Charles Sykes (unfortunately for him, usually wrongly attributed to Bill Gates) wrote a stirring op-ed piece 15 years ago on this very thing.
Higher education and state legislatures and communities and society in general must focus more on making college more financially possible. We need to show, in words, in deeds, and in resources that we value that education more than we value sports, however valuable those sports may or may not be.
Math, science, and engineering. We are barely investing in research and development (R&D), and fewer people are going into those big three areas. We are starving those areas for resources while we spend endlessly on other things. While other countries are investing in their R&D, we are cutting back. That’s a prescription for a cut-rate power. And a big and unsustainable trade deficit. And being dictated to by others.
If we invested a mere $9 billion a year into R&D, it would pay off big dividends and reverse some highly damaging trends. That’s an example of government spurring the foundation, of government making a wise economic INVESTMENT, instead of just spending money with no return.
Another facet examined soon!
I’d like to think Obama actually believed it when he wrote it too. The alternative would mean that politics really is as cynical and self-serving as it appears. And yes, he does act differently. Either he (and his family?) got threatened and then controlled, or he found out that real power is elsewhere and he became disheartened, or he made accommodation to present reality instead of trying to effect change with few insiders willing to help him (and he didn’t want to end up like Carter), or that what he does do doesn’t get any attention or traction, or any of a dozen or more explanations. The bottom line is indeed that he doesn’t act like the author of the book. Now, if you remember your Gibbon, we can see why Diocletian wanted to get away from the corrupting, controlling, twisted (and demonstrably murderous) political cesspool that was Rome and why he (Diocletian) moved the power center elsewhere.
The arrogance and narcissistic ways of Obama hindered whatever real objectives he had in health care reform (which, in typical Washington fashion, helped some things, made other things worse, added to burdens, furthered unsustainability, and fattened the future purses of the members of the Consortium). Obama is a problem solver, in his mind at least. He thinks policy problems out, although perhaps not through. Healthcare, along with plenty more besides, is a bankrupting train wreck coming (indeed, it’s in plain sight), and he wanted to tackle it, and deserves praise for the wanting. Of course, the corrupting system used up so much of his political capital to try to fix the nearly unfixable (the problem only appears to be just a mechanical one; it’s really a structural one and cultural one as well) that it seemed to take the wind out of his sails. Perhaps in his mind he felt punished for trying to do a good deed. Yet the man seems incapable of acknowledging that his own arrogance and narcissism contributed to the distaste many felt about the law or the process. In his defense, it must have been galling to see how this 1200 page law, rarely read and even less understood, was misrepresented, selectively focused or referenced, or even lied about by those who merely wanted to do him political damage.
As for what part of his wealth he might want to leave his daughters, ah, Madame, that is a whole long discussion we are going to have soon!
Critique of his foreign policy will come in future postings, but I will say this: the man’s smart enough to know that he’s been handed a pretty big pile of legacy crap, and he’s trying to manage it. He isn’t trying to transform it very much, however, again because maybe he (and the country) doesn’t have the political and economic legs, and so he is reactive and transitional. He’s not a great risk taker, perhaps partly or largely because of all that. I posted a piece on blowback on the Professor side (that’s not a shameless plug, really) that explains this further. And with those (China perhaps) who often make better economic decisions than we do increasingly questioning, and in the future maybe dictating, his job in unenviable. This isn’t John Kennedy at the height of American power, certainly.
All right. Let’s turn to one of the points you brought up and that was a portion of his book: education.
“Money does matter in education—otherwise why would parents pay so much to live in well funded suburban school districts?—and many urban and rural schools still suffer from overcrowded classrooms, outdated books, inadequate equipment, and teachers who are forced to pay out of pocket for basic supplies. But there’s no denying that the way many public schools are managed poses at least as big a problem as how well they’re funded.” Obama 161
As Obama relates, and this teacher verifies, study after study shows that the most important thing in determining how well a student does is not economics or ethnicity, but who the student’s teacher is. Yet we do the opposite of what’s necessary to get good teachers. Instead of mentoring by pairing up new teachers with master teachers, we throw new teachers at the wall and hope they stick, or worse, treat them in isolation. Instead of giving proven teachers more control over what happens in their classrooms, we micromanage them and load them up with all sorts of things that have nothing to do with teaching or learning. We hold them to ridiculously simplistic test scores which they have limited control of and that don’t take into account many, many other factors, among them an often dumbed-down curriculum because under-the-gun administrators force the teachers to teach to the test so they don’t lose funding due to No Child Left Behind. Instead of paying teachers like the highly vital professionals they are in teaching our forming young citizens, we grudgingly dole out poverty wages. Instead of shared governance in their schools, teachers are dictated to by administrators whose numbers have grown tremendously while teachers’ numbers, pay, and status have stagnated at best. And teachers rarely get to peer review each other, or even have input. The bulk of teachers know who the poor-quality apples are, and want to have the influence to improve those teachers—and failing that, get rid of them. But they don’t have that power; politically influenced administrators or petty and selfish self-serving union officials do.
To add insult to injury, we have not only done all the above and failed to compensate most teachers anywhere near what they’re worth, we have furthermore robbed them of the respect that other cultures give those whose responsibility it is to teach future functioning adult citizens, and to keep informed the present ones. And now we attack, as demonstrated in the current budget battles, what little those teachers have. Lots of people like to criticize teachers, or focus on those who “have it easy,” but say little about the multitudes who toil, long into the nights and weekends, in trying to do an impossible job.
And we need one more thing too: quit babying students. Quit trying to “take care of them,” to process them through the system. No. When they fail, they need to fail. They need to meet real and meaningful consequences that they can’t get out of, but that will teach them early and hard lessons that they can learn from and overcome. In other words, quit pandering to backgrounds, home life, and a dozen other things; have empathy and understanding, but then go on to treat everyone effectively fairly and equally—and let them know that’s how it is in school, and the world. Charles Sykes (unfortunately for him, usually wrongly attributed to Bill Gates) wrote a stirring op-ed piece 15 years ago on this very thing.
Higher education and state legislatures and communities and society in general must focus more on making college more financially possible. We need to show, in words, in deeds, and in resources that we value that education more than we value sports, however valuable those sports may or may not be.
Math, science, and engineering. We are barely investing in research and development (R&D), and fewer people are going into those big three areas. We are starving those areas for resources while we spend endlessly on other things. While other countries are investing in their R&D, we are cutting back. That’s a prescription for a cut-rate power. And a big and unsustainable trade deficit. And being dictated to by others.
If we invested a mere $9 billion a year into R&D, it would pay off big dividends and reverse some highly damaging trends. That’s an example of government spurring the foundation, of government making a wise economic INVESTMENT, instead of just spending money with no return.
Another facet examined soon!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Madame, Go With Envy!
Madame has turned the tables on me and gone gallivanting off to Italy and Greece I believe, fortunate femme that she is! Never fear, gentle readers, I will keep the windage in our sails suitably up during her absence!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Audacious Contradictions
Professor J,
I don't know that I ever disagreed with historians on that. One would hope that over the ages we would see that certain actions yield certain results, that the next time around we would choose differently. Would that we would "choose wisely" and find illumination and not just seek a prize. (There's a bit of movie trivia for you. :)) We don't though, do we? Human nature and abiding selfishness, so unwieldy, so stubborn. Such slow learners.
In the end I have to say this book grated on me a bit. As I've said before I think it's because I'm reading it with a crystal ball perspective. I read what he says, so much of it worthy of attention and thought, then I think of what he's done or said since. He seems a different person almost than the author. Which makes me ask (somewhat cynically) if he was writing what he thought people wanted to hear, what would get him elected or did he believe it when he wrote it? I'd like to think the latter.
And so "What happened to that smart guy?" Indeed. Perhaps he went from being a guy who (along with his wife) owed student loans and had a mortgage and worried about their daughters' education to magically, overnight, one of the uber elite. Those who you have pointed out, have no such worries.
He talks early on (p.25) about the "relative cordiality among the Senate's older members" and I think of him chiding Senator McCain during the health care debate. On p.93 when expounding on his views of The Constitution he says, "it was a rejection of all forms of absolute authority, whether the king, the theocrat, the general, the oligarch, the dictator, the majority, or anyone else who claims to make choices for us." I thought about a president who pressed on with a health care bill and stimulus with so much public opposition, who hinted it was all for our own good. On p. 161 he asks (after saying "Money does matter in education") ...why would so many parents pay so much to live in well-funded suburban school districts?" Yet, he shies away from pointing out that there may be something wrong with a system that perpetuates the connection between income and quality public education. I found his recounting of his meeting with Warren Buffet and their discussion of the estate tax riveting but wondered about what part of his wealth he might hope to leave to his own daughters.
In his chapter "The World Beyond Our Borders" he says (p.319) of Africa "Democracy is spreading." One sentence written several years ago by a man who is now president and figuring out how best to handle Libya, Tunisia, Egypt. I doubt that was the "Africa" he had in mind, North Africa being, culturally, more Mideast. I'm going to leave the critique of how he's handled these recent situations as well as the rest of the foreign policy to you. I've no doubt you've much to say! ;)
There were a lot of things to agree with and disagree with. I alternately liked him and thought him arrogant as well as contradictory. I have to say I liked the author version of him more than the presidential version.
I don't know that I ever disagreed with historians on that. One would hope that over the ages we would see that certain actions yield certain results, that the next time around we would choose differently. Would that we would "choose wisely" and find illumination and not just seek a prize. (There's a bit of movie trivia for you. :)) We don't though, do we? Human nature and abiding selfishness, so unwieldy, so stubborn. Such slow learners.
In the end I have to say this book grated on me a bit. As I've said before I think it's because I'm reading it with a crystal ball perspective. I read what he says, so much of it worthy of attention and thought, then I think of what he's done or said since. He seems a different person almost than the author. Which makes me ask (somewhat cynically) if he was writing what he thought people wanted to hear, what would get him elected or did he believe it when he wrote it? I'd like to think the latter.
And so "What happened to that smart guy?" Indeed. Perhaps he went from being a guy who (along with his wife) owed student loans and had a mortgage and worried about their daughters' education to magically, overnight, one of the uber elite. Those who you have pointed out, have no such worries.
He talks early on (p.25) about the "relative cordiality among the Senate's older members" and I think of him chiding Senator McCain during the health care debate. On p.93 when expounding on his views of The Constitution he says, "it was a rejection of all forms of absolute authority, whether the king, the theocrat, the general, the oligarch, the dictator, the majority, or anyone else who claims to make choices for us." I thought about a president who pressed on with a health care bill and stimulus with so much public opposition, who hinted it was all for our own good. On p. 161 he asks (after saying "Money does matter in education") ...why would so many parents pay so much to live in well-funded suburban school districts?" Yet, he shies away from pointing out that there may be something wrong with a system that perpetuates the connection between income and quality public education. I found his recounting of his meeting with Warren Buffet and their discussion of the estate tax riveting but wondered about what part of his wealth he might hope to leave to his own daughters.
In his chapter "The World Beyond Our Borders" he says (p.319) of Africa "Democracy is spreading." One sentence written several years ago by a man who is now president and figuring out how best to handle Libya, Tunisia, Egypt. I doubt that was the "Africa" he had in mind, North Africa being, culturally, more Mideast. I'm going to leave the critique of how he's handled these recent situations as well as the rest of the foreign policy to you. I've no doubt you've much to say! ;)
There were a lot of things to agree with and disagree with. I alternately liked him and thought him arrogant as well as contradictory. I have to say I liked the author version of him more than the presidential version.
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