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We live in a time when fantasy and reality are almost
indistinguishable. We cannot really know whether the recent orange alerts
were responses to real threats or were being used to keep us in a state of
anxiety and therefore maleable. We know that 9/11 happened and Al Qada
exists, but we don't know whether it can happen again. We know that people
are being held without warrant or have simply "been disappeared", but we can't
really tell whether they were a threat or not. Best to keep one's head
down, march in step and be quiet.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 9:10
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Killing its
own
The conservative counter-revolution is built on
the fear that the 60s and 70s, in the last century, may come back and
they will lose control as they almost did during the Vietnam Era when citizens
were prepared to practice a more participatory kind of democracy [within the
channels of power and in the streets] which questions the roots of their
society. It leads to the conservatives constant propagandizing
around issues of control and fear and this kind of 'accountability' which
targets and marginalizes and breaks down social cohesion and any sense of
community. Better to built passive conformity dispositions in students,
through punishment, tough love, and what is authentic through testing,
rather than critical democratic discourse that has the potential to
create a more caring and compassionate society. It permeates not only
the official organs of the power elite, but also many middle class families in
the way they socialize their kids as a basis of ensuring the reproduction of
their own class status. It creates a complex matrix of self-blame among
people who convinced of their own powerlessness. [Poppycock,
really.] Of course the propagandizing keeps attention away from the
legitimate, palpable fear that people live in their own lives, sensing that
things are not as good as the lies fed to them by the mainstream media and
conservative politicians. The most significant news item for me, during
the past week, was the IMF warning on the U.S. deficit and balance of trade,
and its potential to send the global economy into a downward spiral. The
Asian flu may well be coming to the Gold Mountain.
BB
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 1:59
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Killing its
own
Robert and Ed,
This is a very sad state that children find
themselves in. I've never seen so much irresponsibility.
Now they are even throwing kids in jail for school infractions.
Jail is a great teacher but it teaches people to be criminals not better
citizens. On the one hand information is withheld from
parents and then when the crash comes, the parents are impotent in
their ignorance. Its even worse in college when underage
students are expected to be paid for by parents but the parents are not
privy to grades, health records, etc. It springs from both left
and right. With the left screaming individual freedom and the
right screaming hold them responsible while this takes the onus off bad
parents and bad teachers. It is disgusting and is system
wide. This does not mean that I believe the schools are
hopeless and going to hell in a handbasket. But this element of
it is in severe need of rethinking from both left and right
wings. The problem is that neither seems to know much about
education or cooperation. Education is always a team effort if
the best is to be drawn from the student.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:14
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Killing its
own
Ed,
What is happening in the United States is a
great tragedy, not likely to end in November, unfortunately. The
internal war against kids has also been extended to education.
See below from Chicago.
Bob
SCHOOLS PRESSURED TO DUMP BAD STUDENTS, CRITICS
SAY
Chicago Sun-Times -- January 9,
2004
by Kate Grossman
Phillip Parker knew he was in the wrong when he
started skipping class
and getting into trouble at Chicago's Crane
High School. But before he
could figure out how to fix it, he found
himself dropped from school.
"I'm not one to blame others for what
I did, but if the school had
steered me the right way, it could have
helped," said Parker, who says
teachers and staff seemed too busy to
really give him the help he needed.
After dropping out, he landed a
spot at West Town Academy, an
alternative school. He knows he's one of
the lucky ones.
"A lot of students just give up," Parker said.
"It's almost like their
life has no direction, they ain't got nothing
going."
In the 2001-02 school year, 17,400 students -- 17.6 percent
-- dropped
out of Chicago schools, according to an analysis of state
data by the
Greater West Town Community Development Project. That's up
from 13.5
percent in 1992. The Chicago public schools publicize a
lower percentage
-- 13 percent in 2003, down from 16.6 percent in
1995. Those percentages
don't include 27 alternative
schools.
The numbers are too high and the pressure on schools to
push out truant,
low-performing students is only growing, several
experts, including
Illinois Education Supt. Robert Schiller, testified
at a state Senate
Education Committee meeting in Chicago
Thursday.
The main culprit is the federal No Child Left Behind law,
Schiller and
others said. That law requires schools to meet testing,
graduation and
attendance benchmarks each year.
"There is
tremendous pressure on districts," said Sen. Miguel del Valle
(D-Chicago), the committee chairman. "All of this is creating a
climate
that, as the superintendent says, creates a disincentive to
hang on to
students and help them go the extra mile to stay in
school."
Del Valle convened the hearing to come up with legislative
ideas to
confront Illinois' dropout problem. Statewide, the rate is
4.9 percent.
Suggestions floated at the hearing include more accurate
counting of the
problem, more small schools, such as Chicago is
trying, more emphasis on
early childhood education and more academic
support for middle schoolers
and ninth-graders.
Del Valle has
one bill pending that would make it more difficult to drop
students,
make it easier for them to return and change the way they're
counted
so they can be tracked and schools aren't penalized if they drop
out
again.
Several advocates support the proposal but say the existing
law must
also be enforced. State law says students over 16 can only be
denied an
education if they are expelled for serious misconduct or if
they don't
have enough credits to graduate by the time they're
21.
"The dropout problem is largely a push-out problem for kids
who'd like
to stay in school," said William Leavy, director of the
Greater West
Town group. "Our neediest kids have the least
support."
Added Bob Meyer, a teacher at West Town Academy: "We
think [Chicago] and
other districts should be mandated to do what we
do daily -- give kids
another chance."
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004
10:19 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Killing its
own
As a Canadian, I find the behaviour of the US
administration increasingly perplexing and difficult to
understand. Killing people, including kids, in Afghanistan and
Iraq is one thing, but killing its own is incomprehensible. More
and more, one gets the impression that America exists for the ownership
class, the top five percent or even one percent, and no one else
matters! Rogue abroad and rogue at home!
Ed
 
January 9, 2004OP-ED COLUMNIST
Sick State Budgets, Sick KidsBy BOB
HERBERT
 hile headlines continue to tell us how great
the economy is doing, states across the U.S. are pulling the plug
on desperately needed health coverage for low-income Americans,
including about a half-million children.
Even as the Bush administration continues its bizarre quest for
ever more tax cuts, the states, which by law have to balance their
budgets, are cutting vital social programs so deeply that tragic
consequences are inevitable.
The cruel reality is that Americans at the top are thriving at
the expense of the well-being of those at the bottom and,
increasingly, in the middle.
A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
shows that 34 states have made potentially devastating cuts over
the past two years in public health insurance programs, including
Medicaid and the very successful children's health insurance
programs known as CHIPS. More cuts are expected this year.
"Almost half of those losing health coverage (490,000 to
650,000 people) are children," the report said. "Substantial
numbers of low-income parents, seniors, people with disabilities,
childless adults and immigrants are also losing coverage. Cutbacks
of this depth in health insurance coverage for low-income families
and individuals are unprecedented."
The worst of the cuts are in Texas. "The Lone Star State has
adopted deep cutbacks in its State Children's Health Insurance
Program that will cause about 160,000 children — one-third of its
SCHIP caseload — to lose coverage," the report said.
Texas is also making Medicaid available to fewer pregnant
women, a dangerous move that increases the number of women without
coverage for prenatal care and the actual deliveries. "All told,"
the report said, "Texas is eliminating coverage for between
344,000 and 494,000 children and adults. Census data showed that,
even before these changes, the percentage of people who were
uninsured was higher in Texas than in any other state."
A loss of health coverage frequently leads to a reluctance to
seek needed care. "In poor or low-income families, where there is
not a lot of disposable income, people will avoid going to the
doctor or getting a prescription," said Leighton Ku, one of the
authors of the report. "Certain diseases can then become much more
severe. With children, it's likely that they won't get treatment
for ear infections, asthma, diabetes — conditions that can
ultimately lead to hospitalization."
When treatment can no longer be avoided, the financial
consequences can be ruinous. Medical expenses are one of the
leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S.
Officials at the center noted the case of a woman in St. Louis
who works but whose annual income is below the poverty line. Under
eligibility rules in effect until 18 months ago, she would have
qualified for Medicaid. Under the new rules, she does not.
The woman became ill and was told upon her release from the
hospital to seek follow-up care. But without any health insurance,
her medical bills have been overwhelming. According to the center,
"[The woman] has occasional abdominal pain but is not getting any
treatment. She intends to declare bankruptcy because she cannot
pay the $47,000 she owes in medical bills, but so far has been
unable to save the funds needed to pay for a bankruptcy
filing."
People caught in this kind of squeeze often find themselves
"sicker, much poorer, or both," said Robert Greenstein, the
center's director.
It seems extremely strange that in the United States of
America, the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the
world, we are going backward in the 21st century in our ability to
provide the most fundamental kinds of health care to ordinary
people, including children.
The health insurance cutbacks would have been even worse if not
for the $20 billion in emergency state aid that was reluctantly
approved by the Bush administration and the Republican-led
Congress last year. Despite the economic upturn, states are still
struggling. They face a collective budget deficit of $40 billion
to $50 billion for the coming fiscal year, and there is little
sentiment among Republican leaders in Washington for another round
of fiscal relief.
Maybe the nation itself needs a doctor. Shoving low-income
people, including children, off the health care rolls at a time
when the economy is allegedly booming is a sure sign of some kind
of sickness in the society.
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