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I hope that last line was tongue-in-cheek Ed. Or, let's bring on the
"Future Fascists" with your ostrich rush. Everyone who knows, or suspects, the
lies must voice opposition, or must begin a different and
definitive opposition. All things worthwhile are worth protecting. And if it
takes a few hundred or a few thousand deaths of those who will not succumb to
the "jack-boots", maybe, just maybe, the word, the knowledge, the truths will
spread. Speaking out is the first step.
Darryl.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 12:12
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Killing its
own
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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