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Not tongue in cheek, Darryl, but intended as
irony. I saw the movie "Return of the King" a few days ago. All you
needed to do to rid the world of the dark forces that were threatening to take
everything over was destroy the ring of power by throwing it into the lava of
Mt. Doom. Would that it were so simple!
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 9:15
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Killing its
own
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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