My old school in Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa, is $30,000 and my New York Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, is $38,000 per year.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 3:02 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Secret oil war memos before Iraq invasion It appears, Ray, the school was shut down because it would have been an embarrassment to the State once the abutting parkland/beach golf course was built, in addition to the fact that they don't want the poor and disadvantaged to succeed. Nice governor. New powers, too, if he can fire city council. Is it only my guess that a film of cops arresting a school full of pregnant teens over their school closure would have incurred the wrath of the nation but years ago? People are desensitized, with so much to be upset about. There are lots of good alternative primary schools in Canada: two I can think of, Steiner and Montessori, like franchises, across the country. Parents have to pay extra or volunteer time in lieu, but they're accredited and qualify for public support. For secondary schools, numbers go down. There is a new university, accredited by both Canada and the US, called Quest, situated in Squamish, BC, a coastal mountain setting. It offers a liberal arts and science program, small class sizes, and lots of student support. It is expensive, however, with tuition running at $27,000 a year for 2 semesters of 8 blocks, one course at a time. Lots of field work, outdoor class time, off-campus programs. Grants and scholarships are available, such that admissions are not entirely exclusive. Quest is a model, which will set the trend in undergraduate programs, but with small class sizes, will probably remain costly. Check it out: http://www.questu.ca/academics/full_course_calendar.php Natalia On 4/22/2011 9:35 PM, Ray Harrell wrote: Perhaps you should look at this Natalia. The work at Kathryn Ferguson Academy was built around the same type of attitudes and programs that liftes our school from the 15% to the 88% and full accreditation. Of course its gone now. The ideals of America have become a gray world of hatred for the poor. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#42725827 I dont know whether you can get the programs in Canada or not. Its a disgrace. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 6:47 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Secret oil war memos before Iraq invasion Quite timely. Good points are raised about why average citizens both don't and needn't bother to try. I felt that Hacker and Pierson, although they know politics, are assessing today's problems mostly with historical opportunities missed. What we have today is so tipped toward the top 0.1%, so impossible to unravel in real time, that it's probably best to draw up a different government altogether. How to accomplish that is open to opinion, but however that might unfold, restoration of citizens and environmental rights and the dismantling of rights of corporations and powers of key government officials have to be addressed. Yes, unions didn't push hard enough for taxation of corporations--perhaps due to the concern that workers would in turn be denied better wages and benefits, I'm guessing. But they did fight to keep jobs in North America. They achieved a great deal in their day. Unfortunately, the influence and numbers within unions waned, in large part due to unfavourable tax and labour laws tabled and swiftly passed by government insiders lobbied by corporations, as is pointed out. There really was no one to protect the interests of small business, and all others who didn't belong to a board or union. This was supposed to be the task of government officials, checked by the politicians. That's what they're paid for by the taxpayer. That the public fails to understand the real world is a reflection of corporate controlled media and education. The average citizen has indeed been forced to rely on experts to ensure they get a fair shake. Government inquiries all end up having overpaid committees whose primary function, one too often learns, is to stall for time or to allow for cover-ups. Overcoming complexities of corporate law, which now rears its ugly head even at NGOs, shouldn't be the responsibility of uninformed workers and voters. They should be able to rely on government to act in their best interests, and should not have to learn, often after decades of effort, that no one in government does any such thing. Occasionally, some lawyer or judge will take personal offense to corporate arrogance, but otherwise making a name for themselves is usually a bad career move. Today's public were outspoken in record numbers against the Iraq invasion. No one listened. Every US house representative but one voted in every law presented following 9/11. The UK had never seen such demonstrations, but oil and greed won out. This was clearly a breach of public trust. The public was ignored by those hired to do their bidding, and the governments complacent, knowing planned peaceful demonstrations would challenge nothing. Demonstrators the world over are more subject to violent police response, and everyone knows who gives police the orders and power to do so. So, how are such powers dismantled peacefully when demonstrations are made difficult and ignored? Egypt lost over 800 to the demonstrations to try to remove essentially one man from power. In the US, UK and Canada, the chain of command is so tight, and the reaction from forces would be so disruptive, that we would be demonstrating for decades, making little headway. Besides, with survival to pay for, to get involved at any significant level of protest or attempt at change translates to a threat to that survival. Demonstrating for a month means you lose your job. In Egypt there were mostly jobless young demonstrators. Now everyone there is yet to see real change. Runciman's final paragraph was uncomfortably close to reality, and touching on my point from before, in that true democratic action and enforcement of laws already in existence take so much time to carry out, the world has moved on, and it's easier to turn a blind eye. Well, the top 0.1% are counting on that! Since money is the currency for political clout, people don't actually need to demonstrate--they just have to refrain from working, en mass. Just enough to make a point. Without as much grease for the wheel, the wealthy won't be so slick. But even more effective would be to withhold taxes for reassignment to reflect sustainable values. A challenge to organize, but if huge groups participated, they couldn't afford to prosecute everyone, and government operational budgets would be jeopardized. Perhaps from a platform of resistance and representational tax distribution, a new sustainability party could take shape. Military budgets could be slashed, especially overseas, to reduce friction, offshore activity and encourage local industry. Wall Street forced to repay the bailout and restore people to their homes, oil industry to make restorations to Iraq, to the military budget, the environment, and green energy initiatives. Homeland Security, dismantled. The Pentagon and CIA to open its books, and also reveal their black budgets for public scrutiny. Publicly funded private industry prison builds to be eradicated, drug wars cut. Pot smokers released from jail, child molesters and rapists put away--with therapy and education available to all. Monsanto GM seeds, denied. Nukes denied. Chemical warfare, denied. Fund well-rounded education, innovation, and cultural programs. Fund environmental restoration. I can see it all...and somewhere down the road, the key personnel of the Bush and Blair administrations, after seizure of their entire fortunes and a decade spent in Iraqi prisons, working soup kitchens with Wall Street crooks. Natalia Kuzmyn On 4/21/2011 2:42 PM, Ray Harrell wrote: A must read: http://www.roubini.com/us-monitor/260858/musings_on_plutocracy REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:30 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] Secret oil war memos before Iraq invasion Another example of industry hiring overseas. In case any of you still felt there were noble intentions to motivate the US and UK to invade Iraq, check out what's below. Let's just hope FOI rights aren't revoked. As it stands, these memos can take over a decade to acquire, and then, if you're lucky, it won't be almost entirely blacked out. Unfortunately, prosecuting the real evil doers is usually past the point of public outrage, too expensive, and political will is never there to pursue fellow crooks. In this case, there is no real Iraqi government left that would want to take action if it could. I wish I were wrong about that. US and UK taxpayers and military alike will remain amply deceived as the story gets bumped from most mainstream venues. It's these issues that really speak to the imbalance of power, when those who actually pay for vile industrial/military ambitions grow too old, tired and debt ridden to care. Natalia >From the Independent, UK, April 19th: The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time. The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd". But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture. Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change. The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms. Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis." The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts. The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity." After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq." Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time". BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world. Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002. The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq. Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil. Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on the Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims. "We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize." Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment. www.fuelonthefire.com <http://www.fuelonthefire.com/> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-betwe en-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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