I've been trying to lurk for a while but this is
just too California for words.
Hello Bruce, Harry, Chris, Keith, and to the
rest of the list,
Happy Holidays,
Let's end the year with a little conflict,
Consider,
----- Original Message -----
From: Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 12:06
PM
Subject: RE: Fwd: WTO/GATS - a Coup against
Democracy
Harry Pollard told Bruce on December 26, 2001 12:06
PM
>(snip)
>
> Not blather, Bruce. It's just reality. I was replying to Chris' statistical
> bits, pointing out that US statistics are completely skewed by those of the
> inner cities.
>
> Not blather, Bruce. It's just reality. I was replying to Chris' statistical
> bits, pointing out that US statistics are completely skewed by those of the
> inner cities.
Are you implying that we inner cities are not
a part of the American way of life Harry?
The following is a little bit of
equivocating. Are you in or are you out Harry?
You said:
> Also, that overwhelmingly the black population are victims rather than killers.
Yes but they are not the group with the highest
level of crime perpetrated against them. Do you know who that is? The
perpetrators are not members of the group but outsiders who simply commit violence and continue to steal them blind
in
spite of court cases won against the
perpetrators.
You said:
> I didn't mention that during the later stages of our boom, as the jobless
> dwindled so did the crime rate. There may be a connection.
> I didn't mention that during the later stages of our boom, as the jobless
> dwindled so did the crime rate. There may be a connection.
That is the story, but the boom didn't really reach
the ghetto. The only thing that got there was the promise of jobs if
they would do workfare as I said in my earlier article called "Dickens."
Certainly, the
> black kid leaving high school has something like a 50% chance of getting a
> job of any kind - not exactly an encouraging prospect for a new grad. I
> mentioned earlier on FW that my heart would sink when facing an inner city
> class of black kids, bright eyed and bushy tailed, for I would know that
> probably half of them would never get a worthwhile job.
> black kid leaving high school has something like a 50% chance of getting a
> job of any kind - not exactly an encouraging prospect for a new grad. I
> mentioned earlier on FW that my heart would sink when facing an inner city
> class of black kids, bright eyed and bushy tailed, for I would know that
> probably half of them would never get a worthwhile job.
Well, would your heart sink when confronting an 80%
unemployment? Or would you complain about their turning to
gaming as their way of being able to stay in their own family and communities
while getting their clients to drive to them for business?
How about a 98% unemployment of highly trained
professionals? Would your heart sink upon hearing a
magnificently trained concert pianist who makes his living working in a bank, an
insurance company or the U.S. Customs? How about Citi-bank offering
a whole company of dancers $150 for a concert in the atrium while paying $500
for a bottle of wine or a purse for their wives?
The issue with the black population has never, for
me, been one of jobs but of fairness and debts owed by American culture to the
families of former slaves. Most of the non-blacks especially
the recent arrivals, (and even some blacks) don't consider that they
owe the culture or society a thing. Personally, that kind of
attitude belongs back at their homes. That is not the citizenship I
was taught on the reservation. Nor that I believe as an American.
>
(snip) > You continued:
> However, if there were not a single black person in the US, we would still
> have the inner city ghettos with all the problems of jobs, education, and
> employment we confront now.
>
> Wouldn't we? Be careful how you answer that. If you say yes, then it isn't
> a black problem. If you say no, yes it is.
(snip) > You continued:
> However, if there were not a single black person in the US, we would still
> have the inner city ghettos with all the problems of jobs, education, and
> employment we confront now.
>
> Wouldn't we? Be careful how you answer that. If you say yes, then it isn't
> a black problem. If you say no, yes it is.
Ghetto is not a black word. All of the
groups who arrived and are still arriving, have come out of the
ghettos. I still say that the issue with the descendants of former
slaves has nothing to do with anything but a debt owed.
You can't take refuge in the fact that they now live OK here. A debt
is a debt. They didn't live OK here prior to
1954. If there is any doubt about the injustice of American
Apartheid then just look at how quickly they have raised themselves up from a
position far beneath anything the Irish, the Italians, the Jews or any other
group started with except the one group mentioned above. There were
quotas on various ethnic groups before 1954 and the Civil Rights legislation of
the 1960s but as a light Indian I would never lie about it being easier for me
under certain circumstances in the dominant culture than for darker Indian
people. It is easier as long as I don't tell. The moment
the jewelry comes out I'm either a cowboy, a businessman from the Southwest or
one of them "others." I have lost business from being an
"other." Especially in a business where connections are so
important.
> Anyway, if we wish to discuss jobs, education, and unemployment, we must
> start with the inner cities, where enormous amounts of money are spent to
> achieve nothing. We patch, and putty, and calk effects even as the causes
> are lost in the noise.
That is over-simple beyond
belief. Let me give you an example. A few years
ago a group of Hispanics won a law suit about multi-lingual
education. Across the country programs sprang up to be sure
that children who didn't speak English would not be hampered in non-language
courses for not knowing English.
In New York City, there is a whole culture of
people who have given up their parents language and culture in order to
exist. This is not one group but many and reaches across many
Western and Oriental groups. Primarily European American,
however. They stopped Bi-lingual programs cold in its
tracks.
Now what benefits would be lost if children
sat and learned to speak each other's languages in a real multi-cultural
approach to learning. THEY DO IT IN EUROPE and in the country
with the largest developing middle class (INDIA) THEY HAVE SEVENTEEN
DIFFERENT OFFICIAL LANGUAGES that those Indian computer geniuses are able
to speak. They even speak ENGLISH and in more
American dialects than most of us recognize. I catch
them making cold calls occasionally from Bombay, speaking
Kansas English and lying about where they are calling from.
What an opportunity for American Education but the local citizenry across the
country organized and instead of using it as an opportunity for education they
did everything to destroy its potential AND THEY
WON! And Americans are the dumbest people around foreign
languages that you will meet.
The problem Harry, is not patching and
putty. It is people with a Messianic attitude about their own
solutions that push them and listen to no one as if the rest of the world had
been sitting around doing nothing for the last million years or so.
Chauvinism, provinciality and paternalism. The three
Brothers. People who believe they are the only REAL people
here and therefore must help those who aren't real. Inadaquate
systems thought and models in their minds that are unconscious and poorly
evolved.
I studied with Todd Duncan and Frederick
Wilkerson, two of the greatest voice teachers in America. I
know they were great because before that I studied with Dame Eva Turner and
after them I studied with Daniel Ferro. In the voice teaching world
these are the Gatekeepers and the Masters. Mr. Dunkin and
Wilkie were both African American and trained many of the greatest
voices in every genera.
America is a huge wasting pit. We throw
away cars, TVs, people of every type and talent. We are
collectors and ontology is a word only for theologians.
If we don't grow up then we will disappear. Both Wilkerson and
Duncan have a great deal to do with the renaissance of African Americans in the
Arts and Entertainment. They would not throw anyone
away.
Success will have little to do with what we
buy or sell. It has to do with the quality of our Mastery and our
Ontology. We are so insecure that we even mistrust scholars
and put them away where they have little practical use or knowledge.
When an Ambassador learns the language of the country where he serves, he is
often brought home because he will be too sympathetic to their interest and not
ours. American is nuts on language and
culture. It isn't about patch and putty but about
competition and how we don't trust each other.
>
> Why?
>
> We seem more interested in improving the psychological well-being of
> reformers than actually finding a solution to something. If they are poor,
> we give them money. If they are hungry, we provide food stamps. If they are
> unemployed we make up jobs.
Most of the jobs in the world are about culture,
not use. Utility is a simple minded myth that dissolves in the
hand upon close observation like romantic harmonies .
>
> Or we train them to be a better class of unemployed. I had a student in
> Toronto who was an unemployed welder. He got a government job teaching
> welding and had 22 students in his class. I asked him what happened at
> graduation.
I'll go you one better. The best jobs
provided to bring Ghetto children out into the general population are games and
the performing arts. We had a fuss on the list earlier about
games and you and I have argued about the arts. My experience
is that Mickey Mantle the Yankee's slugger was from my home reservation, as was
the reed section leader for the Chicago Symphony Burl Lane, Louis
Ballard is one of America's most performed classical composers in Europe and he
lived a mile away. Donald Johnson, the CEO of the Modine Corporation
was Burl Lane's sister's husband and my good friend. I could list
more but that is a good sampling considering that I had only sixty three members
in my graduating class and that we had the problem that I have mentioned on
several occasions about the blue streaks from the heavy metal pollution that was
in everything. But we did have one big important
plus. We had teachers who were intelligent and committed to
the community, even though it was the number one toxic waste site in
America. No one took our sports or marching band away and we
had a bigger chorus than most NYCity schools.
Last night I sat and talked to a teacher from the
Ghetto in Brooklyn where they have just taken all sports and performing arts
programs away from the children and are burying them in Math and
Science. Bury is exactly what will happen. They
will not escape the ghetto and they will probably end up in jail for the most
part. Boring subjects are boring to children as
well. A simple look at the Math and Reading programs at the
government department of Education site will show you that investment in Math,
Science and Reading has been going up since Sputnik. It will also
show you that the investment has been going down in the kind of performance
discipline so beloved my management gurus including Peter Drucker.
(Ensemble, Learning Organizations, etc. i.e. the arts and sports
teams) What it will show is that a corresponding descent in the
scores of Math and reading has happened as they have invested more in
those two with science just holding its own. But core
curriculums built around the arts hold their own very well in ALL of the
subjects. So as you said:
WHY? It isn't patch work and it isn't
some placating of the liberal or conservative. It is in the people's
heads. Mental systems that don't work. That are out of
date and were tried already and failed. Language pollution
from almost every science and a poor ability to maintain aural, eidetic,
linguistic and kinesthetic processes that
make symbolization difficult and often poor when put into a
performance situation. .
> He said: "We had 23 unemployed welders."
Where was the construction
business?
> We try to find jobs for those bright-eyed
kids. If you've read in my posts
> to Keith the two Basic Assumptions of Human Behavior, you would know we
> don't want to exert and neither do they. Yet. we try to find for an
> unemployed person some kind of job. which by his nature he doesn't want.
> to Keith the two Basic Assumptions of Human Behavior, you would know we
> don't want to exert and neither do they. Yet. we try to find for an
> unemployed person some kind of job. which by his nature he doesn't want.
Nonsense. You are making that
up. It sounds good but it is 19th century logic that got us
where we are already.
> (snip)
> Henry George's famous question was: "Why is spite of enormous increase in
> our power to produce is it so difficult to make a living?"
>
> Well, answer it. And don't suggest we need better education. In a natural
> over-full employment situation, jobs are arranged to fit the available
> skills.
> Henry George's famous question was: "Why is spite of enormous increase in
> our power to produce is it so difficult to make a living?"
>
> Well, answer it. And don't suggest we need better education. In a natural
> over-full employment situation, jobs are arranged to fit the available
> skills.
We don't have too much employment.
No-one would suggest that in WW2 "Rosie the
Riveter" was an
> aeronautical engineer. What happened was the job of building aircraft was
> broken down into operations that could be done by unskilled housewives. In
> a sensible full employment economy, should skills or knowledge be lacking,
> the jobs will change to fit what's available.
> aeronautical engineer. What happened was the job of building aircraft was
> broken down into operations that could be done by unskilled housewives. In
> a sensible full employment economy, should skills or knowledge be lacking,
> the jobs will change to fit what's available.
That was Henry Ford and Taylorism that fitted the
throwaway situation of a war. It also destroyed mastery and the
development of competence. Move those folks around and
give them lots of ads so they will accept any job and buy what we tell
them. That is your desire, but not mine.
(snip)>
> Chris' remark exposes the shallow thinking of the left, who have let us
> down on every issue. They still support class conflict - rich against poor
> - leaving the bourgeoisie to float around somewhere in the middle.
Both sides are shallow and suffer from the same
malaise. The problem is simply that there are many sides but
no one is willing to think about more than two.
>
> And nowadays, most of us are bourgeoisie - or want to be. Even though the
> plight of the bourgeoisie appears to be not so much under-employment as too
> much employment. Too many hours of work and not enough time for their
> families (a disappearing part of the economy).
> And nowadays, most of us are bourgeoisie - or want to be. Even though the
> plight of the bourgeoisie appears to be not so much under-employment as too
> much employment. Too many hours of work and not enough time for their
> families (a disappearing part of the economy).
That is the reason for your drop in crime IMHO, got
all you criminals off the streets (joke). But that will
change as the children who have raised themselves hit the streets and are not
competent to live in the world (not a joke).
Ray Evans Harrell
