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"An evaluation of the 2003 results showed that the countries which
spent more on education did not necessarily do better than those which
spent less. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia"
title="Australia">Australia</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium" title="Belgium">Belgium</a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada" title="Canada">Canada</a>,
the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic"
title="Czech Republic">Czech Republic</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland" title="Finland">Finland</a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan">Japan</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea" title="Korea">Korea</a>, <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand" title="New Zealand">New
Zealand</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands"
title="Netherlands">Netherlands</a> spent less but did relatively
well, whereas the United States spent much more but was below the OECD
average. The Czech Republic, in the top ten, spent only one third as
much per student as the United States did, for example, but the USA
came 24th out of 29 countries compared." - Wikipaedia.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/9/2010 9:19 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D00D76F.8050502@pigs.ag" type="cite">
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Americans don't want mass transit. They dont want to be herded around
on buses and trains like cattle. <br>
Americans are xenophobic. They want to ride in private horseless
carriages like princesses. <br>
Amtrak is Fubar'ed by design because the government wants to promote
automobiles.<br>
Just compensation for the property that would be defiled to build high
speed rail would outstrip <br>
military funding, and that simply would not do.<br>
<br>
*<br>
The problem with Education in America seems to have little to do with
any lack of funding.<br>
I was a teacher and an academic at one time in the US and so was my
sister, my mother and her brother and sister,<br>
her father, her grandmother and my mother's grandmother's sisters and
brothers were <br>
schoolteachers and academics. So was my wife a former academic and a
schoolteacher,<br>
as was her father. So I can speak with some authority if not with
popular support.<br>
The US seems to spend too much money on education not too little,<br>
and a very large fraction of that is poorly spent. There are too many
aides and auxiliaries,<br>
too many goofy programs, teachers are overpaid for the most part,
administrators are grossly overpaid, and <br>
the cost of the buildings is extravagantly high.<br>
<br>
Chomsky certainly is right about the outcome, though I really doubt
that one can find a valid correlation <br>
with funding after it reaches some minimum level that the US probably
passed more than 100 years ago.<br>
That old Rowan and Martin joke about distasteful American jokes
sweeping Warsaw<br>
seems quite interesting. I would have pointed out that the US Students
are doing more poorly<br>
than the ones from Poland. How many Americans does it take to change a
dim bulb?<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part1.08060208.09040500@pigs.ag" alt=""><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/9/2010 4:26 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4CFFEA12.7020200@illinois.edu" type="cite">Noam
Chomsky on the Economy, U.S. Midterm Elections, Climate Change, Haiti,
and More <br>
[Noam Chomsky is a Professor Emeritus at MIT, where he taught for over
half a century. He is author of dozens of books. His most recent is
Hopes and Prospects.] <br>
<br>
AMY GOODMAN:Noam, you’re continuing your prescription, your advice that
you would give to President Obama today. <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the economy is a disaster. There is 10 percent
official unemployment, probably twice that much actual unemployment.
Many people unemployed for years. This is a huge human tragedy, but
it’s also an economic tragedy. These are unused resources, which could
be producing to make the things that this country needs. I mean, the
United States is becoming a kind of a third world country. <br>
You take a—the other day, I took a train from Boston to New York.
That’s, you know, the star of the trains of Amtrak, train system. I
mean, it took about maybe 20 minutes less than the train that my wife
and I took 60 years ago from Boston to New York. In any European
country, any industrial country, it would have taken half the time.
Plenty of non-industrial countries. Spain is not a super-rich country.
It’s just introducing a 200-mile-an-hour new railway. And this is just
one example. <br>
The United States desperately needs many things: decent infrastructure,
a decent educational system, much more pay and support for teachers,
all kinds of things. And the policies that are being carried out are
designed to enrich primarily financial institutions. And remember that
many of the major corporations like, say, GE and GM are also financial
institutions. It’s a large part of their activity. It’s very unclear
that these financial shenanigans do anything for the economy. There are
some economists finally, mainstream ones, finally beginning to raise
this question. They may harm it, in fact. But what they do is enrich
rich people, and that’s where policies are directed to. <br>
An alternative would be to stimulate the economy. There is no—demand is
very low. Business—the corporations have money coming out of their
ears, their huge profits. But they don’t want to spend it, don’t want
to invest it. They’d rather profit from it. Financial institutions
don’t produce anything. They just shift money around and make money
from various deals. The public is some consumer demand, but it’s very
slight. We have to remember that there was an $8 trillion housing
bubble that burst, destroying the assets for most people. They’re
desperately trying to keep a little to save themselves. The only source
of demand right now would be government spending. It doesn’t even have
to affect the deficit, can be carried out by borrowing by the Fed,
which sends interest right back to the Treasury. If anyone cares about
the deficit, which is actually a minor issue, I think, that should be
the major issue. <br>
There should be massive infrastructure spending. There should be
spending on things—simple things like weatherization. I mean, we should
have a substantial program to reduce the very severe threat of global
warming. That’s unfortunately unlikely with the new Republican
legislators and with the effects of the massive corporate propaganda to
try to convince people that it’s a liberal hoax. The latest polls show
about maybe a third of Americans think that—believe in anthropogenic
global warming, you know, human contribution to global warming. I mean,
that’s almost a death knell for the species. If the U.S. doesn’t do
anything, nobody else will. We now have chairs going into the— <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, what do you think of the U.N. climate change summit
that’s taking place in Cancún? <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the Copenhagen summit was a disaster. Nothing
happened. This one, Cancún, has set its sights much lower, in the hope
of at least achieving something. But let’s say they achieve all their
goals, which is very unlikely. It’ll still be a toothpick on a
mountain. There are much more serious problems behind it. <br>
We’re now facing a situation where the House, relevant House
committees—science, technology, energy and so on—are being taken over
by climate change deniers. In fact, one of them recently said, "We
don’t have to worry about it, because God will take care of it." Well,
you know, this is—it’s unbelievable that this is happening in the
richest, most powerful country in the world. That’s one major area
where there should be substantial changes and improvements. If not,
there’s not going to be anything much more to talk about in a
generation or two. <br>
Others include just reconstructing the economy here so that people get
back to work, that they can produce things that the country needs, that
they can live decent lives. All of that can be done. The resources are
there; the policies aren’t. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, you know, when you look at the new Congress—I’m
reading from The New Yorker, "Darrell Issa, a Republican representative
from California, is one of the richest men in Congress. He made his
money selling car alarms, which is interesting, because he has twice
been accused of auto theft. ([Issa has] said that he had a 'colorful
youth.') Now, with the Republicans about to take control of the House,
Issa is poised to become [the chairman] of the Oversight Committee. The
post comes with wide-ranging subpoena powers, and Issa has already
indicated how he plans to wield them. He is not, he assured a group of
Pennsylvania Republicans over the summer, interested in digging around
for the sort of information that might embarrass his
fellow-zillionaires: [he said,] 'I won't use it to have corporate
America live in fear.’ Instead, he wants to go where he sees the real
malfeasance. He wants to investigate climate scientists. At the top of
his list are the long-suffering researchers whose e-mails were hacked
last year from the computer system of Britain’s University of East
Anglia. Though their work has been the subject of three separate
'Climategate' inquiries—all of which found that allegations of data
manipulation were unfounded—Issa isn’t satisfied. [He said recently,]
’We’re going to want to have a do-over.’" <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. That’s part of the massive offensive, basically a
corporate offensive. And they haven’t been quiet about it, like the
Chamber of Commerce, biggest business lobby, American Petroleum
Institute and others have said quite publicly that they’re carrying out
a massive, what they call "educational campaign" to convince the
population that global warming isn’t real. And it’s having an effect.
You can see it even in the way the media present it. So you read, say,
a New York Times discussion of climate change. They have to be
objective, present both sides, so one side is 98 percent of qualified
scientists, and the other side is Issa and Senator Inhofe and a couple
of climate change skeptics. There, notice, also missing is a third
side, namely, a very substantial number of leading scientists who say
that the consensus is nowhere near alarmist enough, that in fact the
situation is much worse. Well, you know, the United States is now—it
has been dragging its feet on this for a long time, and it’s now much
worse. <br>
I mean, there was just recently—a couple days ago, there was a report
of an analysis of green technology production. It turns out China is in
the lead, Germany is next, Spain is high up there. The United States is
one of the lowest. In fact, investment from the United States in green
technology is higher in China—I think twice as high in China—than in
the United States—than it is in the United States and Europe combined.
I mean, these are real social pathologies, exacerbated by the latest
election, but just one aspect of where policy is going totally in the
wrong direction, where there are significant alternatives, and if
they’re not pursued, there could be real disaster, and maybe not too
far off. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: I’d like to switch gears for a minute, Noam Chomsky, and
talk about the elections in Haiti that just took place. <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: "Elections," you should put in quotation marks. If we had
elections in the United States in which the Democratic and Republican
parties were barred and their political leaders were exiled to South
Africa and not allowed to return to the United States, we wouldn’t
consider them serious elections. But that’s exactly what happened in
Haiti. The major political party is barred. As we know, the United
States and France essentially invaded Haiti in 2004, kidnapped the
president, sent him off to Central Africa. His party is now banned.
Most analysts assume that, as in the past, if it was allowed to run, it
would probably win the election. President—or former President Aristide
is, by all information available, the most popular political figure in
Haiti. Not only is he not allowed to run, by essentially the U.S., but
not allowed to return. They’ve been trying to keep him out of the
hemisphere. Can’t go back to Haiti, but the U.S. has been trying to
keep him out of the hemisphere altogether. What’s taken place is a kind
of a charade. I mean, it’s not nothing. You know, Haitians are trying
to express themselves. We should respect that. But the major choices
that they might have are barred by foreign power, U.S. power, and
France, which is the second of the two historic torturers of Haiti. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Honduras. Actually, interestingly, in these cables that
have come out through the WikiLeaks release is a U.S. diplomatic cable
from 2008 that says exactly what the U.S. government would not say
publicly, that the coup against Manuel Zelaya was outright illegal.
Your response, Noam Chomsky? <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, that’s right. This is an analysis by the embassy in
Honduras, Tegucigalpa, saying that they’ve done a careful analysis of
the legal and constitutional backgrounds and conclude—you can read
their summary, which is a conclusion—that there is no doubt that the
coup was illegal and unconstitutional. The government of Washington, as
you point out, wouldn’t say that. And in fact, after some dithering,
Obama finally essentially recognized the legitimacy of the coup. He
supported the election taking place under the coup regime, which most
of Latin America and Europe refused to recognize at all. But the U.S.
did it. In fact, the U.S. ambassador publicly accused the Latin
Americans who wouldn’t go along as being seduced by magic realism, you
know, García Márquez’s novels or something, just a statement of
contempt. They should go along with us and support the military coup,
which is illegal and unconstitutional. And has many effects. One effect
was that it preserves for the United States a major air base, the
Palmerola Air Base, one of the last ones remaining in Latin America.
We’ve been kicked out of all the others. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I have two questions, and we only have two minutes
left. One is about North Korea. The WikiLeaks documents show Chinese
diplomats saying that Chinese officials increasingly doubt the
usefulness of neighboring North Korea and would support reunification.
The significance of this? <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: I’m very skeptical about that statement. There is no
indication that China would be willing to have U.S. troops on its
border, and that’s the very likely outcome of a reunified Korea.
They’ve been bitterly objecting to U.S. naval maneuvers in the Yellow
Sea, not far from their coast, what they call their economic
territorial waters, and expanding U.S. military forces near their
borders is the last thing they want. They may feel—I don’t know—that
North Korea simply is unviable, and it will have to collapse, and
that’s a terrible problem for them from many points of view. That I
don’t know. But I’m pretty skeptical about that leak. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Noam, your latest book, Hopes and Prospects, what
gives you hope? <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the "hopes" part of that book is mostly about South
America, where there really have been significant, dramatic changes in
the past decade. For the first time in 500 years, the South American
countries have been moving towards integration, which is a prerequisite
for independence, and have begun to face some of their really desperate
internal problems. A huge disparity between islands of extreme wealth
and massive poverty—a number of the countries, including the leading
one, Brazil, have chipped away at that. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds. <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: And Bolivia has been quite dramatic with the takeover by
the indigenous population in a major democratic election. These are
important facts. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, thanks so much for being with us. Oh, by the
way, happy birthday, pre-birthday. <br>
NOAM CHOMSKY: Thanks. <br>
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at MIT, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, author of over a hundred books, his latest
called Hopes and Prospects. <br>
<br>
Source:
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_on_the_economy_us_midterm_elections_climate_change_haiti_and_more">http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_on_the_economy_us_midterm_elections_climate_change_haiti_and_more</a>
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