[Peace-discuss] Commentary submitted to N-G

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Perversity oft presents the path to progress.
A road less travelled?
"The straight line seems bent.", as Laozi noted.

Of course, the blame for their woes lies squarely with the American People
themselves, not with their "duly elected leaders" (lol!) nor the 
perpetrators of
academic pedantry, nor with their wretched offspring.  The inability of
the American People to "do anything" about their problems will be
a historic classic.

The "education" system seems to be a great aid in the dumbing down
of the people such that they don't dare think about rising up against 
their masters.
Americans have grown soft, and lazy.  America has become a land of 
sissies and bullies.
Some of us have seen the collapse coming for 35-40 years.
No doubt the real "holocaust" is "yet to come".

It is yet to be seen if Americans will, or even Can, respond to the 
"wake-up call" or
just roll over and go back to sleep, if they are able.  A friend told me
recently that Nightmares are only possible for those able to sleep.
(At least he's awake.)

With all due respect, David Green, I perceive the social safety net from
a different perspective.  I dont see it as a net under the people, but 
rather
as a net cast over the people, keeping them firmly under control, and 
therein
lies the gravity of the situation.




On 12/13/2010 3:07 AM, David Green wrote:
>
> *Misguided critics of public schools ignore fundamental economic 
> realities*
>
> David Green
>
> It is conventional wisdom that good schools are essential to a healthy 
> economy. It is true that schools are responsible for the basic 
> literacy, skills, and educability of those entering the workforce. It 
> does not follow, however, that schools are to blame for the dismal 
> economic outlook for many Americans.
>
> Misguided perspectives on the relationship between economy and 
> education lead critics to focus on daily activities and outcomes of 
> teachers, parents, and students. These critics avoid the fundamental 
> nature of growing economic inequality and its evolution over the past 
> three decades. Their criticism is not only profoundly misguided, but 
> part of the problem. They are in denial regarding the class-stratified 
> nature of an American economy that has victimized working people and 
> their children in a systematic and structural manner.
>
> The facts are clear, and their implications easily discerned. These 
> facts address the long-term relationship between worker productivity 
> and wages; the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy; 
> and the sources of recessions and high rates of unemployment. Given 
> the basic existence of universal and functional public schooling, none 
> of these trends has been determined by the relative merits of schools, 
> teachers, students, or parents, whatever their specific achievements. 
> These trends have been completely determined by the corporate, 
> financial, political, and ideological powers that be.
>
> The Pew Charitable Trusts’ “Economic Mobility Project,” available 
> online, clarifies the evolving relationship between productivity and 
> wages. Since 1945, the American worker has increased productivity by 
> at least 2% per year, consistently throughout. This means that 
> efficiency—output per person-hour in the production and provision of 
> goods and services—has doubled twice during this 65-year period, both 
> before and after the advent of computers and a high-tech-based economy.
>
> This historical and structural increase in productivity—and hence both 
> national and per capita wealth—has depended on innovation, skill, and 
> effort by scientists, technicians, managers, business owners, and 
> workers. About no sector of the workforce can it be said that its 
> employees, from “top” to “bottom,” have not significantly contributed 
> to these increases by the quality of their minds or the sweat of their 
> brows. Similarly, it is inconceivable that the quality of our schools 
> has been an impediment rather than an asset to these increases, 
> ongoing, which are typical for all countries in the industrialized world.
>
> From 1945 to the mid-1970s, the median (adjusted for inflation) wage 
> for the American worker increased commensurate with productivity—that 
> is, doubling during that period. Between 1974 and 2004, while 
> productivity increased by 80%, the median wage increased by 20%. From 
> 2000 to 2005, productivity increased by 15%, while the median wage 
> fell 2%; obviously that trend continues to this day, and worsens.
>
> All of these facts clearly indicate that while the country gets 
> richer, the median, “middle class” worker becomes stagnant or gets 
> poorer; all of the increases in wealth that are generated by the labor 
> of all workers accrue to the benefit of the upper quintile of the 
> population; the largest share going to the upper 1%. Again, none of 
> this, in any critic’s wildest imagination, can be attributed to the 
> failures of schools to educate our children, whatever the debatable 
> extent of such alleged failures.
>
> This well-documented appropriation of wealth has nothing fundamentally 
> to do with computer technology per se, but with policies promoted by 
> elites during the transition from a manufacturing to a service 
> economy. These policies determined that private-sector unions would be 
> effectively destroyed, and that non-“professional” workers (that is, 
> those not protected by their credentials from foreign competition) 
> would be placed into competition with low-wage foreign (and immigrant) 
> workers. These efforts, most identified with the Reagan era but 
> supported by all administrations since Carter, were well under way 
> before the digital transformation, although they have subsequently 
> been abetted by this phenomenon.
>
> While American workers have adapted to technological change, their 
> organizational and political capacities to materially benefit from 
> their labor have not adapted to the onslaught of neoliberal, “free 
> market” (referred to locally as “capitalism and limited government”) 
> ideology and practice among those who rule our country for their own 
> benefit—especially those in financial, speculative sectors. This 
> leaves workers vulnerable not only to the chronic appropriation of 
> their wealth, but to the acute misery caused by speculative bubbles 
> generated by financiers that result in the massive disappearance of 
> housing wealth, increased unemployment, Wall Street bailouts and 
> profits, huge federal deficits, and cynical attacks on the social 
> safety net.
>
> In this light, it is perverse for public school critics to focus on 
> the “accountability” of teachers and the “personal responsibility” of 
> students. Many parents and children are rightly aware of the dire 
> nature of their economic circumstances and future prospects—whatever 
> their efforts and skills—in an economy with high unemployment and the 
> most extreme inequality among the developed nations. In relation to 
> the poorest among us, such criticism borders on cruelty on the part of 
> the comfortable.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>    

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20101213/7723da9f/attachment.html>