In Praise of Capitalism: How the ‘Social Justice’ Left Uses Economic Incentives to Create Academic Propaganda
by Patrick CourrielcheMany conservatives and libertarians think of labor unions as merely the grassroots muscle behind the progressive movement. Showing up as a swarm of purple shirts, with the forearms of a lumberjack and a penchant for terrorizing teenagers, labor unions have always been considered the rough and rugged group that intimidate their opponents through the “persuasion of power.”
Drier-Email –
But if you haven’t thought of the labor movement as a cerebral bunch, think again. Meet Peter Dreier, Donald Cohen, Nelson Lichtenstein, and their syndicate of progressive university professors – the “intellectual infrastructure” of the progressive labor movement.
It is no secret that progressives have created a self-cloning machine by hijacking our educational system. Their indoctrination efforts are well documented. But we rarely think of research institutions as propaganda factories. A Request for Proposal (RFP) — see document above — recently obtained by Big Journalism gives us a rare look at how progressives and labor unions attempt to manipulate the national media narrative.
And their process? you may ask. Use the credibility and resources of the American higher education system to create researchprop – biased collegial research papers that serve as propaganda to support political policies.
Entitled Cry Wolf, the RFP proclaims a desire to look “for faculty and graduate students… interested in writing short (2,000 word) policy briefs” that “construct a counter narrative that demonstrates the falsity or exaggeration” of conservative claims. Writers of briefs selected by the project coordinators will receive 100,000 pennies for their thoughts.
Their hopes with this researchprop is for these papers to “become the basis for opinion pieces designed to run in the mainstream media, on line, on the air, or in the press,” with the end outcome of building the following narrative in the public consciousness: that conservative objections to their policies are just the old dirty tricks of the right-wing.
If executed successfully, the “first reaction of millions of people, as well as opinion leaders, will be, ‘there they go again’,” reads the RFP – a clear attempt to label any right-leaning objection to progressive policy as another case of crying wolf.
This is what our higher education system has become – a publicly funded amplifier of progressive ideology.
If this Cry Wolf program were just limited to a few faculty members at a limited number of universities, it would be of little concern. But the project reaches into some of the most prestigious public and private schools of higher learning in the U.S., including MIT, Yale, Harvard, USC, Columbia, Rutgers, UC Santa Barbara, University of Pennsylvania, and President Obama’s alma mater – Occidental College.
Distributed by Peter Dreier, Professor of Politics and Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program at Occidental College, the request for proposal asks for help “in an important project in the battle with conservative ideas.” Drier is a frequent collaborator with the California AFL-CIO and the infamous ACORN.
The project’s union and progressive ties are seen throughout the bios of its coordinators and advisory board. It is sponsored by the Center on Policy Initiatives, a San Diego based non-profit headed by co-founder and Cry Wolf project coordinator Donald Cohen – a 25-year community organizing veteran and former Political Director for a division of San Diego’s AFL-CIO.
In fact, every person associated with this project has either spent a lifetime glorifying the work of labor unions through their writings, or has published work that supports the policies that further Big Labor’s agenda.
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History at UC Santa Barbara and Director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy — and “America’s foremost Wal-Mart expert” — is also a Cry Wolf project coordinator. He is the author of numerous books designed to raise the awareness of the labor cause. While at the University of Virginia, Lichtenstein was involved in an organization known as Labor Action Group. “Our task was to insert and raise the labor question into the consciousness and politics of the university,” wrote Lichtenstein in the preface of his book State of the Union: A Century of American Labor.
Lichtenstein
Gerald Markowitz, Professor of History at CUNY’s John Jay College, and David Rosner, Professor of History and Public Health at Columbia University, are both on the advisory board of Cry Wolf. They have co-authored various books on occupational health and in their book, Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth-Century America, they wrote:
We begin with the premise that the exploitation of labor is measured not only in long hours of work and lost dollars but also in shortened lives, high disease rates, and painful injuries.
Project advisor Janice Fine, Assistant Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers, has worked as a community, labor and electoral organizer for more than twenty-five years prior to teaching at Rutgers, and has even contributed to AFL-CIO’s website.
Then there is Jennifer Klein of Yale who has written extensively on labor unions and the struggle for employer-based health care. And William Forbath of the University of Texas, who’s written about the legal struggles of the labor movement. And Tom Sugrue, Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, who won the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award. Sugrue isn’t the only recipient of this labor history award. Lizabeth Cohen, a Cry Wolf advisory board member and chair of the History Department at Harvard, also received the award for her 1990 book Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago.
These professors’ ties to the labor movement and the glorification of its struggles are indisputable – which is fine, being that their interests reside in that area. But it does lead to the question: Should these professors be allowed to use our higher education system to push their progressive political ideologies in the guise of disinterested academics?
I think most would answer simply: no. Our publicly funded schools should be institutions of unbiased research, not propaganda vehicles for a particular ideology — especially one with longstanding and well-documented ties to the Communist movement.
James P. Cannon (center) and friends
Indeed, all colleges and universities are funded by tax dollars, whether public or private institutions. Public institutions receive 80% to 90% of their funding from public sources, according to Inside Higher Education. However, private institutions are not private in the same sense as private industry – they also receive substantial public funding, especially in research areas.
In addition to the federal gift that non-profit status brings in the form of no real estate taxes and no taxes on gains (including the billions in earnings on endowments), students who attend private institutions receive federally subsidized loans for college tuition, set at an arbitrarily high price. Additionally, private institutions receive billions (upon billions) in federal research grants from the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, et al. Private and public universities exist because of public funding – they are both a public trust.
Our higher education system should be used as a battleground for competing ideas – not a fifth column for biased political talking points. Unbiased research must be its cornerstone; without valid, unbiased studies, our society cannot make grounded, well-founded decisions about public policy.
Entirely neutralizing bias in research is likely an impossible endeavor given the nature of the human mind. But an RFP of this nature, sent out from a group of educators – using publicly funded networks and the prestige of their schools – to students and faculty of publicly funded institutions, is an exercise in educational malpractice. It gives politically biased professors a rationale for a one-sided curriculum, and teaches students that it’s acceptable to infuse ideology into research.
This attempt to use our higher educational system “to give substance and scholarly integrity to this ‘crying wolf’ argument,” as stated in the RFP, is intellectual and moral subversion. The creation of this intellectual network within our school system is specifically for the purpose of constructing leftist policy “narratives.”
In a 2009 article that affixes the entire blame of the 2008 financial crisis on the failure of the free market system, Donald Cohen, sponsor of the Cry Wolf project, wrote that their network is in place to effectively push their reform policies:
Fortunately, the progressive intellectual infrastructure, more developed and more capable than even just a few years ago, is ready to drive a new New deal.
Do these prestigious institutions know that they have become part of the progressive labor movement’s “intellectual infrastructure” to create biased research? Let’s hope that if they are oblivious, they will take the appropriate action to be removed from this effort.
Stay tuned.
Please follow the ongoing “Cry Wolf” expose at Big Journalism.
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88 Comments
Never let facts or truth get in the way of a well conceived lie to get your way.
Barak, is that you??? I didn't know you read this site!
Entitled Cry Wolf, the RFP proclaims a desire to look “for faculty and graduate students… interested in writing short (2,000 word) policy briefs” that “construct a counter narrative that demonstrates the falsity or exaggeration” of conservative claims. Writers of briefs selected by the project coordinators will receive 100,000 pennies for their thoughts.
And here we see the proverbial infinite number of monkeys at the proverbial infinite number of typewriters producing the proverbial works of
ShakespeareKarl Marx.How quaint.
One day very soon, they will ALL get what is coming to them!
Where will they get the money to pay for this? They won't use their own, and we are running out of other people's money… Maybe they'll mug Canada.
The truth stands on it's own merit. With the mood shift in this country, it won't be long before all of these types of manipulations are shown to be the propaganda that they are. The idea of recruiting only one side of any issue for publication is repulsive.
And just think. Our education system has already turned out an entire generation of useful idiots.
It is for this reason that the Obama years (1 term) must be viewed as having been,……
the most successful administration in recent history,…………
If we allow ourselves to complacency by believing this man as a total failure,…
we will not realize the monumental task ahead of us.
The factories that have and are planned to produce the majority of political and social thought in this country,………..
are going to have to be PURGED of these "academics" or else,……………..
the next Tea Party type movement will be no match for the next wave.
That is the truly frightening part of this. These are the Progressive zombies. I don't think they come out of the fog until they hit 40 and 50 after being educated by life.
45 is the new 20! Brought to you by Leftism(TM)! It retards the development of everything! The economy! Culture! People!
Apropos name of Cry Wolf seeing that this biased, not-so-transparent research makes it in effect a "wolf in sheep's clothing". Conservatives have to gain greater control of the educational system so as to remove the narrative that is doing tremendous damage to our republic. Schools should teach students HOW to think, not what to think.
I think the vast majority of Americans have heard the rationalizations and slogans come from the left, not believed them for a second and then dismissed them as the musings of mental deficients. While this is partly true, some ARE mental deficient usefull idiots, there is a more sinister vein that runs through the progressive/liberal structure. This sinister croud has put themselves into position while we were working at our jobs and focussing on our families. They have a foot (leg) in the door. It is now our job to slam the door shut and sever that leg leaving their organization to bleed to death on our front porch. It will be a fight but we must purge these people from their positions of power or else they will destroy what has made America great. When I say that I am talking about something specific rather than some philosophical concept. They will destroy innovation, hard work, self determination, and freedom. They seek to replace it with uniformity, conformity, and individual subjugation to the collective. In short: They want you to be a slave.
I guess they'll start with Social Security and show how it didn't grow to the point where the unfunded liabilities exceed twice the value of the entire United States.
Then they can do the same with Medicare and demonstrate how those of us who claimed that medical costs would rise exponentially if Medicare became law were "crying wolf".
Unionization of public employees, now there's a real winner for Drier and Co. Imagine just how much worse off we would be if teachers' unions hadn't caused education costs to rise by an inflation adjusted 350% over the last 40 years with no improvement in test scores.
Want to talk about how the SEC protected investors from Bernie Maddox? Or maybe how FEMA saved the city of New Orleans? Why not write about how Fannie and Freddie made home ownership possible for people who can't afford homes? Maybe they could write about how much better off teenagers are now that minimum wage laws tripled teenage unemployment making it virtually impossible for them to get any real world job experience?
Why are they soliciting help from journalism students? You would think that it would make more sense to look for students specializing in fiction and fantasy.
Unfortunately, it seems that these two groups have become one.
The proof is in the pudding. What is quite obvious is that the public school system has been a complete and utter failure. Why should America reward such dismal results? Professors are no more than leeches that suck the life out of America. They have a horrible track record and yet they feel as if they are Gods gift to society. Thier pious and self serving attitudes make me sick. Indoctrination is thier prime motivation. They could care less about the end product .
Capitalism is the ONLY wealth redistribution system, and I dare anyone to argue the point. Liberals always call things what they aren't. Socialism is a wealth GENERATING system, which means it gathers wealth, it doesn't spread it at all, except when they decree to spend.
What part of the word 'non-partisan' does the DOE misunderstand? I am sick and tired of seeing my tax dollars go to support a government entity that is nothing more than a progressive think tank for the leftists. Damn this crap.
U.A.W. = U Ain't Workin'
My, what a novel idea!
"social justice" is just the code name the left uses for COMMUNISM.
If I were those students submitting; I would get a good lawyer and make sure I got all the money I could including royalities.
What are we paying these people for if they are not going to do job?
nEGATIVE DOC-capitalism is the only system that generates wealth. Socialism is FORCED redistirbution, or as Walter Williams says, Legal theft. The idea of capitalism is to generate enough wealth that it will be redistributed by private means, such as you going to your favorite watering hole or dry cleaner. When the socialists/communists TAKE your money thru force, thats less money to be circulated, therefore everyone(except the theif) loses.
UAW=unamerican weasels.
So this RFP was written by professors? Really? They might need to hire some more grad students to help them proofread their propaganda:
{3rd paragraph}
"…to use their research skills to identify instances, in recent years as well as in the more distant pass,…"
The distant pass was invented by Randall Cunningham I believe, the distant past is being reinvented by the propaganda machine.
These people are affraid of real life, so they stay in school where their ideas are never tested or challenged.
Imagine just how much worse off we would be if teachers' unions hadn't caused education costs to rise by an inflation adjusted 350% over the last 40 years with no improvement in test scores.
Let them produce all the papers they want, let them accuse us of crying wolf. But when we have demonstrable FACTS, their arguements will fall on deaf ears.
Because at the end of the day everyone votes with their stomachs and following the path laid by progressives we will soon see many hungry people no longer listening to their spoiled brat cries.
They in effect are the instrument of their own destruction,,,,our goal is to not be taken down with them.
The mental midgets on the left don't understand that America is waking up to their attempts to "re-brand" this nation. We are going to right the ship, and they will be the first ones in the water! This propaganda machine is going to come to a grinding halt very soon when they see their laundered Federal funds dry up like the Los Angeles River.
And unfortunately, in turn, these same people teach our kids the same failing ideology. I don't know about you, but I'm seriously considering homeschool for my kids once I become a daddy some day.
I disagree, Stewart, and here's why. In capitalism, wealth accumulates to the deserved, those who earn their way. Those who wallow in poverty, in pure capitalism, will wither away, produce fewer offspring, burden the system less, and contribute nothing. In capitalism, the only way to attain money is to contribute something, so capital doesn't flow to the useless. It does flow, however, or REDISTRIBUTES, to the productive, according to the value of their production, whereby they spend it, allowing those who are enterprising enough to be in business to accumulate it, where it gets redistributed by, of course, those who are smart enough to accumulate it, thereby granting the "spending" a certain "group, or collective" intelligence not found in governmental/oligarchal thinking. However, if you stop this redistribution, or spending, for any reason and by any method, the accumulators will force the system back open, even if there has to be a black market.
Any other system relies on the forced gathering of money in order to concentrate it's spending, relying on some amount of it being wasted on corruption, security, spying, and personal protection, none of which are productive of anything, but all of which attain money and power because of their abilities and necessity. A negative system, if you will, that relies on fear, lies, and constant pillaging of resources from victims, usually their own people first.
I have raised all my children to educate themselves as much as possible with in depth questioning and investigation of assertions made by those who claim intellectual superiority (due to "higher learning". We have come to the conclusion that these college educated snobs were conned out of tens of thousands of dollars.
Nah, then those guys would be out of a job…students thinkin'….what were YOU thinkin'? /sarc off
Sounds just like 1984!!!! Orwell!!!
Man, I hope we make it till this November!!!
And where is the funding for the exercise in propaganda construction coming from…………….let's all inquire and make certain that no federal tax dollars or time on the clock at any university is being expended.
Oh, but that's right, that's what academics do……………..they certainly wouldn't want to have to work for a living would they. What a pathetic bunch of losers!!
That brainwashing has been going on for 50 years or more.
The embedded letter above is shocking. It flat out says that they need papers that attack the credibility of dissenters. All of the "men of letters" who are on the advisory board should know that this is simply ad hominem rhetoric. But this is the only attack Libs use to defend their policies, so one shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.
"Social justice" is nothing more than socialist blabber for the redistribution of wealth from the real workers to the cradle to grave crowd(sponges).
http://www.stumpreport.com/333433-social-justice-...
[...] In Praise of Capitalism: How the ‘Social Justice’ Left Uses Economic Incentives to Create Academ…. [...]
[...] In Praise of Capitalism: How the ‘Social Justice’ Left Uses Economic Incentives to Create Academ…. [...]
more like useless idiots…
"teachers' unions hadn't caused education costs to rise by an inflation adjusted 350% over the last 40 years with no improvement in test scores."
one of the reasons test scores have only remained fairly stagnant is the high dropout rate. if a lot of the more marginal students weren't bailing on school entirely, they'd be dragging test scores even lower. basically, they're doing such a sh!tty job that their ultimate failures are helping to save them from themselves to some extent, at least on paper…
It seems to me that no one on here has a problem with Texas schools re-writing the history books (or even the Bible for that matter) to sound more "conservative"… Suddenly you've all got your panties in a wad when the Liberals do it!? Get over yourselves.
The constant hypocrisy abounds in the tiny conservative world of hate and fear.
ok, you could make the (somewhat lame) semantic argument that capitalism 'redistributes' wealth, but there is NO logic sufficiently twisted, semantic or otherwise, that can call socialism a wealth 'generating' system.
"….publicly funded amplifier of SOCIALIST ideology." FIFY.
Academic intelligentsia has been indoctrinating college and high school students in anti-capitalist/anti-American dogma for years. I'm surprised it took them this long to hop into bed with unions.
"Crying wolf"???
The 15% unemployment, the tyrannical socialist government takeover of private industry, banks, and healthcare. The $13 trillion dollar deficit and burgeoning debt. The wanton destruction of our economy through Obama's "spread the wealth" and "fundamental transformation" idiocy. The trashing of the U.S. Constitution by a bunch of leftwingnut megalomaniacs.
Object to all that, and you're just "crying wolf". History demonstrates that socialism/communism doesn't work out real well. The "progressive" label puts lipstick on a big, ugly warthog. It's just a puff word orchestrated to soften the real meaning.
This comment from Dreier kills me:
"……We hope that many of these become the basis for opinion pieces designed to run in the mainstream media, on line, on the air, or in the press."
That's funny. The MSM has been propagating the very same line of B.S. throughout Obama's tenure and the Dem majority's hold on power. The New York Times and MSNBC, are some of the most vocal mouthpieces for everything on Dreier's wish list.
Dreier's tactics are the same. Employing the collegiate angle doesn't make it more credible.
Obamanomics has already generated a set of well documented negative economic consequences.
No amount of creative revision on Dreier's part will change the history books….unless far left liberals stage a coup of the Texas highschool textbook committee.
How about some Social Unjustice? The other clearly doesn't work.
—————————-
Photo proof that Obama voters are idiots: http://bit.ly/5nDZXl
I sure hope every government employee,that includes those elected,read this article so they can learn what we the people are learning at the same time,we'll all be on the same page when the *&%$ hits the fan.
lame is your opinion, but unless you can explain the "distributing" by another word (semantical argument, as you say) it DOES redistribute it, and it does so efficiently.
socialism is a wealth generating system because it can't begin to imagine solving a problem until it concentrates wealth in the hands of a decision maker. This GENERATION of wealth (of course, someone else gathering their money is generating it, but a socialist gathering it isn't, since the first guy does it voluntarily and it's HIS money, the second guy does it and it's the PEOPLE'S money, but then again, you're the one arguing that I'm using twisted logic and semantics, so, okay, whatever) is the key, the goal, in fact, the very reason these people believe in socialism to begin with. Either they are an idealist, and they know better than us how to spend that money, or they are a realist, and know that to gather our power, by the taking of our money invisibly, through taxation, forcefully, without recourse, is the only REAL way to power. Now, by generating this power to spend huge amounts of money, they can reward good behavior, punish bad behavior.
Ultimate irony: giving $1000 to those who can write the best pieces on why capitalism doesn't work. If they're serious about their ideals, they should divide half of the total prize money available between all the contest entrants, and distribute the other half to those who cannot write.
therefore, socialism only works when you concentrate the wealth, not redistribute it. Capitalism only works when you redistribute it, not concentrate it.
and as to the "generating" of wealth, capitalism doesn't "generate" wealth, only the "accumulation" of money generates wealth. In Capitalism, one person can take a long time to accumulate a Billion dollars, but the government, through socialism, can accumulate a trillion dollars in the stroke of a pen. Which one do you think has more power? And who's arguing semantics now, about generating or not?
Uncouth. Arrogant. Worthless.
Reason for Life…Your first paragraph is so wrong the liabilities were funded. I am pasting an answer to another post on this sight,made by me.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
"The people who are now retiring paid hard cash every week into Social Security, matched by employers. This hard cash was just to irrestisable to both parties and they started raiding the trust. To date they have not replaced a dime of it.
Now they want to blame it on the very people who paid into it. And have and are lying to the younger generation that it is somehow the seniors fault. If the government hadn't stolen the money (actual cash) it would have been invested and the trust would have been self funded for years to come.
When the working man questioned this we were told not to worry it will be there for you. Just this year they passed health care and stole another 1/2 TRILLION more from seniors. "
Now that is a funded program not an unfunded program. Funded by 40+ hrs. a week and the resulting remittance to the SS system.
Nice try however the Texas schools are not re-writing history. They are however requiring the use of factual based texts that reference documents like the Constitution instead of a professor's wild fantasy.
BTW the liberal side and it's even smaller progressive subset accounts for maybe 20% of the USA while conservatives account for about 40%. Y'all fooled some of the people in '08 however that shine has faded from your Obamassiah.
Some never come out of the fog…If I had a kid going to college, I would hope I raised
someone that could lead and not just follow, an independent thinker!!…And, I would
warn them about the brainwashing going on in most colleges and institutions…..
To look at it another way, capitalism can succeed when someone simply puts their talents to work, with little or no money…Microsoft, for instance. Whereas in socialism, nothing can be done until you can gather at least a few million bucks, and even then, next year, you'll have to have more, hence taxes, a MONEY GATHERING system, or wealth generating.
I'm beginning to think you a very erudite woman. Sorry, but your handle is so tempting to make fun of.
And please share with us the polar opposite of wealth redistribution system is!
Lol! Exactly!
I truly hope so! However, my concern is that besides taking back our government (congress, the senate, and the white house) we also need to be taking back the minds of our kids. Some of the stuff that I see our girls bring home and mis-information that they are being given in school makes me sick. My wife and I end up spending lot of time talking to them and showing them what is really going on. I guess my concern is that we have a cancer in our midst and taking back our government isn't the full cure. We need to cut this cancer from us. And, we have to start with the kids coming up through the school system now. They need to know the truth about our country before the hit college because we're in a fit for not only our government but the minds of our children as well.
"Funded" means that the money is there, not that it will be there in the future. Any private corporation that claimed that it's retirement program was funded yet spent the money contributed by its worker on existing retirees would find their Chief Financial Officer in a cell married to some guy named "Killer".
You have no proprietary claim on any money paid into Social Security. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that money paid into Social Security is a tax and that the contributor has no rights of any kind to that money. There is no obligation on the part of the government to pay out a single dime to anyone no matter how much they contributed.
So, in that sense, it isn't a liability. However, the government pretends that it is a retirement program when, in fact, it is forced charity given to the elderly to assure that they continue to vote the "right" way.
you replied, but didn't read? What's the point of my saying it over and over again, it's not that hard to grasp. If there IS a polar opposite (and we have only your implication that there exists such a thing), it would be that system which does NOT redistribute the wealth, which would mean it's concentrated at the top, in as few people as possible. Sound like any repressive, communistic/socialistic/theocratic societies you know of? Hmmmm?
You sound like you're on my side.
THANK YOU MR. COURRIELCHE!!!
I hope you feel appreciated because you have provided a tremendous service to your fellow citizens. Between your exhausting research of the NEA scandal and now this, you deserve the highest of honors. Of course, in a more sane society you would be publicly recognized and honored as such, but as we well know here at the BIGs, that aint gonna happen.
In closing, we are highly impressed with your investigative efforts and skills. Without devulging too much information, how did you find out about this Cry Wolf project?
And before you ask (assuming someone is actually on the ball enough to notice), yes, this means today, with all the wealth out there in the hidden hands, those we never seem to notice, like the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, etc., are the holders of power, real power, and decide how things will go in the world. And yes, it is THEY who want to have a "New World Order", which is simply the same old strong-arm communism in a new and improved box, but now it's World Wide, baby!!! Watch them scare us all with one bogey man after another, like some supposed financial crisis that was never going to happen anyway, or an oil spill that just can't seem to be contained or paid for unless they have this or that power. Oh, wait, is that too prescient for you? Seem to be coming true already, does it? Hmmm…
Now you can hear…I've been on that side for years…but you have to learn that you learned wrong. Educated only means you paid someone to do your thinking for you, and that's why we all feel like we only have two choices, R or D. They've stolen the language, and made it hard to decipher, and this has caused most to go to sleep or not care. But you have to think for yourself. Go back and forth like one of those puzzles that both ends can't exist at the same time, until you find your error, which is usually an assumption. But yes, I am a dedicated capitalist, and there are only two sides, just lots of names for the lie that is the opposite of capitalism.
I think you're a very good writer, but, I don't know if anyone has informed you of this
but Breitbart.com is non union.
I have a 13 year old son that is just finishing 7th grade. I understand your situation with your daughters. Like you, if you have followed my posts, I feel the same way as you. Education is the key, but the type of education that our children receive is our responsiblity. We need to do two things. Take over the local school boards and get rid of teacher's unions. Teachers are not anything other than our employees, but in their minds, they have the power to do what they like. No more….
You are a smart person. It is an ongoing process to delve into what they are being taught. Supporting the good while countering the bad. It never ends…
Those in academia never come out of the fog, since they never have to deal with real life.
Gramsci won.
"They have a foot (leg) in the door. It is now our job to slam the door shut and sever that leg leaving their organization to bleed to death on our front porch."
Beowulfian (movie version), but stll too passive. I recommend the Grendel approach- a 6.5mm Grendel.
"Funded by 40+ hrs. a week and the resulting remittance to the SS system."
It is NOT funded. In three years' time those remittances will not cover current liabilities. *All* defined-benefit pension plans are subject to the ineluctable mathematics of Ponzi schemes. Just ask Greece.
Had you been allowed to place your and your employers' FICA taxes into an IRA instead, you would have approx. 3 times the income at 65 than the SS pittance Sam *might* pay you.
"Social justice" is probably indeed socialist, but it's certainly unjust.
All right, I'll play (this should be fun…..)
Go ahead, cite your objections to the new Texas curriculum. Direct quotes please, not Kos gossip. I'll give you a leg up- you object, I take it, to the requirement that history of economics should mention Hayek and Friedman as well as Marx and Keynes?
Let me assure you, the Texas Textbook Commision is wrestling BACK control of the cirriculum AWAY from the liberal, politically correct message that parents don't agree with and that they are sick of.
The lunatic left is getting smacked on the nose with a newspaper.
Finally. If you aren't a Texan STFU. If you are a Texan – move or live with it.
And it has no place in a republic. It rewards the lazy and punishes the hard working individual. Furthermore it depresses incentive and innovation.
You need to learn to read. The social security TRUST was stolen eeerrr borrowed from and not paid back to the trust. The notes produced by the US Government are the only promisary notes actually on paper and are located in the bottom drawer of a seven drawer filling cabinet in W, Virginia. I repeat,,,even though the ministry of truth say's different we were told something different. SOURCE.. .http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/16/social-security-ious-stashed-away-in-wva/
You had better hope Washington doesn't try to stiff China as they obviously have stiffed seniors. As America is now a second rate country and China is the new world superpower.
I spent a good deal of my life serving this country and now this country and it's leaders (and I mean both parties) make me want to puke.
Unless I'm missing something, that's a non-sequitar. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Many "professors" receive their money from foundations such as the The Ford Foundation and the Rockerfeller Foundations. They are the originators of ideas to be "floated" by by the leftist professors. This was pointed out years ago by Carol Quigley in his book Tragedy and Hope!
Reason for life…I believe that you are refering to Flemming v Nestor 1960. Well that was not a unanimous decision as Justice Black, Justice Douglas, and Justice Brennan dissented. Anyone wishing to read the decision can follow the link. http://www.ssa.gov/history/nestor.html
Now as to you reffering to it as a" forced charity" is exactly the kind of progressive opinion that that the article that started this thread is pointing out and is probably what you believe because of government propoganda in the educational proccess.
I reject your opinion as the government promised different and now want a rule change because they screwed the pooch. If it were charity why do the written I.O.U.s even exist?
Reason,
Whether it's gov't or a private company, a legal promise is a legal promise. If the gov't looted SS and MC for other uses….maybe the citizens who BUILT THOSE FUNDS WITH FORCED CONTRIBUTIONS need to SUE THE CRAP out of the gov't for allowing congress to dip into the till to fund every stupid program they dreamed up on the backs of that money1
And if we need to clean house in the SCOTUS as well, then so be it. SS was NOT pitched to the public as a TAX. It was a SAFETY NET to prevent financial destitution when folks with no pension retired.
All that said…..Reason, I'm for dumping MC and SS in favor of HSAs, and RSA's. I'm also betting most folks would be light years ahead of their benefits if they had put the same money into both all those years. And the gov't would not have had access to confiscate that money for their own use.
JMO but the betrayal of administration after administration is really in your face corruption and greed. Big government is nobody's friend….ever. Trust them at your peril.
Lyndon Johnson and the Democrat Congress Made SS Funds part of the General Treasury to balance the budget that was financing the Viet Nam War, a MASSIVE FAILURE called the "WAR ON POVERTY". This was his boast: (paraphrase) " We can have GUNS and BUTTER. Idiots still trust politicians.
Not true, I've heard some professors are learning to tie thier own shoes.
Flemming v Nestor established that Social Security was a tax and that there existed no proprietary interest in any funds taken. It was bad law, especially since it used a hated minority, a former communist, to conflate the issue of the proprietary nature of Social Security with whether a former communist could be deported and deprived of Social Security benefits.
Harlan was clear: The funds taken in were a tax and, since the benefits were only slightly related to the amount of money paid in, there was no proprietary interest involved.
I stand corrected about the unanimity of the court, there were indeed three dissenters. That does not, however, change the opinion of the court.
Black attempted to argue that since Social Security was a form of insurance then being deprived of the insurance was a "taking" for which no compensation was paid. This is actually a pretty good argument. Too bad it didn't fly.
Harlan was remarkably bold in his opinion arguing that the necessity for "flexibility" in the administration of the program required a freedom for the government to make changes which would be impossible were there a proprietary claim. This incredibly perverse reasoning, which reduces to nothing less than "property rights interfere with the capricious whims of tyrants", is a guiding principle for lawmakers today.
The final point is that this fraud was perpetrated on an enthusiastic populace that repeatedly returned these con-men to congress. Like all "victims" of Ponzi schemes, each generation hoped that there would be enough money for them and that the system wouldn't collapse until the next generation came to retire.
The I.O.Us are like a contract with a con-man. It is there to make you think you have something that you don't.
The debt will be monetized as it was the last time that the national debt exceeded the GDP which was just after WWII. As long as there are printing presses the government will pay its debts. Every government that got into this kind of trouble handled it exactly the same way.
China is no superpower, it's got a Potemkin economy as will be apparent when the US economy goes into Recession Part II. They are completely dependent upon us to buy their stuff. That's why they kept buying government securities, they fear the collapse of our economy more than we do.
Worse still, is that the Chinese economists are even bigger Keynesians than the meatballs in our government like Geithner. They will probably hit the printing presses even harder than we will, which could give us a ten year depression.
"while at the same time they omitted Thomas Jefferson as a figure whose writings helped spark the Revolution because of his views on the separation of church and state"
Trap sprung. Yep, you boys and your talking points are soooooooo predictable. The statement I quoted is UNTRUE- a myth circulated by the MMFA/Kos/DU axis for their fanboys to spread. The only "removal" of Jefferson was from the section on "European Enlightenment philosophers"- quite rightly. Jefferson's role in the Founding is still there, as it should be.
That's why I invited you to look for yourself, sucker.
I greatly appreciate your interest and analysis of education. Please consider investigating the Common Core Standards Iniative and Race to the Top Competition. I have compiled some background information here: http://concernedabouteducation.posterous.com/avoi...
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