The Value of a College Education

The Value of a College Education
June 26, 2011 by Douglas French

In a piece entitled, "Even for Cashiers, College Pays Off," David Leonhardt looks to throw cold water on the idea that college just isn't worth it.  Europe has it wrong that some kids shouldn't even go to high school. Thank goodness America got it right, writes Leonhardt.

The evidence is overwhelming that college is a better investment for most graduates than in the past. A new study even shows that a bachelor's degree pays off for jobs that don't require one: secretaries, plumbers and cashiers. And, beyond money, education seems to make people happier and healthier.

Leonhardt says that The Hamilton Project studied the issue and found that college tuition provides a 15% return, much better than stocks (7%) and real estate (1%).  Leonhardt claims,

Construction workers, police officers, plumbers, retail salespeople and secretaries, among others, make significantly more with a degree than without one. Why? Education helps people do higher-skilled work, get jobs with better-paying companies or open their own businesses.

The NYT provides a graphic to illustrate Leonhardt's point.  Dishwashers without a college degree pull down $19,000 a year, while dishwashers with a college degree make $34,000.  The later number comes to over $16 per hour. But why would the local Appleby's shell out $16+ for dishwashers when they could hire someone at minimum wage?

Hairdressers with a degree command $32,000 according to the Center on Education and the Work Force at Georgetown University, while those that start cutting and styling without, make only $19,000.  Next time you're in Great Clips for a trim look for diplomas on the wall next to the framed cosmetology licenses.

In the case of some government jobs, like cops and teachers, work rules require pay increases when an employee obtains a degree.  But cashiers?

Maybe because some college graduates are working multiple jobs, the study wrongly credits a worker's total earnings from all jobs to just one employment category.

For instance, in a more believable story in the Times, Hannah Seligson writes about a number of the college educated who must cobble together a number of part-time jobs to make ends meet.  While some people do this by choice,  many do it out of necessity.

"Young college graduates working multiple jobs is a natural consequence of a bad labor market and having, on average, $20,000 worth of student loans to pay off," said Carl E. Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers.

"[T]he median starting salary for those who graduated from four-year degree programs in 2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who graduated in 2006 to 2008, before the recession," writes Seligson, who adds,  "Try living on $27,000 a year ­ before taxes ­ in a city like New York, Washington or Chicago."

Mia Branco graduated magna cum laude with a degree in musical theater from American University in 2009 and works four jobs in order to take home $1,300 in a good month.

"More college graduates are working in second jobs that don't require college degrees," Seligson writes, part of a phenomenon called 'mal-employment.' In short, many baby-sitters, sales clerks, telemarketers and bartenders are overqualified for their jobs."

Nearly two million college graduates were mal-employed last year, up 17% from 2007.  Nearly half of all college graduates are working at a job not requiring a degree.

Roger Fierro works four jobs and likes it that way.  "I was working 12 hours a day and making $38,000 a year and it wasn't making a dent in the $120,000 in loans I had to pay off. Plus, I was miserable."

"Among the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by this spring, when the survey was conducted," reported the Times last month.  "That compares with 90 percent of graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007."

Leonhardt believes higher education skeptics are elitist.  Maybe he should ask the class of 2010.

Off the Track

Off the Track
Posted by Laurence Vance on June 26, 2011 05:50 PM

Two Baptist churches in Ohio have joined together to fund Honor Flights, flights that take WWII veterans to Washington DC to see the war memorials. Said the pastors:

The World War II veterans gave us the freedoms that we have enjoyed for the past sixty-five years. We are simply saying thank you.

Their willingness to sacrifice for American values is in perfect alignment with Biblical teachings.

These churches are off the track, biblically speaking. Even if these statements were true (which they are not), since when should Baptist churches--churches that claim to follow the New Testament--get involved in this?

Re: Myth vs. Facts: Swedish Health Care

I lived in this country and more interesting than the health Care issue is the commentary by Per Bylund about the society as whole-which I encourage everyone to read.  What Carl Svanberg writes is tragic in any event and i don't have  time to write a whole hell of a lot about what I experienced.  The system in Sweden is not perfect.  I lived there for only a short while.  I practiced as a pathologist that and never once did I get a patient that died like this as they would have gone to the coroner.  I do not know where Mr. Svaneberg is getting his data and I absolutely believe what he writes.  The medical care in Sweden is not "free" there are payments that have to be made like a co-pay.  They medications are not free until you reach a certain level (or if you qulaify because of your economy).

 

What I did notice was that Swedes did not abuse the system in my experience.  They went to the doctor when they were sick and did not just go because it was "free".  (not that there are not a few isolated cases in the entire country).  They also did not punish their doctors for medical errors.  They were made and there is a system to report them but no harmed patient was a millionare when the doctors make a mistake.  The salaries for doctors are lower than here but high compared to other professions.

 

But Sweden is small (9 million) and their healthcare system functions okay as I have witnessed for worse outcomes here in the US with similar scenarios.  There are effeciencies that can borrowed from their system that would lower the cost of medicine here in the US (ie drugs) and scheduled preventative care.  Like I said it is not perfect there, it is definitely not perfect here. I do not know how much longer Sweden can maintain its system because the taxes are so bloody high and there is little disposable income for the average family.  It is a homogenous society as a result but it is what they accept. 

 

The issues I have with country go beyond this-but suffice it to say-I thought that the health care system was just okay.  Fortunately, for me,  I never needed too much from it-

 

 

On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 5:23 PM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Myth vs. Facts: Swedish Health Care
June 26, 2011 by Per Bylund

The myth of Sweden as the successful socialist experiment continues to thrive -- despite and in direct contrast to the available facts. On his blog, Carl Svanberg recently summarized the state of Swedish health care using recent news reports. It is a nasty image of advanced and high-tech health care that is unavailable when needed, strictly rationed, and where medical personnel dissuade dying people from seeking care.

But let's not forget that the myth is so much more important for socialist-oriented politicians aiming to nationalize private industry (like Obama), than facts could ever be.

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How Can Anyone Not Realize the War on (Some) Drugs Is Racist?

How Can Anyone Not Realize the War on (Some) Drugs Is Racist?
by Wilton D. Alston

"It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings and horrors of slavery, without becoming more degraded in the scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent. Nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of the relationship to mankind…" ~ from the Preface to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Although watching it as much as one would like can be tough to do – particularly during the NBA Finals – most libertarians would probably agree that John Stossel's TV show is both entertaining and educational. On a recent show – watched via DVR – Stossel had Dr. Walter Williams as a guest. Williams did not disappoint. His brilliance was breathtaking at points. He provided clear, concise examples. He offered parables and life experience that should have been unassailable. And he provided much of it through a prism that resonated acutely with the life experience of this author.

The subject of this particular show was " The State Against Black People" and profiled how many, if not most, of the programs and policies implemented by the government have decimated the black race over the years. (As an aside, this author does not generally support a statist, collectivist view of any race of people. No race is monolithic. In this case, however, that point of view will be used for simplicity.) The aspect of the show that gives life to this essay happens to be one that Dr. Williams did not specifically focus upon, but one that troubles me greatly, and has for some time – the war on (some) drugs.

Having written on this racist monstrosity many times, both for LewRockwell.com and elsewhere, it should be relatively easy to deduce my stance, but just in case, let me re-state it for clarity: The prohibition of recreational drugs is a means by which the busy-body, and often racist, losers who desire to control America have decimated and continue to decimate that group of people for which they hold the most animosity and the least regard – black men. The drug war is not to protect the children, save the babies, shield the neighborhoods, or preserve the rain forests.

The drug war is a violent campaign against black men and by extension the black family, among many others (not all of them black, by the way); it has been so since it started. Furthermore, almost every prohibition of substances consumed in the United States of America has had as its raison d'être the subjugation of one group (generally some "minority" group – whatever group happens to partake of that substance) to the benefit of one other specific group of statist, power-mad megalomaniacs. (One might be tempted to suggest that this megalomaniacal group is primarily composed of white males, but the current occupant of the White House seems to be dancing to the same music and from all appearances, he likes it. And, he's not alone. So there's that.)

This might be ballsy stuff to say, particular on a website as widely read as this one, but (paraphrasing 'Rhett Butler') frankly my dear reader, I don't give a damn – the facts and the logic bear this out. By the way, this essay will not focus on proving that the war on (some) drugs has been a failure. It has been, but ample scholarship already illustrates that fact. Two excellent recent examples may be found in Brian Martinez's " The Drug War at 40: Fascist and a Failure" from The Libertarian Standard and Charles Blow's " Drug Bust" from the New York Times. Back to Stossel's show…

One of his guests (a woman whose name escapes me) raised several objections against both the characterization of the drug war as racist and, more generally, drug legalization. What she said amazed me. Just as amazing was that neither Stossel nor any of his guests batted down her baseless and asinine points as the lightweight B.S. that they were. Unfortunately, it is likely that similar, and just as ignorant, points of view are widely held in the U.S. Let us consider that the secondary purpose of this essay. The next time someone presents such tripe as was uttered on that day, you will be armed. (By the way, this piece also will not discuss why legalization of drugs would not, despite the wildest dreams of people like Sean Hannity, result in crack whores taking over the streets. Glen Greenwald has already done that with his exceptional white paper on drug decriminalization in Portugal.)

In summary, here are the two arguments made by Stossel's guest: One, more black men are in prison for drugs because black men abuse drugs more, ergo the war on (some) drugs is not racist. Two, even if drug prohibition was immoral, black men could avoid going to prison if they just didn't abuse drugs so much. (They are free to choose, after all.) No, really, those were her arguments. It is my most sincere hope that there are no regular readers of this website who believe the same banal hooey.

More Users Equals More Inmates?

How can one say the drug war is racist? Let us start with some pretty basic numbers: Black people – men, women, and children – compose approximately 12.6% of the population of the United States. Black people – primarily black men – compose approximately 35.4% of the prison population. Anyone not living under a large stone or just arriving to Earth from another galaxy already knows America has a very healthy prison population, as evidenced by this handy chart. (For those not wishing to follow the link, the bottom line is this. The U.S. incarceration rate is over 700 people per 100,000 of population. The next highest rate is either in New Zealand at approximately 168 per 100,000 or Spain at approximately 164 per 100,000, dependent upon who is counting and which chart one examines.)

So putting folks in jail is a hobby for the American State. Putting black folks in prison, well, that's just a bonus! "Amerika" has more people in prison than any other nation on Earth, and the percentage of those people who are black and male is roughly three times the percentage of black people in the general population. Why? Again, Stossel's guest opined that this is because black people commit more drug crimes, and, therefore, get arrested more, convicted more, and incarcerated more. Each of these statements is so ignorant as to be comical, but more importantly, each of them is so cataclysmically incorrect as to be criminal, pardon the pun.

First of all, with the possible exception of crack cocaine, black people do not abuse drugs at a higher level than white people; that is, the absolute number of drug users who are black is lower. Ergo, the assertion is incorrect on its face, as evidenced by this illustrative chart from a study by The Stanford Law and Policy Review.

Here's the thing, though. It is possible (nay, even likely) that black men do get arrested more, convicted more, and incarcerated more. That does not mean that they, in fact, commit more drug-related crime. The available data illustrates rather starkly that for illicit drug use, black people are not leading the parade. (Let us, for the time being, put aside the issue of whether or not any person putting a substance into his own body can ever truly be criminal for the moment, since the overwhelming majority of Americans, and maybe even a few LRC readers may actually believe that the State establishes what is criminal versus discovers it. [Hat-Tip: Richard Marbury])

Secondly, the mathematics of drug distribution and drug production preclude the possibility that a group so small as black males could possibly be responsible at a level to justify their incarceration rate. In other words, drugs like crack and weed are produced in large quantities, but could be manufactured and packaged pretty much anywhere, assuming the raw materials are present. However, the shear amount that is being produced and distributed suggests a larger operation than could be supported by just black folks. For more "sophisticated" drugs like heroin and cocaine, it seems that the production is almost exclusively off-shore. The finished product is then shipped into the States. Do you reckon there are lots of boats and planes berthed in the Inner City, where the predominant arrests of black males are made? Of course not. Yet, drug warriors continue to target and arrest black men, and ignorant people like Stossel's guest continue to deny that there is a racial component afoot. Notes Blow:

…no group has been more targeted and suffered more damage than the black community. As the A.C.L.U. pointed out last week, "The racial disparities [in drug arrests and prosecution] are staggering: despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites.

Black people, comprising 12.6% of the U.S. population – are incarcerated for drug offences at a rate 10 times higher than that of whites – resulting in 35.4% of the overall prison population. If that doesn't sound like an old-school racist's wet dream, I don't know what does. (Sure, all the black folks in prison aren't there for drug offenses, but the overwhelming majority of people in prison are there for non-violent drug offenses.)

Depending upon from whence one obtains the numbers, the estimated total annual drug trade in the U.S. exceeds $100 billion dollars, at retail. ( Taxpayers spend approximately $70 billion a year fighting the war on (some) drugs. Both the drug producers and the drug warriors are getting P-A-I-D. Nice racket, huh?) Does anyone really think that 12.6% of the total U.S. population is buying all those drugs? Oh, please. With roughly 38.9 million people in the entire U.S. black population, if one assumes that fully half of them are drug abusers, and that those blacks account for half of the retail sales of drugs in the U.S., each of them would need to spend over $2,500 per year on drugs. Does that sound reasonable? If the assumptions are modified, say with regard to only the black folks living in cities or only the black folks of a certain age, the numbers get even more ridiculous.

Conclusion

How is it then that so many black drug "offenders" end up in prison? Those black drug recreational drug users end up in prison because drug prohibition was likely created to snare them (among others, including Chinese immigrants, for example) and has almost always been implemented with that goal in mind. As the Stanford Law Review states, race defines the problem:

Race has been and remains inextricably involved in drug law enforcement, shaping the public perception of and response to the drug problem. [16] A recent study in Seattle is illustrative. Although the majority of those who shared, sold, or transferred serious drugs [17] in Seattle are white (indeed seventy percent of the general Seattle population is white), almost two-thirds (64.2%) of drug arrestees are black. The racially disproportionate drug arrests result from the police department's emphasis on the outdoor drug market in the racially diverse downtown area of the city, its lack of attention to other outdoor markets that are predominantly white, and its emphasis on crack. Three-quarters of the drug arrests were crack-related even though only an estimated one-third of the city's drug transactions involved crack. [18] Whites constitute the majority of those who deliver methamphetamine, ecstasy, powder cocaine, and heroin in Seattle; blacks are the majority of those who deliver crack. Not surprisingly then, seventy-nine percent of those arrested on crack charges were black. [19] The researchers could not find a "racially neutral" explanation for the police prioritization of the downtown drug markets and crack. The focus on crack offenders, for example, did not appear to be a function of the frequency of crack transactions compared to other drugs, public safety or public health concerns, crime rates, or citizen complaints. The researchers ultimately concluded that the Seattle Police Department's drug law enforcement efforts reflect implicit racial bias: the unconscious impact of race on official perceptions of who and what constitutes Seattle's drug problem . . . .Indeed, the widespread racial typification of drug offenders as racialized "others" has deep historical roots and was intensified by the diffusion of potent cultural images of dangerous crack offenders. These images appear to have had a powerful impact on popular perceptions of potential drug offenders, and, as a result, law enforcement practices in Seattle. [20] (Note: The footnotes shown reflect references in the original piece.)

This author would modify that last sentence to say "law enforcement practices everywhere." The money quote about the war on (some) drugs from Blow's piece might be, "It feeds our achingly contradictory tendency toward prudery and our overwhelming thirst for punishment." Certainly the war on (some) drugs feeds a thirst in the American psyche, but it ain't just for punishment. It reflects the same goals of which the writer spoke in the Preface to Douglass's Narrative – and it appears to be just a strong today as it was back then.

http://lewrockwell.com/alston/alston68.1.html

Myth vs. Facts: Swedish Health Care

Myth vs. Facts: Swedish Health Care
June 26, 2011 by Per Bylund

The myth of Sweden as the successful socialist experiment continues to thrive -- despite and in direct contrast to the available facts. On his blog, Carl Svanberg recently summarized the state of Swedish health care using recent news reports. It is a nasty image of advanced and high-tech health care that is unavailable when needed, strictly rationed, and where medical personnel dissuade dying people from seeking care.

But let's not forget that the myth is so much more important for socialist-oriented politicians aiming to nationalize private industry (like Obama), than facts could ever be.

Re: What Neocons Don't Understand About War

Pretty funny stuff when Obama just added 2 to the list.

On Jun 25, 12:03 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> What Neocons Don't Understand About WarBy Conor Friedersdorf
> Jun 24 2011Politics shapes strategy in conflicts of choice -- which is another reason to avoid themInNational Review,The Weekly Standard, and theWashington Post, leading War on Terror hawks are expressing outrage at the timeline President Obama set for troop reductions in Afghanistan. Their complaint: politics is driving American policy. "So why September 2012?" Bill Kristol writes. "Because, one has to conclude, Election Day is November 6, 2012. The deadline will allow candidate Obama to say that he has completely withdrawn the surge forces, and that we're on our way out of Afghanistan and coming home. The timetable President Obama has set isn't based on military considerations, diplomatic strategies, or financial calculations."
> Perhaps it's time to let these guys in on a secret: elected officials are constantly playing politics. Even on matters of national security. As they wage foreign wars, they concern themselves with the mood of the American people, support for hostilities in Congress, and how troop levels might affect their prospects for being re-elected. Almost inevitably, the strategy and tactics they employ depend at least partly on all those factors, and other political considerations besides.
> Most adults know this.
> For that reason, it's wise to refrain from waging wars of choice, a label that arguably didn't apply to Afghanistan circa 2001, but certainly started applying at some point over the last decade. When our safety isn't imminently threatened, it is tempting to avoid the slaughter of our sons and daughters, especially if it saves billions of dollars. It's tempting even when it isn't militarily optimal.
> Guys like Kristol constantly urge us to undertake ever more wars of choice anyway. It's as if they're blind to the fact that the American people tire of adventures abroad on a timetable that doesn't correspond to however many decades are required to prevail in them (if in fact winning is even possible). A prudent decision-maker, weighing whether to launch or extend a foreign war, would presume the eventual war weariness of the populace, and the political nature of presidents.
> Kristol and those who trust his foreign policy judgment aren't prudent decision-makers. In their telling, the US would've prevailed if only we stuck it out longer in Vietnam. Islamist extremists wouldn't have been emboldened if only we'd stuck it out in Beirut. Iraq would've gone better if only we'd invested in a bigger military during the 1990s and sent more troops in earlier. We'd win all our wars of choice if only Americans would give neo-cons a blank check, unlimited troops, and no deadline! That the conditions they deem necessary for victory are fantastical doesn't bother them.
> It doesn't help that their desire to wage new wars causes them to mislead the American people about how long victory might take. Here's Bill Kristol on October 1, 2001: "Saddam Hussein, because of his strategic position in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, surely represents a more potent challenge to the United States and its interests and principles than the weak, isolated, and we trust, soon-to-be crushed Taliban. And unlike the Taliban, Saddam Hussein may soon have at his disposal not only terrorist networks, but biological, chemical, and even nuclear weapons."
> Here he is on November 26, 2001: "WITH THE TALIBAN DISLODGED and Osama bin Laden increasingly shorn of allies, the endgame seems to be in sight in Afghanistan." It's no wonder the American people are war weary and uninclined to trust the assurances of hawks that we just need to stay a little bit longer - but without any timetable for withdrawal - to assure American victory. They've been telling us for a decade that victory is just over the next hill. Why trust them now?http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/what-neocons-dont-know-about-war/240956/

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my most fun blog post to date -- so much fun it is unplublishable!

http://bighomocon.blogspot.com/2011/06/diane-ravitch-plantation-mistress.html

Diane Ravitch, plantation mistress/lesbians cooking up little Hanselos and Gretishas

America in the era of late stage disaster statism is a society founded on forms of slavery, including especially race slavery. It's right before our eyes and the tax predator ruling class pretends it does not exist, with a window dressing of welfare bennies, affirmative action, and a beige Nixon in the White House.

Yet our political system, our campaigns, and at least one of our major parties, the Democrats, our founded on and funded by the selling of black children, and other poor and minority children, to educrats who in turn give campaign contributions to the Democratic Party. These educrat cartels (perversely labelled "unions" in an outrage against the history of the American working class) imprison black kids in mind-killing brick warehouses from which they emerge 12 years later often illiterate and unemployable, wards of the state and cannon fodder for politicians for the rest of their lives.

Some of these kids liberate themselves, as an increasingly large number never finish high school. A few lucky ones live somewhere where vouchers, charters, home schooling, or a benefactor, give them some freedom to attend an alternative school.

As the decades have passed and funding for state education has increased and federal control and intervention of all education has intensified, a reaction has begun among the poor and urban families. They have begun to demand charters and other liberalizations of the state monopoly, an education tea party brewing from below and from people of color. Stong black tea.

The ruling class has to find some way to fight this. It's hold on power depends on limiting political choices through ballot access, incumbency, and control of campaign financing. And selling black kids to educrat cartels is an important piece of the latter.

And so they have appealed to an "authority," Diane Ravitch, to counter the authority of reformers like educrat-cartel-ousted, former DC public school superintendent, Michelle Rhee.

Ms. Ravitch, said to be a scholar, spends much of time now tweeting (which she calls "mini-blogging") deep wisdom like:

 "DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch 

Obama should tend to his base. No one worked harder for him than teachers."

It is no accident that "Washington City Paper," a faux alternative media that serves to create ideological hegemony among the cogs of the Washington establishment, would promote Ravitch. It's a hilarious article (link below) and it buries at the end the only thing Ravitch will be remembered for decades hence in an asterisk: she's the world's most famous lesbian (former) neoconservative/Bush administration appointee.

It's hard to be a lesbian in the Beltway world of the tax predator ruling class or its state-funded outposts in media and academe if you are not a statist flak. I have two friends or former friends in DC who are somewhat politically incorrect lesbians in hiding. One, a libertarian, covers national politics for a major American newspaper, and never discusses politics in her column or at events, only when she is safely at a libertarian happy hour. Another raises money for the DNC and worked on Hillary's campaign and serves as a political appointee in Obama's State Department. At one event she said to the aforementioned journalist and me: "What does it mean that my two best friends are libertarians?" and proceeded to discuss her cognizance and appreciation of market based solutions and market institutions (she's a Harvard educated health economist). But these girls toe the line. Only a third of gays don't vote Democrat and it may be less for lesbians (and more for gay men).

And if one peruses the ranks of educrat administrators and educrat union organizers, Democratic party lesbians are well represented.  The American Federation of Teacher's president is James-Carville-with-a-coochie Randi Weingarten (now lovers with Obama flak and "Business Forward" gonif Hillary Rosen) and Weingarten is also a Democratic National Committee member.   "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon's gal pal Christine Marinoni is an educrat cartel apparatchick.  Ravitch's wife is Mary Butz, a long term check casher from the New York City government school system.  It's a honey pot, if not a gravy, train.

Now if "radical" feminist academic "philosopher" Mary Daly conversed with men (instead of preaching their genocide) she would deploy her usual techniques of rhapsody and word-punning (so much more fun than thinking!), she might suggest I am employing an ugly stereotype of lesbians as child-eating witches, baking little chocolate and caramel Hanselos and Gretishas, and eating them up.  The cultural reason why lesbians are well-represented among the slave traders in the educrat cartels might be an interesting investigation, and it probably does have to do with both motive and opportunity.  Motive -- these chicks may have some womanly (above and beyond a common human) interest to "help" and "nurture" and "mother" and are so drawn to teaching, social work, and even activism (which doesn't mean they don't wreak destruction when they use their primitive statist methods to "help").   And opportunity -- for decades, teaching institutions were one of the fields women were allowed to work in, and unmarried women needing to support themselves could find work there.  Like pedophile youth ministers and Scout leaders, if you want to exploit the kids, you have to hang out where you can find them.

(One of the most hilarious examples of faux radicalism and moronicity among lesbian academe was in one of "radical feminist" Mary Daly's later works.  Daly praised FDR (and Eleanor) for creating the about to be bankrupt Social Security system, since it kept elderly ladies out of poverty (by taxing away the savings and potential real estate downpayments of working class black men, who for decades died before the retirement age required to draw Social Security).  But Social Security has, for decades, taxed gays and lesbians while denying survivor benefits to their partners or partners' children -- what kind of lesbian feminism is that?)

Ruling class politicians and their flaks always use political connections to make sure that THEIR kids get into better schools.  Ravitch happily gets her grandkids into a desirable Park Slope magnet school to which most children have no access; Leftover cheerleader Joan Walsh boasts on her Salon.com bio that her daughter went to an elite magnet school; President Obama shells out $40,000 each in tuition to put his daughters in the ruling class Sidwell Friends School even as he and Sen. Dick Durbin snatch education vouchers away from poor black DC kids.  Even some of my own leftist (actually gay and lesbian) DC friends commit fraud, creating fake leases on other friend's basement apartments, so they can get their kids into special magnet schools like DC's Oyster School, which give preference for admission to people in the (upper class Woodley Park) neighborhood.

Any honest account of Diane Ravitch and why she represents the definition of insanity (continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting a better result), would have to ask if her virulent racism was caused by the strain on her social, sexual and romantic life when she was a politically incorrect lesbian.

City Paper editors:  will you stop selling black kids to educrat cartels for Democratic campaign contributions?

Diane Ravitch, the Anti-Michelle-Rhee

[An alternative view of Ravitch is provided at http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/06/24/is-diane-ravitch-a-hayekian/.  The ruling class is not using Ravitch to defend themselves because of any Hayekian insight she may have.]

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slave trading

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Diane Ravitch, plantation mistress

America in the era of late stage disaster statism is a society founded on forms of slavery, including especially race slavery. It's right before our eyes and the tax predator ruling class pretends it does not exist, with a window dressing of welfare bennies, affirmative action, and a beige Nixon in the White House.

Yet our political system, our campaigns, and at least one of our major parties, the Democrats, our founded on and funded by the selling of black children, and other poor and minority children, to educrats who in turn give campaign contributions to the Democratic Party. These educrat cartels (perversely labelled "unions" in an outrage against the history of the American working class) imprison black kids in mind-killing brick warehouses from which they emerge 12 years later often illiterate and unemployable, wards of the state and cannon fodder for politicians for the rest of their lives.

Some of these kids liberate themselves, as an increasingly large number never finish high school. A few lucky ones live somewhere where vouchers, charters, home schooling, or a benefactor, give them some freedom to attend an alternative school.

As the decades have passed and funding for state education has increased and federal control and intervention of all education has intensified, a reaction has begun among the poor and urban families. They have begun to demand charters and other liberalizations of the state monopoly, an education tea party brewing from below and from people of color. Stong black tea.

The ruling class has to find some way to fight this. It's hold on power depends on limiting political choices through ballot access, incumbency, and control of campaign financing. And selling black kids to educrat cartels is an important piece of the latter.

And so they have appealed to an "authority," Diane Ravitch, to counter the authority of reformers like educrat-cartel-ousted, former DC public school superintendent, Michelle Rhee.

Ms. Ravitch, said to be a scholar, spends much of time now tweeting (which she calls "mini-blogging") deep wisdom like:

 "DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch 

Obama should tend to his base. No one worked harder for him than teachers."

It is no accident that "Washington City Paper," a faux alternative media that serves to create ideological hegemony among the cogs of the Washington establishment, would promote Ravitch. And it's a hilarious article (link below) since it leaves out what will be the only thing Ravitch will be remembered for decades hence in an asterisk: she's the world's most famous lesbian (former) neoconservative/Bush administration appointee.

It's hard to be a lesbian in the Beltway world of the tax predator ruling class or its state-funded outposts in media and academe if you are not a statist flak. I have two friends or former friends in DC who are somewhat politically incorrect lesbians in hiding. One, a libertarian, covers national politics for a major American newspaper, and never discusses politics in her column or at events, only when she is safely at a libertarian happy hour. Another raises money for the DNC and worked on Hillary's campaign and serves as a political appointee in Obama's State Department. At one event she said to the aforementioned journalist and me: "What does it mean that my two best friends are libertarians?" and proceeded to discuss her cognizance and appreciation of market based solutions and market institutions (she's a Harvard educated health economist). But these girls toe the line. Only a third of gays don't vote Democrat and it may be less for lesbians (and more for gay men).

And if one peruses the ranks of educrat administrators and educrat union organizers, Democratic party lesbians, from James-Carville-with-a-coochie Randi Weingarten (now lovers with Obama flak and "Business Forward" gonif Hillary Rosen)  or "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon's gal pal Christine Marinoni on down, are very well represented.  It's a honey pot, if not a gravy, train.)  One of the most hilarious examples of faux radicalism and moronicity among lesbian academe was in one of "radical feminist" Mary Daly's later works.  Daly praised FDR (and Eleanor) for creating the about to be bankrupt Social Security system, since it kept elderly ladies out of poverty (by taxing away the savings and potential real estate downpayments of working class black men, who for decades died before the retirement age required to draw Social Security).  But Social Security has, for decades, taxed gays and lesbians while denying survivor benefits to their partners or partners' children -- what kind of lesbian feminism is that?

Any honest account of Diane Ravitch and why she represents the definition of insanity (continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting a better result), would have to ask if her virulent racism was caused by the strain on her social, sexual and romantic life when she was a politically incorrect lesbian.

City Paper editors:  will you stop selling black kids to educrat cartels for Democratic campaign contributions?

Diane Ravitch, the Anti-Michelle-Rhee

[An alternative view of Ravitch is provided at http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/06/24/is-diane-ravitch-a-hayekian/.  The ruling class is not using Ravitch to defend themselves because of any Hayekian insight she may have.]

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