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Religion is a for-profit business - plain and simple. As such, they should not be offered tax exempt status.
Yes, I agree with you on Ben Nelson......
I live in NE (no condolences necessary) and I only want to take issue with one thing Thom has said about Ben Nelson.
That Racoon on his head is NOT a Nebraska racoon....no self-respecting racoon in Nebraska would EVER submit to being displayed on Ben's head.....it must be a Kansas or S.D. racoon.
Tough being a progressive in NE......we have such a wonderful bunch out here......Pete Peterson is from my home town...Clarence Thomas's wife is from Omaha, etc......
But we keep the faith and listen to Thom daily.
Dave the "heartlands liberal"
A liberal democrat friend on facebook had this article on his page so I came here. Interesting piece but what was even more interesting and telling is the shocking comments, hateful, venomous and disjointed rants-- spewing forth, little facts, not on topic, name-calling. This could be a clue as to why the public and the conservatives are not big fans of public schools. Gerald says, he wants to be controlled by government, others showing a small, close minded attitude. I look for solutions, I believe in open discourse as a means to this end. Clearly, this thread demonstrates the need for private schools. This thread isn't a whisper for better schools, better teachers, privatization, it's a cry for help.
South Florida School Hell- I was there in 1985 raising a son, and now my younger friends still are in it even worse. People here lie about their address and make up all kinds of ruses to avail themselves of the better public schools. Many people start out with Christian schools and find themselves stranded in grade 8. Then they are forced to private school because public school would be too nasty. So called Charter Schools require not only tremendous fees, but tremendous burden of work placed on parents who were once free to work their own jobs and housekeep for themselves.
Our young friend who is a public high school science teacher was told by his principal he was giving too many failing grades and had to cease and desist from such practices.
It is not simply a matter of conservatives making money on education. Conservative schools mean conservative values taught along with brainwashing and the perverted culture of bribery which has come to be Conservatism.
Conservative schools teach there are the "More Fortunate" and the "Less Fortunate," so please leave off a wrapped gift in Room 202 before Ski Holiday, for our yearly contribution to the Home for the Feeble Minded.
XXXXX
Closing Guantanamo was one of the very first things President Obama said he was going to do, and there is no way that the GOP was going to give him that satisfaction on a task that should have been easy. Once Rush Limbaugh made the admission that he did not want Obama to succeed, the dye was cast and it became their commitment. We may not be thrilled with many of President Obama's positions, but I do often marvel that he has been able to withstand so much. That the people are so gullible that they think he could have thwarted, by himself, the middle class destruction agenda by the GOP is unreasonable. Wisconsin has shown us what needs to happen, and that is the people showing up en-masse and to stand behind him to make him do what we need done.
"The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour. Wolin writes, “By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes” that it can make their interests a priority, the Democratic Party “pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system.” The Democrats are always able to offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate collectivism." --from Chris Hedges column "The Corporate State Wins Again"...Truthdig.com
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_corporate_state_wins_again_20110...
Two professors of economics Michael Hudson and Richard Wolf are interviewed on The Real News News Network.
Professor Hudson says that the Democrats and Republicans are playing "good cop, bad cop" with the American people while slipping through the policies of the rich...and that the wealth-controlled government is using a Ponzi-like scheme in their current policies of tax reductions...especially from the rich. He is essentially saying that Obama and the Democrats are not being up front and honest with the American people and that they are really playing the good cop but they really don't have our best interests in mind.
Professor Wolf is saying that the rich have been waging a class war on the rest of us for at least 40 years.
They are both saying that we are in very deep trouble, economically, because of failed policies that are coming from both the Republicans and the Democrats. They are playing the bubble economy game hoping that yet another bubble will get us out of our mess....but it will only get worse.
http://michael-hudson.com/2011/04/10-million-foreclosures-matter/
It is happening here.
The conservatives have pretty much won. They pretty much control both parties. The corporatization of America and The New Gilded Age are bipartisan efforts. Regarding the specific topic, the counter Reagan quote should be, "Privatization isn't the solution to the problem; privatization is the problem."
The Tea Baggers are what some dictators call "useful idiots". But, be careful what you ask for. It's not the size of government that is the concern, it is who the government serves. Right now, our government puts corporate interests over the public good. We need democracy, not corporatocracy!
I believe most everyone misses the point here. This is not about money. This is about ideology.
Privatize the schools so you can bring in Religion. Privatize the schools so you can bring in Creationism and stop teaching Evolution. Privatize the schools so you can teach the "White" kids Religion and Creationism and Anti-abortion. Privatize the schools so you can "Dumb" down everyone else who is NOT White, assuming they will be taught at all!
This is a recipe in the making for disaster for Democracy as we know it.
The neo-cons know what they are doing. This is time worn Racism and Fascism. This is no different than what happened in the South after the American Civil War. The south did not want the freed slaves to have education. So they burned the schools down and lynched the Teachers. In no way were the white southern post-slave owners going to allow "Black Folk" to get an education.
This process is still on-going. It is no accident that most of this ideology derives from the South and gets a lot of Southern support. But the disease has spread nationwide - Racism has no borders in America. America was not ready for a “Black” President, supposedly, more so for the rabid “White” racist. This was evident after Obama’s election, and now so evident that most don’t even try to hide it anymore. These latter day modern-day post-slave racists DO NOT WANT OBAMA to succeed! You see, every supposed “White” bastion of superiority has been destroyed and BESTED by what the white man had stated the freed slave could never do. But one. And that was the Presidency. Ever ask yourself about the Birther movement? This is nothing more than delegitimizing your enemy, to make him insignificant, to make him other.
For Obama to succeed with anything, would destroy the Racists belief that a black man cannot succeed at anything a white man can, especially a President. For Obama to succeed, where a super white low IQ previous president from the south did not, would be cataclysmic for the neo-con ideology and white racist belief. So they do not want him to succeed at anything, even if it means the destruction of our Nation.
Even now, today, a full 160 years after the Civil War, the South (Texas, Arizona, Mississippi, etc) talk of succeeding from the United States. The south still venerates the Civil War and re-enact it every year. They espouse the Rebel flag like it was some sort of religious icon. They lost the Civil War, but they have never lost their believe that a “Black Person” is inferior to a White Person. After all, they were slaves!
So this whole education thing, this privatization, is code for white supremacist indoctrination; Code for getting Religion into the schools; Code for propping up the White Race and marginalizing the non-white and everyone else; Code for propping up a new fascist state.
This is all this is. And it must be stopped at all costs. If we want to save Democracy for future generations.
@Gerald:
I watched the same program and had exactly the same thought about the 4th Reich right here in the US.
Imagine if Germany had won the war and THEY wrote the history...the holocaust would have been just another crazy conspiracy theory that no sensible, intelligent being would have bought in to. Just like some people seem to think that it is so unthinkable that 911 was an inside job and they buy the official conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker. Yes, many Americans would have made excellent Hitlerian Nazis.
The religious zealots who want science removed from the basic school curriculum are the same folks voting us into Armageddon. Their influence on elections is being dangerously underestimated.
I feel education even through higher learning should be a right (entitlement) Early on in history children were taught by their parents in agriculture, family business etc. It was absolutely essential for economic stability and growth. As society become more sophisticated and technological education literally propelled the industrial revolutions and economic growth we enjoyed in the 50's and 60's. Education is a right of an individual and a necessary investment of any nation to enjoy continued stability and economic growth. It paves the way for a secure and ethical productive society cognizant
of the responcibility of citizenship. It also defrays any cast system destructive of democratic principals.
I feel we have all had enough upitty behavior from bigots who create their own exclusive rules for segregation. It is time we share upitty with all citizens of the United States. Lets tear down the economic boundaries that separate citizens of America and adopt justice that inhibits economic cast systems.
This is what I hear:
If conservatives are for charter schools.
And President Obama is for charter schools.
Then, President Obama is a Progressive.
How long must I be tortured?
The conservative attack on public education follows the trickle up truth of privatization and reaganomics. A few CEOs make a fortune, while educators end up unionless, with dumbed down wages, or unemployed. The darkside motivation behind all this is pretty clear. EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS WITH UNIONS ARE THE KOCH'S AND DEVOS FAMILY'S WORST FEAR. We all know how an informed and educated electorate vote! It's so DEMOCRATIC and JEFFERSONIAN !
Growing Comfortably Numb ! We put those in power thinking their American's with fair and loving conscience like ourselves. So we go about our day and family business on automatic pilot, growing comfortably Numb. But today. The seat seems to be getting hotter. More Worry;" Radiation just could be raining down on us now. This is Very bad , And bad for our small children's safety. So much for home land security. Will they tell us just how bad it really is, so we can try and protect ourselves? I think not! Unfortunately we have to look for a independent source for our information.
Just about money? It's not just about money Thom. When did America start hating it's teachers? Well, it's not just the teachers, it's the entire public system. I am a Euro-American retired to Florida from Wisconsin just recently, and I know the story there. The story of what is happening to Florida teachers is happening all across America . My response is not easy, nor gentle. The attack on America's public education system and it's teachers has been an organized and planned attack for 30 years at least. Think busing in the 60's, and anti-religious court rulings over the years, and of course workers rights attained over those years. In Wisconsin the effort for 2 decades has been to create charter schools and voucher certificates, and faith based initiatives to fund private and sectarian schools, which have it much different when hiring or firing and what students they accept for enrollment. This final undoing of rights for teachers to have group bargaining representation, and the changes in funding of schools is all part of the undoing of America 's public school system. It's the resegregation of America's schools. The New Jim Crow system. The new schools of America will be private, non-union, segregated by color and belief, full of religion, and will be tax payer funded. This is what's happening now, and it's being done very slickly while the mass majority of citizens don't have a clue. This country is being brain-framed down the path of religiously motivated, corporately funded, and militarily supported cultural reconstruction. To me, it's the New American Fascism. NAFIs!
All over the nation, volunteers are being asked to submit to an investigation to make sure they are not a felon, or a child molester, or terrorist....I went through the Georgia Master Gardener program in the 80's. I went through the Missouri Master Gardener Program in 2003 and now am asked to wear an ID badge saying that I have a right to volunteer working to work in our parks and I am not a felon or child molester. Master Gardeners are a part of the extension programs of land grant colleges. Other volunteers are asked to allow this intrusive snooping and keeping track of our every move. What really frosts my cookie is that no one is complaining....like sheep, people trot down and submit to this intrusion. I sent in a letter of protest and was told that I didn''t have do this if I didn't want to volunteer. I am 75....a retired psychologist and I am outraged. Pretty soon, we will need this "badge" to walk down the street! Don't people see beyond the immediate? Don't they understand what this means? Every volunteer program that is gov connected...that is hospitals, after school programs, etc....are doing this.
WITH republicans - no matter what the issue is - education, health care, public utilities, war, some one has to get rich.
IF we get another GOP Pres Say good bye to any hope of better schools- fair pay- Pell grants .Medicare will be privatized- seniors who spent all their funds then have to go on medicaid will be up a creek without a paddle- many poor will have no heat- cuts will be made for disabled - inc kids...as Fla GOP Gov just did !! RYan / GOP hatchet bill is the real death panel . You betcha
GOP # 1 stated goal Crush / hope Obama's fails. Cause his Waterloo Demonize- smear- lie- disrespect Obama. GOP threatens filibuster on all Obama tries to do all of his 2 + years . GOP has stalled -back pedaled- stamped their feet . Under Bush GOP 6 year congress GOP never said HELL NO They gave Bush all he asked for. and then some. Question is Wil voters be manipulated by lies & fear tactics ...once again ??
"People for the American Way"?? Not Michael Keegan's PFAW!! Who was it that you really meant to name? Please set the record straight and apologize to the PFAW.
This is a true case of three things: 1. Taking public tax dollars and giving it to big corporations 2. Dumbing down our kids (All these schools will do is teach kids how to become test takers and not "real thinkers" 3. Breaking up whats left of teacher unions. I think it is now time to speak up and vote the conservatives out !!!!
very soon we will see another India where majority of population is uneducated because of want of finances to educate their children!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! way to go America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if people are smart they should abandon this land and go to places where these robber barrons have shifted the jobs and now are attacking public education, which is the last resort to common people..................
Thom please print in bold letters this old saying............................... IF YOU WANT TO KILL ANY CULTURE TAKE ITS EDUCATION AWAY>................so the America we know is going to fade away very quickly ...............in our life time............ALAS WE COULD OPEN OUR EYES TO THESE VOES and THROW THEM OUT OF OFFICE ..................... NAY OUT OF THIS CONTINENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!