Best and Brightest

A Facebook friend asked the day after Tuesday's recall election, 
"Why do so many people hate unions, teachers and public servants in general?" 

That was in response to this cartoon: 

My answer was,  "Because they're easy targets and the Repubs have been working on this for decades. They way to defund the Democrats (noun) is to get rid of or defang their funders. Unions have long been big donors to the Democratic (adjective) Party. It's all about money, control and power."


Another Facebook Friend said,  "...all three have done a miserable job in selling themselves and their roles to the public. They need to study the GOP playbook on the utility of lying, cheating and deception. Only way to succeed in these partisan days. A sad commentary on America.


Yet another Facebook Friend commented:  "They had Unions because unions make corporations follow the laws and uphold the rights of workers. They had teachers because they help to inform individuals, spread the information about all sides of the issue (good, bad and ugly), because we force people to express themselves and make the THINK instead of being drones. They hate public servants in general because they think of them as leaches of their tax dollars. What they fail to remember is ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS are PUBLIC SERVANTS TOO! And Elected Officials and Administrative position salaries, benefits, and retirement packages far exceed those of your average union trade worker, average teachers ( whole salary with a Masters degree and 5 yrs of experience is about $40,000 yr.), and your police, fire, and other emergency services. The outcome only indicates how uninformed society really is -- These groups want drones and to turn America into a for-profit society."


This brings to mind a conundrum that has long vexed me. 

Corporations and their Boards of Directors -- which are generally composed of other corporations' CEOs -- justify CEOs' obscenely bloated compensation packages by saying it's necessary to pay them a lot so they can attract the brightest and the best.

I've heard the same about university chancellors and top administrators, most recently in Wisconsin where the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents rationalized a 10 percent raise for that system's chancellors, while faculty has gone for three years with no raises.

I also keep reading and hearing that state and local elected officials and parents say schools want only the best and the brightest teachers for their children and that schools need to weed out bad and mediocre teachers. Yet their idea -- which a growing majority of the public is embracing -- is to cut teachers' already modest pay (I have yet to see any public school teacher living in a McMansion, driving a Mercedez or owning a yacht),  their healthcare and pension benefits.

So the incentive to hire the best and the brightest corporation CEO and university chancellor is money, money and more money, plus expensive perks (which we consumers and taxpayers pay for), but the incentive to attract the best and the brightest teachers is to pay them mediocre salaries, provide a swiss-cheese type of benefits package, make the pay out of pocket for many classroom necessities because school budgets have been slashed, and demonize them.

What kind of thinking is that? And yet voters fall for it.

Education Clap Trap

So Williard The Romney's education plan is to:

• Open up "choice" schools to all students so no one will have to send their children to those god-awful, good-for-nothing public schools.
• Hire and retain only top-notch teachers and hold them accountable.
• Let poor and disabled students take the federal funding they get for being poor and disabled and attend any school they like, even private schools.

At least that's what his education advisor Martin West said on NPR's "On Point with Tom Ashbrook" today.  http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/05/29/education-and-mitt-romney#disqus_thread

To that I say:

• Nevermind that millions of Americans have and continue to get very good educations in public schools, thanks to excellent and dedicated public school teachers, or that surveys, test scores and analyses have shown and continue to show that these so-called "choice" schools are doing no better at educating America's children than public schools.
• What in the world do Romney and other "we need to hire and retain only the best and the brightest" teachers blatherers think they're going use to attract and retain the best teachers? Surely not decent pay and benefits. Certainly not decent working conditions. Perhaps they think demonization is a great lure. Oh, that's right, they only demonize public school teachers. It's only the best and the brightest university chancellors and corporate CEOs who need to be attacted and retained with multimillion-dollar compensation packages and obscene perks, not teachers, right? And how will Romney, et al, hold these great "choice" teachers accountable? Certainly not by requiring that they be certified, because some states don't encumber "choice" school teachers with such nusances as certification, advanced degrees or continuing education courses, right?
• And what the heck is this "small government" presidential hopeful doing talking about federal funding for poor or disadvantaged students? Aren't Romney and his ilk in the business of doing away with the federal department of education and federal funding for social programs that might benefit the poor and disabled?

These folks are way to liberal with the way they sling such blather around. None of it makes a toot's worth of sense, if they -- or anyone to actually think about it.

War, Assault, Campaign: Women Still Lose

This article, "Dispatches From The War On Women: Turning Pregnant Women Into Criminals"
 http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-turning-pregnant-women-into-criminals.html#ixzz1vVNloZqq, cites an editorial in the Sunday New York Times, saying the editorial "... minced no words, breaking down the attacks on reproductive rights, access to health care, and challenges to equal pay laws and domestic violence protections. ...  'Whether this pattern of disturbing developments constitutes a war on women is a political argument. That women’s rights and health are casualties of Republican policy is indisputable.'”
http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-turning-pregnant-women-into-criminals.html

No matter how you slice it, there is nothing conservative about this strategy to repress, subjugate and 'second-class' females in the United States.

Even without the GOP policies that blast ever-widening chasms of disparity between the mega haves and the other 99 percent of Americans, it is beyond comprehension that any woman who can vote in this country would ever vote for any these modern-day Talibanesque Republicans.

Walker Footprints On Veterans' Backs

I thought "support our troops" was a Republican mantra. Or perhaps in Republicanland, military troops are like the unborn (and even figments that aren't even conceived yet, so far as some of the more extreme lawmakers such as Indiana's radregs are concerned). They are nothing more than political-agenda soldiers/surrogates. Once served/birthed they are of no further purpose to those who only talk the talk.

Is this a conservative value?

For Veterans, Walker Added Insult to Insult

"Military veterans are the big losers in the rollback of a Wisconsin law that had allowed women, minorities and other protected groups to sue in state court over employment discrimination, say leaders of a statewide veterans group."

http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2012/05/for-veterans-walker-added-insult-to_21.html?spref=fb

The Blackest of (Holy) Pots

Is this the Roman Catholic heirarchy's attempt at magicians' sleight-of-hand trickery? By launching investigations against others -- particularly those they perceive as weak and vulnerable -- they can divert the spotlight from their own malfeasances? Seems to me that instead of worrying about whether GS learn about 'safe sex', their black-robed ones should use such methods themselves. Or actually practice what they preach. 

Legion of Christ Rocked By More Sex Charges

A prominent American priest in the Legionaries of Christ, a troubled Catholic order whose founder was denounced by the Vatican for sexual improprieties, has admitted having a sexual relationship with a woman and fathering her child.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tv-priest-admits-sex-charges/story?id=16353960

Finally, Vatican Investigates Legion Of Christ Sex Abuse Allegations

The Legion ... acknowledged that its founder, the Mexican-born Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, abused underage Legion seminary students over the years and fathered at least one child... . Now, the Legion has referred the cases of seven priests accused of abusing minors to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which investigates sex crimes.
http://articles.courant.com/2012-05-15/news/hc-ed-legion-of-christ-priests-under-vatican-inves-20120515_1_legionaries-father-maciel-abuse-allegations

Vatican Investigating Girl Scouts for Links to Safe-Sex Education Groups

...claim that the Girl Scouts are associating with “questionable” groups that the church believes do not strictly adhere to their tenets. In particular, the Vatican believes that several groups the Girl Scouts endorse, including Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, both of which cater to the poor but also advocate safe sex and condom use to stop the spread of AIDS, might be a bad influence on the impressionable young women. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/15/vatican-investigating-girl-scouts-for-links-to-safe-sex-education-groups.html

Radical feminist nuns’ group ‘stunned’ by Vatican criticisms, reform plan

“It is a serious matter when these Leadership Teams are not providing effective leadership and example to their communities, but place themselves outside the Church’s teaching.”

http://fidelityandaction.wordpress.com/category/vatican-investigates-liberal-nuns/

Job Creators and Not

Private sector says government can't create jobs.

Private sector criticizes President Obama for not creating more jobs.

What?

Obama IS the government or at least the highest ranking person in government. How can he be blamed for not creating jobs if the private sector says government can't create jobs?

Willard "Thurston Howell III" Romney is stumping around the country deploying the lack of job creation.

His Republican-governor partners seem to be in opposition to him.

Romney spoke to Ohio college students recent college grads about the dearth of jobs -- 50 percent of whom are able to find jobs. Next to Romney sat a fidgeting, squirming, sour-looking Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who jumped in on Romney's conversation to say that 80,000 jobs were listed on the state's website. Romney looked a bit nonplussed.

"There are?" Romney said, his eyebrows shooting up.

Yes, Kasich said, and they're good quality jobs that match college grads' skill and training.

Romney looked a bit nonplussed, and was left with nothing to say.

Are the jobs listed on Ohio's website among those jobs that government can't create?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said during his 2010 campaign that he would create 250,000 new jobs during his (first) four years in office. How, if government can't create jobs. (Apparently, this is one case in which he's proving the private sector right. Wisconsin is dead last in job creation this year.

Corporate execs and the politicians carry on about the need to cut taxes on the rich because they are the job creators. If that's so, why did this country lose jobs at a near record rate and the country plunge into the worst recession since the great Depression of the 1930s after Bush's two major tax cuts and eight years of his presidency?

Where are the Democrats? Why isn't that their mantra for the 2012 presidential campaign?

Whose Fire Is It Anyway!

Willard "Thurston Howell III" Romney's pants-on-scare tactics reminds me of a fire department captain in Los Angeles who was charged with and convicted of multiple counts of arson -- including a fire that burned down dozens of houses and killed several people.

"In Iowa, Romney warns of 'prairie fire of debt'"

 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/15/in-iowa-romney-warns-prairie-fire-debt/

He is counting on collective amnesia that has so many people forgetting that GWBush took office with a huge national surplus courtesy of President Clinton, which he squandered on tax cuts that benefited primarily the rich, a totally frivolous and horrendously expensive war and unfunded Medicare drug coverage. 

Forgetting that it was Bush's, not Obama's, recession. 

Forgetting that it was Bush's bailout of the financial industry.  

Forgetting that Bush increased the size of government far more than Obama.

Forgetting that jobs in the private sector plummeted by the millions under Bush and have grown under Obama for 26 straight months.

Ignoring the fact that there was a budget surplus last month. 

Truth is Obama has been extinguishing the "prairie fire of debt" Bush ignited and fanned during his eight years and that Romney is just blowing smoke.