Charter school fraud in Philly

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137444337/what-happens-when-charter-schools-fail

Maybe some social services aren't designed for market competition and entrepreneurship, especially when they're funded by taxpayers with little public oversight, and run by former business sharks with minimal educational experience. I think charter schools can be a good innovation in certain circumstances, and of course there are plenty of problems with stagnant public schools, educational bureaucracies, and teacher unions.

But look at their logic: public schools are underperforming, so let's establish charter schools to pressure them to shape up, and act as a teaching lab to develop better methods. But charters are risky "nonprofit" ventures that are trying to win grants and other funding, so why would they share their successful practices with rivals? Like a new entrant into an industry, they are fighting like hell to survive and eventually dethrone the top dog. They are not there to make friends. And the more successful a charter is, the more funding it gets (which means nearby public schools are getting less, and per-pupil K-12 funding in the US is already criminally low), so that only increases the likelihood that the public schools will underperform. And if word gets out that the charter is good, parents of talented students may pluck them out of the public system in favor of the charters, creating a selection bias that further brain drains public schools. So it's pretty much a zero-sum game; there is no way charters can make publics better. But that's probably the point, and it's not a level playing field. Charter teachers are non-union (they are paid a bit more but forced to work longer hours, so their per-hour compensation is actually worse) and not fettered with as many rules, so that's almost like Bar-roid Bonds vs. me in the Home Run Derby. Plus it creates a rift and culture clash among educators - already one of the least respected professions in the US. Education needs to be collaborative, open, and trusting to be successful, and charters are an impediment to that (some may say unions are too, and they have a point).

Like we've seen in other parts of gov't, when free-market conservatives want to do away with some public program, they demonize and de-fund it. They say the program is a failure, and they create the negative conditions to fulfill that prophecy, instead of taking measures to prevent it. Maybe all this is part of the larger movement to destroy employee unions wherever they exist. Some charters have changed lives and put underserved students on a much better life path, but overall charters are about on par with publics and in some cases lagging behind. Just imagine how much better the public schools could have done with the additional resources wasted on sub-par or corrupt charters. As we all know in business and in research, most attempts end in failure. So it's not like every charter is destined to be a gem, especially when it's run by corrupt people.

In the greater Philly area, 19 of 74 charter schools are under federal investigation for improprieties. And that percentage may be fairly uniform across the nation (CA, OH, and TX have also launched recent investigations). Charters are designed to be free of regulation (but from our experiences with Wall Street and energy, we know how that goes), and there are 7 full-time employees tasked with monitoring ALL of the Philly charters (soon to be 4 due to city budget cuts, of course). Most of the problems are abuse of funds, COI, and nepotism. Like corporations, CEOs hire friendly boards who rubber-stamp ludicrous pay raises (as much as $1M for some execs) and hirings of unqualified buddies. One CEO set up his school in buildings he owned, making the charter pay inflated rent directly to him. Another director also owned the school's vending machines. His team would buy discount junk food and soda and hike up the prices to the students. Well, maybe the corruption isn't actually hurting anyone? In another school, looting by the leaders caused the special ed program to be underfunded. When parents complained to the trustees, they basically told them to piss off. 

Profits are getting in the way of education. I hope people will wake up and recognize the risk of charters as being just another pro-business scheme to undermine the public sector and embezzle precious scarce resources. Maybe charters can work and make education better, but if so, then we shouldn't compromise that potential by tolerating bad charters and improper conduct.

Obama's prospects in 2012

1 - I'm much less sanguine about BO's reelection prospects.  In March 2009 he had a choice of how to pursue recovery, and he explicitly decided to side with the banks.  The bet he made was that he could help them out, keep them happy, and that rest of the economy would right itself in time for the 2012 election.  He could eat his cake and have it too.  So rather than making real structural reform of finance, he decided to continue to bail them out both with money and with regulatory "forbearance" (which is to say, not enforcing the law).  He and his advisers talked up the "recovery," the Fed helped reinflate asset prices, and he basically played a big game of "extend and pretend," trying to keep things roughly stable until they would eventually heal on their own.

And over the last 6 months he's doubled-down on that bet, letting the GOP define the economic discussion as being about the deficit.  He's pivoted away from focusing on job growth and instead is focused on deficit reduction and austerity.

It's not at all clear this bet will pay off.  The recession has been substantially longer than he or his advisers anticipated, and it's looking far more fragile.  There's been some small economic growth, but unemployment is still up (and the decreases that have come are because people are leaving the workforce, not because jobs are being added faster than population growth) and the numbers from April and May are looking pretty bad.  There are big risks on the horizon: the Euro crisis, the risk of another Arab uprising blowing up oil prices again, banks' various frauds finally getting a little bit of investigation.  And if you think deficit reduction and fiscal austerity will help this, take a look at how that's working for Lithuania, the UK, Greece, Ireland ... yeah.

If the economy is still in the toilet, if unemployment is over 9-10%, Americans may well blame it on BO.

2 - On uprisings.

There actually has been a fair bit of pushback in this country.  The Tea Party is ... well, yeah.  But it's a big populist movement, grown angry at the rule of elites and oligarchs, and pushing back against that.  Their specific suggestions are pretty strange, as is often the case with populist movements, and their energy has largely been co-opted by the existing oligarchic power structure on the right.  But it's still a clear case of the people at the bottom getting together to push for ... something.

I think it's worthwhile to think about why there isn't a similar movement on the left.  Honestly, I think it's because BO took that energy and hope and desire for change, rode it to DC, and then promptly sold out to the existing power structure.  And he's done an incredible job of selling the left on this notion that he's been trying hard, but been stymied at every turn.  The guy is clearly very smart and knows that he has the ability to motivate popular support for issues that are important to him by appealing directly to the people.  If he wanted to push through a real liberal agenda, he would have.  He hasn't, and it's because he doesn't actually want to.  He wants to sound like he's trying while he plays the "extend and pretend" game for the existing power structure.  And by doing that he's effectively emasculated any attempt at real change from the left.

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Thanks J and very interesting thoughts: "[Obama] wants to sound like he's trying [to enact change] while he plays the 'extend and pretend' game for the existing power structure." It makes me want to cry when I think about BO's record and how true that seems.

Yeah I guess if Scott Brown and Michelle Bachman got elected mostly out of voter backlash for the Dems, anything can happen to BO in 2012. But at least the birther question and other BS have mostly been put to rest, so I doubt Obama will get swift-boated by a non-issue. As you said, it will boil down to unemployment and GDP growth. I agree with your recounting of economic events under BO, but for Americans who are upset at our lack of progress, there's only so much a president can do. BO can't force the banks to lend and firms to hire, even as they're rolling in cash waiting for good opportunities. A president can't control what crazy stuff happened in the European financial world, nor events like the Arab Spring and tsunami (both of which seriously affected global markets and business confidence). And a president definitely can't force Congress to enact real financial reforms or whatnot. The merits of his various corporate rescues is another big discussion, but at least BO got some stimulus passed in his first year before Congress seized up.

But I agree that the facts suggest BO consciously avoided taking liberal causes "to the streets" and rally popular support. This was supposed to be a turning point for America! Some groups have analyzed BO's voting record during his time in the Senate, and ranked him as part of the top 10 most liberal senators. But that is probably a deceptive/simplistic conclusion, and many commentators would feel that BO is more centrist than Hillary. The US left deceived itself if it thought that BO would be their liberal activist. But there are some important non-partisan and economy-critical issues like infrastructure spending, education, and trade that he didn't spend much time on, or just continued the Bush rhetoric. Health care ate up a lot of his attention, and now it's the deficit. I think BO is plagued by too much pollster advice and a desire for bipartisan accord. Many little birds are chirping in his ears, some high-level people have resigned from his admin., and maybe he's drowning in conflicting views (that's just a fact of modern politics). He wants to please people and he wants people to like him, but he should have known from Day 1 that he had a target on his back. Ironically, he just hasn't shown that much leadership and audacity.

The buck stops with him and I can understand if voters partially blame him for a weak or illusory recovery. But what the heck would McCain/Palin have done that would have been any better for the people? His economic team was pretty much Bushies, right? I just don't know if BO has "ruined" the nation so badly (as the GOP claim) to warrant a regime change. I don't think the GOP candidates have described any policies that would show real improvements over BO's (but of course there is a ton of campaign left). While I am fairly disappointed in BO's record, I don't see a better alternative. But angry centrist voters struggling to make ends meet may feel differently.

Re: the Tea Party, I have to disagree that it is a grassroots effort. As we've emailed about in the past, it is mostly funded and organized by big business Libertarians (and fueled by big business right wing media "outrage"). Sure the local events and rallies are populist, but it's definitely not Tunisia. Heck let's be honest, most revolts since the Colonial Era were not truly populist, but led by educated elites who saw an opportunity to topple the group in power. They just offered the poor masses enough rhetoric and promises for them to follow. Sadly, the European fascists may have been the most populist uprisings in recent history.

I also hate to say this, but I think the Tea Party is more about racism than people want to admit. If Biden or Hillary were in charge, I don't think we'd see this level of angry mobilization. Maybe with Hillary, since she is a female and her name carries a lot of baggage from '90s politics. Some people find it easy to blame all of America's problems on a Kenyan socialist and his evil conspiracy network. Seeing a proud, successful black couple on TV all the time, getting the glitz and glory, can make some people's blood boil.

And you brought up a very perplexing point - where is the liberal Tea Party equivalent? They weren't even visible during the worst of the Bush years. There was the anti-war crowd, the gay movement, the greens, etc., but there wasn't a cohesive, enthusiastic movement to "take back America" and restore our values/prestige from a bad leader. Maybe the liberal message/narrative is too fragmented and complex compared to the Tea Party's. Well, the left doesn't have the benefits of strong media channels, huge funding, and outspoken personalities (it seems like ultra-left politicians and commentators are dismissed as quacks, yet Beck and Palin are somehow god's truth?).

I guess the swelling liberal energy was all harnessed by the BO campaign as you said, but disappointment after disappointment since 2008 has caused it to dissipate. I think church and small business groups are major pillars of the Tea Party, and the liberals don't have anything equivalent. They have women, gays, students, urban poor, and minorities, who happen to be the least powerful in our society. They had the labor movement, but it's been so maligned in the mainstream press, and clearly you can see it's part of the right wing agenda to exterminate it. The left can't really criticize the churches and business groups (even though there's plenty to talk about), because that would be seen as un-American heresy. This is a big problem for the future of the Dems, which is probably why they are covertly turning to big business to support them instead. The days of the FDR or LBJ Dem Party are long gone.

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there is a leftist movement in this country.  it just doesn't have the corporate backing like the tea party.  what about the people who rallied for the release or at least trial for bradley manning?  how about the people that were beaten and arrested at that rally?

what about the rally i went to yesterday called for by lynn woolsey calling for the end of these 5 wars? couple of hundred there.

what about the people who've marched on wall street, regularly? 

How about the arresting of Chris Hedges and several Iraqi vets a couple of weeks ago for chaining themselves to the white house fence?

What about wisconsin and all the other state houses that had huge rallies when their governors starting placing blame for the bad economy on unions?

They just don't get media attention.  but there are plenty on the left outraged at both BO and republicans.

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Thanks for reminding us, L. Yes I agree about the deliberate lack of media attention and I know people are protesting in many places. But let's be honest, the protests are restricted to about 10 states (and mostly CA/NY). If the GOP didn't declare war on unions, all of those Midwest people would have stayed home. But their survival was on the line, so they rose up. If we lived in KS or AK, we wouldn't find a trace of liberal activity.

The Tea Party is in every single US state, and even has de facto reps in Congress. Sure the left has Bernie Sanders (and used to have Kucinich), but the TP has the spotlight now (because there is more energy in their movement, and it aligns with corporate media interests). The traditional GOP is scared of the TP, and they will factor into who wins the nomination. Centrist Dems barely pay attention to the left. And on the liberal front, the anti-war folks don't talk to or support the gays, and the greens don't have much in common with the immigration reformers. We don't have a cohesive, unified, organized network. There's plenty of money with the Sierra Club, Amnesty Int'l, MoveOn, Soros, etc. but they're not joining forces because their agendas don't overlap (at least not in present form). Dems have never been good at team play. Sure the TP benefits from corporate support and almost has a franchised structure (and yes, I know the TP is also very diverse and fragmented), but they generally share a common (if unrealistic) goal: reduce gov't and make America more like Reagan's vision. They don't have much of a clue how to get there (lawfully) and how to fix our current problems, but they're united in their distaste for Washington and desire to clean house. We can't really say that for the left since BO took office. 

It's tough because a lot of the left's argument is empirical and not rhetorical. Climate change, social programs, civil rights, and such are complex issues involving data and statistics that can't be summed up on a bumper sticker. All the TP needs to do is draw a Hitler mustache on Obama or coin some phrase like "death panels", and people get the gist of it. The TP is checkers and the left is chess, but checkers is more fun for the everyday guy. Some people say that leftist snobs who dismiss the TP do so at their own peril, but right now I'm comfortable saying that they're not at the level of Bill Buckley. Seriously, they're more like the European fascists without the racial agenda (which is both a compliment to their populism/propaganda and a caution for what they may become). But regardless the TP is a "party", while the liberals haven't come together yet.

Obama's transparency award and Libya lawsuit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/14/rescind-barack-obama-obama-transparency-award

The "transparency award" in question was described as "aspirational", similar to the rationale for awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency when he had done nothing yet to further the cause of peace. Participants admitted they used the private meeting in March to try and lobby Obama to do more to earn their award. If the president doesn't change course as a result of the lobbying and "award", there are some who would shrug and say, "no harm, no foul". - letter authors

In March, Obama won an open government/transparency award from 5 gov't watchdog groups. But soon after, a coalition of other watchdogs and whistleblowers wrote an open letter in The Guardian to rescind the award, since secrecy and suppression have actually increased during the Obama admin. This is noteworthy when you consider his predecessor. I know he is no longer Candidate Obama, and as president he must be a company man and defend agencies like the NSA and FBI. But we put him in office to change things, not bolster the status quo.

The "example" his administration is making of Wikileaker Bradley Manning (who hasn't been convicted in court BTW) is atrocious. That man (a US citizen with rights) probably broke the law, but at present he is basically zero threat to US national security, yet he has been kept in solitary lock-down 23/24 hours a day for months. There are also accusations that he was tortured. This punishment is disproportionate and probably unconstitutional. How can we criticize Syria and Myanmar about their abuses? Yes leaks can hurt national interests, but secrets can too. There has to be a balance, and without leakers and whistleblowers, we might still think that Nixon wasn't a crook, companies price commodities fairly, and cigarettes are non-addictive. 

Here is a partial list of their criticisms:
• President Obama has not decreased, but has dramatically increased governmental secrecy. According to a new report to the president by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) – the federal agency that provides oversight of the government's security classification system – the cost of classification for 2010 has reached over $10.17bn. That's a 15% jump from the previous year, and the first time ever that secrecy costs have surpassed $10bn.
• There were 544,360 requests for information last year under the Freedom of Information Act to the 35 biggest federal agencies – 41,000 requests more than the year before. Yet the bureaucracy responded to 12,400 fewer requests than the prior year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
• Obama has invoked baseless and unconstitutional executive secrecy to quash legal inquiries into secret illegalities more often than any predecessor. The list of this president's invocations of the "state secrets privilege" has already resulted in shutting down lawsuits involving the National Security Agency's illegal wiretapping – Jewel v NSA and Shubert v Obama; extraordinary rendition and assassination – Anwar al-Awlaki; and illegal torture – Binyam Mohamed.
• Ignoring his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, Obama's presidency has amassed the worst record in US history for persecuting, prosecuting and jailing government whistleblowers and truth-tellers. President Obama's behaviour has been in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which included live-streaming meetings online and rewarding whistleblowers.
• The Obama justice department's prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, who, up till 9 June, faced 35 years in prison for having blown the whistle on the NSA's costly and unlawful warrantless monitoring of American citizens, typifies the abusive practices made possible through expansive secrecy agreements and threats of prosecution.
• President Obama has set a powerful and chilling example for potential whistleblowers through the abuse and torture of Bradley Manning, whose guilt he has also publicly stated prior to any trial by his, Obama's, military subordinates.
• Under President Obama, the FBI has launched a series of raids and issued grand jury subpoenas targeting nearly two dozen antiwar activists. Over 2,600 arrests of protesters in the US have been made while Obama has been president, further encroaching on the exercise of first amendment rights.
• President Obama has initiated a secret assassination programme, has publicly announced that he has given himself the power to include Americans on the list of people to be assassinated, and has attempted to assassinate at least one, Anwar al-Awlaki.
• President Obama has maintained the power to secretly kidnap, imprison, rendition, or torture, and he has formalised the power to lawlessly imprison in an executive order. This also means the power to secretly imprison. There are some 1,700 prisoners outside the rule of law in Bagram alone.
• President Obama promised to reveal White House visitors' logs. He didn't. In response to outrage over his refusal to reveal the names of health insurance CEOs he had met with and cut deals with on the health insurance reform bill, he announced that he would release the names going forward, but not those in the past. And going forward, he would withhold names he chose to withhold. White House staff then began regularly meeting lobbyists just off White House grounds in order to avoid the visitors' logs.
• President Obama has sent representatives to aggressively pressure Spain, England and Germany to shut down investigations that could have exposed the crimes of the Bush era, just as he has instructed the US justice department to avoid such matters.
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Also, what do you think about the lawsuit brought on by Kucinich, Boehner, and others questioning the legality of Obama's military action in Libya vis-a-vis the War Powers Act? I know I wrote you earlier advocating intervention in Libya, but since then I believe I was wrong. Well, I definitely think the way Obama and NATO are handling it is wrong. If we made a surgical hit on Qaddafi and his most loyal associates when the rebels were on the outskirts of Tripoli early in the conflict, maybe it could have avoided these months of war and stalemate (there probably would still be later conflict in Libya to fill the power vacuum, but at least the UN could get shoes on the ground by then to try to maintain order and political fair play).

But as we learned in Iraq, we just can't take out a dictator without a PLAN for what happens next. And of course we have no friggin' plan for Libya. The excuse of avoiding a humanitarian disaster with intervention also doesn't hold water, because worse abuses took place in Darfur, and are taking place presently in Syria, and we do nothing. Qaddafi is bad but he's not Nero. Plus who the heck will run the country after him? We don't have a puppet government waiting in the wings, and we have no history or relations with the rebels (who are quite heterogeneous BTW). From our dealings with Pakistan and Israel, we should know that even open alliances can be very tricky and damaging to our interests. So maybe the Libertarians and pacifists (and those with common sense intelligence) are onto something when they advocate for no foreign interventions unless our vital interests are directly at stake. The sooner the US realizes the limits of its power and influence, the stronger and safer the country will be.

Despite the Congressional lawsuit, they can't really do anything to stop the Libya operation because Obama said he won't be asking them for any more money than was already allocated, so they have no future leverage. They of course could draft legislation to force the president to halt the mission, but Obama would just veto it, and I doubt Dem senators would turn against him with an election year coming up.

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So can we give the Laker's the NBA championship halfway through next season?  Ya know, to encourage them to actually win it.

Reading that list of offenses by Obama is embarassing.  But a non-theoretical question for you, would you expect Bachmann to be better?  In retrospect would we have preferred McCain/Palin?  As hard and fast as the government is screwing us there is no hero to step in.  What are the options?  Mass support for protests just does exist in this country partly for reasons recently discussed.  A meaningful number of people think Obama is too liberal and that Romney is too.  

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Haha the Lakers don't need that incentive, they just need to have their wives and GFs get along, but that's another story! Heck they have enough talent anyway, give the pre-championship to the Clippers to motivate them!

As you said, the aspirational award is an interesting concept. Too bad it doesn't apply to peons like me. I'd love for my boss to give me an aspirational bonus/promotion, and if I didn't live up to it, "no harm no foul".

Of course I think some more hard-line politicians would be much worse than Obama re: transparency, but that's why I voted for him. He was supposed to be more civil, dignified, and humane, but his record hasn't shown much. While I think it's highly unlikely Obama would lose in 2012 (and if he does, we'll have many more problems than this undeserved transparency award), a new GOP administration is not likely to be more people-friendly on this issue. I would pack my bags if I was a Muslim or Arab, considering the offensive language used at the recent debate and on the campaign trail. Didn't some politician say we should nuke Mecca in retaliation for another Islamist attack on the US?

Yep: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162795,00.html 

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and, a meaningful number survive on social security, lost their homes to fraudulent banking practices and have had healthcare costs skyrocket to the point of being unattainable.  i think they're waking up to the fact that the democrats and republicans are going to screw them, no matter what.  it;s coke or pepsi.  pepsi's a little sweeter, but both will make your ass fat and rot your teeth.  it's bullshit and it's bad for you.  look how many people are showing up and protesting and getting arrested.  there are tons.  it's just not on your tv nor is it reported on npr.   People have to stop this branding thing of 'socialism is bad' and start to wake up that social-ism just means that your priority in govt. is society, therefore you support society's basic needs.  then, you have to vote for people based on their actions, not on their words(obama).  but, i'm not totally convinced that even if we did vote in kucinich for president he wouldn't be crippled by media attacks like carter.  revolution is the only way out.  it's breaking out all over.  

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The unfortunate part is you need to be at the light-myself-on-fire stage for meaningful action to take place.  People are willing to take too much and survive on too little.  What i don't understand is how badly things can go once you get into the high office.  Would T do the same thing as Obama?  Maybe i'm not cynical enough to believe that most in congress/high offices went into it for the wrong reason.  I want to believe that most went to change things for the better but our current outcome doesn't follow.

Maybe the random selection method for government offices?  2 year rotation only requirement is minimum education?

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Heh T holding high office? I would send the Lakers and Patriots to Gitmo, legalize all drugs but meth (only ugly trailer trash use it), move the US capital to Vegas, and institute a national salary cap of $1M (since I'm not greedy). Then I'd use that extra tax revenue to fix all the broken shit we email about. But it wouldn't really matter what I want since it would be impossible to work with Congress on anything meaningful.

Actually the Tunisians (part of the smelly Arab masses that Westerners look down on) have a leg up on us. That street vendor who got screwed over by the gov't and self-immolated triggered a successful revolution. The American Quaker who lit himself on fire to protest Vietnam didn't stop the war, much less overthrow Nixon. And you or I doing the same today won't make Washington wake up. Our lives don't mean squat to them. A million lives don't either. And when that is the case - we need new gov't as L said.

J and I were talking about this recently - No Drama Obama decided that getting re-elected was more important than keeping his campaign promises. He basically is letting Wall Street (and those loyal to it in Congress) have free reign, deferring to the Pentagon and CIA to "protect America" as they see fit, and not confronting the many parties damaging America from within (and I'm not referring to the Muslims or Hollywood Elite). That way none of his campaign donors are pissed off, and maybe in his second term he grows a pair. Or maybe that's the problem - he was all "hopey and changey" on the campaign trail, but in private he made promises to all his funders that he would be this kind of president, and "a Lannister always pays his debts".

Maybe you noticed that I'm fairly schizophrenic on my evaluations of Obama since 2008, depending on how bad the GOP is in comparison. Today obviously I'm being a hard-ass. But it's tough - expectations were unprecedented for him, world events have got in the way of a lot of his initiatives, the US right wing has basically made it their Crusade for him to fail, and "herding cats" in Washington is as tricky as it sounds (even the liberal ones, who all expect Obama to put their causes #1). And let's remember that he was pretty much a political baby upon taking office. Bottom line, these are just excuses. He deliberately let opportunities for change pass him by, or he didn't try hard enough to stand up for the people and for what is right. Sadly, his boldest move was to give the green light to violate Pakistani sovereignty and take out Geronimo. I don't think other major political figures would have done much better in his shoes, but I have to believe there are some caring, decent Americans out there who could. Those people wouldn't be allowed anywhere near elected office though.

But like M said, somehow America will go on because deep down we can take a lot of shit. We may complain about it, but we'll soldier on, even if we're broke. What choice do we have - move to Afghanistan? And things aren't quite Greek-bad in order to get a critical mass to rise up. We'll have Coke or Pepsi in Washington for probably the rest of our lives, and that's just the way it is. But hopefully if a real leader for the people emerges, I'm ready to follow him/her and give my life to rid us of this plutocracy. I just hope what follows is something better.

Oh forgot to mention (humor me just a sec), another thing barring us from rising up is losing whatever little we have. Unless you're Buddhist, you probably feel that you have one shot at life. Loved ones, job, what meager assets you have - if you decide to fight the system you could lose it all. It's a serious deterrent, as is the hope that things are bound to get better if we just wait it out. Inaction is the easiest action. That's why I really have to admire the freedom fighters and activists from Iran to Burma, who have made the choice to lay it all on the line for what they believe, and many have paid dearly. We are cowards and slaves in comparison.  

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There is something to be said to giving 100% (like many of these protesters who are literally dying to make their country better) but it is also important to note the absolute value of what you have to lose.  Most people have a job that pays, a tv to watch, food to eat, etc.  If i was deciding between protest and starvation what do i really have to lose.  Like you said T, people don't want to lose what little we have.  And i'm not sure we'll ever have little enough (by comparison to the rest of the world) for a large enough percentage of people to be willing to risk it for change.  Unfortunately i'm like most people in that i'm an armchair critic.  Maybe that is actually more that what most people put into the political process but it isn't enough and I know that and i don't have the time/will/determination/fill in the blank to change that as of now. 

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Yeah I feel you on these points. As you said, much of our population won't be so desperate as to revolt, and those at the bottom are too marginalized to fight. Just as civil rights have evolved since the Middle Ages, so has tyranny. The feudal and slavery systems mostly failed around the world (except places like Saudi and N Korea), so rulers have found that they can still keep people down in a "free society". It's very good crowd control (whether deliberate or not): pacify the people with just enough prosperity and other priorities so they forget about their rights and dignity. Order in China pretty much hinges on this too.

It's tough to convince people to fight a system that they are invested in, or feel dependent on. Most of us probably have retirement accounts. Those are run by Wall Street. Probably we would like to see the "too big to fail" banks broken up like Standard Oil, but what if the cost was our savings? More Americans work for corporations now than ever before (probably out of necessity and economic conditions, not that we like them any more). At work I am sure you have met zealots who think the firm can do no wrong, and they might secretly be OK with corporate misbehavior if their stock options appreciate. Even if we're not greedy company men, our reliance on their salary and hope for career progression may affect our loyalties. We like our creature comforts and we can't all be like Siddhartha or Guevarra. Online media supposedly helped some Mideast revolutions, but when used differently it can be an urban pacification tool. People can literally never face another human being, yet hold a job and order whatever items they need online. If we're all isolated (and distracted with media/entertainment), we can't organize. And to a certain extent, major religions tell us to just take our lumps and don't rock the boat, and we'll be rewarded in the afterlife. These and other factors make us unlikely to upset the status quo.

Maybe we don't have to be all or nothing though - courage to change what we can, tolerance to accept what we can't, and wisdom to know the difference. A big gift to the world is to raise kids with good values who might be able to serve society more than we were able. Heh but when faced with that challenge, maybe I'd rather be a guerrilla. A MLK or Gandhi is born every so often, so we have trust and nurture the next generation (which hopefully also prevents the next Hitler or Pol Pot from developing). But "waiting on the world to change" probably isn't good enough, so I guess incremental protests or choices made in your own life about issues you care about can achieve some good (and hopefully won't have unintended negative consequences). Maybe with the butterfly effect and such, a passing good deed snowballs into something bigger. I could do a lot better, but I try to donate/volunteer, avoid frivolous consumption, do right by people, and scale back my energy/meat intake. Unfortunately, I think all that doesn't even offset all the harm I do each day. If I had any surplus money, I wouldn't invest in companies that I don't approve of (which is pretty much all of them LOL). I'm open to new suggestions though, so M or others please feel free to share. But as you said, changing ourselves is the easy part - how the hell do we change politics?

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Now, I'm with you!  a lottery system for people who had an adequate grade in mandatory civics classes in high school.  that would first entail we teach civics in high school again.

My guess is T wouldn't change but would think that he was being pragmatic by privatizing prisons.  It's rationalization.  Either that, or someone in the media would get a 'tip' on T's porn collection and ending his career with a tearful remorseful press conference. ;)

To be honest, I'm not sure we as a society would care if someone set themselves on fire in protest. We'd call them crazy.

I heard it described once as a frog in a cool pot of water on a stove.  The frog just sits while being cooked in the boiling water b/c it happens so slowly.

People are protesting(i'm going to an antiwar rally today), people are getting arrested, marches are happening on wall street regularly.  But, it doesn't exist in our worlds which glow from living rooms every night, therefore they don't happen.  Hugo Chavez has a downright antagonistic media.  It's run by the monied elite.  But, he also has 70% support b/c he really is a populist and supports evening the playing field.  Can that happen here?  I just don't know.....Does poverty have to reach the level of poverty of third world nations before we do something?  

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Heh I'm already having Weiner (the mother of all fitting names) draft
my apology speech. "I let you all down, and I ask that you pray for my
rehabilitation, and healing for my family who suffered from my
misdeeds."

Besides improving civics edu (that US kids scored horribly in a recent
assessment), families/teachers/leaders need to do a much better job
showing youth how we are all interconnected and interdependent. The
selfish older gens are a lost cause, but maybe there's hope for kids.
If we realize the consequences and externalities of our actions, then
maybe we'll make more socially responsible decisions. Do I really need
that luxury car, knowing that money could feed a village for a year?
The world is not just our playground and our personal desires aren't
the only consideration. Once people get a grip on their egotism and
tribalism, socialism is the logical next step. It's not an us-vs-them,
win-lose situation; we're all in this together so we better cooperate,
or we won't survive. I'm struggling with this every day though.

Economic inequality, race, and politics

Don't mean to totally hijack this email thread, but I just read an interesting journal article that goes along with some of the discussion that you've raised re: inequality in the US and how problematic it is.

Basically, the thesis is that, all things being equal, political coalitions for redistribution form when the middle class has a lot in common with the poor. In the US this isn't the case because of race - that racial politics that turn the middle class against the (largely) minority poor. It explains a lot about why Republicans are able to capture much of the lower middle class white vote (despite many economic policies by Republicans being against their self-interest) by fanning the flames of racial resentment between that income group and truly poor (mostly) minorities.

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Regarding the paper (of which I understood about 2%, but thank goodness for the glossary!), it will be interesting to see what happens to the 2 major parties in 2012. I guess skew is very extreme now in America, so despite that, if the GOP regain control of DC, that may validate the racial component of his theory, or suggest that the poor-middle class gap is much larger now vs. the Great Society days (when the Dems dominated gov't)? Of course more factors besides race and economics may decide an election (the candidates), so I would still put my money on BO to prevail since the GOP field is so pathetic. Though with all the gerrymandering and economic frustration out there, it will be unlikely that the GOP will lose the House.

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http://cew.georgetown.edu/219725.html

Speaking of inequalities, here are some salary tables taken from recent census data. It shows that pretty much across the board, on average you're going to make less money than a comparable white male (assuming you're not a white male). Over a 30-year career, these differences can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It's kind of sad that the highest-paying fields are ones that are male-dominated (business, engineering), and the lowest-paying are female-heavy (education, psychology, social work). But even within those fields, women and minorities make less. And this is 2011.

Looking back, I should have studied petroleum engineering and sold out with BP! Of course when I was in college, oil was $15/barrel.

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Yeah one of the interesting things about the Great Society debate was that poor were often depicted as "noble poor" - i.e. poor white people that were down on their luck and needed a hand up. Contrast that with Ronald Reagan's attack on welfare, in which poor people on welfare were depicted as blacks that were "strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks." These are of course generalities, but there is a strong correlation in the US between decreasing support for social welfare programs and the racialization of the poor. It's even come to the point where West Virginia, one of the biggest bastions of white poverty, is in danger of turning Republican and electing senators that promise to vote against poverty support programs that are a major lifeline to the people of the state.

There's a lot of psychological research that suggests that humans generally tend to sympathize and empathize most with people that most look like us. T and J, I'm not sure if you remember or not, but on one of the first days at C, at lunch one day we self-organized, with all of the whites sitting at one table and all of the Asians sitting at another. I think you're seeing some of the same effect in Europe in France, etc. where support for social welfare programs decreases as immigrants are seen increasingly as primary beneficiaries. Fortunately, I think this tendency of in-group identification based on skin color can at least party be overcome - young people generally seem to be very much less concerned with racial politics than their parents' generation (and the generation before that - the "greatest generation" that managed to be perhaps be one of the most actively racist of all generations in the US).

As for BO's election chances, economics and race play an important role, although according to papers I've read, there is significant variance depending on the specific candidates in the race. The fact that the best candidates the Republicans have now is Mitt Romney (who will basically have to cede the one issue that Obama really pissed people off - health care) means that, while not a walk in the park, I definitely agree that it raises his chances.

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Yes as you said, there are many more poor whites than poor minorities in America, but the percentage in poverty is higher in most minority communities. As the labor union-Dem Party relationship continues to weaken (or at least become less of a priority for Dem campaign financing and organizing), I think we will see less support from the center-left for labor and poverty issues - especially during the current fad of austerity and entitlements debates. This is unfortunate because the Dems may see themselves lose more and more of the poor white centrist and independent vote. But then again, even if they were able to mind control the Republicans in Congress and enact some redistributive economic policies, the right wing spinsters would declare it socialist fascism (if that even makes sense), so the direct beneficiaries of the legislation may actually rail against it as you said.

The racialization of the presidency is interesting too. Attached is a figure from Wikipedia showing how the states voting split changed from 2004 to 2008. The image caption is at the end of this email. As you said, WV is one of the biggest centers of white poverty, yet during the Great Recession they actually voted slightly more conservative instead of with Obama. States where blacks are a large % of the population had mixed results: LA went more GOP like WV, while GA and SC moved heavily to the left, but still went to McCain. I think race had a lot to do with that. Obama got more blacks to the voting booths in those states, but also awoke the white suburbs and trailer parks against him. Of course not all blacks and not all racists vote, but some of the data doesn't really make sense without race.

Speaking of the election, I heard that loser Santorum threw his hat in the ring today. He had some battle cry along the lines of, "Obama took office with so much hope and trust from the American people. But he ruined the economy, grew the size of gov't, and took away our freedom." He didn't even mention health care specifically, but if the GOP is going to run that general message (even if the facts don't corroborate), I guess we'll see how John Q. Voter responds. I just hope that the GOP field torches itself during the primaries "out-conservatizing" each other (and hopefully with many revelations of gay sexting and love children), and then Obama can just finish off the survivor. He'd only need like a $10 campaign war chest, and could tell the big funders and corporate interests to piss off. But of course I'm dreaming. Obama has let us down a lot since 2008, but we really have no choice but to give him a chance to redeem himself considering the alternatives. Even an internal challenge from Hillary would be ridiculous, since she is even more of a sellout. 

From the US census:

38% of Mississippi's population that was black in 2009. Although New York had the largest number of blacks of any state, Mississippi had the largest share of blacks in its total population. Blacks also made up more than a quarter of the population in Louisiana (33 percent), Georgia (31 percent), Maryland (31 percent), South Carolina (29 percent) and Alabama (27 percent). They comprised 55 percent of the population in the District of Columbia.

Wiki:

Swing by state. States are listed by (increasing) percentage of Democratic votes, showing how the share of the vote changed between 2004 and 2008. Only five states trended more Republican: Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.