A former student forwarded this to me yesterday. It’s a speech given in 1972 by Jimmy Reid, the leader of the English Shipbuilder’s Union, who died last week. If you had to find a root cause for our current malaise, it might be the one that Jimmy Reid describes—Alienation.
Alienation is the precise and correctly applied word for describing the major social problem in Britain today. People feel alienated by society. In some intellectual circles it is treated almost as a new phenomenon. It has, however, been with us for years. What I believe is true is that today it is more widespread, more pervasive than ever before. Let me right at the outset define what I mean by alienation. It is the cry of men who feel themselves the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. It’s the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the processes of decision-making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their own destinies. Continue reading ‘Alienation’
This is like the character in Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Carlin, near the end of his life, telling us a history of the last 30 years. King Lear like anger and lucidity. The people he’s really trying to talk to are the Tea Party types who think they are just one big deal away from “getting in the club”. What Carlin is saying, “You fucking sucker, you will never get in the club. But you will keep voting for people whose whole life is built around keeping the club happy.”
The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.
I saw Jesse Schell speak (via teleconference) at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit. Jesse teaches game design at Carnegie Mellon and I think his thoughts about education are spot on. This is in a sense a continuation of the Explain This post.
Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts.
Ofer Malamud, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, is the co-author of a study that investigated educational outcomes after low-income families received vouchers to help them buy computers.
“We found a negative effect on academic achievement,” he said. “I was surprised, but as we presented our findings at various seminars, people in the audience said they weren’t surprised, given their own experiences with their school-age children.”
This is Adam Wheeler, our poster child for situational ethics. Adam was caught cheating at Bowdoin College, so he thought, “what the hell, I should be at Harvard.”He falsified a transcript with perfect SAT scores, a 4.0 GPA at Phillips Andover and a semester at MIT. Harvard was so excited to land this genius that they gave him a $45,000 scholarship.
As a senior in September 2009, Wheeler allegedly submitted fraudulent applications for the Harvard endorsement for both the United States Rhodes Scholarship and the Fulbright Scholarship.
His application packet included fabricated recommendations from Harvard professors and a college transcript detailing perfect grades over three years. Wheeler’s resume listed numerous books he had co-authored, lectures he had given, and courses he had taught, according to authorities.
Wheeler’s transgressions came to light when a Harvard professor noticed similarities between Wheeler’s work and that of another professor during the application review process for the Rhodes Scholarship. The professor then compared the two pieces and voiced concerns that Wheeler plagiarized nearly the entire piece.
Now Adam is under indictment on 20 counts of larceny, identity fraud, falsifying an endorsement or approval, and pretending to hold a degree. If he only had not gone for the Rhodes Scholarship, he might have landed a great job a Goldman Sachs selling dervatives.
I only have one question. What’s up with Harvard’s application system due diligence?
Thomas Jefferson stated an essential truth of democracy when he said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” So what are we to think of the incredible level of ignorance across our land as evidenced in the latest Harris Poll? Majorities of Republicans believe President Obama
Is a socialist (67%)
Wants to take away Americans’ right to own guns (61%)
Is a Muslim (57%)
Wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (51%); and
Has done many things that are unconstitutional (55%).
They also believe the President
Was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president (45%)
Is the “domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of” (45%)
Is a racist (42%)
Want to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers (41%)
Is doing many of the things that Hitler did (38%).
One last thing, 24% of Republicans believe Obama “may be the anti-Christ.” The only answer to this mass delusional ignorance is that these people are getting all their information from Fox News and most especially Professor Glenn Beck. Here is one Professor Beck’s most famous students, Rep. Michele Bachman.
“It is really quite sobering what has happened. From 100% of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51% of the private economy.”
I swear to God, you couldn’t make such brainlessness up if you tried, but here is a U.S. Congresswoman spouting complete nonsense in public. The new Quinnipiac Poll says that the Tea Party only represents 13% of American voters, but that 55% of Teabaggers are women. That would make sense in that more women are probably home at 5 PM when Professor Beck begins his class on Fox.
At least when the Fairness Doctrine was in place, broadcasters had to provide “alternative viewpoints”. I’m aware that the cable networks have always been unregulated, but what are we to make of such mass ignorance?
Diane Ravitch (far left in picture) has been in the forefront of the public school reform movement for two decades.
She led the Department of Education efforts in the first Bush administration for standardized testing, charter schools and bringing free market ideas to K-12 Education.
She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.
When ever I raise the issue of the Cost of Empire, our conservative correspondents always respond that the real economic crisis facing America comes not from Imperial Overstretch, but from our profligate system of social insurance–Social Security and Medicare. But last week Bill Gross, our country’s leading bond manager, published a chart he called The Ring of Fire, looking at the relative economic security of the developed nations.
So how come the nations that define Social Democracy–Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands are all considered safe bets, while the U.S. is about the join the club of the economic disabled, with its public debt nearing 90% of its GDP? The Finnish government provides cradle to grave health care and universal free education as well as old age pensions. What would keep us, after we have shed the burdens of empire, from providing similar services to our citizens?
Apple’s stock is down almost 4% this morning in a classic “buy on the rumor, sell on the news” trader’s strategy. I’m happy to buy some of those day trader’s $199 stock. Anyone who doubts the utility of this device is just not thinking very clearly. I can say with some confidence that it is going to revolutionize academic publishing as well as the way journalism is delivered. Most of us who write books about the media are constrained by our ability to explicate a passage about say, Citizen Kane, by the inclusion of a still picture from the film. The ability to include a 30 second clip of the part of the movie you are critiquing is going to change the nature of most non-fiction E Books.
In a couple of years, the I Pad will be the device students bring to college.
I thought Barack gave an incredible speech. During the closing section, it felt like you could hear a pin drop in the chamber.
Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.
No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.
No wonder there’s so much disappointment.
I campaigned on the promise of change – change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change – or at least, that I can deliver it.But remember this – I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.
Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation.
But I also know this: if people had made that decision fifty years ago or one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be here tonight. The only reason we are is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard; to do what was needed even when success was uncertain; to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and grandchildren.
As Obama spoke these words the cameras panned across Democratic and Republican legislators, their eyes fixed on the President. No one looked away. No one was twittering on his Blackberry. Because they all knew the President was speaking truth to power. And that is a rarity in the halls of Congress.
, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Carlin, near the end of his life, telling us a history of the last 30 years. King Lear like anger and lucidity. The people he’s really trying to talk to are the Tea Party types who think they are just one big deal away from “getting in the club”. What Carlin is saying, “You fucking sucker, you will never get in the club. But you will keep voting for people whose whole life is built around keeping the club happy.”
