I am an extreme liberal

dys has it right! The repubs throw money at the problems without any controls on how its spent, then bitch they funded the program. Katrina and Iraq are the best examples. They then want a ten page document filled out for a space heater. That's incompetence at its summit nowhere else found in any government in the US.

I agree with ci that health insurance has got to become a defining issue in our country- (I won't even begin to address education).

When I was living in the US, I was working at a homeless shelter that served pregnant women, or women who had recently delivered a child, and their babies. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to work to try to find employment resources for them, only to then be informed that if they took a job making any sort of subsistance wage, they'd then lose Medicaid benefits. So they could either work or have health insurance for themselves and their children, but not both. I think if I was a new mother, I'd have to choose the most secure option for myself and my child. Most of them did- they chose to remain eligible for Medicaid.

My brother-in-law is a fifty year old brain damaged diabetic, who, with all his mental and health issues, has none the less managed to hold a job in a fast food restaurant for thirty years. Because he has made a subsistance wage his entire life, should he lose his job due to disability, he will not be eligible for Medicaid, and is still too young for Medicare. It's crazy. My husband has had to find a lawyer who is willing to take his case pro-bono to accompany him to court to explain his case and fight for benefits, so he'll be able to receive medical care. Luckily, he works for someone who also cares about him enough to help him advocate for himself - his boss called us internationally to tell us what was going on because my husband's brother didn't know how to dial an international number, yet he's expected to work out how to support himself after he has his foot amputated.

This is occurring while we're here in England, not citizens of this country, allowed to live here on a work permit visa and my daughter, because she is under l8 has so far received free braces and hearing aids. It makes me feel incredibly guilty, but that's just what they have put in place for the children who live in this country, and even if you try to pay - there's no mechanism for them to accept it. In the US, on the other hand, children on Medicaid are eligible to receive hearing aids, but if you're not on Medicaid, no health insurance carrier will provide them. They cost upwards of $4,000 dollars. So you have poor kids who can't hear getting hearing aids, and rich kids whose parents can afford them getting hearing aids, but a lot of children somewhere in the middle with hearing loss whose parents are working to try to make ends meet, walking around without hearing aids. Try learning in school, if you can't hear and you don't have hearing aids.

These are the types of people I'm talking about who seem to fall through the cracks under some conservative programs. I'm not saying conservatives are heartless - I'm just saying they seem more willing sometimes to focus on certain issues, allowing others to slide, unless it directly affects them.

I don't need to feel guilty in order to help someone. And I think trying to make a person feel guilty is not a productive or efficient way to highlight your message. More of this in my statements below.



I don't think it is a gross exaggeration. I think the majority of people in this country want to help. However, I think the blame game and the asssigning of guilt to people is one of the reasons why there is some indifference towards the poor.

Now, I understand that you are trying to highlight the plight of people and not trying to assign blame to anyone... but I think the end result in trying to make people feel guilty is that they feel attacked. Making someone feel guilty for something they don't necessarily have any control over is not the way to invoke empathy in people. Assigning guilt, IMO, is like trying to assign fault. It isn't my fault that someone else is poor... it isn't necessarily anyone's fault. I think this is why you see bumper stickers like "Work Hard: Millions on Welfare Depend on it" They see it as an attack on themselves. You want them to feel guilty for something they didn't do and pay their hard earned money to help fix the problem. This is not the reponse that you should be going for.

Of course there will be some people that no matter how much you try will not see need to help others. There are some hardcore "do it your selfers" out there. But you shouldn't let them define conservatives as a whole.



Well... your appreciation iis a start.

Despite Billions Spent, Rebuilding Incomplete
Bad Security, Poor Planning Plague Effort

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 12, 2006; A01



For a little more than $38 billion, the United States and its contractors in Iraq have provided 4.6 million people with access to water. They have distributed seeds to Iraqi farmers, improving wheat harvests. With electricity-generating capacity now above prewar levels, they have given many Iraqis more daily hours of power. They have repaired more than 5,000 schools and vaccinated 4.6 million children against polio.

The list goes on. But as the U.S.-led, U.S.-funded portion of Iraq's reconstruction nears its end, American officials and contractors alike are grappling with a cold reality: Thousands of successes in Iraq may add up to a single failure.

"We accomplished a significant amount of work. But it was just overwhelmed by the overlay of violence," said Clifford G. Mumm, who has spent much of the past three years in Iraq managing projects for Bechtel Corp. "It's hard to be very optimistic."

U.S.-funded projects have long been a target for sabotage. Many of those that were spared remain unused by a population paralyzed by violence.

Yet those inside the reconstruction effort say security concerns were hardly the only problem. Poor planning and coordination by U.S. officials meant that even successful individual projects failed to do the job; for example, health-care centers were built at great cost but had no water and sewer service. Poor work-site management by contractors meant that some projects went awry. And now that the United States is handing over reconstruction efforts to Iraq, many involved with the process worry that the Iraqis don't have the training or the money to keep U.S.-built facilities running.

Are you libs saying you know how to spend my money better than I do? Cheezits, that's why I carry a gun!

But, dys. I would change that, too. No Child Left Behind was designed by a Democrat and signed into law by a Republican for that very purpose.

I'm just wincing because anyone thinks these universally supported goals are all Democrat or all republican.

How would you change it?

Lash, Quit trying to blame the democrats on NCLB. The Bush congress approved it, then didn't fund it sufficiently to work. The Bush congress went so far as to enforce their mandate by cutting funding if they didn't meet their goals. The republicans are supposed to be for "less government intrusion." Why did they approve NCLB. Go figure.

CI-- I'm not trying to blame anyone for anything. Kennedy and co-horts designed NCLB. Period.

I think school choice, more than anything else, could help our school system.

Yeah, let's subtract a ton of money from the public school system, that'll increase the quality of education.

And hey, let's give that money to schools in which there are no mandated standards about what can and cannot be taught. That will improve the overall quality of the students in the end, yeah.

Cycloptichron

So cyc,

How is mandated standards and more money spent per student than any other time in history helping our students now?

The public school system in this country is fucked and it has been fucked since I can remember. Probably since it was a gleam in some pointy hatted man's eye.

Money doesn't help.

The restructuring going on now is at least an attempt to make it decent.

I'm on my way to help as I can--and I see big differences on the inside of teaching as a result. It is competitive. Salaries are going up--if you are in a school system that is doing its job. Teacher accountability is the best thing to happen to public ed, imo.

What you don't see is the increase in minority student drop outs, teaching students to pass a test over creativity, and the closing of many schools across the country. If those are "benefits" in your opinion, you need to go back and learn the damage NCLB has imposed on the American school system and our students.

re Education, the first thing would be to do away with all local school boards.

That way the bureaucrats in the Federal Government, Teacher's unions, Text Book Publixhers,and other members of the standing Educational establishment (and its internal revolving dors), who really know what's good for us, will have a free field to do what they want with our educational sysyem.

So much for local government, democracy, and individual rights. Doesn't sound very "Liberal" to me (using the definition Dys offered on page 1.)

Dys may have meant he would privatize and voucherize the school system, eliminating the need for school boards. It surprises me a bit, but it's more likely than him wanting to put the Feds in charge of schooling.

I, by no means, want to federalize education, but I do want to equalize education and that can never happen under the current centuries old and outdated local school board system.
george, this is a cheap shot totally unwarranted. Not like you at all.
"So much for local government, democracy, and individual rights. Doesn't sound very "Liberal" to me (using the definition Dys offered on page 1.)"

dys, You can't blame george too much, because that's about the same reaction I had, but knew better about you - and further explantion of what you meant.

in just one of Colorado's 183 school districts, Colorado Springs School District 11, 24 administrators make more than $100,000 - including the superintendent ($272,000), two deputy superintendents ($203,000), four executive directors ($139,000), a community relations director ($113,000), plus 16 others making more than Colorado's governor. ... only about 57 percent of their money reaches their classrooms. This is an example ot "school board" governance and it stinks. I believe there is more than sufficient funding for (generally speaking) public education but over the past 3 decades increases in funding have beenused to develop a broadened "administrative" cadre with no real function so they findselves generating increased documentation for the still too large classroom sizes, lack of educational materials, building maintenance etc. Which has had the result of less classroom teaching and more busy-work in order to justify the expanding administrators occupation.

Well, I didn't intend it as a cheap shot.

Perhaps I misunderstand your position. To me disestablishing local school boards (and all their admitted venality) means the end of an already greatly diminished local control of schools.

What do you mean by "equalizing education"? I readily agree that, under any scenario that quickly comes to mind, this will require the end of local control of budgets, curriculum, etc.

Do you mean equalizing the money spent, per capita? This could be viewed as unfair to schools in high cost areas which must pay more for facilities and staff. Even voucher-based systems would have this defect.

Do you mean equalizing the curriculum? This will require the empowerment of a centtralized authority with the power to dictate to all.

Do you mean investing whatever it takes to equalize the measured performance of graduating students? This could lead to expensive and unforseen side effects as local populations are effecively immunized from the effects of their own behavior, good or bad (in child rearing and parental inviolvement in education.) My experience in life tells me that will lead to no good.

I believe we all would like to see better education for as many peiople who are likely to benefit from it - at least up to certain tolerable limits on cost. The rub here - as with most social and political issues - is how to achieve it, or something like it. My impression is that liberals (in the American useage of the term) often prefer top-down, organized and centrally directed solutions and conservatives often prefer local ones maximizing individual inittiatie and freedom of choice.