Sept. 13, 2006 – Lugano (americanpolitics.com) – I am such a lucky guy.
All my life I worked hard for my advocacy clients, my candidates — on both sides of the aisle — and my son.
Sure, I've had my ups and downs, and many of you have shared them with me.
Today, as I split my time between The District, Palm Beach, New York, Lake Lugano, and Philadelphia, I have great opportunity to watch and record what's going on around me — what people look at, how they are building their lives (or not), how greedy they are (or not), how giving they are (or not), and how stupid they are (or not).
There is no question that the generation scheduled to finish high school these days is less educated than mine, but it also appears that it will — as did generation X — proceed to produce plenty of doctoral candidates, physicians, scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. In fact, it appears we have too many of these geniuses. Take a gander at the underemployment of men and women that went to grad school for from eight to twelve years behind college. It's a disarming fact of life — and makes poop out of the argument that our educators are letting us down. What educators are doing, however, is ignoring the ignoramuses — which is not good, because these kids' parents are already marginalized, and they will be in an even worse position as they grow into the workforce or welfare lines.
So, with less than two months to go until Election Day 2006 — a point in time that makes far more sense than January — let's assess the State of the Union — Let's take a look at what the Bush Legacy is thus far — and where we might be by the time we escape the era of his Administration and the influence of people surrounding him.
Education
The only result from Bush's "Leave No Child Behind" scheme is that he has left millions of kids behind.
Mr. Bush's belief that tests tell all is about as stupid as the old "tracking" systems used in the most forward-thinking school systems in New York during the 1950s. During that period, students in the sixth grade were tested to see if it was worth it to train them for college. If the test deemed that the student was not "college" material, they were put in shop class for the rest of their middle- and high school careers. Bush has created mayhem. Teachers now teach nothing but math and English, and teach to the tests. It matters not whether our children take a look at art, biology, history, and other "unimportant" subjects — just get those test scores up to make sure Bush shares the federal money with our schools!
Absurd.
It's gone so far that school administrators are being prosecuted for reporting falsely high test scores in an attempt to save their kids and their own jobs. Teachers are fed up. All of a sudden, the nation that led the way in almost any subject is now concerned that it's not keeping up.
Why?
Because "No Child Left Behind" is a fraud. The reason we are testing is to break the backs of teachers' unions, a goal has been a Neocon agenda item for decades — and this is how it is being done.
Housing
What a disgrace.
Bush has created such a monetary panic that the rich have lost all conscience — understandably — choosing to make certain that their own families are protected and living in neighborhoods that even Croesus could not afford. The gap between rich and poor has grown to unconscionable levels. Working men and women make less now (in buying power) than they did in 1958. The cheapest new car costs almost as much as the average annual income per capita. The average home price is now 10 times the annual income of the average American except in the most deserted locales where no jobs are available anyway.