#2
I remember Saul Alinsky coming to my city (Kansas City). My father, who never cursed - at least in English - gave the family a long lecture on the evils of this commie symp (my words). And now his "great" disciple rules the land... :((
#3
Joe Stalin gave the Communists a bad name so now they call themselves Democrats.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/23/2009 13:14 Comments ||
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#4
I heard Alinsky speak once,and he said that African American protesters should eat baked beans and then do the wind damage in crowded theaters. Kinda infantile.
The Associated Press, a organization with so little respect for fair use that they expect you to pay for a license to quote as little as five words from its articles, describes how it relied on fair use to do reporting on Sarah Palin's memoir Glowing Rouge:
"The AP was determined to get the first copy," Oreskes [a senior managing editor] wrote, detailing how the writers learned a store had "inadvertently placed the book on sale five days before its official Nov. 17 release date." "They bought a copy, ripped it from its spine and scanned it into the system so it could be read and electronically searched," he wrote.
As Rebecca Tushnet notes, this is fair use. And so is quoting the AP.
One of our long-running political stories is the economic assault on the young by the old. We have become a society that invests in its past and disfavors the future. This makes no sense for the nation, but as politics, it makes complete sense. The elderly and near elderly are better organized, focus obsessively on their government benefits, and seem deserving. Grandmas and Grandpas command sympathy.
Everyone knows that the resulting "entitlements" dominate government spending and squeeze education, research, defense and almost everything else. In fiscal 2008 -- the last "normal" year before the economic crisis -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (programs wholly or primarily dedicated to the elderly) totaled $1.3 trillion, 43 percent of federal spending and more than twice military spending. Because workers, not retirees, are the primary taxpayers, this spending involves huge transfers to the old.
Comes now the House-passed health care "reform" bill that, amazingly, would extract more subsidies from the young. It mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of younger Americans. That's much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old. Spending for those aged 60-64 is four to five times greater than those 18-24. So, the young would overpay for insurance which -- under the House bill -- people must buy: 20- and 30-somethings would subsidize premiums for 50- and 60-somethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.)
Not surprisingly, the 40-million member AARP, the major lobby for Americans over 50, was a big force behind this provision. AARP's cynicism is breathtaking. On the one hand, it sponsors a high-minded campaign called "Divided We Fail" and runs sentimental TV ads featuring children pleading for a better tomorrow. "Join us in championing your future and the future of every generation," ended one AARP ad.
Meanwhile, AARP lobbyists scramble to shift their members' costs onto younger generations. For example, the House health legislation improves Medicare's drug benefit. That would help the half of AARP members who are over 65. The other half, those between 50 and 64, could benefit from the skewed insurance premiums.
Although premium changes would apply mainly to people using insurance "exchanges," the differences would be substantial. A single person 55-64 might save $3,490, estimates an Urban Institute study. By contrast, single people in their 20s and early 30s might pay from about $600 to $1,100 more. For the young, the extra cost might be larger, says economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Hudson Institute, because the House bill would require them to purchase fairly generous insurance plans rather than cheaper catastrophic coverage that might better suit their needs.
Whatever the added burden, it would darken the young's already poor economic prospects. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds is 19 percent. Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, notes on his blog that high joblessness depresses young workers' wages and that the adverse effect -- though diminishing -- "is still statistically significant 15 years later." Lost wages over 20 years could total $100,000. Orszag doesn't mention that health care "reform" might compound the loss.
AARP justifies the cost-shifting as preventing age discrimination. Premiums based on age should be no more acceptable than premiums based on medical expenses reflecting race, gender or pre-existing health conditions, it says. The House legislation bans those, so it should also ban age-based rates. AARP dislikes even the 2-1 limit. It thinks premiums for someone 22 and someone 62 should be identical. (In insurance jargon, that would be full "community rating.")
This is unconvincing. All insurance aims to protect against risk -- but within groups facing similar risks. Put differently, most insurance is risk-adjusted. Auto insurance premiums vary by age; younger drivers pay higher rates because they have more accidents. Homeowners' policies for similar houses cost more in high-crime areas. This is not "discrimination"; it's a reflection of risk and cost differences. Insurers that ignored these differences would soon vanish, because they'd suffer heavy losses and lose customers.
On health insurance, we may choose to override some risk adjustments (say, for pre-existing medical conditions) for public policy reasons. But the case for making age one of these exceptions is weak. Working Americans -- the young and middle-aged -- already pay a huge part of the health costs of the elderly through Medicare and Medicaid. These will grow with an aging population and surging health spending. Either taxes will rise or other public services will fall. Already, all governments spend 2.4 times as much per capita on the elderly as on children, reports Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution. Why increase the imbalance?
It's true that premiums for older people would be higher. But this might have a silver lining: Facing their true health costs, older Americans might become more eager to control spending.
#1
If the young subsidize enough health care for the old then the old will die with more of their assets intact to pay 55% inheritance tax on - better (for government) than the 15% or so they would have gotten taxing the poor young folks.
No. Ma and Pa command a special interest group. When we slipped from a representative government of the people to a representative government of special interests, those who were not recognized by act or deed or propaganda to be a designated 'group' were screwed. Ma and Pa also vote in higher numbers than the 'utes' who are engaged in more mundane aspects of life rather than literally 'life and death'. Ma and Pa sell a good 'guilt' game up there with baby ducks, unicorns and rainbows polar bears.
#4
The article makes it sound like us old farts are gonna make out like bandits. Sure, when they take $500B from Medicare to pay for "the public option"? Screw AARP - they're more interested in the money they make from their insurance programs than they are in representing greys. And the plan includes some nice bribes "incentives" for AARP to string along.
Judging from the way his critics have been going on, I would say that Tunku Varadarajan was on to something in his Forbes column "Going Muslim."
The reaction to his important and well-reasoned article ironically confirms and further underlines his central point; namely, that out of political correctness we refuse to see and act on the obvious--the implication of Islamist ideology in violent acts such as the murders perpetrated by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
Instead of addressing the substance of Mr. Varadarajan's arguments, the self-appointed spokespersons for Islam turn the whole discussion around and present Muslims as the victims of "hate-speech" or "Islamophobia." This now-familiar rhetorical tactic deflects public attention away from an entirely legitimate and necessary question: Would this crime make any sense apart from Islamist ideology? Congrats to Forbes for printing the earlier piece and this piece. Shame on the NYTimes and WaPo for evading the point.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/23/2009 11:21 ||
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They must denounce exclusionary biases and embrace the vision. (Or else.)
Do you believe in the American dream -- the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools -- at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus.
In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U's College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of "the American Dream" in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace -- and be prepared to teach our state's kids -- the task force's own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.
The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U's flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers' lack of "cultural competence" contributes to the poor academic performance of the state's minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.
The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the "overarching framework" for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep. Clearly the curriculum is the Bill Ayers-recommended one ...
The first step toward "cultural competence," says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize -- and confess -- their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China's Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2009 10:43 ||
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#1
We are so close to the point of no return when people get so sick of this crap that they resort to violence. Hopefully, these idiots get thrown out quickly because of public outrage.
#3
I've been thinking about this story. I recall another story from about a year ago where some school of social work in Missouri was mandating a similar requirement for its graduates -- in essence, one couldn't be a certified social worker unless you believed the usual progressive, tranzi nonsense.
There must be some legal reason why these folks think they can get past the First Amendment rights of students (as it is incorporated by the 14th Amendment to states). You cannot tell me how and what to think as a condition of having a state license. That seems clearly in violation of the 1st.
Someone know of the legal issues here?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2009 12:49 Comments ||
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#4
Yup. Confess the heinous sin of heresy and attempting to hijack the people's revolution onto the capitalist road, or else. Repeated denial of your guilt is a symptom of mental illness and you need to be hauled off to the nuthouse.
The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers' lack of "cultural competence" contributes to the poor academic performance of the state's minority students.
Have to admire them taking a problem and turning into something that they can use for their own ends. This is why we're getting our asses kicked, people.
#5
Tenure was established to protect controversial subjects and teachings. Since the faculty basically has done away with alternate views and killed academic freedom in the name of 'social justice', the state can do away with tenure. Just in time for cost cutting.
#6
Not to worry. America is a free market with everything, to include higher education. These schools will go the way of news print and liberal radio. There are not many parents that will be willing to pay for this drivel.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/23/2009 22:06 Comments ||
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#7
There are not many parents that will be willing to pay for this drivel.
Don't worry, the government will make it another 'option' plan.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
