[lbo-talk] U.S. working class: buncha morons

[snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com]

At 12:00 PM 3/2/2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>[this is the conclusion to a press release from the headhunting firm 
>Challenger Gray & Christmas, reporting on their monthly tally of layoff 
>announcements, which was way up in Feb.]
><...>
>This scenario could begin playing out again and again for companies across 
>the country, particularly when one considers the following statistics from 
>the Department of Education's Adult Literacy Survey:
>
>·        52% of high school graduates lack the basic skills required to do 
>their jobs adequately.
>·        50% of the U.S. population aged 16-65 is functionally illiterate.
>·        Only 25% of high school graduates are considered to have 
>excellent basic skills.

There are just too many bits flying and too much ink spilling on this issue 
lately. The funny thing is, the "problem" of workers unable to do their 
jobs, in the past, fueled public schooling -- because corporations didn't 
want to foot the entire costs of educating their workforce. So where are 
those voices? I mean, are they just completely cowed by the disastrously 
wrong "common wisdom" that the public schools are the root of the problem?

*sigh*

it's all pretty depressing. Like watching a big steam roller flatten 
everyone as they throw themselves in front of it yelling, "I want to be 
pavement! I want to be pavement!"

k

"The setuid bit allows a program to execute with root privileges.
Suppose MeatPuppy needs access to root control in order to run
the Pope.  When Satan Himself runs it, it doesn't need root,
since Satan *is* the Root of all Evil, having user ID 0."

                      --Woodchuckery's UNIX tutorial