[WS:] Very true. But what surprises me is that a lot of liberal types (not everyone, to be sure) swallow that crap raw without even raising their eyebrows.
This raises a more general issues of liberal Dems playing the role of useful idiots in search and destroy missions launched by the right. The right wants to defund social services (mental health, family support, education, etc.) but doing so openly may cast them as greedy uncaring bastards (which often they are) and adversely affect their popularity, or perhaps the image of the US abroad (which does matter.) So they let the useful idiots into the game whose naive tropes of "protecting the patient rights" "helping the disadvantaged kids" "improving the chance of success" etc. provide a more palatable cover for the defunding. At the end, the services get cut or altogether eliminated, their clients kicked into the streets, and the useful idiots get a few crumbs in the form of sinecures at "special programs" that look good on paper but at best are a drop in the bucket of need, or research joints that study those programs ad nauseum.
Wojtek
On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 12:30 AM, Joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> The bashing is part of a general anti-union, anti-public services,
> anti-pension campaign.
>
> Two facts that have been documented that I know about: 1) states with
> strong teachers' unions also happen to be very highly ranked for the
> education they deliver (for example Mass.) and 2) they have a slightly
> higher turnover than states with no teachers' unions. That is, the idea that
> unions guarantee jobs independently of performance is not supported by the
> facts.
>
> Every day I open the paper, I am told that the greatest robbers are
> pensioned state workers, unionized workers, and any kind of public
> "entitlement" program -- with the exception of govt support for the armed
> forces, agribusiness, finance, etc.
>
> The evil teachers unions have been hotly debated in an Oakland Unified
> School District chat group. One man in particular wailed loud and long about
> how horrible public education was because of the greedy unionized teachers.
> Finally, he wrote a long diatribe about how well teachers were paid.
> Unfortunately he estimated their salaries to be about twice what they
> actually are, and has been relatively quiet since. What's interesting is
> that he had almost no support on the list from others.
>
> Joanna
>
>
>
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