All snarking aside, where would I go if I wanted to learn just what the plan is from the progressive side of the aisle? Greece and France just voted socialist/communist/fascist. What's the goal and how is it to be realized? I've read the stuff out of the newsmedia and none of it makes any sense at all, at least from a mathematical point of view.
Second, what's the plan to help out places like East Cleveland where the traditional, nuclear family has ceased to exist? What is the intellectual model at work to stop things like this? Who blogs or writes about this with any intellectual coherence that one can examine?
At this point we're faced with choosing who we think will do the least amount of damage. With the current makeup of congress, Obama will get nothing done - so status quo is maintained. Mitt appears to have no ideas of his own. He's currently incapable of presenting a clear vision of where we should go, and how we should get there. The latter is key. You can be like Paul and say close all the government down, but without a realistic plan of how that is achieved without creating chaos its pointless posturing.
What is interesting about Greece and France is that the rating agencies downgraded those countries because they choose to ONLY implement austerity programs. They feared that the conservative plan to only cut and cut would result in a double dip recession. It has. The public gave them a chance and its only made matters worse. They figure its time to try another approach. That is not an unreasonable reaction.
Yeah, I can't find anything, either. There's no progressive model for success any more, it's just spending money so we can feel good about ourselves.
My work with fatherless young men doesn't scale well. It's a huge amount of work to try and help them catch up. Spend all the money you want, if you personally aren't going to dedicate many hours each week to one individual, it's all just political posturing.
KT, you make a good point. There does seem to be a lot of throwing money at problems. Remember that IBM ad ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZmHDEa0Y20).
Its very easy to become discouraged when you look at the big picture. Really the best most of us can do is focus on our own communities. Saving one man might seem like a drop in the bucket, but think about the costs to his family, his neighborhood, and the costs to society if he isn't put on the right track. Its a force multiplier. A bit of investment early on goes a long way.
My brother in law had a job at a middle school in Florida. He was working for a non-profit, but was physically present in the school. The kids saw him as a neutral third party. He was able to reach them in ways that the school couldn't because the school was seen as the authority. His job was cut a couple years ago because of the recession. Now one should ask, was that really the best use of funds. To incarcerate just one person costs more than his salary. So if he keeps one child on the right path, the state has broken even. the state never questions pouring more into the prison system, but refuses to even consider preventative measures.
If you consider the penal system's rate of recividism as its failure rate, no other public service would be allowed to function that way.
4 comments:
All snarking aside, where would I go if I wanted to learn just what the plan is from the progressive side of the aisle? Greece and France just voted socialist/communist/fascist. What's the goal and how is it to be realized? I've read the stuff out of the newsmedia and none of it makes any sense at all, at least from a mathematical point of view.
Second, what's the plan to help out places like East Cleveland where the traditional, nuclear family has ceased to exist? What is the intellectual model at work to stop things like this? Who blogs or writes about this with any intellectual coherence that one can examine?
At this point we're faced with choosing who we think will do the least amount of damage. With the current makeup of congress, Obama will get nothing done - so status quo is maintained. Mitt appears to have no ideas of his own. He's currently incapable of presenting a clear vision of where we should go, and how we should get there. The latter is key. You can be like Paul and say close all the government down, but without a realistic plan of how that is achieved without creating chaos its pointless posturing.
What is interesting about Greece and France is that the rating agencies downgraded those countries because they choose to ONLY implement austerity programs. They feared that the conservative plan to only cut and cut would result in a double dip recession. It has. The public gave them a chance and its only made matters worse. They figure its time to try another approach. That is not an unreasonable reaction.
Yeah, I can't find anything, either. There's no progressive model for success any more, it's just spending money so we can feel good about ourselves.
My work with fatherless young men doesn't scale well. It's a huge amount of work to try and help them catch up. Spend all the money you want, if you personally aren't going to dedicate many hours each week to one individual, it's all just political posturing.
KT,
you make a good point. There does seem to be a lot of throwing money at problems. Remember that IBM ad ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZmHDEa0Y20).
Its very easy to become discouraged when you look at the big picture. Really the best most of us can do is focus on our own communities. Saving one man might seem like a drop in the bucket, but think about the costs to his family, his neighborhood, and the costs to society if he isn't put on the right track. Its a force multiplier. A bit of investment early on goes a long way.
My brother in law had a job at a middle school in Florida. He was working for a non-profit, but was physically present in the school. The kids saw him as a neutral third party. He was able to reach them in ways that the school couldn't because the school was seen as the authority. His job was cut a couple years ago because of the recession. Now one should ask, was that really the best use of funds. To incarcerate just one person costs more than his salary. So if he keeps one child on the right path, the state has broken even. the state never questions pouring more into the prison system, but refuses to even consider preventative measures.
If you consider the penal system's rate of recividism as its failure rate, no other public service would be allowed to function that way.
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