[Vision2020] Say What?

Fri Dec 2 14:25:16 PST 2011

Jay and V2020 readers, 

I probably should clarify some issues associated with my recent comments on Newt and his half-assed remarks.  I did go to work (and thought myself extraordinarily fortunate) immediately after my 16th birthday at Gritman Hospital.  And, I need hardly mention that in those long ago days nurse’s aides cleaned a lot of rooms, changed linen on beds, and emptied bedpans.  It was not glamorous work especially if one only considered the job description.  But I learned so much that a snotty, self-important teenager like me needed to learn.  I earned my own spending money,  I learned that I was not the center of the universe, I witnessed both death and birth at a relatively young age,  and those experiences changed my worldview and my sense of what is really important, that is, people not things. In fairness, Peter, Paul and Mary, not to mention Joan Baez, also deserve some credit.  I wish every teen could have the working and learning opportunity that I had.  

I specifically mentioned race in my email because I believe that Newt is not so subtly appealing to racist notions of welfare queens living in Detroit wasting tax payers money, addicted to crack and the shopping networks. Somehow, I doubt he is referring to Pine Ridge South Dakota where grinding poverty and lack of employment is heartbreakingly beyond our understanding or experience.  I don’t think he was referring to the thousands of families who have had their homes foreclosed <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/22/foreclosure-us-america-mortgage-payment_n_933106.html>  in the last couple of years.  Newt and this third wife probably don’t run into those folks on their trips to Tiffany’s.  And he certainly couldn’t be referencing the 13 million + who are unemployed through no fault of their own.

I am a fiscal conservative too.  I want our government to stop immediately funding pointless, never ending wars, in the middle East. I am sick unto death that we prop up every tin pot dictator and tribal crook who we hope will do us a favorite someday. Every person on V2020 has a laundry list of wasted government money.  However, unlike you, I’m not such a fan of unregulated private enterprise, nor do I necessarily believe that govt. programs, public schools for example, produce a less credible product.  

Rose Huskey

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Jay Borden
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 11:52 AM
To: Saundra Lund; Tom Hansen; Moscow Vision 2020
Cc: Penni Cyr
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say What?

You’re right… I don’t know where my synapses recorded “summer” in the video… but I sure got “afternoons”.

As far as the “race” issue goes, it was from Rosemary’s response… I was giving a more generic “huh?” reply, and just tagged it onto your email… but even in your reply here you use the term “bigoted”… when I don’t get any sense of bigotry from the video clip.

For (whatever) record, I’m a PRACTICAL fiscal conservative and a social liberal.  This means that if someone can demonstrate to me a value in spending money, I’m for it.  I’m for “surgical” spending to solve a root problem.  I’m not for “shotgun” spending to blanket a generic symptom.  If it can be shown (or logically outlined) that a funding in one area results in equal or greater decreases in a different area, I’m all for it.   When given a choice between problems being solved between private enterprise vs. public program, I tend to lean much more towards the natural efficiencies inherent in a private enterprise.  

Being a social liberal, it also means I don’t carry any of the baggage of any of the Christian-right… and I don’t carry a “Republican” moniker.  In my experience, the differences between “Republican” and “Democrat” lie in the rate at which either party tends to grow government. 

As far as where the funding comes from?  I don’t know… but if the idea has any merit, it warrants more discussion, not just immediate dismissal.  It seems rather short-sighted to shoot it down just by calling the orator names or trying to find hidden meanings in (what seems to be) a straight-forward speech.

I find it interesting that a few (liberal?) folks posted up here the value they found in their childhood labor efforts… yet when some sort of program is suggested to provide some sort of jobs for kids, it’s suddenly worse than cancer.

Do schools close exactly at 3:00pm in the afternoon?  Seems to me I (more often than not) stayed after school for a variety of after school activities (band, various club meetings, etc)… not to mention any number of (ahem) after-school detentions.   Perhaps that’s changed in the past 25 years, and janitors get the entire school cleaned up by 3:01pm.  

When I watch the video… all I see is a guy standing up there talking about an idea for after-school jobs program for kids.  He throws two ideas off the top of his head (greeter and assistant janitor)… and talks about a reading program where kids are paid to read.  

Programs that teach the kids the value of work I’m in favor of.  

Jay

From: Saundra Lund [mailto:v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm] 
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 11:05 AM
To: Jay Borden; 'Tom Hansen'; 'Moscow Vision 2020'
Cc: 'Penni Cyr'
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Say What?

Yes, Jay:  do watch the video again because Nasty Newt said nothing about summers for his notion of paying “poor” kids to work in the schools, only about afternoons.  The “early & practical” part was how young to start the “poor” students down that path.

Besides, it would be really difficult to pay “poor” children with “no work habit” to work in schools when schools aren’t open.  Duh.  I suspect some public school districts have found ways to continue to run summer schools, but my understanding is those programs have become few & far between over the last decade or so as funding has eroded.  Perhaps someone with more current information could address that aspect.

And, I never said anything about race – where do you get that from my post???  I talked about the children from economically disadvantaged families . . . 

Since you’re a fiscal conservative, it’s interesting that you completely neglected to address the funding question.  The money to pay anyone – even children – has to come from somewhere, and when schools don’t have money for textbooks or teachers or to repair unsafe schools, the funding issue seems to be something even Nasty Newt wants to avoid discussing, perhaps because he has no problem further gutting actual education to fund his bigoted idea.

Yes, the people I know would be recoiling in horror & disgust regardless of who made such bigoted comments.

But, then I guess you don’t find the assumption that children from “poor” families don’t have “work habits” and any clue about earning money “honestly” offensive.

Bully for you.

Saundra

From: Jay Borden [mailto:jborden at datawedge.com] 
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 10:31 AM
To: Saundra Lund; Tom Hansen; Moscow Vision 2020
Cc: Penni Cyr
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Say What?

Ok, I get it… folks here don’t like Newt Gingrich.  (He’s not really on my Christmas list either)…

But unless I’m missing some larger context outside the video link… Gingrich never said or implied that academic time would be traded for work  (in fact, he said something to the effect of “afternoons and summers” and “when practical/feasible” (but I’d have to watch the video again to get the exact phrase)… 

Gingrich never said (or implied) that this has anything to do with black kids vs. white kids vs. whatever race you want to inject into the issue…

>From what I can tell, this is a “speaking out loud” moment where New Gingrich is talking about ideas for after-school job programs for kids…  

It seems largely the folks that are balking at this speech are more sneering at the messenger than the idea… and letting the idea get muddled up the process.  

Would folks be recoiling in horror and disgust if it were Bill Clinton that was up there uttering the same words?

Jay

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Saundra Lund
Sent: Friday, December 02, 2011 10:09 AM
To: 'Tom Hansen'; 'Moscow Vision 2020'
Cc: 'Penni Cyr'
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say What?

I know I’m late adding my two cents & that some really great comments have already been made, but I’m absolutely stunned that at a time when virtually everyone with a brain understands that our children need more – not less – education, Nasty Newt apparently finds education so unimportant for children from economically challenged families that they can “afford” to lose academic time out of their school day to learn work habits.

And, I’m even more stunned that at a time when some have incessantly whined about the imaginary “class warfare” of the 99% against those morally bankrupt on Wall Street & in Big Business, those same folks aren’t complaining about Nasty Newt’s very real class warfare against the children from socio-economically disadvantaged families by advocating cutting their academic time.    And, frankly, I don’t know what’s wrong with people who don’t find the grossly inaccurate stereotyping behind Nasty Newt’s “plan” absolutely disgusting.

I also found myself wondering where Nasty Newt thinks the money to pay for his brilliant <snort> idea would come from, particularly at a time when all too many schools lack funding for basics like textbooks, health & safety facilities repairs, etc.?  I guess he thinks money must grow on trees to pay for his inane ideas.

Now, remind me again:  which groups support class warfare???

Saundra Lund

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Tom Hansen
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 6:08 PM
To: Moscow Vision 2020
Cc: Penni Cyr
Subject: [Vision2020] Say What?

"A very poor neighborhood. You have kids that who are under law required to go to school. They have no money. They have no habit of work. What if you paid them part-time in the afternoon to sit in the clerical office, and greet people when they came in? What if you paid them to work as an assistant librarian? 

Let me get down to the janitor thing, and these letters are written that janitorial work is really hard and really dangerous and this and that.  Fine.  So what if they became assistant janitors and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom. And you pay them."

- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (December 1, 2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gsc9ElmJEs

-----------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

"If not us, who?

If not now, when?"

- Unknown

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