[Vision2020] A 5% percent pay cut

[Joe Campbell]

Thanks, Ted!



On Feb 6, 2011, at 4:20 PM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

> Joe Campbell philosopher.joe at gmail.com
> Sun Feb 6 14:32:31 PST 2011 wrote:
> 
> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-February/074507.html
> 
> Post in full at website above:
> 
> "I'm against colleges in general and state universities in particular
> becoming trade schools. We already have those kinds of institutions. Real
> education, and how best to make it available to the general public, is a
> much more complicated and difficult matter than you imagine it to be."
> ---------------------
> Of course.
> 
> To argue otherwise is to woefully dismiss some of the essential
> functions of education, which cannot be reduced to economic variables,
> or or least the sort of economic equations which are often employed in
> the world of business, banking and finance, that do not include
> externalities essential to the full development of being human, and
> the full consideration of the implications of the profound scientific
> truth that the Earth is a living system which humanity is dependent
> upon, as a subset of the system.
> 
> Perhaps my points here have already been made in the "5% pay cut"
> thread, which I have not followed extensively.  If so, I apologize for
> the redundancy...
> 
> Jan. 8, 2011 I wrote:
> 
> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-January/073763.html
> 
> "If making valid probable evaluations of the truth of a given complex
> difficult subject, whether it be foreign policy, economics and taxes,
> human rights, scientific issues, etc. is not possible for
> non-specialists without a PhD., then the public very often could not
> make informed educated votes to determine the best course for society.
> 
> We perhaps should adopt Plato's model, where society is run by
> committes of PhD. experts (I hope I am not too greatly distorting
> Plato's thoughts).
> 
> And if not, if we are to defend the assumptions of
> Democracy, then a broad based education offered broadly to the public
> is mandated for the very health and foundation of Democracy, so that
> the public can make valid informed evaluations of complex issues when
> they vote."
> ----------
> I'll expand on these comments with specific examples of the serious
> consequences of the failure to educate the public with a broad based
> education that develops independent critical thinking skills, on a
> wide variety of subjects, that impacts how they vote, thus how their
> representatives vote, and the legislation or lack thereof that is thus
> passed into law:
> 
> Propagandists manipulate the US public in 2002-3 with scare tactics
> about non-existent WMD in Iraq (the "mushrooom cloud over America"),
> encouraging an invasion and war that has cost the US dearly in lives
> and treasure.  Read what I wrote on Vision2020 Jan. 20, 2003, prior to
> the invasion of Iraq, where I offered my top ten reasons for the
> invasion: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2003-January/000218.html
> "But what, you might say, about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq
> sponsored terrorism?  I think any realistic analysis of these threats
> exposes them as minor, blown way out of proportion to be used as moral
> justifications for what is nothing more than good old fashioned imperialism.
> Numerous other states are more of a threat with weapons of mass
> destruction and sponsoring terrorism."
> ---------------------
> The public is manipulated to accept deregulation of Wall Street and
> banking by voting for politicians promoting capitalist free market
> fundamentalism, resulting in the greatest economic collapse since the
> Great Depression:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magazine/28wwln-reconsider.html
> "Their near-religious belief in the powers of the market led them to
> conclude that the mere fact that a company was willing to make an
> investment made that investment O.K."
> ---------------------
> The public is manuipulated by the promotion of junk science and junk
> science journalism, into a widespread belief that the scientific
> community is engaged in massive fraud or/incompetence on the issue of
> anthropogenic climate warming, resulting in legislative inaction to
> mitigate a problem that will have immense negative impacts.  "Climate
> Cover Up" by James Hoggan exlores this issue:  'How to Manipulate
> Public Opinion"
> http://knowledge.allianz.com/?547/climate-cover-up-how-to-manipulate-public-opinion-hoggan
> ----------------------
> In the past 16 years, numerous US states passed DOMA or Super DOMA
> laws, unconstitutionally discriminating against a group for their
> sexual orientation, promoted in large measure by religious groups who
> believe that a book with numerous contradictions and exhortations to
> commit cruel acts, contains the perfect word of God:
> http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_mar6a.htm
> ----------------------
> Numerous other examples of the harm to society resulting from a public
> that does not possess a broad based education that develops
> independent critical thinking skills, on a wide variety of subjects,
> could be offered...
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett