Education vs Training

"One trains for the known, but educates for the unknown...."

Thomas Ricks

One Nation, Indivisible? Not Exactly

I wasn't pleased with the results of last Tuesday's municipal election in Oriental. That makes three elections in a row that I found disappointing, but I am not discouraged. My adult life has been spent defending democracy, and I still believe in it. But the older I get, the more I understand Winston Churchill's remark that democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others that have ever been tried.

We need to remember, though, that our form of democracy is not the only possible form.

Can we get better (more democratic) results with a little tweaking, or do we need more fundamental restructuring? Maybe not.

Last week, I received in the mail my copy of the Fall, 2013 alumni magazine from Tufts University. It included an article by a 1991 graduate, Colin Woodard, entitled "Up in Arms." "The battle lines of today's debates over gun control, stand-your-ground laws, and other violence-related issues," the heading declared, "were drawn centuries ago by America's early settlers."

Woodard looks at all of North America, dividing it into eleven identifiable nations: Yankeedom, New Netherlands, The Midlands, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, Deep South, El Norte, The Left Coast, The Far West, New France, and First Nation. The Washington Post asks, "which of the11 American nations do you live in" and includes a link to the article. It is well worth reading. Building on the work of historian David Hackett Fisher, whose seminal work of cultural history, Albion's Seed, calls attention to four original migrations from the British Isles, Woodard also cites later work by the social psychologist Nisbett, Robert Baller of the University of Iowa, Pauline Grosjean of Australia and others.

The most interesting feature of Woodard's article is a map depicting, county by county, the location of each of the eleven dominant "nations" today. It turns out that I have lived in eight of the eleven nations.

How does this play out in American political life?

Since 1990, I have followed the work of the Times-Mirror Center, now the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press. Following each presidential election for the past twenty-two years, the Center has surveyed the public for opinions on public policy. Each survey results in a "political typology," breaking down the population into anywhere from nine to eleven clusters of opinion.

The most recent typology, published here, breaks the population down into ten groupings. None is likely to correspond to First Nation, but I find it interesting that the number of the Pew Center's clusters is so close to the number of "nations" in Woodard's article. It would be very interesting to see a county by county breakdown of the Pew Center's typology.

Affordable Care Act: What's The Real Problem?

Economist Brad DeLong calls attention to a piece by Jim Tankerslee in Ezra Klein's Blog. Tankerslee explains the problems poor workers in Rome, Georgia have with the ACA as "due to a quirk in the law."

DeLong makes it very plain that it is NOT due to the law. It IS due to a decision by Justice Roberts and his cohorts on the US Supreme Court, coupled with efforts by Republican Governors and State Legislators who intentionally sabotaged the law.

Here is how DeLong explains it:

"The phrases "because of a quirk in the health-care law, and the fact that Georgia declined to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income people like him, Rizer can’t qualify for a subsidy to buy coverage" are not adequate. What Tankersley means is:

1. The ACA provides subsidies for people with incomes more than 1/3 above the poverty level to afford insurance via the exchange-marketplace.
2. The ACA provides coverage for people with lower incomes via the expanded Medicaid program.
3. Chief Justice John Roberts and the other four right-wing justices broke this system by giving individual states the option not to accept the federal money to pay for the expansion of Medicaid.
4. This was a lawless and unforeseen action: no precedent for it in previous court decisions and no warrant for it in the constitution.
5. Because it was a lawless and unforeseen action, it had never struck the minds of anybody drafting the ACA that the John Roberts, C.J., and his Four Horsemen of the Constitution-in-Exile would do such a thing.
6. Thus people with incomes less than 1 1/3 times the poverty level are left high and dry: since they are supposed to be covered by expanded Medicaid, there is no language in the ACA allowing them to claim subsidies.
7. If Roberts, C.J., had been a public-spirited an intelligent man, he would have realized that if he was going to rewrite the ACA to break its Medicaid expansion provision, he also needed to rewrite the exchange subsidy provision to provide people with incomes less than 1 1/3 times the poverty level with access to subsidies.
8. Roberts, C.J., did not do this.
9. Perhaps Roberts simply wanted to harm people with incomes lower than 1 1/3 times poverty who lived in states that would pick up the ball not to expand Medicaid he had given them and run with it, on the theory that creating an aggrieved class for whom the ACA is clearly not working would redound to the political benefit of the Republican Party.
10. Perhaps Roberts did not understand what he was doing.
11. In any event, Roberts rewrote the ACA from the bunch--and so left people with incomes like Donald Rizen's in red states with governors and legislatures who fear the Tea Party out in the cold. All of numbers (1) through (11) are inside Tankersley's "quirk in the health-care law". I know that that is what is inside Tankersley's "quirk in the health-care law". But how many of Tankersley's readers will know that?
12. The state of Georgia did, indeed--in spite of the protests of doctors and hospitals that want Medicaid expansion so they don't have to keep playing the shell-game of cost-shifting in order to raise the resources to cover the treatment of the uninsured--did indeed refuse to expand Medicaid.
13. And that is how the Governor Nathan Deal, the legislature of Georgia, John Roberts, C.J., and the Four Horsemen of the Constitution-in-Exile casually #@#&^ed Donald Rizen, a fifty-something with a bad shoulder, and many other Americans as well. All of numbers (1) through (13) are inside Tankersley's "quirk in the health-care law, and the fact that Georgia declined to expand Medicaid". I know that's what those clauses in Tankersley's article are really saying. But how many of Tankersley's readers will know?
14. And then comes the end of Tankersley's article: "When he visited the federal health insurance exchange Web site, he found the cheapest policy available to him cost $200 a month — one quarter of his current salary. 'Obama', he said, 'he thinks that he’s helping things, but he ain’t'. He fished out a bruised green apple and tossed it aside. Only a few boxes were left." Could there be a crueler irony? The original ACA--the one that Pelosi and Reid passed and that Obama signed--provides Donald Rizen with health-insurance coverage (Medicaid, admittedly, but coverage) for free. It is Republicans John Roberts, Nathan Deal, the legislature, and the Four Horsemen who have casually #@#&^ed him. But who does he blame? He blames Barack Obama."

Make no mistake. That is the Republican scheme.

More On The History Of Republican Election Strategy

Yesterday I provided a link to an article by Michael Lind shedding light on Republican strategy. A strategy, by the way, that has been pretty successful as well as destructive.

Today I offer a link to an article in Salon.com by Salon's editor, Joan Walsh: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/01/the_real_story_of_the_shutdown_50_years_of_gop_race_baiting/

This new article complements the piece by Michael Lind.

I have been following the developments described by both authors for about seventy years. They pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Bruce Bartlett Predicts: Shutdown Will Defeat Republicans In 2014

Writing for the Fiscal Times,  Republican pundit Bruce Bartlett sees a possible Republican defeat in 2014 because of the government shutdown. His analysis is here.

Lincoln On Political Extortion

“A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ ”

Abraham Lincoln, 1860

Tea Party Radicalism: Just A Bit More Extreme?

Much current commentary tends to describe the Tea Party phenomenon as just a bit more extreme than mainstream Republicanism, but within the American tradition. Francis Fukuyama recently tied the Tea Party efforts to the parts of the US Constitution that make it hard for anything to get done.

Michael Lind thinks it is more than that. It may have roots going back to Jefferson and Jackson (and to the Anti-Federalists, but Lind doesn't bring that up), but it represents a fundamentally anti-democratic undertaking. Think Downton Abbey.

Here is Lind's article. It is the best analysis I have read lately, putting it in the context of the American Civil War, the failure of reconstruction, and the reaction to the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act.

There are a lot of different ways to look at current American politics. The different angles overlap, and they all seem to involve race to some degree.

I strongly recommend reading Lind's article.

The Tipping Syndrome

One of the pleasures from browsing through blog sites on the web is the occasional discovery of a new and unexpected insight. The insight that "Republicans are the dissatisfied and angry diners at the table of life." is something that never occurred to me. I keep puzzling over the irrationality of their economic ideas, their rejection of science and facts, and their evident disdain for people who actually work for a living, but I never thought about their general dissatisfaction with the world as it is.

The blog post by Aimai goes on: "We've seen a lot of weird reactions on the right wing to the Government Shut down. These range from "it doesn't matter" to "its terrible" but one thing that really strikes me is the rage and antipathy that has been displayed towards Federal Workers themselves.  It doesn't strike me as unusual, but it does strike me as significant.  Yesterday's on air rant by Stuart Varney makes it pretty explicit: Federal Workers and, indeed, the entire Government are failing Stuart Varney. They cost too much and they do too little.  In fact: they are so awful they don't even deserve to be paid for the work they have already done. Contracts, agreements, and labor be damned. If Stuart Varney isn't happy then they deserve to be fired."

And it all relates to tipping. You have to read the post to uncover the connection, but it calls to mind North Carolina Governor Pat McRory's announcement that he wants the state bureaucracy to adopt a "customer service" mentality. I never knew what he meant. Now I understand. He wants the bureaucracy to act like "wait staff" in a restaurant angling for a tip.

If they can't take bribes, they can at least take orders, and "the customer is always right" - if, that is, he has enough wealth, power or other high status.

German Elections

Interesting article in Atlantic about German elections. It describes a very different form of democracy. I think it has great advantages over ours. Germany's system is one form of proportional representation, where the voters vote for the party whose candidates they wish to see in office. It isn't about individual candidates. Parties select their own candidate list. The number of candidates from each party who win office in parliament depends on how many votes each party receives. Those candidates higher on their party's list have a higher probability of gaining office.

I think there are many advantages to the proportional representation system. One advantage is that it almost inevitably creates more than two parties and to form a government requires forming a coalition. To some extent, parties have to make nice with each other.

Here is a link to the article.

There are differences from country to country in the details, but proportional representation systems have much in common. The political dynamics are very different from "first past the post" or "winner take all" systems like ours.

Anarchist Extortionists Shut Down Government, Intimidate Fellow Legislators

On this day in which a handful of willful extortionists intimidated fellow party members and acted to shut down the US Government, it is worth remembering: we live in a democracy.

The government is us. We are the sovereign. The Tea Party zealots driving this action are not patriots, they are terrorists. They hate the United States. They fear and hate fellow Americans.

They despise democracy. They are having a prolonged tantrum.

Time to give them a time out.

Economist Mark Thoma On Inequality And The Republican Shutdown Shakedown

In a column in the Fiscal Times, economist Mark Thoma explains the real reason for the current fight over the debt limit. He actually puts it more politely than I do, but the article explains pretty clearly what is at stake.

"We have lost something important as a society," Thoma explains, "as inequality has grown over the last several decades, our sense that we are all in this together. Social insurance is a way of sharing the risks that our economic system imposes upon us. As with other types of insurance, e.g. fire insurance, we all put our money into a common pool and the few of us unlucky enough to experience a “fire” – the loss of a job, health problems that wipe out retirement funds, disability, and so on – use the insurance to avoid financial disaster and rebuild as best we can."

One of the themes that jumps out at me from my reading of actions during World War II: American servicemen completely grasped that we were all in this together - they didn't abandon their fellow soldiers and sailors to the enemy. The order to "abandon ship" didn't mean "abandon your shipmates." It didn't mean "you're on your own." The French say "sauve qui peut," literally "save [oneself] who can" or "every man for himself." That wasn't the way of the American warrior. It is the way these days of wealthy Republicans.
 

"But growing inequality has allowed one strata of society to be largely free of these risks while the other is very much exposed to them." The two strata Thoma is referring to are the 1% at the top of the ladder and the other 99%. "As that has happened," Thoma goes on, "as one group in society has had fewer and fewer worries about paying for college education, has first-rate health insurance, ample funds for retirement, and little or no chance of losing a home and ending up on the street if a job suddenly disappears in a recession, support among the politically powerful elite for the risk sharing that makes social insurance work has declined."

During World War II, even the wealthy dared not violate rationing, even when they could easily afford black market prices. Nor did they dare evade the draft. It wasn't patriotic. 

"Rising inequality and differential exposure to economic risk has caused one group to see themselves as the “makers” in society who provide for the rest and pay most of the bills, and the other group as “takers” who get all the benefits. The upper strata wonders, “Why should we pay for social insurance when we get little or none of the benefits?” and this leads to an attack on these programs."

I didn't miss the Republican message conveyed during last year's election. The theme was "you hard working white folks have to pay taxes to support those lazy, shiftless blacks and hispanics (all illegal immigrants)." Across the nation, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Jewish Americans and recent immigrants of all varieties got the same message: The Republican Party has become the party of White Supremacists. Indeed, both supporters and opponents of the GOP understand that "politically conservative" is another way of saying "White Supremacist."

"Even worse, this social stratification leads those at the top to begin imposing a virtue and vice story to justify their desire to stop paying the taxes needed to support social insurance programs. Those at the top did it all by themselves." ( in their own imaginations) "They “built that” through their own effort and sacrifice with no help from anyone else." Balderdash!

The American industrial planner who most clearly articulated the antidote to this nonsense was the late W. Edwards Deming. He understood that success was a result of collective rather than individual effort and particularly opposed bonuses. He described giving a manager a bonus for his organization's quarterly success as akin to rewarding the weatherman for a pleasant sunshiny day.

"Those at the bottom, on the other hand," the comfortably wealthy assert, "are essentially burning down their own houses just to collect the fire insurance, i.e. making poor choices and sponging off of social insurance programs. It’s their behavior that’s the problem," according to the Koch Brothers and their ilk, "and taking away the incentive to live off of the rest of society by constraining their ability to collect social insurance is the only way to ensure they get jobs and provide for themselves." And how did the Koch brothers provide for themselves? The old fashioned way. By choosing wealthy parents.

The people who have made poor choices in recent decades are our political leaders who dismantled very effective protections put in place eighty years ago. We are all suffering as a result.

"Of course, this is a false view of how the system operates," Thoma explains. "The wealthy would not have the opportunity to make so much money if it society didn’t provide the infrastructure, educated workforce, legal protections, and other building blocks critical for their success. And we shouldn’t forget that many of the wealthy got where they are through the privilege and advantage that comes from familial wealth rather than their own merit."

I might add that another way the super wealthy got that way is by buying politicians to change the rules by which we all live. To their advantage, of course. They have rigged the system.

This political dispute over the debt limit is, plainly and simply, about the size and role of government. In particular, it’s an attempt by Republicans to use undue fear about the debt to scale back or eliminate spending on social insurance programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare, food stamps, and unemployment compensation. And it’s no accident that this attack on social insurance coincides with growing income inequality. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

This political dispute over the debt limit is, plainly and simply, about the size and role of government. In particular, it’s an attempt by Republicans to use undue fear about the debt to scale back or eliminate spending on social insurance programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare, food stamps, and unemployment compensation. And it’s no accident that this attack on social insurance coincides with growing income inequality. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

the debt is not even an immediate problem. As the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show, we don’t have a debt problem until over a decade from now, and when the debt does finally begin increasing the main cause will be rising costs for health care. So finding a way to rein in health care costs, something that already seems to be happening, is the key to solving our future debt problem. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

the debt is not even an immediate problem. As the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show, we don’t have a debt problem until over a decade from now, and when the debt does finally begin increasing the main cause will be rising costs for health care. So finding a way to rein in health care costs, something that already seems to be happening, is the key to solving our future debt problem. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

In fact, the debt is not even an immediate problem. As the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show, we don’t have a debt problem until over a decade from now, and when the debt does finally begin increasing the main cause will be rising costs for health care. So finding a way to rein in health care costs, something that already seems to be happening, is the key to solving our future debt problem. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

In fact, the debt is not even an immediate problem. As the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show, we don’t have a debt problem until over a decade from now, and when the debt does finally begin increasing the main cause will be rising costs for health care. So finding a way to rein in health care costs, something that already seems to be happening, is the key to solving our future debt problem. - See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/09/24/Real-Reason-Fight-over-Debt-Limit#sthash.1PJ2MA0P.dpuf

The Intentional Destruction Of Public Education

I recommend everyone concerned with public education to read Jonothan Kozol's review in the New York Times of Diane Ravitch's new book:

This Is Only a Test

‘Reign of Error,’ by Diane Ravitch

By JONATHAN KOZOL

Published: September 26, 2013 

I also recommend following education issues Diane Ravitvh's blog: http://dianeravitch.net/

She also has a web site at  http://dianeravitch.net/

I recently tried to recall when I first heard newspaper commentary about how our schools were failing. I can't pin it down exactly, but my best recollection is that the drumbeat of criticism began about 1970. That was when, across the South, public schools began to integrate as required by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. [Some may recall the Supreme Court's order that this be accomplished with "all deliberate speed."]  I had a few words to say about this back in June.

Across the South, White parents began removing their children from public schools to "home school" them or to enroll them in "Christian" academies. 

Now, across the land, wealthy Americans are engaged in a vast struggle to destroy public schools and replace them with corporate, for profit undertakings. 

One element in the attack on public schools is "Teach For America." The premise of TFA is that bright, committed college graduates can do what trained, experienced teachers cannot. In short, it is an attack on American public education. This recent article in Atlantic calls that whole enterprise into question.

What's The Health Care Fight All About?

"The Republican Party is bending its entire will, staking its very soul, fighting to its last breath, in service of a crusade to....
Make sure that the working poor don't have access to affordable health care."

Kevin Drum

Another way to put it:

When the exchange opens, 1,346,603 uninsured and eligible North Carolinians will have access to affordable care.
Up to 95,000 young adults in North Carolina can now stay on their parent's health insurance until they're 26 years old.
People from North Carolina with Medicare saved nearly $209 million on prescription drugs because of the Affordable Care Act.
Up to 4,099,922 non-elderly North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions, including 539,092 children, can no longer be denied coverage.

And this is what Republicans are trying to take away.

By the way, this is the party that claims to be "Christian" and to reflect "family values."

Someone has to explain that to me.

Syria And Chemical Weapons - Light At End Of Tunnel?

Today's news seems somewhat hopeful.

It isn't clear how it came about, but it sounds like Secretary of State Kerry may have proposed a settlement believing Syria would refuse - and now both Syria and Russia are jumping through hoops as fast as they can to accept it.

The proposal that Syria turn over its chemical weapons to international control is a good one. It was made even better when Russia suggested the weapons be destroyed under international supervision.

Doing this would resolve a potential dilemma: should there be a strike against Syria's chemical weapons depots? On the one hand, that would be the most justifiable target. On the other hand, attacking the chemical weapons would likely release some very nasty stuff into the Syrian countryside - possibly causing innocent deaths.

President Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted as advising that we "speak softly and carry a big stick."

George W. Bush's neocons seemed to think that meant "shout loudly and hit people over the head with the stick."

Sometimes diplomacy can accomplish wonders, but it is hard work best accomplished behind the scenes.

I hope that's what's going on here.

What Experience Should A President Have?

Jonathan Bernstein posts an interesting entry on his "A Plain Blog On Politics" concerning the experience we should look for in a presidential candidate here.

The post was occasioned by a comment by economist Brad DeLong, who opined that we should elect former governors in preference to Senators and Congressmen.

I admit I have often had similar thoughts. And then I would think about our experience in the twentieth century with former governors in the presidency. By no means has our experience been uniformly good.

I thought the discussion following Bernstein's blog post was quite good. I particularly liked "Kylopod's" entry, summarizing the resumes of our early presidents. A mix of experience very rare today. Only recent exception might be George H. W. Bush.

Matt Jarvis calls attention to one 2008 contender for the Democratic Party nomination who had similar depth of experience as our early presidents and who did every job well: Bill Richardson. He would have made a superb president.

Seventy Years Ago: Mussolini Falls

July 28, 1943: Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat on the fall of Mussolini. And what a chat it was!

No American who heard FDR speak on that day could fail to note that we were all in this together, and we were winning!

Not many leaders have ever had the skill of FDR at putting events into perspective.

Read the whole, inspiring fireside chat here.

And celebrate with a cup of unrationed coffee.

Fifty-Seven Pages Of Changes To NC Election Law

The Senate Rules Committee today engrossed the fifth edition of House Bill 589, known as "VIVA Election Reform." Initial reports are that the bill makes drastic changes to election procedures. The current version of what had been a fourteen page bill has expanded to fifty-seven pages and can be read here.

I am tempted to plunge right in with my first impressions of the bill, which are not favorable. I'll have more to say after I have studied the bill more carefully.

Today's New York Times Debate - Is North Carolina A Good Model For State Budgets?

No, it isn't.

Here's the debate.

Later today I'll give my take on the issue. The real question is: "good for whom?"

Fix The Potholes

Trying to explain what government actually does to people who don't believe in government can be very frustrating.

I have explained from time to time that the function of government is to fix potholes. Both figurative and literal potholes.

Anyone who has driven very far on our highways in recent years knows we have a lot of potholes.

Economist Mark Thoma posted an essay today on fixing things. It is worth reading.

In another post, Robert Frank writes from Berlin that "austerity doesn't work if the roof is leaking." Apparently the Germans have figured out they need to fix stuff. And it helps their economy.

Adam Smith And Cooperation Among Humans (And Dogs)

Not long ago, economic historian Brad Delong published some snippets of information for students in one of his courses. One snippet was a quote from Adam Smith about dogs and trading:

"Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.... When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons....

"[M]an has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love...."

Jeff Weintraub observes that this passage from Adam Smith is both clever and deceptive. It sets up a false dichotomy and ignores other forms of cooperation among both dogs and man. Weintraub's essay is very much worth reading and can be found
here. Not everything works through the magic of the marketplace.