Military training in Washington scares small town

mrbigbluelight

The Revolution will NOT be televised ?!

Well, what the hell ! I just signed up for Charter's wonderful Bundle Deal, and you're now telling me the Revolution will NOT be televised ?

I'm going to have to check the fine print, but I'm sure that I was guaranteed that the Revolution would be brought to me by Xerox in 4 parts without commercial interruption.

Not televised ? That's going to sort of make Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville sort of irrelevant won't it ?

Dam ! So ...... if it's not going to be televised, I guess it's going to be .... Live ?

That means I'll have to be involved then. Son of a .......

With apologies to Gil Scott-Heron, who wrote THE anthem for the 60's.

tonyb

Maybe he ment it won't be televised in HD. You'd be stuck with that blurry regular programming.....kinda like those Bigfoot photo's we always see. :cheesygrin:

CNH,
I don't think we are too different in our views but corporate greed to the excess is only allowed by those in bed with them. For instance, Google/Amazon as an example. Europe having had enough of them paying little in way of taxes, put together some new stringent policy to go after them hiding their coin. Know who is lobbying to stop them from doing so ? We are, the good old USA. The same people who always spout big business isn't paying enough, are now in their corner. Or maybe just in the corner of those big corporations that support them. Policy or legislation should not be determined by a marriage of businesses and law makers, period. That's why you have to remove the guidance of money. If policy is to be determined by who donates the most, certainly big corporations have deeper pockets than you or I. If so, if we agree to that so far, then who benefits....who does government serve ? More importantly then, who do the masses serve then ?

We can discuss this for a million pages, but when you break it down...unless you change the core reasons of a problem then anything else is a band aid to the solution. We have 500+ people in congress who's main job is to offer band aid solutions to keep the masses quiet while continuing on looting the treasury and enriching themselves and their friends. The words "public servant" should be defined for these people. With no accountability, is anything ever going to be fixed ? Any real solutions to what ails us ever going to come about ? If we can't trust our own government to do the right things, how then can we afford a global government that trust ? All I'm saying is this angelic persona we portray as a country needs to get a few rust spots removed off our halo before we start telling others whats good for them.

Since your an educator, and I take it you have great pride in what you do....as you should btw, we keep hearing we need more coin for education year after year. Yet, stats show that for the last 40 years if not more, grades have not improved at all. Roughly still the same since the 60's. Any logical person would say to re-think our approach to education then, no ? Try something different. Too many agenda's with irons in that fire so nothing changes. Who is at a loss here ? Our children....our labor force ? Point being, we need to identify a problem and have solutions minus the B.S. Our problem solving skills are dismal at best as a nation....and it shows daily.

seeclear

Another point, albeit maybe a small one, is that the restraints on free trade legislated by the government become more and more necessary the more trade and business is enlarged and power is concentrated. In years past, when we had to deal directly with each other at the local general store, or the local bank, the merchant (that "captain of industry") had a vested interest in keeping his customers satisfied, and keeping them coming back to him. At the same time, consumers knew that they couldn't expect everything to be given to them for free, else the products wouldn't be there at all.

Nowadays, the people making the decisions on a corporate level that affect our choices as consumers are far removed from the man in the street, so they make decisions based solely on how it affects the all-powerful bottom line, right now, today. Then, too, consumers think that the mega-corporation should give them unreasonable accommodations for minor defects or inconveniences, because hey, that huge corporation can afford it, right? It is all less personalized than it should be.

I don't see how globalization is going to help any of that.

cnh

tonyb wrote: »

Maybe he ment it won't be televised in HD. You'd be stuck with that blurry regular programming.....kinda like those Bigfoot photo's we always see. :cheesygrin:

CNH,
I don't think we are too different in our views but corporate greed to the excess is only allowed by those in bed with them. For instance, Google/Amazon as an example. Europe having had enough of them paying little in way of taxes, put together some new stringent policy to go after them hiding their coin. Know who is lobbying to stop them from doing so ? We are, the good old USA. The same people who always spout big business isn't paying enough, are now in their corner. Or maybe just in the corner of those big corporations that support them. Policy or legislation should not be determined by a marriage of businesses and law makers, period. That's why you have to remove the guidance of money. If policy is to be determined by who donates the most, certainly big corporations have deeper pockets than you or I. If so, if we agree to that so far, then who benefits....who does government serve ? More importantly then, who do the masses serve then ?

We can discuss this for a million pages, but when you break it down...unless you change the core reasons of a problem then anything else is a band aid to the solution. We have 500+ people in congress who's main job is to offer band aid solutions to keep the masses quiet while continuing on looting the treasury and enriching themselves and their friends. The words "public servant" should be defined for these people. With no accountability, is anything ever going to be fixed ? Any real solutions to what ails us ever going to come about ? If we can't trust our own government to do the right things, how then can we afford a global government that trust ? All I'm saying is this angelic persona we portray as a country needs to get a few rust spots removed off our halo before we start telling others whats good for them.

Since your an educator, and I take it you have great pride in what you do....as you should btw, we keep hearing we need more coin for education year after year. Yet, stats show that for the last 40 years if not more, grades have not improved at all. Roughly still the same since the 60's. Any logical person would say to re-think our approach to education then, no ? Try something different. Too many agenda's with irons in that fire so nothing changes. Who is at a loss here ? Our children....our labor force ? Point being, we need to identify a problem and have solutions minus the B.S. Our problem solving skills are dismal at best as a nation....and it shows daily.

As an educator at a Private College whose endowment is approaching a Billion dollars or will in a decade or so! I can tell you WHERE that MONEY is NOT being spent! On the faculty and education! The major part of what is raised has INFLATED Administrative salaries in an absurd manner and we have MORE administrators than we NEED! When we ask for a faculty member who is on leave to be replaced, we have to FIGHT tooth and nail for him or her. Spend HOURS and DAYS in debates with Deans and VPS. Every year, our medical coverage is decreased. Our copays go up. It's been over two decades since our professional travel allowances have been adjusted for inflation? And now, promotion to full Prof carries a nominal (hardly worth it) increase in salary!

Meanwhile. In those same 20 years. Our top administrator's salary has quadrupled and is now approaching 7 figures!

You can have a LOT of MONEY. But if you have NO VISION and are pretty much a moron, you can't put a curriculum into effect that would be innovative and lead other institutions to follow. And remember, we are NOT a public college. We're the PRIVATE BOYS! And the private boys don't really "compete" with each other, they just try to BE LIKE EACH OTHER because they're SCARED to do something new. So where does that leave us! It leaves us to "ourselves": whatever "I" do is mostly of my own choosing. And I often have to FIGHT the administration to do something "different"! And my SYCOPHANTIC colleagues, of course! The apologists for the Status quo, you know who they are, they're everywhere always telling us the WAY THINGS SHOULD BE--in other words "apologizing" for what ACTUALLY IS!

The SOLUTION; throw the money at the RIGHT places with some VISION and watch the system change. It's NOT as simple as privatization because some of my WORST students come from the most Elite private Academies in the nation! The majority of you assume that these Academies are "better" than public schools but you don't see what they PRODUCE! I do!

cnh

tonyb

Well said my friend. You know.....one of these days you and I are going to collect a couple bar stools and close the joint. You being Greek, myself Italian....we may not agree on much but we'll have a damn fun time doing so. :biggrin: