Obama Sells Out Education to the Revolution
At one time, higher education meant following “the Love-song of Dido” and listening to the “tale of Troy divine.” Teaching involved “nothing new, no time-saving devices — simply old time-glorified methods of delving for Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life” in the same curriculum “that was taught in the groves by Plato, that formed the trivium and quadrivium.” Such endeavors were to be reserved for the “Talented Tenth,” who in turn would be entrusted with “lifting … [their] duller brethren.”
In 1987, on the campus of Stanford, Jesse Jackson vocalized the view of most of those running our universities today, by leading the chant, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go.”
Rejecting a notion of a “talented tenth” and echoing Bill Clinton, Barack Obama repeated his campaign point during the first presidential debate: We have “to make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America.”
And during the second, “townhall” debate, Obama went off topic to reiterate his concern for the “people who have the grades and the drive to go to college, but can’t.” Continuing his biographical narrative as son of a Kenyan goat herder and a mother so poor she had to accept food stamps, Obama hinted at his own intellectual merit when he expressed gratitude for “scholarships.”
Obama has been given a pass as an intellectual, as “professorial,” yet has been unwilling to release his school records or senior thesis at Columbia that would prove the merit upon which his scholarships were based. It is now well known that he got through Harvard law school with some help by Khalid Al-Mansour. Other associations include Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Columbia.
Obama’s years at Harvard, 1988-1991, were the years of the building up of the culture wars, a time when the sixties radicals, ensconced in positions of tenure or deanship, devoted their efforts to a subversion of traditional Western standards of excellence, truth, logic, and respect. The notions expressed in my opening quotations provided fodder for a wholesale debunking. Affirmative action in admissions and hiring extended to an affirmative action of methodologies and subjects — of a non-Western origin. Consequently, the quest for truth was replaced by the analysis of — and quest for — power. Obama, like his colleagues, taught at least one such course, Race, Racism, and the Law at the University of Chicago.
Mary Grabar,
Thank you for your work “from the trenches.” It is work like yours – and that of scholars like LEFKOWITZ, author of “Not Out Of Africa” – that keeps the chances alive that Western civilization has a fighting chance to get throught these difficult times…bruised and ruffled, but that’s nothing new either….
On an educationally related (also mentioned at http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/), but OMG tangent:
http://realdebatewisconsin.blogspot.com/2008/10/racine-schools-hand-out-textbook-with.html
The political philosophy of Wright’s church, Black Liberation Theology, the Annenberg Challenge and (even) Ayers and Dohrn turns around a notion of black superiority and black separatism.
These are not qualities (or inclinations) one would seek in a President of the United States, a leader of “all” the people.
For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers…African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state.
Wright 101
Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism
why do we have to say “radicalism”? why can’t we just say communism, or at least socialism? why can’t we say “ayers is a bolshevik.” it’s not as though these concepts are etched in stone and became anachronistic when the Wall fell. anyone who thinks that doesn’t know anything about the actual communism and socialism.
Song sung for all Obama followers
http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/nextgenblog/
by the way, using race as a weapon in the USA – black nationalism, black solidarity, even otherwise laudable End Jim Crowe Laws stuff – is an original tactic of the socialists since just after the October Revolution. the point is not to actually free black people but to demoralize and destabilize american society. come on – they really should start teaching this stuff. just because there isn’t a communist under every bed doesn’t mean there’s not an actual history of actual communists based on their actual (interminable) writings and actual actions. jeez. when the did “hear no evil, see no evil” become the accepted perspective on these brazen sociopaths?
So his teacher had a scary terrorist-y name too, Khalid Al-Mansour. Seriously, you republicans should keep it going with the Obama-is-a-terrorist-conspiracy crap. It what is driving people away from you loons. A little bit of crazy and suspicion might be OK, but the whole notion that Obama’s agenda is some fiendish plot by William Ayers to indoctrinate our children into radicalism. Wow, that is hilarious.
Keep up the good work, Obama’s number are rising with all the loony conspiracy talk. Just don’t take yourselves too seriously.
…but the whole notion that Obama’s agenda is some fiendish plot by William Ayers to indoctrinate our children into radicalism.
That’s a very poor and innaccurate summation of the “whole notion”, Osama.
Your weakish and flip flopping guy, Barry, came of age inside the entrenched Chicago political machine and has a long record of highly tenuous friends and acquaintances, including his “inspiring” and longstanding friendship with the Reverend GodDamn America. He flat out lied relative to his longstanding association with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. And he was age 13 (not
when the Weatherman carried out one of their last known missions, bombing the state dept. in January, 1975.
And now Barry (probably surprisingly even to himself) finds himself in contention for the leadership of the American people.
This is huge and serious. I mean it. This is the sort of thing that will make an ancient, addled POW and the lying, delusional, not-very-smart governor of a minuscule state seem almost desirable in contrast.
Yep, this here’s the drum to beat, folks. Especially to the Boomers, who were raised on the idea that socialism is OK, government is evil and SDS were the good guys.
Even before Obama occupies the presidency in January, this country has changed dramatically in my lifetime (I’m 53). Some of it for the better; some of it for the worst. And right now it is tending in a worse direction, but this has been in the works for quite some time. The old Bolsheviks in the U.S. could not pull it off after 1917, so their offspring, the Red Diaper Babies, became the base of the New Left. The New Left imbibed the strategies and theories of Antonio Gramsci and Saul Alinsky. Obama is right out of their tradition, but who knows how deep his ties to the old regime might be? Frank Marshall Davis was a Party member and a Stalinist through and through (as well as a pedophile and a pornographer). Young Barack’s father was actually a member of Kenya’s Communist Party. His mother was certainly a Marxist. His stepfather probably had some form of loyalty to the old Communist regime in Jakarta, and only after 1965 did he, under pressure of losing his scholarship and visa, have to get with being a Muslim, at least superficially, again.
With his Marxist professors in college and his long alliance with William Ayers, which certainly predates 1995, and you can fairly well establish Obama’s pedigree.
The Left has, at least for this election, won. A combination of hard work, dedicated ideological indoctrination, co-option of media and law, and just plain luck have all combined to bring them to this moment. They have eroded the fabric of society and shredded and banished the national narrative, so that our young people no longer know their country.
We have a very long uphill battle after this. The survival of Western civilization, the Constitution, our religious traditions, our economic system, and what remains of a cherished freedom from the threat of foreign totalitarian states all hang in the balance.
Strap on the armor. Set and sharpen your minds. It will be darkest before the light and we must never give us.
I’m sorry to monopolize the thread but – See, Osama, your post demonstrates what happens when a person is taught simply to believe he is educated if he espouses certain propositions and sentiments, rather than to sincerely pursue truth in a spirit of good faith, wonder, and humility. There’s nothing fiendish about pointing out that Ayers’ agenda is to subvert the dominant paradigm, but experience has taught him that he cannot pursue this openly and abruptly as he used to do. That is the “rehabilitation” Obama refered to the other day, and that is the meaning of the reform they both represent. Not bombs and riots, but a slow hollowing-out of institutions, cultural norms, and – especially – vocabulary.
Obama’s agenda is some fiendish plot “by” William Ayers?
Well, not exactly.
Do you know much about the Weather Underground, its history, its activity, its antecedents, the public details of its members’ later biographies?
Or perhaps William Ayers is just a figment of the “loon” imagination?
See, the thing that scares me most about you socialists-who-dont-even-seem-to-know-you’re-socialists is not even the ignorance or the venom, it’s the complete lack of good faith.
I won’t vote for Obama for a whole host of reasons, including the fact that he is a black socialist/communist radical. There is no post-racial redeeming value to Obama,,, he’s just a crook with a lot of money behind him.
I hope it’s not too late to wake up the American voters to the fact that this idiot is dangerous.
The fact that the likes of Ayers and Dohrn are involved in the education system should send a chill up every parent’s spine.
Everyone has to go to college? O.K. how about trade schools? We have to have someone actually doing the WORK !
Ohhh civil liberties…we hardly knew ye:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/14/bushs-new-copyright-czar-is-going-to-do-about-as-much-good-as-his-drug-czar/
must edit my comment – upthread i realize that my comment may have read as “the civil rights movement was *created* by socialists.”
just to be clear, i didn’t mean that at all. i only meant that from the beginning, the communists attempted to *exploit* the civil rights movement as early as the 1920s, in complete bad faith, in order to increase the social disruption that inevitably accompanies such a profound change.
what do you think “black liberation theology” is, for example? any sincere christian of any denomination knows there is nothing racial about christianity. it isn’t christianity at all: it is leninism. obviously “black liberation theology” is just a legacy of this same bolshevik tactic, but updated according to the “social conditions” and applied under a different guise.
Lott Carey once stated, “I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion, and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race.”
MLK Jr. further reflected Carey’s sentiments with his, “Content of my Character,” version as a preface to what African American’s might hope for while seeking intellectual and ethical equality within the ever changing social fabric of America.
African American historians like Mary Fears respectfully try to enlighten the whole community by presenting a vision of historical relevance by emphasizing a gradual and painful emergence with, “telling our African-American story from our perspective, is vitally necessary for everyone.”
But alas, we have now come to a juncture where the African-American community has much less of an interest in blending in anymore. The FUBU mindset has crept ever so methodically into the Black Community that there are few who don’t understand, and many who openly embrace the concept of derisive contempt for other racial groupings within this country.
Barack Obama fits very nicely into this Afro-centrist persuasion. And where Obama’s predecessors once called for an acknowledgment of the qualities of their character, Barack Obama now hides the self-serving and militant realities of his own character behind a staunch left-wing media curtain that will not budge or yield to the primigenial ethical standards of that profession.
If we take a very close look at the true content of Barack Obama’s character, we will uncover an ugly expose’ of militancy and outright scorn for what his mentor of 20 years has called, “the US of KKK.” No wonder he cringes at the concept of wearing a flag pin on his lapel!
Lott Carey once stated, “I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion, and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race.”
MLK Jr. further reflected Carey’s sentiments with his, “Content of my Character,” version as a preface to what African Americans might hope for while seeking intellectual and ethical equality within the ever changing social fabric of America.
African American historians like Mary Fears respectfully try to enlighten the whole community by presenting a vision of historical relevance by emphasizing a gradual and painful emergence with, “telling our African-American story from our perspective, is vitally necessary for everyone.”
But alas, we have now come to a juncture where the African-American community has much less of an interest in blending in anymore. The FUBU mindset has crept ever so methodically into the Black Community that there are few who don’t understand, and many who openly embrace the concept of derisive contempt for other racial groupings within this country.
Barack Obama fits very nicely into this Afro-centrist persuasion. And where Obama’s predecessors once called for an acknowledgment of the qualities of their character, Barack Obama now hides the self-serving and militant realities of his own character behind a staunch left-wing media curtain that will not budge or yield to the primigenial ethical standards of that profession.
If we take a very close look at the true content of Barack Obama’s character, we will uncover an ugly expose’ of militancy and outright scorn for what his mentor of 20 years has called, “the US of KKK.” No wonder he cringes at the concept of wearing a flag pin on his lapel!
“Some are well-meaning but have not been exposed to any alternative.”
I just got my grad school’s e-newsletter this morning, and out of curiousity, I looked to see who’s still teaching in the department. Mostly the same people, peddling the same post-colonialism, outsider art, feminist theory B.S. It all seemed so normal and important for a while I was in the system. Now it seems so absurd and depressing.
I see now that the people who taught the “old-fashioned” way–with a love of literature and respect for critical thinking–were pushed aside, while the Marxist, everything-Western-is-wrong haters were treated as superstars. Now the former are all still lecturers, while the latter are associate or full professors. It’s a self-perpetuating system. It just uses learning as tool for promulgating political theory. They’ve found a source of great power and influence, and they’re not going to give it up.
Collectivism is The Borg. Fight The Borg and stand up for liberty and our Constitution.
We already are quite a ways into being a collectivist country, and what is happening now is the next big push to finish off traditional America.
I don’t want it to happen and I hope that it can be politically resolved, but it is entirely within the realm of possibility that we are headed for civil war in the future. I know whose side I cast my lot with. We must not give up the future to these tyrannical forces.
Fred:
I agree with your post.
Obama practice oppression of the poor, which makes him rich.His list of mentors should not shock anyone at this time Rush calls them the poverty pimps. The people the gay coalition of ACLU, NAACP.LULAC, and other domestic terrorist
with their team of lawyers filling lawsuits every chance they get while practicing the denial of the civil rights of anyone who is not on drugs, practicing sexual deviancy: rape, homosexuality, pedophilia, incest, and other perverted acts.Poverty pimps use their positions granted by civil servants and government agencies to oppress the poor and needy at a financial reward to them.Obama is the student that every poverty pimp is celebrating. Vote McCain/Palin
The Obama campaign is a threat to the power of black leaders of apartheid. When blacks go to his rally and meet friendly whites, aren’t they tempted to move to the suburbs and leave the charlatans in the dust of the ghetto? That is why they keep crying “racism”.
I looked up Bill Ayers and found that he is now Vice President of Curriculum Research for American Education Research Association. This idealogy is firmly entrenched and Bill Ayers needs to be stopped at the front door. I’ve let my union reps and school administrators know the position of leadership the Bill Ayers is in and asked them to take a stand against this deception of indoctrinating public school children. NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) held Bill Ayers at bay in 2007…but I expect that won’t last long unless Union reps and rank and file teachers are made aware.
http://billayers.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/a-struggle-with-ncate-and-aera/
Bill Ayers is now the VP of Curriculum Research at the American Education Research Association (AERA). I’ve let my union reps and school administrators know what position Bill Ayers is in. I’ve let them know this is untenable as a parent to have my children continue in the public school system. Parents do not deserve to have their children indoctrinated in this manner. The National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education needs to hear from public school parents as well. Mr. Ayers (AERA) is in a struggle with NCATE.
http://billayers.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/a-struggle-with-ncate-and-aera/
No wonder our kids are falling behind in Math, Science, Art, etc…since time is being taken focused on the indoctrination that parents weren’t even aware of.
Obama’s educational philosophy is reflected in what groups rec’d the bulk of his grant money, and all to no avail since Chicago schools still suck.
Consequently, quite reasonably, I’d like him to stay the heck away from America’s public schools. And yet as described in his Service Plan, downloadable off his own website, he wants to require that jr. and sr. high students do 50 hours of “community service” annually, under guidelines that he provides and documents (so to know which schools get more/less funds?).
Not to mention that many of these service “corps,” reflect only left-supported ideas. So much for reaching across the aisle.
Anything written by Mary Graber is well worth reading and pondering, as she demonstrates once again in this fine column.
This is the sort of professor colleges and universities once treasured and need to once again if there is to be hope for the American system of higher education.
We need a book about your thoughts on higher education and your recommendations for changing it for the better. Go to it, Mary!
McCain sells out:
courtesy of Murray Waas
“The Washington lobbyist John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.
The two lobbyists who McCain aide William Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein’s government.
During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.”
Obama transcends all the left-right, black-white dichotomies. This is what Oprah and Michelle and Ariana have told me, and Katie too. All the women on The View agree, right? Feminists all support Obama too. I mean, what’s not to like? He heals all wounds and the sea level will start to go down as soon as election results are final. We really are about to enter the new millenium, 8 years on.
The people at the school where the Obama kids go to school say that in upper level discussions, the Obama’s always bring up race. Everything has to do with race.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/bush-strategist-mccain-kn_n_134570.html
Another Republican sees the Palin pick for what it was, a gimmick.
yup, Obama’s really looking out for the little guys:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/10/obamas-willie-h.html
Operation Exposé #2: Obama and 3-Year-Old Curtis Cooper
By TRAFALGAR
Curtis Cooper was an adorable 3-year-old toddler who loved to ride his tricycle. But Curtis had the misfortune to live in Chicago’s criminally neglected Cabrini Green housing complex. This hellhole of safety violations was “managed” by Obama’s longtime crony, Cullen J. Davis. And so poor Curtis Cooper was crushed to death when an iron gate fell on top of him on June 28, 2008.
Obama is up to his neck in the sewer of Chicago’s public housing scandals, along with his mentor, convicted felon Tony Rezko, Allison Davis (Cullen’s father), who’s Obama’s former law firm boss, and Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s senior advisor. The Boston Globe reported that, as state senator, Obama directed millions of dollars of public funds to these cronies for them to improve public housing. Instead, they pocketed the money, kicked some back to Obama’s campaign, and ignored the public housing in their care, sometimes to the point of outright abandonment.
The system worked beautifully for Obama, whose campaign coffers overflowed, and for his cronies who grew rich at the public trough. But for the poor African-Americans in these projects, who shivered without heat in the winter and endured collapsing roofs and sewage in their kitchen sinks, the system stank. And for the parents of 3-year-old Curtis Cooper, it brought the ultimate tragedy, leaving them only a lifetime of grief and a lawsuit to pursue justice in their son’s name.
Spread this far and wide…forward to everyone you know.
Thank you, Dr. Grabar. I, too, am a “Child of the Enlightenment.” (However, I must confess, I am an atheist.) realitycheck’s first “truth” about you, i.e. an instructor NOT a tenured professor, exactly describes Obama; but he is considered a great intellectual by realitycheck and his ilk.
Because I am also a “Child of Affirmative Action,” I know precisely how Obama got into and through higher education. I also know exactly why he could discuss Rienhold Niebuhr with David Brooks. I could give Brooks chapter and verse on the meaning of Immauel Kant’s “concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind” or Rene Descartes, “Cogito, ergo sum.” I don’t consider myself a great intellectual, but I bet Brooks would vote for me, too – if I weren’t a woman.
Man X finds himself a marooned castaway on a tropical island and begins foraging about until he finds some berries, fish, and eats whatever he can. Man Y is caught in the same predicament, but first, for 3 days he protests the conditions, demands that something be done about them, and writes about the unfairness of it all on the side of tree until hunger overwhelms him to the point of actually having to do something about it, and finally also eats whatever he can find. Man Z, alas, also a victim of the same circumstances on a third island, starts foraging for food, but whatever he finds he consumes just a tiny bit, waits a few hours, and consumes a bit more, and waits a few hours, and so on.
Man X dies of food poisoning 3 days earlier than Man Y. Man Z survives.
Match the man to his political persuasion:
a) Republican – I’ve got to feed myself now or I’ll starve!
b) Democrat – You’ve got to feed me now or I’ll starve!
c) Objectivist – I wonder what’s poisonous and what’s not around here.
So far this story about Michelle Obama’s temper tantrum when she called African Press International (API) hasn’t been reported by the mainstream media but it is a very hot topic in the Blogosphere. Your humble correspondent checked on the credentials of API and it has been in existence for a little over two years and has filed numerous stories in that period. Additionally, this story has been posted at World Net Daily. If the MSM wants to verify this story they can contact API directly to investigate its veracity. Perhaps they don’t want to check out this story because Michelle Obama comes off with an extreme case of bad temper. This API article starts out with Michelle article making accusations of disloyalty against that organization in a phone call (emphasis mine):
Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to call API because of what she termed, API’s help to spread rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man’s name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should identify themselves with.
When API told her that our online news media was only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.”
Wow! Talk about a red hot temper! But will the MSM even ask Michelle Obama about this? This article is chock full of more shocking information:
This is a very interesting turn of events. The American man Dr Corsi was recently reported to have been arrested in Kenya because there was fear that he might reveal information on Obama when he wanted to hold a press conference in Nairobi.
The question now is why he was arrested and who ordered his arrest. Was Obama’s hand in this in any way? We will never know the truth but what is clear is that Dr Corsi was seen as a threat while in Kenya.
When API asked Mrs Obama to comment on why Dr Corsi was arrested by the Kenyan government and whether she thought Kenya’s Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga was involved in Dr Corsi’s arrest, she got irritated and and simply told API not to dig that which will support evil people who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency.
When asked who she was referring to as the evil people, she stated that she was not going to elaborate much on that but that many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of envy.
On Farakhan and his ministry, Mrs Obama told API that it was unfortunate that Mr Farakhan came out the way he did supporting her husband openly before the elections was over. That was not wholehearted support but one that was calculated to convince the American people that my husband will support the growth of muslim faith if he became the president, adding “even if my husband was able to prove that he is not a Muslim, he will not be believed by those who have come out strongly to destroy his chances of being the next President. Do real people expect someone to deny a religion when 80 percent of his relatives are Muslims?; Mrs Obama asked.
Mrs Obama asked API to write a good story about her husband and that will earn API an invitation to the innoguration ceremony when, as she put it , her husband will be installed as the next President of the United States of America next year.
Double WOW! As I stated, African Press International has been in existence for over two years and has filed over a thousand stories. So will the MSM investigate this? Meanwhile this story is gaining enormous steam in the Blogosphere.
Hey, “Realitycheq”:
It is glaring cowardice to attack somebody professionally while refusing to use your real name. I challenge you to tell us who you are if you are going to attempt to impugn somebody — using anonymous student evaluations, no less.
Of course, you won’t do that. Lack of principle, I imagine — based solely on what you have published here, which is all we’ve got to go on, of course.
As a fellow college “instructor” (my students call me professor, and that’s what counts, pal), I agree mightily with those here who say that people who refuse to conform to an extreme-left ideological lockstep have little or no chance to gain tenure-track work in the humanities. And any real professional knows that angry and anonymous student evaluations are meaningless. If a student has a problem with me and comes to see me about it, then we can work towards a resolution — but that means work by the student, as well. Those who wait until the end of the semester to whine anonymously are the ones who lack discipline and the willingness to work. Maybe they’ll grow out of it — or maybe they’ll simply continue blaming others for their failures.
And “move on” laterally, as it were, to anonymous character assassination on the web.
The silver lining of the ideological purges that are routinely performed by tenured faculty is that students in the community colleges are gaining access to some wonderful, committed teachers. And I have no doubt they are learning more than their peers who are being spoon-fed ideological garbage by the narrow-minded, naive, leftist activists who make up larger and larger portions of the dwindling full-time faculty.
realitycheq:
Well, reality, can you do that on my philosophy professor who constantly degraded Christians and Jews and made my grade less because I disagreed with him? Or how about the anatomy professor who I couldn’t understand because he could barely speak English?
Any professor in University usually suck at teaching. Because they are not trained as teachers.
How this make this author’s point irrelevant is unclear to me. Unless of course, you’re being a jackhole and don’t actually have a point. Just a threadjack.
Ha! Undergrads complaining that their instructor doesn’t know what he/she is doing. Yeah, that never happens. It’s not like there are nineteen-year-olds who are arrogant know-it-alls who consider any rhetorical argument a personal insult and any assignment a waste of their precious time. It’s not like someone who can’t spell “ridiculous” isn’t in a perfect position to criticize someone who has a Ph.D. in English.
Obama losers theme: a Wonder.
http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/NextGenBlog/?p=68
A very good and rather disturbing article from Mary Grabar.
WHY HAS THE MEDIA NOT INTERVIEWED BILL AYERS ?
EVEN THOUGH BILL AYERS HAS BEEN ALL OVER THE MEDIA FOR OVER A YEAR HE HAS NOT BEEN ”QUESTIONED ‘ ONCE ? IF HE WAS A CONSERVATIVE THE MEDIA WOULD BE ON HIM LIKE FLYS ON COW PODS .
OR IS THE MEDIA GUARDING AYERS AND OBAMA LONG ” RELATIONSHIP” ONE SUSPECTS .
I WANT TO SEE OBAMA SERIOULY QUESTIONED WITHOUT TWO MINUTE SOUND BITES AND
ALSO RACIAL ORG, AND 101 % SOCIALIST SAUL ALINKY AND DEVOUT MARXIST FRANK MARSHAL DAVIS…AND THE REAL STORY ON HIS MINISTER OF WHITE HATE OF REV WRIGHT … THREE OF HIS LIFE LONG ANTI AMERIICAN MENTORS !
IN TRUTH WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT OBAMA AND EVERYTHING THIS IS TO KNOW ABOUT MCCAIN AND PALIN .
Many are asking how we got into this financial mess. The truth, for the most part, is not being discussed on the media. The following will help you understand our national financial situation a little better.
This is a condensation of a series from the Investor’s Business Daily explaining “What Caused the Loan Crisis”:
1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.
Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.
How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market? Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.
1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.
1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopoies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.
1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.
1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin’s Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin’s Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.
1997 – 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.
With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often “no doc”, “no income”, requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990′s Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.
Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast.
1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie’s excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. “We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks,” Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.
2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the “special status”. Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO’s who knew how to reward and punish. “We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation’s housing and mortgage markets” Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.
2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.
2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago”. Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.
2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: “We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk”. Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, “If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole”. Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to “cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding homeownership” The bill went nowhere.
2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in ’07, sub prime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.
2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats’ talking points about this being a “Republican” disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That’s why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!
If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to your lawmakers own words. They are condemning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68D9XrqyrWo&feature=related#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9juJr8CSY4&feature=related#
Re: #36. Sonya. WOW! And thanks.
If we want affordable college education, we need to get rid of administrators and pay “professors” less. Period.
/Not holding my breath.
Of course, reading, writing, and arithmetic will be taught. The revolution will need techies and propagandists.
See, this is what’s funny to me. I work in a role that is pretty important in a pretty large industry and my job entails nothing political at all, only technical. The idea that I would work as hard as I do now for a socialist, “spread the wealth”, regime is so laughable as to be a non-starter. No way in hell I am going to apply my intelligence as diligently when I’m not keeping the fruits of my labor. So, installing a socialist regime will actually result in a net loss of production. How is that smart? Anyone’s who’s watched “Office Space” with the scene where Peter says to the consultants that his whole philosophy of work is “to work just hard enough not to get fired”, would understand this. All of a sudden, the whole world of labor turns into “work just hard enough not to get fired” from “work hard enough to get as far ahead as I want to”.