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Re: Failure of super-committee

By: clo in ALEA | Recommend this post (0)
Sun, 20 Nov 11 11:25 PM | 63 view(s)
Boardmark this board | The Trust Matrix 		Msg. 06303 of 54959
(This msg. is a reply to 06302 by Cactus Flower)
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Hi Cactus Flower,

Good points!

I think there are several reasons for resistence, not only the reverence many hold for Our Founding Fathers, lack of trust, for when the 'other party' holds the power.

I also wish we had adopted a vote of confidence.

This crisis might help to highlight the way congress is hamstrung in order to promote change?

Did you hear, Newt's idea to solve income inequality, fire the janitors & use children from ages 9 to 14.
Yes, 9 years old, having one senior janitor to supervise & train.
OMG, the republicans are moving from privitizing everything to adopting child labor!
I feel as if I'm living in the Twilight Zone.

Not An Onion Spoof: Newt Gingrich's Education Plan Is To Fire Janitors And Replace Them With Kids
video

by Tommy Christopher | 12:58 pm, November 20th, 2011

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a crowd on Friday that the solution to income inequality is to fire school janitors, and replace them with children. I am not making this up, and it gets worse. He’s not talking about junior high or high school kids, he’s talking about “9 to 14 year-olds.”

He suggests that these nine year-olds replace “union janitors” in poor neighborhoods, and that the kids work under a single “master janitor.” 

for more twisted thinking:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/not-an-onion-spoof-newt-gingrichs-education-plan-is-to-fire-janitors-and-replace-them-with-kids/




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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Failure of super-committee
By: Cactus Flower in ALEA
Sun, 20 Nov 11 10:26 PM 		Msg. 06302 of 54959

Hi clo,

I agree with your point, but it's a different one.

The thing that the failure of the super-committee demonstrates is structural deficiency. Regardless of whether the decisions are correct or not, the US is incapable of even making them. This is a serious issue which is lost amidst the policy argument.

I've been in a long-running debate with a poster called Hari - who used to post fairly frequently - that the US constitution has a flaw in it. It seems designed to make change hard to achieve. This means that the status quo is extremely embedded in the US. Innovation is difficult. So the US is structurally conservative by design.

My view is that it is important to be able to change a society at whatever speed is necessary to suit circumstances, and that sometimes societies need to evolve more quickly than the US constitution allows. My contention is that a society will do better in the long run if it is able to make small decisions on a continuous basis. Collectively, these decisions result in a society which is tuned into its environment. This model also invites mistakes. But the mistakes may also be rectified more easily.

Congress failed. Now the super-committee is failing. A decision-making machinery in which there is no mechanism for someone to make a difficult decision is bound to fail when circumstances are tricky. A senate in which the minority can prevent a decision using a filibuster has proved a disaster when used frequently. A senate and a house in different hands again prevents decision-making.

You discover these kinds of issues in times of crisis. The trick is to use the knowledge to make structural changes. But it doesn't happen. I suppose this is because people are brought up to believe that the structure was created in some state of perfection.

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