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First, "conservative" isn't the word I'd use to describe the tax cuts since 2001.
More important, I think what made Katrina stand out was the fact that reporters were there to cover the hurricane and actually witnessed what happened. Removed from their newsrooms, their humanity came out and was reflected in the coverage. I mean, I about fell out of my chair when I saw that Shepard Smith fellow from Fox showing what seemed to be genuine outrage.
Not that it was perfect, of course. But the drip, drip, drip of deterioration like you describe in places like Philadelphia don't have that quality, especially the presence of reporters and anchors being in the middle of the carnage. And let's face it, today's news media doesn't look for stories like this. Unless there's a spectacular disaster or a crime by some nobody, there's precious little coverage of suffering in this country.
Finally, the key part of your diary, to me, is how the republicans have successfully taken hold of the word "taxes." In the public mind there seems to be no connection at all to one's payment of taxes and one's security while stopped in traffic on a bridge. Changing 30 years of this propaganda sure isn't going to be easy, but it won't happen at all if we can't get a conversation about it started. And that, I think, is still some ways off.
Thanks for the diary.
by VetGrl on Sat Dec 08, 2007 at 12:42:44 PM PDT
in basketball almost no college or pro teams full court press. Instead they just let the other team walk the ball pass half court. Teams that full court press, make the others work their way to half court are pretty hard to play against.
If you talk to coaches they say the best way to deal with this pressure is to use it against them.
This sports analogy also works at many other levels.
For example, when Edwards got slammed over a $400 haircut he should have said "look I get a $400 haircut cause I can afford it. I worked myself up, got an education, and made a lot of money. Isn't that the American dream. Of course it is. I want other Americans to have the same opportunity."
The Republicans to a large extent "own" the debate on taxes. That shouldn't be the case, but it is. Heck, all of us would like to pay less taxes. And how is that done, increase the tax base. And how is that done, well getting more people better paying jobs.
And that is done via education. So if we leave a large percentage of our population w/o an education then they became a debit on our system.
We have to use their logic, a free market is good, right back at them. Isn't it a better investment to spend $10,000 a year for 15 years for a person to get an education and then a good job, then not spending that money and they end up on welfare or in jail.
IMHO you have to think about the "opportunity" cost. The cost for spending the money now vs. spending it later. The later cost is always going to be more. A lot more.
Let us not forget New Orleans. Visit Project Katrina.
by webranding on Sat Dec 08, 2007 at 12:54:43 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
And a huge percentage of students in some districts still don't make it through high school.
Further, the amount spent per pupil has risen materailly, in real terms, in the past 30 years.
It's not all the fault of 1% of the people that have nice houses that Philadelphia has its the dropout rates and murder rates.
Iraq is a disaster. Bush is a disaster. But come January 2013, after 4 years of a Democratic presidency, Philadelphia will be about the same, absent some major societal changes which are not limited to the current occupant of the White House.
by science first on Sat Dec 08, 2007 at 01:15:44 PM PDT
wide narrow
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