debates

[rm]

I just got home from work, after coding the debate and some post-debate analysis on two channels. As with the others, I was not able to see all of it. Stylistic points at the end, I want to address one thing George Bush talked about that offended me on a really deep level.

Bush was asked what he would say to someone who had just lost their job, and Bush told them he'd help them out, by getting them an education, by getting them into a community college so they could find a new job.

Dear Mr. President:

I have a BA from a good university. And this doesn't make me elite. In fact, approximately 20% of individuals now attend college, and that number is rising, rapidly. In fact, that's something you advocate -- more higher education.

So why don't you tell me, how enrolling at a community college would have helped me get a job the two times I was unemployed thanks to the economic downturn we've suffered during your administration? I'd really like to know.

You talk about how we must become a nation of knowledge workers. I have knowledge, and I'm willing to get more. But community college isn't enoug for me, and it won't help me get a job.

And here's another thing, it won't help displaced factory workers get jobs either, as long as too many community colleges are merely replacement programs for the learning that didn't happen in our public high schools and as long as job creation in there very sectors we've been told we simply must rely on in the new world just isn't happening.

When you offered your solution for the unemployed tonight, you insulted a lot of people. You told people both with and without college educations that what they know isn't good enough. You devalued their achievements and aspirations and offered meaningless non-solutions. I've worked hard for everything I have, and I know the rest is mostly luck, and not up to you or me. But common sense, good advice, and a government policy that at least recognizes the nature and variety of its citizens without insulting them would go a long way to staving off despiar, and that's all we're asking for. And yes, that's how bad it is.

America is many things. Thanks to you it is in economic and emotional decline, and it is also lonely.

I am, quite frankly, more disgusted than I know how to express. And look, I haven't even touched on how my education means your party villifies me as a the "cultural elite" while you stand there and try to pat people on the head and mislead them on the value of the educational programs this government supports. It's incomprehensible. Do you want people to give up?

When did being American require that we avoid the exceptional pursuit of our intellect, our skills and our possibilities, both as individuals and as a nation made of individuals?

America has long been a scary place, although in different ways, at different times. But when the British and Eurpoeans first came here, it was a hostile and foreign land they weren't terribly equipped to deal with, and yet they chose to explore it and tame it and while that wasn't always done in a way that was right, successful or logical, it was done, and that was extraordinary. So why is it, that now, when America is again a frightening and strange land to us -- because of terrorism, because of the economy, because of the viciousness of our current political divides, you would have us hunker down in ignorance and fear? What on earth could you be thinking?

I can deal with my leaders being out of touch with ordinary people -- it is an unfortunate reality of much leadership in general and American politics in particular, but to be out of touch with the very idea of America, as you so clearly are, both puzzles and offends me.

*


Now, onto other things:

- George Bush, manic in a scary way for the first third of the debate. Like really freaking me out.
- Kerry -- don't plead
- Flu shot question -- aside from looing like a deer in the headlights, Bush got nearly all of the facts of the situation wrong (I'd coded an article on it easlier that day), it would take me paragraphs to explain, but in short the US didn't know what was up, and the answer to the problem isn't "blame Britain" as Britain did nothing wrong.
- Can we stop it with this L-word crap. And now the K-word. It's stupid. Both using them as slurs and then not really saying them. If we must avoid words (which I think is stupid and dangerous) can we leave that to the N-word and the F-word? See how stupid this is?

Comments

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

When he said that, about community colleges, I was enraged. I know people with masters degrees, or with great knowledge in their fields, who are unemployed now. His "solution" verified to me, and I hope to millions of other Americans, that he is not only completely ignorant of life as it is for ordinary Americans, but that he doesn't care either. Kerry may not know, but at least he cares.

[lanthinel.livejournal.com]

When I saw the community college crap he rattled on about (did you notice that apparently all domestic woes could be cured by community college and making sure that our children can add, subtract, read, and write at the grade school level apparently?), my out-loud reaction was really a "wtf?".

Community college doesn't get you a job. Hell, university doesn't do that very well half the time. Community college is the place you go to take all the core freshman and sophomore courses on the cheap before you transfer to an university - which tend to be glorified versions of the things you (were supposed to) learned in high school. Community college isn't going to help Joe the factory worker or Janice the data entry operator get a job that isn't in the same payscale and benefit situation. Community college is where people who screwed up their GPA at university go to try to salvage things.

Of course, I'm ranting at the choir here, but geez. People worried about minimum wage aren't interested in community college either; if you're already poor then you're not very likely to devote a good chunk of time to not only work but also classes and homework, let alone the extra money you're paying for Government 101 and How to Write a Crappy Research Paper.

[ali-highland.livejournal.com]

I was pissed about the flu shot thing.

1> Why the hell are America relying on British flu vaccines?(although it did make me smile)

2> All of a sudden it is just fine to be importing meds from Canada so long as it is in response to piss poor planning by them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Chiron is actually an American company, that prides itself on having half its worforce outside the US to better serve varried populations. The factory at issue with the contaminated vaccines was based in England. The US did not find out about the contamination and refuse to allow the vaccines into this country. Rther, Chiron had notified the US of a problem reacting production goals because of contamination but felt they had limited the problem and would be able to provide us with some product, at which point England did an inspection of the facility in question and then shut it down. The US learned of this pretty much as it happened, blindsiding our leaders.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Have I pointed out your brilliance lately?

[justpat.livejournal.com]

I taught "Introduction to Windows" for one semester in a community college. You have to understand that when Bush says "education" he means training. Community college is a great place to be trained "in computers", to learn how to swap out hard drives or to write an Excel macro. You won't necessarily be taught how either of these technologies actually works, or how to improve upon them; just how to operate them at a bare minimum level of competence.

The high tech job of the 21st century, to this president, is data entry.

[kalyx.livejournal.com]

The flu shot inaccuracies really irked me as well. Mostly because I believe he stated that the US doesn't manufacture vaccines because of potential law suits. What? I am trying to get a job in biotech and there doesn't appear to be any research (non-academic)in vaccine development and the reason is that vaccines are used once or twice and should be protective for life. Thus, there is no financial incentive to develop them. Instead, companies are researching treatments for chronic illnesses (cancer and autoimmune disease) and erectile dysfunction is big. Because those drugs are expensive and often used for years or sometimes for life.

And I have a major issue with this. That these companies aren't putting any man power into HIV! That's what I personally would like to be working on, but I can't unless I stay in acedemia (where the pay checks suck by the way and the hours are excruciating).

And the community college comment is just another example of how out of touch he is with what is actually occuring in this country. My family doesn't understand why my partner doesn't have a job, and my mother keeps suggesting that he just find something temporarily in the service industry. She doesn't get that there are no jobs, even ones that don't take a higher education. And everyone seems to be grossly over qualified and underpaid. I hope the economy picks up soon, because the current state of things is depressing.