Are kids always paragons of making thoughtful, long-term philosophical decisions? Give a kid something that, *today,* is free (as in beer) and easy to use, and they might not carefully balance the long-term repercussions of tying themselves to an incredibly expensive and proprietarily locked-down solution (instead of devoting their effort to getting over the learning curve of something far more valuable in the future). Part of an educational product/effort should be educating kids --- guiding them towards better choices, like embracing Freedom, than they'd make if fed only commercial propaganda from corporate "benefactors."
Do you also recommend, for good educational practice, that parents pack their kids' lunchbox to give them the choice of an apple or high-purity cocaine for a healthy snack, and "let the kids decide"?
So, they have a bunch of oil and use it to raise the standard of living of their population. What a horrible crime against humanity. Clearly, they should have let foreign multinationals collect all the profits from their country's oil, like God intended, instead of wasting that money on improving quality of life for the common citizenry.
If you've got oil, what's wrong with *using it* to fund government expenditures, given Venezuela's general track record of *success* in consistently raising quality-of-life indicators across the board for their population? And, as for "taking the assets of other countries," I take it you're ignorant of the entirety of US historical involvement in South America (hint: it involves installing lots of murderous dictators, and stripping every asset in sight for Wall Street investors' gain).
During Tesla's initial work on AC power, electricity was a luxury for the rich rather than the common man's utility. And the "particle beam weapons, remote control devices, and wireless power" didn't exactly get to "majority of the populace" status, either. Giving Tesla credit for every engineering advancement in those fields over half a century since his death is a bit excessive hero-worship. Tesla did a lot of great stuff, but a lot wasn't particularly useful at the time (or even later, for the more wildly speculative projects based on handwaving more than practical engineering). Your glorification of Tesla is like someone looking back fifty years from now and saying that Musk single-handedly put an electric car and a rocket ship in every middle-class garage --- a hint of fact under a heap of exaggeration.
Yay, we're better than Somalia. That makes everything the Republicans are doing to push us in that direction all right. I'm so relieved that "Still Better Than Somalia" is the high standard to which our leading pro-government-failure government officials are held. I'm not going to worry or complain until the situation here is just like Somalia.
Venezuela, where life expectancy at birth has risen from 60.2 to 77.4 years between 1960 and 2011, compared to a change from 70.0 to 78.6 over the same period for the United States? Also, rising literacy rates, declining poverty, etc. For a country not starting from the top of the economic ladder, Venezuela seems to be doing pretty well under socialism --- just about every indicator I can find shows improving standard of living under Socialist rule. Where's your basis for Venezuelan Socialism being a net negative to "the people it's purported to help," rather than the positive improvement indicated by available facts?
To further the comparison, at least in the US, the numbers I found indicate $97B annual donations to religious organizations, which also includes a substantial amount of aid organizations who provide charity services besides "spreadin' the faith."
Microsoft's annual revenue in 2013 was $78B, for pure selfish capitalism. So, Microsoft rakes in a comparable amount of money to all religious-affiliated donations (including legit aid/charity work) combined in the "highly religious" US.
Generally, I'd rate Microsoft's accumulation of wealth and power (to spread their own "religion" of lockin to Microsoft products) as a greater threat to global wellbeing than all religious institutions combined (who at least do a reasonable mix of altruistic good alongside self-serving power grabs, which is 100% the goal of a for-profit corporation).
Charity still works that way in the Capitalist religion, too. Consider the stipulations that, e.g., the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has placed on third-world countries pledging loyalty to "intellectual property" laws to protect Big Pharma before "charity" is rendered. Indeed, US foreign aid "charity" generally comes with strict requirements of loyalty to the interests of global megacorporations; nations that attempt to cut Wall Street profits out of the loop of uplifting their own people are generally faced instead with sanctions cutting into food and medical supplies of the general populace (who must prove sufficient loyalty to Global Capitalism before being worthy of largess).
You're not great at reading comprehension, are you? The point of my post above was not that I want to "stop technology" and say "no more progress," but rather to bring down Ned Ludd's hammer on applications of technology that steal from the working class to enrich the wealthy elite (who didn't actually invent the technology, but just choose to deploy it in manners destructive to humanity). I have no "fear of progress" or desire to revert to some pre-industrial agrarian society. However, I demand that "progress" actually mean "progress" for the people, not "progress of a ruling oligarchy seizing power over humankind." Wherever "labor saving" devices are used to save billionaires the cost of labor rather than reduce labor required by the 99% to maintain/improve quality of life, they need re-adjustment by Ludd's hammer until they are put into the service of humankind.
The problem being that instead of the "couple" (the wealthy politicians/businessmen making the decisions) sacrificing their lifestyle, they live lavishly on the preparations while slashing the quality of everyone else's lifestyle. The poor and middle class see their schools and public infrastructure getting cut to fund the lavish party (that they'd never be able to afford tickets for) for the global oligarchy at taxpayer expense. The Olympics are yet another excuse for the upward redistribution of wealth, away from the general citizenry of a city and into the pockets of a wealthy elite.
Where "gay propaganda" is saying anything the least bit supportive of the rights of gays to coexist in society. Saying that being gay is something people are born into rather than a lifestyle choice to spit in the eye of baby jeebus is "gay propaganda" in Russia, and may get you locked up.
Google Glass has an additional disadvantage over perhaps offering little of use to the user (beyond existing tech): it is disliked by people around the user. Flying on the Concorde or taking a maglev train probably doesn't make you a persona-non-grata jerk that people don't want around. Being a patsy for the advertising/surveillance industry often does.
Or, through the support of your fellow human beings who shared a little of their "backbreaking labor" to help out those less able. There is abundant archaeological evidence that early humans kept the elderly and injured around long past their "usefulness" for hard labor, so far as scant resources allowed --- indicating that valuing others for something more fundamental than their capability to work has been part of the human psyche since the first humans walked the Earth. Only modern Homo capitalisticus rejects the notion of human dignity and worth beyond the dollar.
The only reason technological advances have benefited the working class in the past is Luddites.
That is, the working class organizing into labor movements saying "give us a cut of the improvements in production, or we'll bring your wage-destroying, employment-destroying factories to a grinding halt." The wealthy elite love spinning a narrative where technological improvements come along, and the elite generously hand out the benefits to the working class (so everyone should uncritically love technological improvements). But, throughout history, the only reason technology hasn't been an unmitigated disaster leading to starving masses of the unemployed is that those potential starving masses of the unemployed *fight back* and demand things like minimum wages and maximum working hours to re-distribute the benefits of mechanization. We need Luddites (who, rather than misunderstanding technology, understand its impacts best) to keep up the good work of striking fear into the hearts of the ruling oligarchy, and making sure We The People aren't left in a post-employment, post-getting-food-on-the-table dystopia of maximized profit.
The main part of the economics that don't make sense is trusting a secretive technocratic savior, wielding trillions of dollars of resources, to actually give a shit about helping out all the low-level peons who initially funded the system. It's an extremely elitist vision, that, by people's parents handing over investment money to a small cabal of technological geniuses, their kids will be handed a post-scarcity utopia on a platter --- instead of the wealthy technocrats simply joining forces with the rest of the oppressive oligarchy, laughing at the suckers who gambled away their children's futures on promises of technology serving the people rather than vice-versa. The story provides a well-founded criticism of the use of technology/Taylorization to enslave the masses, but the solution offered (post-scarcity salvation handed down from a technocratic elite) is absurdly prone to failure (i.e. the typical pattern that a technocratic elite will be just as self-serving as any other authoritarian elite handed control over human society).
And about access to platforms to spread your propaganda, which is often based on... the money. In the US, the wealthy hold near complete sway over the entire media, so "news" consists of one multimillionaire bashing another for not hating unions quite enough. Working-class political movements got their voices out through things like Labor newspapers; good luck finding those in wide circulation in the US. For a while before the 'net caught on in the wide mainstream, there was opportunity for freer discussion; though, reaching primarily upper-middle-class audiences with earlier access to information technology, not focused on working-class issues. Now that pretty much everyone is online, the corporate oligarchy has caught on, consolidating and systematizing propaganda control of online channels, too.
Your complaint about unions --- that they use money to influence politicians who are in position to give them undeserved handouts against the people's interests --- is, of course, also true of everyone with money to throw around. The rich people and big corporations who use their lobbying dollars (dwarfing union "boatloads" of dollars, while representing the interests of far fewer people) to get subsidies, loopholes, contracts, profitable wars, treaties, laws, and plain old piles of cash are also corrupting the system against the interests of all. Calling out "unions" --- when they contribute a tiny amount of the overall bribe flow, and show little evidence of actually *getting* much more for their money than moderately normal working pay/conditions, unlike billions and trillions going to wealthy elite interests --- often seems a bit disingenuous.
However, I don't disagree that the influence of money to guide political decisions (rather than representation of peoples' interests) is problematic. This is especially problematic when coupled to the immense inequality in distribution of money --- if everyone had the same amount of money, then "voting with your dollar" on a politician would be similar to a vote in democracy; but, in the real world, a few people have millions more "votes" to spend than others. Wherever you combine vast inequalities of wealth with the ability for wealth to decide the functions of society that determine distribution of wealth --- which is axiomatically true in markets-based systems, and empirically true for governance without strong intentional countermechanisms --- the result is entrenching the iron rule of a tiny oligarchy. That's why reducing the government's power to turn over societal control to markets is no help; the oligarchy control the markets even more directly than they control politicians. Only actual democracy --- devolving control over societal functions to an engaged, on-the-ground citizenry (in a direct and transparent manner, not "in theory" through a charismatic Dear Leader wielding autocratic control) --- provides an alternative likely to value each person's lives over those of a tiny power elite.
My source for that number was the Bureau of Labor Statistics report I linked in my post above (located with a quick web search). They lump "Education, training, and library occupations" together in the 39.2% union represented number; I'd have to look elsewhere to see exactly what portion of that is specifically government-run public schools (though that's the biggest portion of the "education" market to start with). No "janitorial/maintenance" is not lumped in --- they're a separate line ("Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance") with only 11.4% representation.
Given your (oft well founded) distrust of government, why do you think government employees shouldn't be allowed to band together to make sure they don't get screwed over by their management? You do realize that union donations are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty small --- politicians are "hearing" a lot more loudly from anti-union and pro-privatization advocates. Here's the page I found on OpenSecrets.org listing public sector union donations: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries../indus.php?ind=P04 . On the total list of "special interest" groups, they're 15th down the list (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries../mems.php) --- not completely insignificant, but outspent 2:1 by, e.g., "securities/investment" who would love privatization and wage-slashing action. And even that's a drop in the bucket (not "boatloads") compared to total private-sector lobbyist spending. Overall, union funds for campaigning are only a tiny fraction of their worker's paychecks --- and working-class folks only take home a fraction of the money going to anti-union oligarchs (who have a lot more disposable income for corrupting government officials to their will).
For a test of public sector union "corruption" based on data rather than hand-waving, one might ask whether public sector (union) employees actually earn ridiculously more than their private sector counterparts. If they don't, then "eeeevil unions" apparently aren't doing much harm (and, if they do, it may be that private sector employees are getting shafted...). Here's a CBO report I found on the topic: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921 --- I see slightly higher wages+benefits for similar educational levels (below doctorate level), but not exactly signs of massive evil fraud --- to reasonable approximation, you're earning about the same amount either way.
Such behavior has also been expected, at other times, of well behaved boys; such as the Victorian-era "children are to be seen but not heard" ethos. Hammering away at the "feminization" aspect of the problem is often used to misplace blame --- on some imaginary straw(wo)man liberal feminist conspiracy --- for problems that do not stem from some mythical ascendancy of women in society. There's more than "some" overlap in the "bell curves" between boys and girls; often, there's more overlap than not (and, in a hugely multidimensional space of behaviors and preferences, nearly everyone has at least a few things on the "other side" of crude gender stereotypes), though it depends on how much forced gender socialization has been imposed. The problem is one of not making accommodations for the wide range of childhood behaviors, but enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach that best meets "business style" metrics-driven management idiocy. The approach hurts both boys and girls who fall outside a narrow enforced "normal", of which there are plenty of both. Casting this explicitly as a "boys' problem" is ignorant, and likely to produce unhelpful solutions (that are beneficial to the management metrics goons, but not particularly to kids).
Again, given the decline in education unionization, and also the wide availability of union-free education sectors (a solid majority at 60%) for comparison, I'd say you have a significant burden of proof --- not to simply be met by anti-union slogans --- for proving that unions are a strong factor in the poor quality and one-size-fits-all testing driven educational system. What you've seen over the last half century, if you've been paying attention outside of right-wing echo chambers, is the systematic demise and dismantlement of union representation and power in the country --- things should be better than ever now, right? If unions are an issue worth mentioning, then there should be a demonstrable difference in outcomes, after controlling for other factors, between unionized institutions and education in anti-union states (which are often also, at least nominally, more "anti-big-federal-government"). Where is your evidence, besides platitudes, that unions are positively correlated with a push for authoritarian prison-like "efficient" factory schools?
Your note on insanity seems to apply quite well to unions over the past half century. Workers have been propagandized over and over that unions are holding down their wages and prosperity --- ditch the unions, and their situation will improve. So, over and over, union membership decreases, dwindling to an insignificant fraction in most industries. Well, the rich get richer, all right, but workers see stagnant wages, rising unemployment, longer hours for less pay, etc. If you look back to some "golden age" half a century ago from which this nation has declined, then you are looking back to a period of vastly higher unionization, along with far higher top marginal tax rates on the super-rich. Why do you think education will follow a different path: that quality will increase, rather than decrease towards the lowest-common-denominator, mass-produced-in-China, Wal*Mart quality race-to-the-bottom crap that other de-unionized economic sectors see?
I'm not going to say that unions are perfect in all ways. Just like any other organization in society, they require the constant vigilance of their members (the people) to act in the general interest, rather than (at worst) becoming exactly like their corporate counterparts. Unions need to be decentralized and democratic and egalitarian --- putting into action the best traditions of radical anarchy --- to serve best, rather than adopting "like a business" hierarchical autocracies.
We'll have to continue on the "agree to disagree" line here, since I think you're making a mistake by reflexively lumping "unionization" in with the problems. Union membership and representation is at historical lows, and still declining; problems due to "unions" should thus be declining, not rising. Granted, the education sector is still fairly highly unionized compared to other industries, but that's still only 39.2% of employees covered by union representation (source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf). There's no indication of the majority 60% of the education system without unions being more free from the problems of teach-to-the-test "one size fits all" management metrics based education.
Yes, unions allow some bad teachers to stick around; I've had a few of those. They also allow especially good teachers --- the ones who cause trouble for higher management by sticking up for the individual needs of students instead of succumbing to uniform mediocrity --- to have a voice. From my own experience, my best teachers (who were willing to go through the trouble of dealing with a problematically way-ahead-of-standardized-grade-level kid like me) were rarely management favorites, and often burned out (or were forced out) and left for the far better conditions of jobs outside public education. Unions stand up for smaller class sizes, well educated teachers, diverse curricula, individual attention to students --- not cramming everything into a testing-driven, mass-production assembly line. Yes, these things raise educational costs (and cut into profitable opportunities for the privatization goons), but they're also mainly the things that make the education provided worthwhile at all.
I think you're making a mistake by identifying this as a "gendered" problem, that "boys are being treated like girls." From my own observations of kids (and, there is more "formal" research backing these things up in greater generality), both boys and girls naturally exhibit a wide range of individual behaviors, including things that traditionally have been placed in strict gender categories (but, in reality, quite frequently cross gender lines). Some little boys are wild and active and love rough physical play; so are some little girls. Some little girls are quiet and polite and like "domestic" play; so are some little boys.
Setting up a false gender dichotomy between "how boys behave" and "how girls behave" creates the problems you're complaining about: if you throw all little boys together in a rough-and-tumble free-for-all system, some will be happy and some will go home crying to mamma about how horrible the playground is. If you force all little boys to be still and quiet and do genteel arts and crafts, some will be happy and some will go screaming crazy. Good childhood care does not come from locking everyone into their expected gender behavior box ("boys' activities for boys, girly stuff for girls"), but recognizing and working with the fact that each individual child will have their own personality, behavior, learning style, etc., and you need a flexible system with experienced adult supervision on the ground (not distant managers issuing simplistic edicts) to address differing needs in the classroom and playground (e.g. let the rough-and-tumble types play "physically"; step in if they start causing distress to some other kid who doesn't enjoy that type of activity so much).
School policies tend to be set by the upper administrative class, who tend to be men with MBAs. School systems are being managerialized and corporatized, which has nothing to do with "feminisation." Just because you mainly see women doing the lower-end jobs in the school system (classroom teachers), don't be fooled into thinking the decisions being handed down from upper management behind the scenes are representative of what majority-female teachers want.
"Feminization" is the wrong word for this. If you take female young children, and don't systematically indoctrinate them into quietly playing "tea" and "shopping" with dolls, a whole lot of them will love to run around and explore and compete, too. True, some of them won't, and will prefer quietly playing make-believe with dolls --- the same of which is true for some young male children, who won't all automatically be little wild roughhousing monsters. Kids of both genders show a variety of individual behaviors, frequently including thriving on unstructured, rambunctious activity.
Blaming poor treatment of children on sexist stereotypes ("feminization") is misplaced. "Femininity" is not to blame for the authoritarian, "sit down shut up and behave to become good obedient workers" schooling approach, which is usually dictated from above by overwhelmingly male upper-level administrators. Teachers interacting with students are primarily female, since societal sexism leaves lower-paying and less desirable jobs to women; however, teachers increasingly have little influence at all over school policy (they are expendable labor, who must submit to management priorities or be fired). When I was in school at the beginning of the transition into the "zero tolerance" era, none of my teachers supported those policies; that crap was being forced down from above, from a wealthy white male administrative class with MBAs (not from "touchy feely female teachers").
Heh, shill propaganda from The Heritage Foundation (far-right think tank, fearmongering to promote US military-industrial boondoggles) --- given who is saying this, I'd take these articles as a comforting indicator of the nonexistence of a North Korean EMP threat.
Could be true (also, propaganda firms sometimes miss the mark). I have no way to gauge the mentality of Slashdot's larger "non-commenting" readership; would they see a piece like this and feel negatively towards Snowden, or have the same type of reaction (backlash against pedoterrorthinkofthechildren appeals) as the commenting readership? I can't tell. The post certainly is lacking any editorial integrity, slapped up to get advertizing page views (which, thanks to adblock/etc, the internet I use is entirely free from...). Is there any question to be raised about Slashdot editor integrity? I figured it was common knowledge that they have none.
I recall more clear (or, unclear if you're not looking for it) propaganda posts in the past surrounding Wikileaks/Assange; not the most "extreme" articles straight from the crudest government mouthpieces, but in the more "moderate" assessments tuned to spread subtler FUD without immediately setting off every BS alarm.
Slashdot Mirror
Are kids always paragons of making thoughtful, long-term philosophical decisions? Give a kid something that, *today,* is free (as in beer) and easy to use, and they might not carefully balance the long-term repercussions of tying themselves to an incredibly expensive and proprietarily locked-down solution (instead of devoting their effort to getting over the learning curve of something far more valuable in the future). Part of an educational product/effort should be educating kids --- guiding them towards better choices, like embracing Freedom, than they'd make if fed only commercial propaganda from corporate "benefactors."
Do you also recommend, for good educational practice, that parents pack their kids' lunchbox to give them the choice of an apple or high-purity cocaine for a healthy snack, and "let the kids decide"?
So, they have a bunch of oil and use it to raise the standard of living of their population. What a horrible crime against humanity. Clearly, they should have let foreign multinationals collect all the profits from their country's oil, like God intended, instead of wasting that money on improving quality of life for the common citizenry.
If you've got oil, what's wrong with *using it* to fund government expenditures, given Venezuela's general track record of *success* in consistently raising quality-of-life indicators across the board for their population? And, as for "taking the assets of other countries," I take it you're ignorant of the entirety of US historical involvement in South America (hint: it involves installing lots of murderous dictators, and stripping every asset in sight for Wall Street investors' gain).
During Tesla's initial work on AC power, electricity was a luxury for the rich rather than the common man's utility. And the "particle beam weapons, remote control devices, and wireless power" didn't exactly get to "majority of the populace" status, either. Giving Tesla credit for every engineering advancement in those fields over half a century since his death is a bit excessive hero-worship. Tesla did a lot of great stuff, but a lot wasn't particularly useful at the time (or even later, for the more wildly speculative projects based on handwaving more than practical engineering). Your glorification of Tesla is like someone looking back fifty years from now and saying that Musk single-handedly put an electric car and a rocket ship in every middle-class garage --- a hint of fact under a heap of exaggeration.
Yay, we're better than Somalia. That makes everything the Republicans are doing to push us in that direction all right. I'm so relieved that "Still Better Than Somalia" is the high standard to which our leading pro-government-failure government officials are held. I'm not going to worry or complain until the situation here is just like Somalia.
Venezuela, where life expectancy at birth has risen from 60.2 to 77.4 years between 1960 and 2011, compared to a change from 70.0 to 78.6 over the same period for the United States? Also, rising literacy rates, declining poverty, etc. For a country not starting from the top of the economic ladder, Venezuela seems to be doing pretty well under socialism --- just about every indicator I can find shows improving standard of living under Socialist rule. Where's your basis for Venezuelan Socialism being a net negative to "the people it's purported to help," rather than the positive improvement indicated by available facts?
To further the comparison, at least in the US, the numbers I found indicate $97B annual donations to religious organizations, which also includes a substantial amount of aid organizations who provide charity services besides "spreadin' the faith."
Microsoft's annual revenue in 2013 was $78B, for pure selfish capitalism. So, Microsoft rakes in a comparable amount of money to all religious-affiliated donations (including legit aid/charity work) combined in the "highly religious" US.
Generally, I'd rate Microsoft's accumulation of wealth and power (to spread their own "religion" of lockin to Microsoft products) as a greater threat to global wellbeing than all religious institutions combined (who at least do a reasonable mix of altruistic good alongside self-serving power grabs, which is 100% the goal of a for-profit corporation).
Charity still works that way in the Capitalist religion, too. Consider the stipulations that, e.g., the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has placed on third-world countries pledging loyalty to "intellectual property" laws to protect Big Pharma before "charity" is rendered. Indeed, US foreign aid "charity" generally comes with strict requirements of loyalty to the interests of global megacorporations; nations that attempt to cut Wall Street profits out of the loop of uplifting their own people are generally faced instead with sanctions cutting into food and medical supplies of the general populace (who must prove sufficient loyalty to Global Capitalism before being worthy of largess).
You're not great at reading comprehension, are you? The point of my post above was not that I want to "stop technology" and say "no more progress," but rather to bring down Ned Ludd's hammer on applications of technology that steal from the working class to enrich the wealthy elite (who didn't actually invent the technology, but just choose to deploy it in manners destructive to humanity). I have no "fear of progress" or desire to revert to some pre-industrial agrarian society. However, I demand that "progress" actually mean "progress" for the people, not "progress of a ruling oligarchy seizing power over humankind." Wherever "labor saving" devices are used to save billionaires the cost of labor rather than reduce labor required by the 99% to maintain/improve quality of life, they need re-adjustment by Ludd's hammer until they are put into the service of humankind.
The problem being that instead of the "couple" (the wealthy politicians/businessmen making the decisions) sacrificing their lifestyle, they live lavishly on the preparations while slashing the quality of everyone else's lifestyle. The poor and middle class see their schools and public infrastructure getting cut to fund the lavish party (that they'd never be able to afford tickets for) for the global oligarchy at taxpayer expense. The Olympics are yet another excuse for the upward redistribution of wealth, away from the general citizenry of a city and into the pockets of a wealthy elite.
Where "gay propaganda" is saying anything the least bit supportive of the rights of gays to coexist in society. Saying that being gay is something people are born into rather than a lifestyle choice to spit in the eye of baby jeebus is "gay propaganda" in Russia, and may get you locked up.
Google Glass has an additional disadvantage over perhaps offering little of use to the user (beyond existing tech): it is disliked by people around the user. Flying on the Concorde or taking a maglev train probably doesn't make you a persona-non-grata jerk that people don't want around. Being a patsy for the advertising/surveillance industry often does.
Or, through the support of your fellow human beings who shared a little of their "backbreaking labor" to help out those less able. There is abundant archaeological evidence that early humans kept the elderly and injured around long past their "usefulness" for hard labor, so far as scant resources allowed --- indicating that valuing others for something more fundamental than their capability to work has been part of the human psyche since the first humans walked the Earth. Only modern Homo capitalisticus rejects the notion of human dignity and worth beyond the dollar.
The only reason technological advances have benefited the working class in the past is Luddites.
That is, the working class organizing into labor movements saying "give us a cut of the improvements in production, or we'll bring your wage-destroying, employment-destroying factories to a grinding halt." The wealthy elite love spinning a narrative where technological improvements come along, and the elite generously hand out the benefits to the working class (so everyone should uncritically love technological improvements). But, throughout history, the only reason technology hasn't been an unmitigated disaster leading to starving masses of the unemployed is that those potential starving masses of the unemployed *fight back* and demand things like minimum wages and maximum working hours to re-distribute the benefits of mechanization. We need Luddites (who, rather than misunderstanding technology, understand its impacts best) to keep up the good work of striking fear into the hearts of the ruling oligarchy, and making sure We The People aren't left in a post-employment, post-getting-food-on-the-table dystopia of maximized profit.
I am a Luddite, and proud of it.
The main part of the economics that don't make sense is trusting a secretive technocratic savior, wielding trillions of dollars of resources, to actually give a shit about helping out all the low-level peons who initially funded the system. It's an extremely elitist vision, that, by people's parents handing over investment money to a small cabal of technological geniuses, their kids will be handed a post-scarcity utopia on a platter --- instead of the wealthy technocrats simply joining forces with the rest of the oppressive oligarchy, laughing at the suckers who gambled away their children's futures on promises of technology serving the people rather than vice-versa. The story provides a well-founded criticism of the use of technology/Taylorization to enslave the masses, but the solution offered (post-scarcity salvation handed down from a technocratic elite) is absurdly prone to failure (i.e. the typical pattern that a technocratic elite will be just as self-serving as any other authoritarian elite handed control over human society).
And about access to platforms to spread your propaganda, which is often based on... the money. In the US, the wealthy hold near complete sway over the entire media, so "news" consists of one multimillionaire bashing another for not hating unions quite enough. Working-class political movements got their voices out through things like Labor newspapers; good luck finding those in wide circulation in the US. For a while before the 'net caught on in the wide mainstream, there was opportunity for freer discussion; though, reaching primarily upper-middle-class audiences with earlier access to information technology, not focused on working-class issues. Now that pretty much everyone is online, the corporate oligarchy has caught on, consolidating and systematizing propaganda control of online channels, too.
Your complaint about unions --- that they use money to influence politicians who are in position to give them undeserved handouts against the people's interests --- is, of course, also true of everyone with money to throw around. The rich people and big corporations who use their lobbying dollars (dwarfing union "boatloads" of dollars, while representing the interests of far fewer people) to get subsidies, loopholes, contracts, profitable wars, treaties, laws, and plain old piles of cash are also corrupting the system against the interests of all. Calling out "unions" --- when they contribute a tiny amount of the overall bribe flow, and show little evidence of actually *getting* much more for their money than moderately normal working pay/conditions, unlike billions and trillions going to wealthy elite interests --- often seems a bit disingenuous.
However, I don't disagree that the influence of money to guide political decisions (rather than representation of peoples' interests) is problematic. This is especially problematic when coupled to the immense inequality in distribution of money --- if everyone had the same amount of money, then "voting with your dollar" on a politician would be similar to a vote in democracy; but, in the real world, a few people have millions more "votes" to spend than others. Wherever you combine vast inequalities of wealth with the ability for wealth to decide the functions of society that determine distribution of wealth --- which is axiomatically true in markets-based systems, and empirically true for governance without strong intentional countermechanisms --- the result is entrenching the iron rule of a tiny oligarchy. That's why reducing the government's power to turn over societal control to markets is no help; the oligarchy control the markets even more directly than they control politicians. Only actual democracy --- devolving control over societal functions to an engaged, on-the-ground citizenry (in a direct and transparent manner, not "in theory" through a charismatic Dear Leader wielding autocratic control) --- provides an alternative likely to value each person's lives over those of a tiny power elite.
My source for that number was the Bureau of Labor Statistics report I linked in my post above (located with a quick web search). They lump "Education, training, and library occupations" together in the 39.2% union represented number; I'd have to look elsewhere to see exactly what portion of that is specifically government-run public schools (though that's the biggest portion of the "education" market to start with). No "janitorial/maintenance" is not lumped in --- they're a separate line ("Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance") with only 11.4% representation.
Searching around, I found what appears to be a more comprehensive state-by-state report on teacher's unions at
http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2012/20121029-How-Strong-Are-US-Teacher-Unions/20121029-Union-Strength-Full-Report.pdf
If you want to nearly entirely avoid unions, go to Florida, North or South Carolina, Mississippi, or Arkansas.
Given your (oft well founded) distrust of government, why do you think government employees shouldn't be allowed to band together to make sure they don't get screwed over by their management? You do realize that union donations are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty small --- politicians are "hearing" a lot more loudly from anti-union and pro-privatization advocates. Here's the page I found on OpenSecrets.org listing public sector union donations: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries../indus.php?ind=P04 . On the total list of "special interest" groups, they're 15th down the list (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries../mems.php) --- not completely insignificant, but outspent 2:1 by, e.g., "securities/investment" who would love privatization and wage-slashing action. And even that's a drop in the bucket (not "boatloads") compared to total private-sector lobbyist spending. Overall, union funds for campaigning are only a tiny fraction of their worker's paychecks --- and working-class folks only take home a fraction of the money going to anti-union oligarchs (who have a lot more disposable income for corrupting government officials to their will).
For a test of public sector union "corruption" based on data rather than hand-waving, one might ask whether public sector (union) employees actually earn ridiculously more than their private sector counterparts. If they don't, then "eeeevil unions" apparently aren't doing much harm (and, if they do, it may be that private sector employees are getting shafted...). Here's a CBO report I found on the topic: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921 --- I see slightly higher wages+benefits for similar educational levels (below doctorate level), but not exactly signs of massive evil fraud --- to reasonable approximation, you're earning about the same amount either way.
Such behavior has also been expected, at other times, of well behaved boys; such as the Victorian-era "children are to be seen but not heard" ethos. Hammering away at the "feminization" aspect of the problem is often used to misplace blame --- on some imaginary straw(wo)man liberal feminist conspiracy --- for problems that do not stem from some mythical ascendancy of women in society. There's more than "some" overlap in the "bell curves" between boys and girls; often, there's more overlap than not (and, in a hugely multidimensional space of behaviors and preferences, nearly everyone has at least a few things on the "other side" of crude gender stereotypes), though it depends on how much forced gender socialization has been imposed. The problem is one of not making accommodations for the wide range of childhood behaviors, but enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach that best meets "business style" metrics-driven management idiocy. The approach hurts both boys and girls who fall outside a narrow enforced "normal", of which there are plenty of both. Casting this explicitly as a "boys' problem" is ignorant, and likely to produce unhelpful solutions (that are beneficial to the management metrics goons, but not particularly to kids).
Again, given the decline in education unionization, and also the wide availability of union-free education sectors (a solid majority at 60%) for comparison, I'd say you have a significant burden of proof --- not to simply be met by anti-union slogans --- for proving that unions are a strong factor in the poor quality and one-size-fits-all testing driven educational system. What you've seen over the last half century, if you've been paying attention outside of right-wing echo chambers, is the systematic demise and dismantlement of union representation and power in the country --- things should be better than ever now, right? If unions are an issue worth mentioning, then there should be a demonstrable difference in outcomes, after controlling for other factors, between unionized institutions and education in anti-union states (which are often also, at least nominally, more "anti-big-federal-government"). Where is your evidence, besides platitudes, that unions are positively correlated with a push for authoritarian prison-like "efficient" factory schools?
Your note on insanity seems to apply quite well to unions over the past half century. Workers have been propagandized over and over that unions are holding down their wages and prosperity --- ditch the unions, and their situation will improve. So, over and over, union membership decreases, dwindling to an insignificant fraction in most industries. Well, the rich get richer, all right, but workers see stagnant wages, rising unemployment, longer hours for less pay, etc. If you look back to some "golden age" half a century ago from which this nation has declined, then you are looking back to a period of vastly higher unionization, along with far higher top marginal tax rates on the super-rich. Why do you think education will follow a different path: that quality will increase, rather than decrease towards the lowest-common-denominator, mass-produced-in-China, Wal*Mart quality race-to-the-bottom crap that other de-unionized economic sectors see?
I'm not going to say that unions are perfect in all ways. Just like any other organization in society, they require the constant vigilance of their members (the people) to act in the general interest, rather than (at worst) becoming exactly like their corporate counterparts. Unions need to be decentralized and democratic and egalitarian --- putting into action the best traditions of radical anarchy --- to serve best, rather than adopting "like a business" hierarchical autocracies.
We'll have to continue on the "agree to disagree" line here, since I think you're making a mistake by reflexively lumping "unionization" in with the problems. Union membership and representation is at historical lows, and still declining; problems due to "unions" should thus be declining, not rising. Granted, the education sector is still fairly highly unionized compared to other industries, but that's still only 39.2% of employees covered by union representation (source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf). There's no indication of the majority 60% of the education system without unions being more free from the problems of teach-to-the-test "one size fits all" management metrics based education.
Yes, unions allow some bad teachers to stick around; I've had a few of those. They also allow especially good teachers --- the ones who cause trouble for higher management by sticking up for the individual needs of students instead of succumbing to uniform mediocrity --- to have a voice. From my own experience, my best teachers (who were willing to go through the trouble of dealing with a problematically way-ahead-of-standardized-grade-level kid like me) were rarely management favorites, and often burned out (or were forced out) and left for the far better conditions of jobs outside public education. Unions stand up for smaller class sizes, well educated teachers, diverse curricula, individual attention to students --- not cramming everything into a testing-driven, mass-production assembly line. Yes, these things raise educational costs (and cut into profitable opportunities for the privatization goons), but they're also mainly the things that make the education provided worthwhile at all.
I think you're making a mistake by identifying this as a "gendered" problem, that "boys are being treated like girls." From my own observations of kids (and, there is more "formal" research backing these things up in greater generality), both boys and girls naturally exhibit a wide range of individual behaviors, including things that traditionally have been placed in strict gender categories (but, in reality, quite frequently cross gender lines). Some little boys are wild and active and love rough physical play; so are some little girls. Some little girls are quiet and polite and like "domestic" play; so are some little boys.
Setting up a false gender dichotomy between "how boys behave" and "how girls behave" creates the problems you're complaining about: if you throw all little boys together in a rough-and-tumble free-for-all system, some will be happy and some will go home crying to mamma about how horrible the playground is. If you force all little boys to be still and quiet and do genteel arts and crafts, some will be happy and some will go screaming crazy. Good childhood care does not come from locking everyone into their expected gender behavior box ("boys' activities for boys, girly stuff for girls"), but recognizing and working with the fact that each individual child will have their own personality, behavior, learning style, etc., and you need a flexible system with experienced adult supervision on the ground (not distant managers issuing simplistic edicts) to address differing needs in the classroom and playground (e.g. let the rough-and-tumble types play "physically"; step in if they start causing distress to some other kid who doesn't enjoy that type of activity so much).
School policies tend to be set by the upper administrative class, who tend to be men with MBAs. School systems are being managerialized and corporatized, which has nothing to do with "feminisation." Just because you mainly see women doing the lower-end jobs in the school system (classroom teachers), don't be fooled into thinking the decisions being handed down from upper management behind the scenes are representative of what majority-female teachers want.
"Feminization" is the wrong word for this. If you take female young children, and don't systematically indoctrinate them into quietly playing "tea" and "shopping" with dolls, a whole lot of them will love to run around and explore and compete, too. True, some of them won't, and will prefer quietly playing make-believe with dolls --- the same of which is true for some young male children, who won't all automatically be little wild roughhousing monsters. Kids of both genders show a variety of individual behaviors, frequently including thriving on unstructured, rambunctious activity.
Blaming poor treatment of children on sexist stereotypes ("feminization") is misplaced. "Femininity" is not to blame for the authoritarian, "sit down shut up and behave to become good obedient workers" schooling approach, which is usually dictated from above by overwhelmingly male upper-level administrators. Teachers interacting with students are primarily female, since societal sexism leaves lower-paying and less desirable jobs to women; however, teachers increasingly have little influence at all over school policy (they are expendable labor, who must submit to management priorities or be fired). When I was in school at the beginning of the transition into the "zero tolerance" era, none of my teachers supported those policies; that crap was being forced down from above, from a wealthy white male administrative class with MBAs (not from "touchy feely female teachers").
Heh, shill propaganda from The Heritage Foundation (far-right think tank, fearmongering to promote US military-industrial boondoggles) --- given who is saying this, I'd take these articles as a comforting indicator of the nonexistence of a North Korean EMP threat.
Could be true (also, propaganda firms sometimes miss the mark). I have no way to gauge the mentality of Slashdot's larger "non-commenting" readership; would they see a piece like this and feel negatively towards Snowden, or have the same type of reaction (backlash against pedoterrorthinkofthechildren appeals) as the commenting readership? I can't tell. The post certainly is lacking any editorial integrity, slapped up to get advertizing page views (which, thanks to adblock/etc, the internet I use is entirely free from...). Is there any question to be raised about Slashdot editor integrity? I figured it was common knowledge that they have none.
I recall more clear (or, unclear if you're not looking for it) propaganda posts in the past surrounding Wikileaks/Assange; not the most "extreme" articles straight from the crudest government mouthpieces, but in the more "moderate" assessments tuned to spread subtler FUD without immediately setting off every BS alarm.