[Prof_Chomsky]

Bread and circuses win every time. Hail great leader.
Now hand me my bag of Doritos and the remote because some random sporting event is on and I'm too tired from working 3 jobs to bother trying to understand my political system.

[Prof_Chomsky]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

But if the only result is your teachers and police and firemen being paid shit wages and losing their pensions, well good luck with what that will do to your society.

Seems the schools in the USA have suffered since the advent of unions. Undoing that certainly won't harm classroom performance.

Canada has teacher's unions the same as in the USA, and we pay our teachers far more.
Now check out the UN educational ratings. Canada is always near or at the very top.

There are some great documentaries on why the US educational system is falling apart you may like.

[BartSimpson]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

I'm too tired from working 3 jobs

I'd be utterly surprised to find out you had one job, let alone three.

[Prof_Chomsky]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

Bread and circuses win every time. Hail great leader.
Now hand me my bag of Doritos and the remote because some random sporting event is on and I'm too tired from working 3 jobs to bother trying to understand my political system.

I'd be utterly surprised to find out you had one job, let alone three.

You and Dubya have a lot in common.

[Zipperfish]

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

I am extremely grateful that I live in North America.

You got that right buddy. Quite astonishing to see the masses buck the yoke of the Middle East/African autocrats. And it's interesting htat the Islamists are bit players in the whole ordeal. These protests are being mostly being driven by the young and disenfranchised.

Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of the protests, I don't think. Iran has alarge amount of young people who are out of step with the conservative elite.

[BartSimpson]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

You and Dubya have a lot in common.

You mean we've both schooled a self-proclaimed intellectual? Yes, indeed, George and I do have that in common.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

I am extremely grateful that I live in North America.

You got that right buddy. Quite astonishing to see the masses buck the yoke of the Middle East/African autocrats. And it's interesting that the Islamists are bit players in the whole ordeal. These protests are being mostly being driven by the young and disenfranchised.

Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of the protests, I don't think. Iran has a large amount of young people who are out of step with the conservative elite.

It's rather ironic that in 1979 it was the youth who overthrew the Shah and installed an Islamic theocracy and now it's the youth who are standing up to the Islamic theocracy of their parents.

[ShepherdsDog]

not really totally accurate. While the Iranian youth were the force behind the shah's ouster, the clergy only seized full control after the fact. A big reason they were able to do this is that they were very vocal in their condemnation of the brutality of the shah's regime prior to its downfall.

They also pushed the idea that foreign infidels were responsible for the decline of Iranian society, as both the US and Israel were friends of the royal government... Christians also held a fair bit of power in Iranian society while the Shah ran the show.

The ayatollahs were much like the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, they seized control after the fact.

[EyeBrock]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

I am extremely grateful that I live in North America.

You got that right buddy. Quite astonishing to see the masses buck the yoke of the Middle East/African autocrats. And it's interesting htat the Islamists are bit players in the whole ordeal. These protests are being mostly being driven by the young and disenfranchised.

Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of the protests, I don't think. Iran has alarge amount of young people who are out of step with the conservative elite.

I agree Zip. The way out of the Third World mind set is education. Religion just drags them down. Studying the Koran is as useful as studying the Bible.

Education is the key.

[ShepherdsDog]

Don't know if education and knowledge always trumps dogma and rhetoric. The original Iranian revolutionaries of 1979 were middle class university students , and if you look at many of our domestic nut-bars, they are mostly university educated.

[EyeBrock]

I think if they manage to get away from their desperate rocks and be open to new ideas, that's good.

Too often in the past though, the landed gentry or the despots off-spring went to Oxford or Harvard and then went back home and milked their countries even harder on their return.

Half of Africa's despots went to Oxbridge.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

I am extremely grateful that I live in North America.

You got that right buddy. Quite astonishing to see the masses buck the yoke of the Middle East/African autocrats. And it's interesting that the Islamists are bit players in the whole ordeal. These protests are being mostly being driven by the young and disenfranchised.

Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of the protests, I don't think. Iran has a large amount of young people who are out of step with the conservative elite.

It's rather ironic that in 1979 it was the youth who overthrew the Shah and installed an Islamic theocracy and now it's the youth who are standing up to the Islamic theocracy of their parents.

yeah I'm really rooting for these kids. I mean, imagine marching when you got soldiers firing live rounds at you. They deserve a lot better than they're getting. Here's to freedom!

[GreenTiger]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

I am extremely grateful that I live in North America.

You got that right buddy. Quite astonishing to see the masses buck the yoke of the Middle East/African autocrats. And it's interesting that the Islamists are bit players in the whole ordeal. These protests are being mostly being driven by the young and disenfranchised.

Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of the protests, I don't think. Iran has a large amount of young people who are out of step with the conservative elite.

It's rather ironic that in 1979 it was the youth who overthrew the Shah and installed an Islamic theocracy and now it's the youth who are standing up to the Islamic theocracy of their parents.

Isn't Amadinejad one of the "students" leading one of the American hostages out of the American Embassy in 1979?

[martin14]

Urban myth.

[Pseudonym]

andyt andyt:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

But if the only result is your teachers and police and firemen being paid shit wages and losing their pensions, well good luck with what that will do to your society.

Seems the schools in the USA have suffered since the advent of unions. Undoing that certainly won't harm classroom performance.

I repeat my statement. Just getting rid of unions won't solve anything except maybe the bottom line. If you make teaching even more poorly paid than it already is in some states, you'll be breeding even dumber people than you are now. Of course maybe that's the whole plan.

If you take away union dues and put in merit pay, you might even have some teachers being paid more than before. The labyrinthine rules established by unions and government for dealing with removing teachers certainly need revision at the very least; and compulsory union membership has got to go.