I just heard about this I am totally appalled. It is NOT the purpose of our schools to train our students for zero-skilled jobs. It is to provide our country with an educated, literate and highly skilled citizenry.
And these jobs are not entry level... they are the path to a life of poverty..And certainly our schools should not be enabling companies like Walmart to get even lower paid workers (lower even than minimum wage) at our expense.
Remember, when companies like Walmart don't pay a living wage, they are effectively being subsidized at our expense. We now have to subsidize these workers with various subsidy payments like food stamps, medicare and Section 8 housing. Thus we are effectively paying part of the wages of these workers that Walmart and others should be paying.
If we believe that those who do a full week's work, obey the law and play by the rules are entitled to "the pursuit of happiness" then we should ensure that all employers pay the living wage generally regarded as necessary for the "pursuit of happiness" as defined in the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, if you believe, as so many right-wingers do, that those who are less fortunate should be allowed to be undernourished, living in shelters, and to die from lack of medical care, then there is no problem with this.
But I don't believe that we Americans are like that, at least not most of us.
The other problem with this epidemic of low wages is that it is bad for our economy. One of the main reasons for the collapse of our economy at the end of the Bush years was the massive redistribution of income and wealth from the middle classes to the top 1%. This redistribution caused a huge increase in both public and private debt, and the phenomenon of a series of bubble economies, culminating the the last one which just about drove our economy over the cliff!
We should immediately increase the minimum wage to the equivalent of the local living wage with no exceptions. This would end the need for subsidies like food stamps and Section 8. This would help to get our budget deficit under control. And the increase in buying power of the rising wages of working people would jump-start our economy faster than any federal stimulus measure.

Why does Walmart's constant greed, racism and unethical behavior never fail to amaze me?

Unless you are from Detroit and realize the economic depression that is going on right now, you can't even begin to understand that Walmart is extending a hand to an otherwise sinking city. I remember over the summer the line around the Coleman Young Center building for people to fill out job applications for possible summer jobs-Michigan Youth Corp., etc. I also remember another line just as long if not longer around that same building for free bread. It's very sad what has happened to such a beautiful architecturally wonderful city. Let's hope we can turn it around and make it great again.

This might be a good idea. It's best to learn about a dead end low wage job in your teens rather than when you are older and that is the ONLY job you can get.

"They’re going to train students to be subservient workers" she told the Free Press. "This is not why parents send them to school."

isn't this the whole entire point of the school system? a high school degree is meant to prepare them fore entry level employment, and wal-mart is just that

They should be teaching them union organizing. That will get them exposed to new cultures and better wages.

Detroit, you mean the city that build crap cars for years and went crying to the government for help to keep Chryler in business? That Detroit that used to be the must see of any foreign government's advisors on tour of America/ That Detroit?

The Detroit that responded to the consumer turning to foreign autos by building even worse crap?

The Detroit that is perfectly capable of competing in the world marketplace, that the executives decided to move manufacturing to countries where the unions weren't a nuisance? The Detroit that still holds the largest share of vehicles provided to city, state and federal governments even though the vehicles delivered do not have one American made part in them? That Detroit?

The Detroit of the hustlers and liars is doing fine after screwing the hell out of the middle class and lower of Detroit.

That Detroit still exists.

How to tell when your country is on the fasttrack to the shitter: China-Mart sponsors programs to teach students how to be good little serfs. LMAO. I give this country the rest of the year before it is in complete anarchy due to rising unemployment that continues to climb no matter the fairy tales the BLS tells.

They need classes in how to be a good corporate slave? Soon they'll have classes in how to grovel and how to plead with your boss/master, "Please master, please don't beat me, I'll work harder!" What we need are classes in how to off the corporate/government pig.

If you're poor, the choice is simple: work for Walmart, a corporation; join the military, where you will fight for corporations; or succumb to a life of crime on the streets and eventually go to prison, which will be run by a corporation. Welcome to 21st century America.

Until people in the USA start standing up to corporations, we will all be working for Walmart wages. Quit buying crap is the best approach and start beating up stores that you can't find "Made in USA" items. We export cardboard so other countries can fill the cardboard with stuff that we don't need. We're almost at a point where buying stuff in this country isn't going to happen. That'll be fun watching the Stock Market reaction to that. Even the USA Olympic team wears China. All the "green" technology like windmills are manufactured in Germany or China. So Obama is full of crap too.

Reading through the comments, I can see that many are blind to reality. We have all been sold out. We make a lot less than we once did, but surprise, surprise the cost of living has not gone down at all. When is the lower cost of living going to catch up with the low pay? The middle class has been destroyed by the Republicans all in the name of greed! I can tell that many folks do not even know how this all started 30 years ago with Ronald Reagan. Cut taxes for the rich and no regulations! I see men who really didn't see this coming because they were so concerned with guns, gays and God. How's that working out for ya? No Dem has come for your guns, but your kids have no future. Wake up!!!!

WalMart is dreary corporate socialism. Walking into WalMart reminds me of gray and dreary East Germany, it's so depressing, but this is what you wanted, this is what you get! Just like people who join the military claiming to fight for liberty and free market capitalism and they are just selling themselves for a secure government subsidized (with Big Oil in the behind) paycheck. Low Prices market "made in China" slavery. Reminiscent of the sugar and cotton plantations offering low prices to Europe centuries ago. Localize ourselves from this commie store posing as freedom with its Illuminati 5 pointed star for Goddess Columbia

First, let me begin by saying that I despise Wal-Mart, and corporatism in general. I would characterize my politics as radical,far to the left of whats considered progressive.

However, I work as a math teacher in an urban school district in NJ and I can honestly say that when you look at the JROTC programs which operates in the most economically depressed schools, this Wal-Mart program looks like enlightened liberalism in comparison. Most of my students loathe academics, in fact they simply want to join the workforce as quickly as possible to get some additional income in their pockets to afford the gadgets they are enslaved by. I have desperately tried to put all of this into context for them, but here is the thing, by and large they don't care. In all honesty when I look at this program, I think its a step in the right direction. The truth is that you don't need to know how to solve for inverse functions or how to write a document based essay to feed yourself. So why are states and companies requiring competency (i.e. HS Diploma) in these things in order for people to get jobs?
You would think to yourself "what skills do you need to work at Walmart", you would be shocked by the complete absence of basic skills from my students. Personally, I think over 50% of my students should be enrolled in a program like this. Simply put, they need to get the hell out of an academic environment because all they are doing is ruining the lives of their classmates.

Here in Thailand, Chiangmai to be specific, there is a tech college, Technology Asia to be exact (mostly 16-20 year olds), that has a course to "teach" students to work at 7-11.

I can't tell you how many Americans I have heard snigger when they hear about this course...well America: WELCOME TO THE FREAKING THIRD WORLD.

This article confirms your assertion.
http://www.inteldaily.com/2010/02/becoming-a-th...

"There are, in fact, precisely two things left that differentiate the United States from any other large, overpopulated, impoverished Third World nation. The first is that the average standard of living here, measured either in money or in terms of energy and resource consumption, stands well above Third World levels – in fact, it’s well above the levels of most industrial nations. The second is that the United States has the world’s most expensive and technologically complex military. Those two factors are closely related, and understanding their relationship is crucial in making sense of the end of the “American century” and the decline of the United States to Third World status."

I have real problems with the way this program can be abused, and WalMart has a long and sordid reputation of abusing its employees. But on the other hand, if WalMart were unionized, then these kids would have someone to protect them.

Wow, that's amazing! How come Aggies have suddenly gotten smart? ; )

Welcome to third World America!

In Third World America, job works you!

America is letting their government do this to their economy..will they do something?

These high school students would be better off taking extra classes that would help them get into college, win a scholarship or get early college credits.

Like I told the right-winger at work (not implying you are), not everyone CAN go to college, not everyone CAN "learn more skills".. Some people can only provide grunt labor, that's all they have. Blaming them for their physical (mental) limitations seems kind of sick.. like beating a retarded person for drooling.

And what are those that can go to college to do with their degrees? Those jobs are gone, too. We have too many people to continue doing things the old ways. We have to change the way we do things or a lot of people will suffer and die. That's just reality.

? I know plenty of people with degrees and post grad degrees who have good jobs. However, I should have qualified my post by adding that high school students who aren't on track for college should be taking vocational classes. It's absolutely true that a minority of young people will be bagging groceries, or whatever for life. But that's a minority. The future of the US depends on young adults preparing themselves for work that they find meaningful and that will pay them enough to raise a family on. Clerking at Wal-Mart won't do that. If a person fails to find another niche in life they can always work at Wal-Mart or the equivalent. And then the taxpayers have to pay for their Medicaid because Wall-Mart provides so little. Even someone who can only provide grunt labor deserves more than Wal-Mart wages. There's a great documentary: "The High Cost of Wall-Mart" I recommend it.

In the 60s GM was the nation's biggest employer. A worker made good wages. Today, Wal-Gulag is the nation's biggest employer and the average worker gets chump change. This is progress?

It's progress for the Z!on!$tS that made us willing to partake in this "new kind of a crusade"

It is a joke listening to ignorant activists who probably never work seriously for their life even for a day. To say working for Walmart is subservient is an insult to billions of store workers worldwide. Listen folks, you get whatever work you can get to tie over the drought and learn something out of it. Learn what is efficiency, how to communicate and interact with colleauges, customers, and understand how the world work. Nobody stop you to progress from there. Yes it is a whole wide world outside, but you are not part of it until you take the first step.

What if a white student, or an asian student, or a hispanic student signs up for the class?

You used this:

Neither of those acts of corporate generosity, however, carried the same racial overtones as training inner-city students for a career as suburban Walmart store clerks. The fact may be that Detroit's schools are now desperate enough to accept help wherever they can find it.

You make it sound as if the rest of the residents of Detroit of a differing race than being black are some how doing quite well. Is this a sham move on the part of Wal-mart? Sure, it is. But is this a "we're trying to keep black people down by telling them that they can't succeed beyond Wal-mart" move? Absolutely it's not, in fact it's insulting to suggest otherwise. Detroit is failing right now, and it's a sad situation for the people there. But don't try to play the race card when it's not a racial issue.

Teaching kids to work at Wal Mart? Maybe they should teach them how to live in cardboard boxes and eat from garbage dumpsters too. Wal Mart jobs are a terrible joke, if you talk to anyone who has worked there they will tell you that you can not live on a Wal Mart job. A much more useful and innovative class would be to take a Grameen approach and incorporate micro loans, support groups, and skill training. It will never happen though, schools are too stodgy to think outside the box. The only thing that students will learn from Wal Mart is how to be under paid, humiliated, and live under corporate tyranny.

Don't like it, don't work there.

Sounds like you may not like your job???????? Bitter?????????? How's life as a Greeter????

A job of any kind is better than no job, and when I say greeter I mean at Kmart not the better store,

We wouldn't want to encourage being a doctor, scientist or biologist etc. Instead, just let them be "shelve" shovers to feed the masses with cheap chinese shit. We all know our society depends on consuming this shit. Why doesn't MalWart just build "castle-like" condominiums on top of their stores so the "serfs" can just live in them and take the elevator to work. Take their food and shit they buy out of their checks, no need to have cars, built in schools and take "Soma" to cope?

The school systems premise is disingenuous. The article even stated that there are no Wall Marts in the city of Detroit. The job will not pay enough for you to be able to afford a car and the mass transit system here is not worth a damn (thank G.M.).
I'm thinking that a few of the school administrators and some of the city council are on the take.

Great for the school system in Detroit. Working any place is good for students in high school. In fact, it is excellent. Working at Walmart is no different than my children that did summer jobs detasseling corn, early of a morning, serving food in restaurants, cleaning, or clerking any place they could find a job to help them with school expenses. It's ridiculous that you think it is insulting to kids and that that is all they will grow up to be. How absolutely silly!!! Probably, their self-esteem will grow because they know they can do work, count money, stock shelves, etc., and they earn money for it. You people with all of your bad language and saying the government is at fault, have too much time on your hands. Go get a job anywhere! With that language, you can't work any place ever. You have been already "dumbed" down. Learn how to work.

Loaning retirement funds to run the school district to keep your job is almost exactly like the description of the Federal Reserve Board making a loan in Zeitgiest part II. Not unlike drinking your own urine while adrift at sea.

"They’re going to train students to be subservient workers"

Everyone, by design must work under the direction of a supervisor including CEOs and politicians. We as a country are accountable to someone at all times, even the self employed who answer to their customers and boards of directors who answer to the shareholders. Each of us must be subservient to others. If I lived in the inner-city and had the opportunity for free job training I would leap on it! With the stated 50% unemployment rate any job to keep me from or at least reduce my dependence on the public dole would be manna from the heavens! I’m sure that even Ms. Stern has a boss. Is it not better to have folks working than on public assistance?

It may be better than folks receiving welfare, but it's still pathetic. This used to be a great nation. It is now a nation of slaves.

A nation of slaves my ass, Walmart can't force you to work for them, and they can't force you to buy from them. Unlike the government, Wal-Mart can't draft you. A slave has no choice.

This is terrible, building up false hope. They should be teaching basic survival skills.

Which Way to the Bastille?
By David Glenn Cox

Who do we throw our shoes at now? Does Wal-Mart have everyday low low prices on torches and pitchforks? Made in China of course, but the question is a serious one, what are we going to do, in this country, about a government that refuses to acknowledge our distress?

Yesterday I read that there are almost 20,000 homeless teenagers in New York City alone, so how many is that nationwide? Colorado Springs is turning off streetlights and sold their police helicopter and fired the pilot and mechanic. The default rate on jumbo mortgages is near 10%. Jumbo mortgages are at least $250,000 and ranged up to $729,750 but the stimulus bill reduced it to a paltry $625,500. Big fish with big loans and they’re going belly up just like the rest of us.

These economic hard times are not isolated; they are widespread and growing daily. Financial experts have said, “Thank God for the census hiring thousands.” Except census takers count households and we have millions that have no house to hold. Asking them if they have a high speed Internet connection or how many toilets they have misses the mark at this point. At this point the questions should be: are you getting enough to eat? Are your children attending school; do you have money to wash your clothes?

They don’t ask us and won’t ask us because they won’t like the answers, so it’s best to just ignore us. The President, in his State of the Union Address, announced a new jobs bill. Oh goody! More god-damned tax cuts that made the last stimulus so successful. Let me ask you, if I offered a 50% tax cut on the purchase of a new Ferrari or Rolls Royce, would you buy one? You won’t buy what you can’t afford no matter how big the tax break. Employers won’t hire workers to drive a truck if they don’t have orders to deliver, even with a tax cut.

Politicians love playing games with numbers. Obama can say, “My jobs program has 10 gazillion dollars in job incentives,” but they are all tax credits that might help 1% who were probably going to hire anyway. So what have we gained? We gain nothing except that the politician can smile and wave from the lectern. He’s free and indemnified when his critics ask, “What are you doing about unemployment?” He can answer with pointed finger, “Why, my administration is spending gazillions to fight unemployment. Haven’t you seen my jobs program?” But, but, but, if employers can’t take advantage of the tax cuts then you’ve spent nothing, and even worse you’ve done nothing.

The new jobs bill is the vehicle the administration plans to use to reauthorize the Patriot Act. With a heart of stone and eyes of lead, they are throwing lifejackets lined with fishhooks to the desperate. It is beyond cynical; it’s shameful and disgraceful. I have a finger between my index and ring finger that says all that needs to be said about that. Except perhaps that this bill is just more politics when our people are suffering, and politics should be put aside.

Don’t you dare say, “I would but… the Republicans.” Maybe if you’d punch a few of those Republicans in their political nose and start playing hardball instead of trying to hold encounter group sessions to try and get in touch with their feelings you might begin to gain traction. But you don’t fool me, pal. You’re the guy that’s leaning and grunting, but you ain’t pushing the car. You’re only pretending to push the car.

Untangling the unemployment numbers is like untangling canned spaghetti. It's a mish-mash in tomato sauce with attempt to defraud. First-time claims down by 43,000. There is a saturation point, isn’t there? A sponge will only hold so much water; you can’t expect it will suddenly hold 10% or 20% more. So you have an economy that is enfeebled like a geriatric pie crust. There are no new great mass layoffs because there is no one left with huge numbers of employees to lay off.

“Labor Department figures showed today in Washington... The total number of people getting unemployment insurance and those receiving extended benefits decreased.” Because they are no longer unemployed? Or because they have exhausted their available benefits? They don’t say because they don’t care; that information doesn’t fit their agenda.

“The Obama administration today projected payrolls will grow by 95,000 a month on average this year, indicating it will take a long time to recover the 8.4 million jobs lost since the recession began.”

Well, considering there are 150,000 more employees each month entering the workforce, I’d speculate that date to be somewhere around the twelfth of never. Yet these high-paid, over-educated economists always seem to forget us or to bury us in the footnotes. It makes for great headlines and the President can claim that his little-or-nothing jobs program is working.

You reach a point where you’ve just heard enough and you just don’t want to hear one more word from one more politician. I’m angry enough, thank you, I no longer need your services.

“Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) – President Barack Obama said he and his administration have pursued a 'fundamentally business-friendly' agenda and are 'fierce advocates' for the free market, rejecting corporate criticism of his policies.”

“Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- A majority of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index increased cash to a combined $1.18 trillion while simultaneously reducing spending, keeping a jobs recovery on hold.”

“Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings rose 15 percent in January from a year earlier and exceeded 300,000 for the 11th consecutive month as modification programs failed to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes.”

“Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he is 'agnostic' about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.

Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the Budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.”

You S.O.B! Two phony wars, a trillion dollar defense budget, and your answer is to cut Social Security and Medicare? But you’re “agnostic” on raising taxes on individuals earning just a smidge less than a quarter million a year.

We are living in a toxic economy with millions who have spent their retirement incomes that will have no chance to recover. Tens of millions who have lost their jobs and ruined their credit, who will never be able to buy another home or new car because of it. Millions of children growing up in cold rooms on bad diets with no health care. A lost generation of children moving from apartment to apartment until they get old enough to just run off and begin their own cycle of poverty and rage.

Why shouldn’t they smoke dope and sell crack? Is the magic college fairy going to come down from heaven and wave her magic wand to save them?

“Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. (Bob Dylan)


Which way to the Bastille?

David,
You are "right on" or better yet "You hit the nail on the head"
I hope more read and agree with your comments.
Keep up the good work

You take out the government, not with guns and violence like they expect and want, but with your wallet.

Comminisum, Faschism, Corporatism, whatever you want to call it, this is what our politicians, owners have in store for us!

you nailed it man right on

i hope you read this post savantster

"How to TO work at Wal-Mart"????? 2 "to"s??? Really.....in a working at Wal-Mart piece? RawStory needs some editors.

There are several grammatical and spelling errors in this piece.

I did, and I agree it's an excellent post. And I'm guessing this guy would like the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement sites. He and I are on the same page, it seems. You, however, seem to have misunderstood that post of mine up there. Oh well..

Roy Beck at NumbersUSA points out no hope to control government spending with new poverty immigration at over 1 million per year.

Hey, Old... YOU ever thought of emigrating??? We all have. (-:)

I enjoy the heart of Dixie. As to you, you bring the 3rd world here.

The third world is in Dixie. Your region sold us out first. You are so blind. Jobs are leaving the south too.

How about a course in organizing a union for retail employees to negotiate better wages and benefits?

Finally, education spending that republicans can support.

Once Upon a Time...corporations actually trained their own employees.
They called it apprenticeship.
With the public picking up the tab on education and training, corporations don't have any investment stake in human resources and therefore the decision to go offshore has even less disincentive.
It's corporatism that breeches the public/private accounts divide; the public gets the bill re-couped through taxes of their wages which are set by the private; the private gets a free resource, tax protections, trade concessions and the power to fire as many state trained employees they feel is necessary for profitability.
It really can't be intellectually defended anymore even through economic theory ...I guess that's why even Conservatives and Liberals are moving towards a faith-based public debate that never goes beyond partisanship and nationalism into the real problems of globalized corporate control.

I hate to have to correct your premise, but "corporations" did NOT have "apprenticeship" programs: UNIONS did.

UNIONS had training programs, and companies hired union workers for their skilled labor. It SAVED them having to TRAIN workers themselves.

Perhaps some corporations had TRAINING programs, whereby they hired you as a TRAINEE, and paid you less than trained workers, but NO, there were no "apprenticeship" programs by corporations until after Reagan came in and went after organized labor, THEN some corporations/companies FUNDED joint training programs for skilled labor, but only to try to stifle union wages and benefits.

I was an apprentice in the Boilermaker Brotherhood (union), and also a member of the IAMAW. Union members are CONTRACTED employees, not subject to the whims of some corporate despot to determine their wages and benefits.

I also own a contracting firm. Trust me when I tell you, I long for the days of skilled union members that could actually function virtually unsupervised, and do journeyman-quality work, unlike the labor force we now have.

How did this happen? Look in the mirror, America: you swallowed all the anti-union rhetoric hook, line and sinker, down to your tailfin, along with "free market", and "globalization" propaganda.

You BEGRUDGED the union worker making a wage he or she could raise a family on, educate their children on, retire on with dignity....yet sit on your damn hands while Wall Street and K Street rip you a new one.

At least here in Thailand, they accept their poverty and "place" in society. They love their King, while showing blank-faced unbelieving stares when you tell them he is one of the richest people in the world.

You in America are still thinking you are anything but what you really are: a FASCIST MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.

But that is ALL you are.

Have _you_ been to www.thevenusproject.com and www.thezeitgeistmovement.com sites? I'd bet you'd like them.

No one (meaning the people in charge) wants to talk about the fact that the world we live in has changed drastically from the world that existed when our current systems were constructed. Economics never accounted for global scope, monetary systems never accounted for technology replacing humans, and when we had massive amounts of room to expand, we never accounted for a "full planet" so we let those that came before take ownership of the very world we all share.

fuck zietgist there nothing but a bunch of Eugenicist
savantster i no where you are coming from kill all (the useless eaters)there are no longer needed FUCK YOU if motherfuckers like you try to kill me you better bring an army .

From what I have been abel to detect, Savantster is not a Soilent Green type... That type of mentality is on the Z!on!$t$.

You clearly have no knowledge of the sites I sent you to, because neither of them advocate killing anyone. The people who want to kill the useless eaters are the people who run the _current_ system. But keep screeching at those that are trying to help, that will do a lot of good. .. kind of like the drowning person dragging down the person trying to drag them back to shore..

Is there any possibility that you might strive to NOT advertise your ignorance. If the F word did not exist you could not write. And then there is your spelling. Questions of logic are something else. Such things do not exist in your Teabagger world.

GO FUCK YOURSELF HOW IS MY SPELLING NOW TEACHER

Your spelling is as brilliant as your logic.

How's that, jism breath?

Ironic. The last post you put up (about Fox News mistyping the word "wary") was immediately followed by this one. Read your headline, Raw Story. Do you need a copy-editor/proofreader? I teach journalism, and have an advanced degree in English. Plus, I'll work for cheap. Let me know.

Your society only prospers based on the education you give your children. In America, we seem to think it reasonable to tell our kids to strive to bag groceries.

China and India are going to beat our asses in the prosperity arena.

Indoctrinating children with pro-capitalist anti-union attitudes at an early age.

I wonder how many courses they have about how our government is structured and functions. . .or about civic responsibility.

Learning about how you have the real power.. that's boring, and won't help you buy an ipod!.. right?

_real_ education has been destroyed in America, on purpose. If these people were taught to critically think, shown how things work, they could figure out how to fix things. But that takes effort, which means money, which the ruling elite won't spend on "dirty masses".. too many private jets and 100' yachts to buy!

YOU ARE A smug arrogant scumbag

On education, the government gets what it pays for. It wants dumbed down obedient consumers, so that is what it contracted for.
As teachers progress through the system they slowly realize this and burn out or bow their heads and take a paycheck.
This video is not new, but incredibly well done and a must for anyone who wonders how our education system went down the toilet.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=73987144...

I am sitting in my downtown Detroit office as I type. For many of the youth of Detroit there is no hope.

Since you don't live here, perhaps you don't know how the loss of manufacturing jobs have hit Michigan. There are no good jobs left that you can get out of high school. These kids have no hope for college.

Think about that the next time you drive your foreign cars. Oh yea, you don't care.

Toyota, Honda, Nissian, and many others have factories in America. It isn't about what you buy, it's about who makes it.. and today, that's robots.

so many good intentioned people just can't see what's right in front of their face.

edit : that is to say, even when GM/Ford are making cars, most of it is automated by machines, so "having the factory here" doesn't solve the core problem.

i hope they kill your ass first since we humans are no longer needed FUCK YOU ASSHOLE

LOL.. you poor guy. You don't understand what I've said.. we're not needed in the "current system", so we need to change that system... "needed" becomes arbitrary, we should be living our lives, not slaving away in this current system that doesn't are about us, nor needs us. How about we make a system that lets us live our lives without a profit motive, but a live your life motive?

There are lot of foreign auto manufacturers down in the southlands because the yankees are too aware of things like unions, OSHA, worker's comp, etc. They had to go south to get the low-information workers who won't give them any trouble and will be grateful for any crumbs thrown their way. I'm not bashing the south, so don't get on my ass, I'm just stating the facts. I went to high school in the south after having received a wonderful education up until that point in the north. I know how much information gets imparted to our high school students down there. Lemme give you a clue - the day starts out with morning announcements and daily prayer (yes in public schools) and if there's a football game, forget it, it's a pep rally all day. I learned nothing new after I got south.

Lib Dems don't care. Lib Dems bring in Hispanics to take any menial job that Lib Dems come in contact with. Same with GOP.

OldAtlantic, unfortunately you have bought into the divide and concur strategies of the fascist rulers where crime and terrorism have become very profitable for the contractors of our newly privatized government. Anytime you have somebody out there who must survive... with no real means for self sufficiency... some times crime is their only solution for survival. By striping a segments of society from the means to survive, you are further enabling the government to fork over taxpayer resources into a never ending spiral of increasing security industrial complex contracts. Hamtramik is one such city that will grovel and fight to land this type of prison just for the increased commerce of a few more jobs.
My job was sent to Mexico (from Hamtramik) and there is such a glut of labor out here that I cant imagine landing a job that provides medical insurance.
Hispanics are doing my job right now but they were not the threat... The threat came from the corporation that wrapped itself in the American flag while it shipped my job off to Mexico.

I'm a liberal and I do care. Unfortunately, there are hardly any liberals left among the Democrats in congress. Most of them are corporatists and get reelected by doing the bidding of our corporate overlords.

professional politicians and corporatists don't care. Liberals care quite a bit.. in fact, they seem to be the only ones who do.

You keep confusing corrupted politicians with the public. Of course, we know you have the brain power of a 1/2 dead roach, so we'll just continue to dismiss your ramblings.

Saying you care and supporting more non-white immigration to make it worse is the hypocrisy you accuse others of.

Are you wearing your "dog-tags" today in case you get a heart attack and do not want "brown" skin doctors to save your life? Just pulled a book off my shelf that explains your buddies mcveigh/nichols---- "American Terrorist." A lot of mentioning of the turner diaries that you have pasted under your truck in case the law is after you.

After you subtract everything you own that are made by "brown" skin people, I guess your house is made out of "lousiana" mold infested siding, and fixtures made out of "Spam" cans and you drive a 1963 "Hyster" with make-shift doors. And, just how the hell do you get on the "internets" without chinese computer parts?

I care about "human suffering", your skin color matters not to me. You being a bigot and hung up on "white" is not something I care about, because you're irrational and ignorant. I don't want you to suffer hunger, cold, fear (of real harm, not delusional harm.. I don't want you to suffer that, but I can't help you there), pain, misery.. So there is no hypocrisy from me, just ignorance from you.

Wow. Just, wow.

WOW, this is unbelievable. They SHOULD be teaching kids how to balance a checkbook and to perform menial tasks like this instead of how to work at a certain store. Talk about stealing a child's hope, that is basically telling them they have no hope of getting a better job than that. Pathetic.