Fwd: [oaklandteachers] numbers don't always lie

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mary Prophet <mlprophet@earthlink.net>
> Date: Sun Feb 3, 2008  8:28:07 PM US/Pacific
> To: OEA  List Serve <oaklandteachers@lists.riseup.net>
> Subject: [oaklandteachers] numbers don't always lie
> Reply-To: oaklandteachers@lists.riseup.net
>
> One Bush Left Behind
>
> by Greg Palast
> Here’s your question, class:
> In his State of the Union, the President asked
> Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner
> city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in
> America living in poverty, how much is that per child?
> Correct! $20.
>
> Here’s your second question. The President also
> demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost:
> $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are
> millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens,
> not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids,
> roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost
> of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie,
> $287,000 apiece.
>
> Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country,
> there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent
> education is their only hope of achieving them.”
> So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?
> -George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy,
> tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20
> “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it,
> will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this
> educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.
> -$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the
> Harry Potter series.
>
> If you can’t buy a book nor pay tuition with a
> sawbuck, what exactly can a poor kid buy with $20 in
> urban America? The Palast Investigative Team donned
> baseball caps and big pants and discovered we could
> obtain what local citizens call a “rock” of crack
> cocaine. For $20, we were guaranteed we could fulfill
> any kid’s dream for at least 15 minutes.
>
> Now we could see the incontrovertible logic in what
> appeared to be quixotic ravings by the President about
> free trade with Colombia, Pell Grant for Kids and the
> surge in Iraq. In Iraq, General Petraeus tells us we
> must continue to feed in troops for another ten years.
> There is no way the military can recruit these freedom
> fighters unless our lower income youth are high,
> hooked and desperate. Don’t say, ‘crack vials,’
> they’re, ‘Democracy Rocks’!
> The plan would have been clearer if Mr. Bush had kept
> in his speech the line from his original draft which
> read, “I have ordered 30,000 additional troops to Iraq
> this year – and I am proud to say my military-age kids
> are not among them.”
>
> Of course, there’s an effective alternative to Mr.
> Bush’s plan – which won’t cost a penny more. Simply
> turn it upside down. Let’s give each millionaire in
> America a $20 bill, and every poor child $287,000.
> And, there’s an added benefit to this alternative. Had
> we turned Mr. Bush and his plan upside down, he could
> have spoken to Congress from his heart.
>
> -For more on Bush and education read "No Child's
> Behind Left" in Armed Madhouse excerpted here
> <http://mailings.gregpalast.com//lt/ 
> t_go.php?i=67&amp;e=NDAwOTYw&amp;l=-http--www.gregpalast.com/no- 
> childs-behind-left>
> .
> -Also read Palast's take on the 2007 State of the
> Union here
> <http://mailings.gregpalast.com//lt/ 
> t_go.php?i=67&amp;e=NDAwOTYw&amp;l=-http--www.gregpalast.com/off-the- 
> rails-big-oil-big-brother-win-big-in-the-state-of-the-union/>
> .
> *************
> Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times
> best-sellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy
> Money Can Buy. View Palast's investigative reports for
> BBC Television on our YouTube Channel
> <http://mailings.gregpalast.com//lt/ 
> t_go.php?i=67&amp;e=NDAwOTYw&amp;l=-http--youtube.com/profile--Q- 
> user--E-GregPalastOffice>
> .
>
>
>
> Onward with love and music,
>
> Kendyll
>
> The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to  
> lose because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose  
> until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for  
> somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of  
> other people have got to be willing-for the sheer fun and joy of it-to  
> go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't  
> feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it. – I.F. Stone
>
>
>        
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