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The Egalitarian Nightmare: Illusory Education & the Myth of College

Wednesday January 14, 2009
Is college necessary for everyone

We live in unfortunate times.

Unfortunate because the more we try to escape labels the more we wind up chasing them.

In this politically correct society of ours, not everyone is cut out to be a college student, yet most parents feel their children must have a college education and everything that goes with it -- including the label of "college graduate."

Political correctness is actually the biggest obstacle to genuine equality in America because it substitutes euphemisms for the truth in an effort not to offend anyone. While there are certain instances where politically correct behavior is called for, its overused practice ultimately inhibits our ability to celebrate societal diversity and, thus, effectuate genuine change.

This week, political conservative Michael J. Verno, a new guest writer at US Conservatives, offers the first in what will be an occasional series of columns centered around "The Egalitarian Nightmare." These columns will examine the pitfalls of political correctness in America on a variety of levels.

In this first installment, Verno examines post-secondary education as the status symbol it has become, rather than the tool for which it once was intended. In doing so, he raises an important question: "Is college really necessary for everyone?"

From the column:

... The first step toward a viable solution is to show the Myth of College for what it is, a No Child Left Behind for adults with a pile of debt as its only reward. Children need to be taught not to collectively shoot for the same pie in the sky, but to shoot for their own personal pies.

Vocational schools, skilled labor, and small business ownership, must lose their inferior stigmas. These positions are and were the backbone of the American Dream. We all can’t be Rockefellers. Some of us have to be successful on a smaller scale, and there is no shame in that.

Photo © Diane & Jordan/Getty Images

Kerwick's Corner: Defining Conservatism

Tuesday January 13, 2009

One of the most interesting aspects of US conservative politics is that it often represents different things to different people.

In this week's "Kerwick's Corner," About.com guest writer Jack Kerwick examines the core elements of the movement's ideology, providing scholars with a basic understanding of what it means to be conservative in America.

From the column:

Conservatives have always exhibited an unmistakable suspicion of grand innovative proposals for “social change,” and an abhorrence of revolutionary change. It isn’t that conservatism is “opposed to change,” whatever such an expression could mean; rather, while there will always be changes, the conservative prefers gradual change, change that is compatible with continuity and, thus, friendly to the preservation of order.
Next week, Kerwick will continue his analysis of the movement by peeling back its layers, removing unwanted excess and analyzing the movement's two main inner circles -- paleoconservatism and neoconservatism.

Meanwhile, check back later this week, when I'll be offering another conservative perspective in the first installment of the upcoming occasional series, "The Egalitarian Nightmare."



More from Kerwick:

Where Joe Goes ...

Sunday January 11, 2009
Democratic candidate Barack Obama shakes hands with Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio plumber on Oct. 12, 2008

Remember Joe Wurzelbacher?

The former plumbing contractor turned-political-pundit is is headed to Gaza to report on the conflict from his own perspective, and his new role as correspondent for pjtv.com is creating a stir among media "elites."

The reaction from the mainstream media has bordered on viciousness. This excerpt from CNN's Wolf Blitzer illustrates just how threatened media personalities are by people like Wurzelbacher and how quick they are to go on the offensive:

Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher, the man made famous by the McCain campaign, is headed to Israel to cover the conflict in Gaza. I’m not making this up…. Well, maybe he will be qualified to be a journalist. I’m certainly not qualified to become a plumber. I can tell you that.
As a former newspaper reporter and a professional journalist, I'm embarrassed by this kind of arrogance. Just last week, I replaced the guts in the back of my toilet tank. Does that make me a plumber? No. Does it mean I'm capable of plumbing? YES. Furthermore, if other people called me to replace the guts in their tanks, I'm quite sure I would be able to do it. The same works for news reporting.

Journalists like to pretend that they're the only ones who can do what they do. The reality is, they're not, as the plethora of ireporters has proven since the advent of the home video camera. Sometimes novices can even do it better. Keep in mind, it's not the footage of network news channels that was at the center of the John F. Kennedy assassination -- it was the Zapruder film. We watched it then, and we watch it now because it's the very best footage -- regardless of the source.

When it comes to news reporting, journalists have a few advantages over everyday people. They have the time to devote to it, they have a well of contacts developed from years of reporting and they are trained to report in the Associated Press "style."

Wurzelbacher obviously has the time, he won't need contacts in Gaza and the Associated Press style won't matter much when he's looking into the camera and showing the world what's happening in this dangerous area of the world. There's much more that goes into the craft, of course, but the best way to learn is by doing. There's the off chance that Wurzelbacher won't be able to determine what makes a good story, but that's doubtful. Joe's proven that he has a sense for what people want to see.

Rather than lampooning Wurzelbacher for attempting to enter the profession in these hard, economic times, the mainstream media should be embracing him. After all, no journalists have been admitted to Gaza, and Wurzelbacher stands a better chance of getting the story than all of them. Furthermore, Wurzelbacher is working for a web site, and -- as newspapers are learning -- the Internet is slowly dismantling the journalism industry and creating a new world of instant information being told by unknown personalities. In many cases (my recent blog post on HowObamaGotElected.com, for example), even I've beaten the mainstream media (including CNN) on stories -- and I wasn't even trying!!

If you're reading this, Joe, take my advice: finding news is simple if you just look for what's interesting to you. Chances are it will be interesting to others as well.

And while I'm at it, here are a few words of advice to my colleagues in the world of professional journalism: lose the arrogance. The ireporter you're ridiculing today is the "personality" taking your job tomorrow.

Photo © Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The Sarah Palin You Never Knew

Thursday January 8, 2009
An image from John Ziegler's interview with Sarah Palin.

Amazing.

I simply had to shake my head. There was nothing else I could do.

I just finished watching excerpts from the upcoming documentary Media Malpractice, which is being put together by producer John Ziegler.

Ziegler interviewed self-proclaimed informed and intelligent Barack Obama voters, and asked a dozen of them a series of questions on camera. While not a single one of them could identify Nancy Pelosi or even say which party controlled Congress, every one of them knew which of the four candidates had a pregnant teenage daughter and which candidate's political party spent $150,000 on clothing. When asked which candidate said they had campaigned in 57 states, every single one of them attributed the comment to either Arizona Sen. John McCain or Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (it was actually Obama).

An image from John Ziegler's site, Unfortunately, the interviews were conducted after the voters had cast their ballots, but that really doesn't matter, because after embarrassing themselves for several minutes by answering wrong or claiming ignorance, one of those interviewed summed up the 2008 election by saying, "Ithink I'm not as informed as I thought I was ... but I still don't think I would change my vote."

Think it was slanted? Think again. Ziegler authorized a poll of more than 500 similar voters and the results were amazingly close to the ones captured on camera. It's all in the documentary.

The best part of the clips I've seen, however, is the extended and quite revealing interview with Palin conducted just this week. She says that after the first day with CBS news anchor Katie Couric, Palin knew that it didn't go well and that Couric was trying to do what journalists call a "hit piece." But when she suggested to the campaign that they not send her "back for more," McCain's advisers told her to finish the three-day interview with Couric.

Palin and Ziegler In another part of the interview, Palin says she plans to pay close attention to how the media treats Caroline Kennedy as the vetting process begins for Hillary Clinton's open Senate seat. If Kennedy is treated with kid gloves, Palin says it may show that the media isn't just guilty of political bias, but class bias as well.

Had the media seen the insightful, thoughtful and, frankly, intelligent woman Palin really is -- and which many conservatives know her to be -- instead of the woman the media elite worked so hard to portray, it is still unlikely (in my opinion) that McCain would have won the election ... but at least Palin's reputation wouldn't be where it is with so many Americans.

I highly recommend anyone and everyone -- especially Obama voters -- visit the web site, HowObamaGotElected.com, to learn just how misinformed Obama voters were when they pulled the lever for their candidate.

All images are taken from HowObamaGotElected.com and used with permission.

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