Edwards touts health care and education plan

[JohnLocke]

Edwards touts health care and education plan
BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John Edwards, during a stop at a day care center at a black church, touted his plan Wednesday to provide health insurance for every child.
"I want to be the president who leads America to a place where this generation of children doesn't have to march for equality," said the North Carolina senator sitting amid a group of about 20 children, who wore uniforms of white shirts and blue pants.
Edwards was here campaigning before South Carolina's first-in-the-South Democratic primary Feb. 3.
Edwards said he supported a march held Tuesday in North Charleston in which the Rev. Jesse Jackson led hundreds of people protesting a drug sweep at Stratford High School in nearby Goose Creek.
...
"We have over 100,000 children in South Carolina who don't have health care or health care coverage. There is lots of work left to be done," he said.
Edwards wants to make health care affordable for parents to cover their children by offering tax breaks for high-quality health insurance. Most parents already covering their children will get a tax break.
...
Edwards stressed the need to strengthen public education from early childhood to college and proposed higher teacher pay and doubling the $3 billion that the federal government invests in teacher training.
...
"I intend to spend significant time in South Carolina" in the remaining weeks before the primary, Edwards said.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7514699.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[maddezmom]

1. kick

before it goes to page 2.

[Lone_Wolf]

2. his "education" plan

From his website:

Education and Opportunity:
"At the heart of the American dream there's a simple bargain: if you work hard and play by the rules, America will give you the chance to build a better future for you and your children."

This sounds nice, but it is based on a fallacy. The truth is there are no guarantees that you will be successful if you work hard and play by the rules. Edwards' educational plan is really a rehash of the Puritan/Conservative values that simply trains people to be good employees. In other words, training people to work hard and obey superiors.

There is no benefit in expanding Headstart and his College for everyone if we don't teach people how to think for themselves. If he really wants to fix "education" then we need to change it from indoctrination system it is into a real education system. We need to teach people how to think AND more importantly how to think for themselves.

Unless his plan can do this, we are still stuck with an educatinal system that makes us subservient to and dependent on others.

[AP]

3. Edwards will revitalize Pell Grant program.

Pell Grants, I believe, reduce the amount of your education you have to finance. Wall St hates them because it means reduced principle, and therefore freduced profits from interest payments.

Edwards's college for everyone program also reduces the amount of your education you have to finance too.

Edwards's education plan recognizes that the way Americans pay for education has crossed the line from a reasonable investment in your future, to a guaranteed profit program for Wall St.

(For comparison, look at Dean's education progream which encourages students to take on more debt and, by giving a tax break for it, guarantees a transfer of middle class wealth to Wall St in the form of guaranteed profits.)

[Lone_Wolf]

4. So in other words...

...under Edwards' plan, people will have to pay less out of pocket to be indoctrinated.


Cost is not the only problem with education today; what our "educational" system "teaches" is also a problem.

[AP]

5. Yeah. That's why the more education you have, the more likely you vote Dem

People are getting 'indoctrinated.'

It's better they don't go to college and learn about how the world works from Rush Limbaugh.

And what does attending college do for your lifetime income? It doubles it? Yeah, who wants more children of the middle and working class get those kinds of options.

Go Edwards!

[Lone_Wolf]

6. That's not the point

I do agree that the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to vote Dem. That is a good thing. However, this still does not change the fact that our public educational system was founded in order to train people to work in factories and hasn't fundamentally changed since then. Right now public schools teach people how to be punctual, respect authority (even if that authority is not earned), not question authority, and how to perform simple tasks. Sure, when you get into higher education, people expand their horizons a little, but for the most part, people still think within a box. All of these benefit corporations over the individual. Above all, our schools need to teach skepticism and empathy. If people were more skeptical, then perhaps they would not buy whatever comes from the Chimp's mouth. If people were more empathetic, then perhaps we would be outraged whenever this administration orders bombing in another country, which affects the lives of its citizens.

I'm, sorry, but I cannot support a candidate who promotes what the Establishment wants us to believe in- that working hard and playing by the rules will make you a success. That is an conservative idea that is based on Puritan dogma. If hard work was really a predictor of success, then why doesn’t it predict wealth very well? Why is the social class people are born into a better predictor of wealth? Certainly, the Chimp isn't the President because of his work ethic.

I realize that Sen. Edwards has worked hard his entire and has tremendous wealth because of that. However, his case is a fluke. He is simple the one in a million that the 'hard work rule' actually worked for. For the vast majority this ‘rule’ doesn't hold true. Millions of others work very hard day in and day out, but have nothing to show for it. The entire system needs reform to address this

[AP]

7. I want schools to train people to be more productive, to be smarter, to...

...create things of value.

The most liberal thing in the world today is the idea that people should be able to reap the rewards of labor. Your political theory is crazy. If you destroyed everything and started from zero, we'd end up at more or less the same point. People would work to feed and clothe themselves, and to stay warm, and people would come up with innovations to make life less miserable, and give people more leisure time. And you'd want society to reward people who work hard and make valuable contributions, and then you'd have a struggle between concentrated power and money (people who don't care about progress) and people like FDR and Edwards would fight for the people who favored progress through rewarding people who make the best contributions to society, and who think of the social safety net as a way to encourage people to strive higher and farther without risking misery and a loss of dignity (or even life).

You, apparently, are so disenchanted that you'd rather have a society that did what? Not reward labor at all? Teach people to let the monied and powerful to keep the money and power and to be happy with nothing? It's mad.

Look at Gandhi and MLK. All they wanted was for the people they represented to have an opportunity to fully participate in the economy and fully reap the rewards of their labor. That's about as far left wing as you can get.

[Lone_Wolf]

8. My last post on this thread

Sorry, but I believe you are wrong. First, Gandhi urged passive resistance in order to protest British imperialism and the injustices this brought to the Indian people. He was not doing this, as you suggest, for equality in labor. Secondly, the MLK example you used is much broader. He wanted people to have equality in general, not just equality just in labor. Frankly, if you believe he wanted African-Americans to have only equality in labor, then you missed much of his point.

As far as hard work in order to be successful being a liberal idea. Perhaps you can account as to why many notable conservatives promote variations of this Puritan idea. For example, Thomas Sowell uses his column to preach his idea of ‘Individual Capital’. According to him, the reason some people are unsuccessful is that they are lazy and lack self-control (Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc. all have their own versions of this). Historically, during the civil war a minister named Russell Conwell, preached that people could get rich if they try hard enough. His “Acres of Diamonds” sermon made him very rich, but hardly anybody else who followed his advice became rich. However, it did, make people work harder and complain less. Instead of correctly blaming the system for their problems, they simply blamed themselves.

I see that instead of answering my question of “why does hard work not predict success very well?” that you instead chose to stoop to personal attacks. Instead of dismissing people as ‘disenchanted’ maybe, you should probably take into consideration that perhaps they have a great deal of knowledge in the area they are talking of. So instead of engaging in ad hominines, simply ask yourself why hard work alone does not predict success very well? In other words, why do the millions of people who work hard every day not have much to show for it?

[arewethereyet]

10. If this is so and its a bad thing

then why is it that the leftist leaning NEA is behind this agenda ?

Oh, working hard and playing by the rules DOES engender success.

[DemDogs]

11. You have to hear Edwards

What is about lowering the age for Headstart or making college available that makes you think Edwards doesn't support teaching young people to think for themselves? (I can think for myself, and I think you just don't like Edwards. But read on, he will surprise you.)

He was on C-Span (I think) some months ago talking about education and what he said is that the most critical thing to teach is critical thinking. That is the single skill that makes the difference between training robots (which sounds like what you are saying) and teaching people to evaluate information for themselves. He is on exactly the right track here.

He favors opening college opportunities and expanding vocational education so that everyone has a chance to follow the path that is right for them, as individuals.

[JohnLocke]

9. Kick

:kick: