Escapist Movies, Education, CA Bankruptcy, Copenhagen…
by: Dave Belden on November 29th, 2009 | 4 Comments »
To all American readers: I trust you had a fine Thanksgiving. Our son was home and we did the nuclear family thing and went to two fun movies that we all three enjoyed a bunch: “Pirate Radio,” about the radio station I used to listen to at high school in England, and “2012,” which you wouldn’t think would be fun as it involves the death of almost all life on earth, but it’s so fantastic and unrealistic while being brilliantly presented and curiously full of humanity (though unforgivably as much a male-run world as that of Pirate Radio without any historical excuse for it), that we just sat back and lived through the roller coaster ride.
Back in reality, if I was blogging today, which I’m not, being about to go off with the family to do a token soup kitchen stint and then put the lad on his plane back to college in LA, I might have mentioned this beautifully written article about the poverty-stricken state of education in California, by a woman who teaches in a rich school and a poor school simultaneously, or this about the cost of pre-school ($12,000 to $20,000) in San Francisco or this about a school for dropouts that works, run by a convicted bank robber and a former methamphetamine user.
The wider story to the recent student sit ins at Cal State schools protesting firings of low income workers and huge increases in student fees is that California, which once had the best financed education in the country now has almost the worst. It all goes back to a citizen revolt against property taxes, Prop 13, passed in 1978, and it’s taken this long for it to bankrupt the state and there are many more bills to pay arising from the high cost of inadequate educations for low income Californians. More on it here and Krugman on it here.
The Cal Berkeley bigwig who said in his younger years he would have joined the students, but now saw that the state didn’t have the resources, should have seen the light, bitten the bullet and led the students in calling for reversal of Prop 13. He could have marched on Sacramento at the head of a thousand students. It worked for the farmworkers.
And my sister sent me this from London about their massive and cool climate change protest planned for Dec 12.
Reversing Prop 13 may not be enough. The public initiative system we have here in CA, while commendable in that it allows the public to have a voice, is flawed due to having no requirement for providing a method of funding an initiative once it is inacted into law. How can the business of state be financially responsible for having to be accountable for any and all enacted initiative expenses? So what form should funding the initiatives take? The citizens framing the initiatives most likely are not involved with managing the state’s finances and are not concerned about the financial implicaitons. Should the initiatives have a state financial review prior to being allowed on the ballot? Is that any way to run a business? Would you set up your business in a manner that your customers could add costs that you would have to pay, even though they might be for great ideas? I don’t think so. Here in CA it’s more basic than that. We can’t even put together a state assembly that agrees on a budget. Do we have to rethink what qualifies a person for the assembly along with rethinking the initiative process?
These are wise points to raise. I agree that there isn’t an easy fix to California’s problems. The citizens’ initiatives were a creation of progressives way back in the day, but it doesn’t now look like the best way to do democracy. I confess I haven’t looked into the whole issue of California governance as I could and should have done as a citizen of the state: in my years here in the 1980s and early 90s I was in a period of avoiding politics (nothing I am proud of and too long a story to tell here, but one that many people share in one way or another), and since I got back here to work on Tikkun over two years ago I have been immersed in other issues. I pick up various arguments here and there but don’t have a solid or coherent view. What articles or web links would you suggest are the best things to read to get up to speed on what California governance does need, apart from kneejerk reactions like mine against Prop 13?
And that’s like my kneejerk reaction to the entire public initiative thing. Through the years I’ve heard the laments regardingt the imposible task it is for the whoever-it-is-today governor having a problem with the budget due in part to the built in requirement to fund the initiatives that have been enacted. How did the initiative thing ever get set up? Is there a chance that it could be modified? It is akin to any system that deals through a third party. Like an HMO. In the begining when Ted Kennedy was 1st involved HMO meant Health Maintenance Organization. Somehow the M became Management and those new breed of HMO businesses mean to make money. Years ago an Ophthalmologist let me take a little look at the layers of businesses that shared the fee I paid to him – amazing! It has all turned into a system in which nobody is responsible. Insurance Company responsiblities to their clients? Medical lawsuit amount of payments limited by law that in some cases don’t come close to compensating for the costs to repair the damages done. Dave, I don’t have any answer, only the question. The question and a suggestion – write about this a little more – someone must know where to start looking. You found one of the burrs under my saddle. There must be others better informed than me.
Dave, First a belated thanks for this blog. I was a student at UC Davis when the RR was governor. I went to the theater to see “A Serious Man” but there was no longer a matinee showing. I wanted to leave but my wife and son stayed to see 2012. Later I read a review and was sorry I didn’t see “Pirate Radio.” I explained it to my wife because she experienced the 60′s as a Polish teenager (another story).