It is fascinating to read the negative comments about Felkner on the projo site.

If public sector union members gave the issue a bit of thought, they might realize that perhaps the biggest reason RI's budget and their pension plans are in such bad shape (and our taxes are so high) is the "deal with the devil" their own leadership (and their allies in the General Assembly) has made over the years with the very people Felkner is attacking: RIC, the Poverty Institute and their "progressive" supporters in the Democratic party. It is thanks to them, Kate Brewster, Elizabeth Burke Bryant, and the rest, that RI still offers among the most generous -- and expensive -- combination of social safety net programs in the nation (Rite Care, day care, who cares, the state will pay...). That has driven RI's taxes into the stratosphere, dramatically changed the characteristics of our cities (or should I say nuestros ciudades), and caused so many business and affluent taxpayers to flee and/or not come here in the first place.

So by attacking RIC and the PI, Felkner is really doing more for rank and file public sector union members than Walsh, Reback and Montanaro ever have.

That and he's taking on the whole issue of the controls on speech that characterize America's campuses today, that are in direct conflict with the Bill of Rights.

So Bravo to Bill, and shame on any union member who attacks him.

Posted by: John at December 14, 2008 1:42 PM

John,

Consider that the union bosses and poverty pimps see this as looking out for themselves.

50 percent plus illegitimacy rates provide a human inventory of "needy" children and "single parents" (a/k/a "breeders") that provide "jobs" for unionized teachers, ESL teachers, special ed teachers and social workers. A bastard born in Providence is far more lucrative to those people than a legitimate child born in East Greenwich or Barrington.

The higher the benefits, the greater our welfare magnet status, the more human inventory, the more union members, and the more dues going to pay the union bosses, and the more union campaign "contributions" available to the Democrats who pass the laws structuring our "social services" programs and the more government dependent who will become a reliable constituency voting Democrat.

The bill for this devil's pact is then sent to the "working families" of Rhode Island, who gullibly still believe that Democrats are the party of "working families" when they are really the party of non-working, parasitic "families."

Posted by: Ragin' Rhode Islander at December 14, 2008 1:57 PM

--The primary mission of the charity -- the Long Term Care Housing Corp. -- is to provide affordable homes for the local's members, most of whom earn about $9 an hour caring for the elderly and infirm. But SEIU officials declined to discuss the charity, saying it is a separate legal entity from the union, even though its board is dominated by officials from the local. The charity is located at the local's headquarters.

Sounds like they need a new Director. Just the kind of job that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was talking about with SEIU.

A match made in heaven, real SOB's: Stern, Obama & Blagojevich.

Posted by: Ragin' Rhode Islander at December 14, 2008 2:04 PM

Great job, Bill! He got Page 1 coverage in the Projo, and it didn't involve murder, being foreclosed upon, or being an illegal alien!

The way I look at it, Bill has made all the right enemies. The pro-poverty crowd is highly organized in this state, so it doesn't surprise me when they react negatively to their grasp on power slowly slipping away.

Posted by: Will at December 14, 2008 4:15 PM

The faculty at the school of social work at RIC is using taxpayer funds to promote a political agenda and an exclusionist policy against anyone who doesn't kiss their red asses.I hope Felkner(who I know next to nothing about believe it or not)makes their lives miserable.Especially a POS like"Dr".Dan Weisman,the president of the RI ACLU.I love the way some puke with a Phd in Social Work calls himself a doctor.The term is an obscenity in his case.If he can't treat a disease,he should keep the term "doctor"on campus.Felkner should sue these a**holes personally as well as in their official capacity.They might have to actually hire lawyers on their ow.Bill-if you're reading this I'm 100% serious.SUE THEM PERSONALLY.

Posted by: joe bernstein at December 14, 2008 6:19 PM

There was a front page story of course about your ideological soulmate William Felkner who has not done the required work for his degree. Stamps his feet and holds his breath...wait at least that would be an improvement and blames it on the liberals. Then one Bill Felkner turns up on the editorial page with a letter to the editor taking on all comers or at least all relations of anyone who has crossed him in Hopkinton where he resides. Just another busy day for your Billy. I wonder what he's going to do when he grows up.

Posted by: Phil at December 15, 2008 5:40 AM

Perhaps this is just one more reason to close RIC? Would that save tax money, or are they fully self-supporting?

Posted by: thinkaboutit at December 15, 2008 9:36 AM

Close RIC?

Where else would we get the necessary teachers and nurses from?

Should we disintegrate our entire society just to save money?

Since money is just paper that can printed at will (albeit with possible ensuing inflation), the national and state debts are just bookkeeping notations.

Dissolving our entire civilization, just to balance an imaginary paper debt sounds illogical to me.

Joe B. wants Mr. Felkner to personally sue social workers and educators who advocate for the interests of the poorest and weakest members of society?

C'mon.

Caring about the well being of the poor doesn't one a "poverty advocate" or "pro-poverty"... if anything it makes one anti-poverty.

Engaging in sophistry is not the way to solve our states problems.

Posted by: Erik D. at December 15, 2008 9:52 AM

Felkner is to be commended.
The proposal to cut off the colleges from state funding and make them self-supporting is brilliant.
BTW, where is our "hero" governor who promiseda supplemental by Dec. 15-today.
If he won't do the job-quit and let Looney Left Liz take over. This will provide entertainment as the inmates take over the asylum. Laffey will get 70% in 2010.

Posted by: Mike at December 15, 2008 9:53 AM

-Caring about the well being of the poor doesn't one a "poverty advocate" or "pro-poverty"... if anything it makes one anti-poverty.

Deriving one's livelihood from being an "advocate" for the poor while simultaneously ensuring that they stay that way through advocating continued funding for ineffective programs and subsidizing the irresponsible behavior the mires individuals in poverty most certainly makes them "pro-poverty,"

It's not what they say their intentions are while they're "advocating" for taxpayer dollars, it's what they do.

Forty years of a "War on Poverty" and they've accomplished zilch, zero - except for destroying the family unit in minority communities and creating a permanent (if they have their way) underclass.

They are pimps.

Posted by: Ragin' Rhode Islander at December 15, 2008 12:57 PM

Erik D-just so you know where I'm coming from on the issue of personal lawsuits-I'll explain.You didn't call me names or throw invective,so I'll approach it as two people having a conversation.
About 26 or 27 years ago I was one of about 130- some odd INS Agents and Illinois State Troopers sued in official capacity and personally by the ACLU and the Illinos Migrant Council as a result of the execution of a search warrant on an agricultural business in downstate Illinois.We arrested abot 140 illegal aliens and there were no injuries,claims of physical abuse,etc.However the "advocates" thought we spoke to some people we shouldn't have.They went after our personal property and homes.This for carrying out a COURT ORDER of the US District Court.They expanded the original suit into operations that had occured in the past.They lost the suit.The US Attorney decided to represent all the officers in the civil suit.The ACLU suborned perjury in the case.It was not a nice experience to be falsely accused,insofar there was no karma involved in my case or most of the other officers.May God strike me with brain cancer if I EVER gave someone a bad case.
In the case of one officer,ISP Trooper Michael McCarter,he was killed on a traffic stop during the course of the lawsuit.The f**king ACLU went after his widow and children personally,although the Federal judge threw that out in a NY minute.Eventually all the officers were cleared.This whole incident left me with an attitude about "advocates" and the ACLU.
I don't have a problem with social workers.I regularly enter discussions on Kmareka with social workers who seem to be perfectly decent people who are doing a necessary job.
I hope you can understand why I am sometimes a real pissed off individual.

Posted by: joe bernstein at December 15, 2008 1:59 PM

Here's one more piece of info that will tell you Erik D why I stay pissed off.
One of the aliens we arrested was an oldtime border crosser-a real gentleman and a hard working guy who could've physically given us all we could handle.He had way more than the 44 pounds we allowed arrestees to take with them.Another officer and myself helped him pack his stuff and some younger guys we arrested gave him their "44 pounds"so he could bring all his hard earned stuff home.He told us it was time to see his family anyhow because he hadn't seen them for 6 years.
He asked us to take him to the bank for his savings which we did.He wanted to take out about $6,000 in cash.We told him no-the Mexican police at the border would kill him for it.We got the bank to issue a transfer document that only he could present to a bank in Mexico.
This is what gets me so angry when I hear my job described as "Gestapo"by a scumbag like Steven Brown.Hence,my never to end war with professional activists.

Posted by: joe bernstein at December 15, 2008 2:26 PM

I thought the Projo article was pretty good.

I don't know Felkner, but there is no reason that a social worker should be required to espouse a particular political viewpoint just to be a social worker.

Can you imagine if a ROTC program said, "Oh, we require all our students to be Republicans because Republicans usually support higher defense budgets" and then went ahead and awarded grades on that basis!!

There would be nationwide outrage among the liberal elite.

Posted by: Anthony at December 15, 2008 2:56 PM

Joe, that is an amazing story. It's unconscionable that they tried to sue you guys personally for doing your jobs. Now I see what some people mean when they say that the left are often just as, if not more, fascist and vicious than the right in America.

Sorry you guys had to go through that.

Your anger at the poverty advocates and other special advocacy groups is understandable.

Posted by: Erik D. at December 15, 2008 8:05 PM

Ragin' Rhode Islander wrote:

"Forty years of a "War on Poverty" and they've accomplished zilch, zero - except for destroying the family unit in minority communities and creating a permanent (if they have their way) underclass."

I would respond that Jesus Christ said that the poor would always be with us, and considering the seemingly perpetually hierarchical nature of human civilization and economic distribution, I would have to agree.

I honestly don't think people go out and have children out of wedlock, or without jobs, because they think they can get welfare to support them.

Having lived in a number of poor cities in RI, I just don't see it.

What I see are people who are just living their lives to the best of their abilities, with what they have and know, which often isn't much.

Many of them have been thoroughly manipulated, mislead and programmed for self destruction by mass media and popular culture, and then when nature takes it's course, children are inevitably born.

Poverty has always been with us, and very likely always will be with us, due to the differentials in knowledge, wealth and education among different strata of people.

Should poor people really be blamed for being swept up and away in a tide of sexual permissiveness that exploded with the sexual revolution of the 1960's, which was promoted by many educational and cultural leaders in our country, who the poor looked up to for guidance?

I can't say that they should.

Most poor, slightly educated and otherwise powerless people are at the mercy of the larger social, cultural, religious, political and economic forces in the society in which they live, and those forces shape the very thoughts they think, and the way they live their lives.

To blame poor, uneducated, powerless people, for being manipulated and negatively influenced by rich, educated, powerful people, who forge and promote most of the destructive trends we've seen in society, from the sexual revolution, to the promotion of materialism and violence in movies, music and television today, is misguided, and a form of blaming the victim.

Posted by: Erik D. at December 15, 2008 8:11 PM

btw Ragin' Rhode Islander, it was slavery and it's multigenerational effects that destroyed the family unit in black communities, not the social programs designed to alleviate some of their resultant suffering.

The (im)permanent black underclass in America was created largely as a result of that inhumane institution, in which families were torn apart, husbands from wives, and children from parents, to be sold, beaten, raped, oppressed and murdered on plantations, in mines and timber groves all across the USA, particularly in the South.

The white underclass, on the other hand, was largely created as a result of the sexual revolution of the 1960's, in which traditional values were mocked and tossed aside, at the urging of cultural and educational "leaders" who the people looked up to as an alternative to the destructive and misguided military-industrial complex dominated establishment.

Unfortunately those rebellious youth were sold a false bill of goods, and the result is millions of single parent families, where millions of children were born out of wedlock, with the predictable resulting social chaos and economic hardship.

Then take those millions of fatherless children, and prop them up in front of the new electronic God called Television, which has been pumping their wayward and impressionable heads full of sex, drugs, violence and mayhem through music, movies, television and video games for generations, and you get the America we have today... a place of teenaged pregnancies, STD's, drugs, rampant nihilism and materialism, and epidemic violence, including high school cafeteria massacres.

The only solution is to reform and replace this cancerous culture that is poisoning the minds and lives of millions of people, while at the same time pressure our religious, business and political leaders into providing real guidance and rewarding work opportunities to our young people.

Posted by: Erik D. at December 15, 2008 8:30 PM

Erik D-think about this.I remember the era of legal segregation in the South and de facto segregation in the North.In most northern cities and some southern there was a class of Black professionals who served that community-lawyers,doctors,dentists,businessmen,funeral directors,ministers,etc.
In a bizarre twist of fate,when segregation finally went away(thankfully) these professional pillars of the community realized they could have anyone as a client and live where they wanted to.This didn't happen overnight,but it did happen.The ministers and the funeral directors stayed-the other Black professionals and upwardly mobile people(in the economic sense)moved out and the "left behind" folks had a hole in their communities.Things devolved from there.
I'm not Black,so why is it my business?My grandaughter is though,and I don't want her life to be more complicated than anyone else's on that basis alone.
I won't be around to see her reach adulthood,but it would be nice if she didn't have to carry a burden from the get go.My greatest wish is that every individual is able to make their way through life on their own qualities.
My son(her dad) is what you would call "working poor",but my wife and I do whatever we can to help-my son isn't the kind to take anyone's help easily.So when Kate Brewster and George Nee bark for more taxes I have to think"don't they get it that a lot of middle class people have family thet come first?"And we still find money to give to Hasbro Children's Hospital,RI Food Bank,Disabled American Veterans(I'm a life member),and the Salvation Army as well as my wife's church(I'm not religious)-the "one size fits all"mentality just doesn't work.

Posted by: joe bernstein at December 15, 2008 11:04 PM

"Close RIC?

Where else would we get the necessary teachers and nurses from?"

Think outside the box (or the state) ... Massachusetts and Connecticut for starters. Perhaps we would even create an environment in Rhode Island where talented, educated people actually wanted to move here!

No offense, but expending state resources to train "teachers and nurses," no matter how important they may be here, is simply a matter of using state resources to employ people who consume state resources. They don't add to the economy, because they are government employees. They are net tax consumers, not net taxpayers. We need to create an environment where private investment and people from outside the state will want to come here.

PS Most black families in America, despite all the struggles and discrimination which they faced, were intact, nuclear families up until the 1960s, when well-intentioned and guilt-prone white liberals decided that they could substitute the role of the black father with big government welfare programs. Ever heard of the law of unintended consequences?

Posted by: Will at December 16, 2008 12:58 AM

Eric D,

What I’m about to say is not intended to be insulting, but earnest: you really need to examine something beyond the Poverty Institute / School of Social Work talking points, including just observing the world around you and factoring in human nature, its good points and its failings.

-- I would respond that Jesus Christ said that the poor would always be with us, and considering the seemingly perpetually hierarchical nature of human civilization and economic distribution, I would have to agree.

Human society has always been hierarchical, and always will be. Hence the folly (at the cost of millions of lives during the 20th century) of collectivist utopianism such as communism, fascism, socialism and more recently Obama-ism.

Your attempts to invoke Jesus Christ to justify the “poverty pimps” may be clever, but is misplaced. While there may always be poor people, that does not equate to the current level of poor people nor to the ineffectiveness of the “war on poverty.”

-- I honestly don't think people go out and have children out of wedlock, or without jobs, because they think they can get welfare to support them. Having lived in a number of poor cities in RI, I just don't see it.

How else to explain 14, 15 and 16 year old girls having multiple illegitimate babies, by multiple “fathers” - they certainly don’t have jobs skills sufficient to support themselves, much less a “family,” but they certainly know how to sign up for the “benefits”! The 50% and above illegitimacy rate in the cities belies your “just don’t see it. Those quote

-- What I see are people who are just living their lives to the best of their abilities, with what they have and know, which often isn't much.

Ditto my previous response.

-- Many of them have been thoroughly manipulated, mislead and programmed for self destruction by mass media and popular culture, and then when nature takes it's course, children are inevitably born.

Yeah, it’s never their own fault or the result of poor choices. Does the media have an impact? Absolutely. But when conservatives decry the filth coming out of Hollywood by the “progressives” that run the place we are told to mind our own business, that it is free speech, and that we are throwbacks.

Moreover, the primary reason underlying the increase in illegitimacy, which is the single greatest predictor of poverty, is the poverty Institute and its ilk refusing to stigmatize illegitimacy and its practitioners will also advocating insulating those people from the consequences of their irresponsible behavior by providing them with “social services” such as taxpayer funded daycare, healthcare and housing and food stamps. (You can now insert the standard / reflexive retort “if you stop those programs you’ll just be punishing the children!)

-- Poverty has always been with us, and very likely always will be with us, due to the differentials in knowledge, wealth and education among different strata of people.

Which is why public education was started, to enable those with the ability and motivation to “move up the ladder.” Of course now the inner city schools have been hijacked to protect the teachers unions, and the so-called “advocates” for the poor are shilling for the unions and not for the poor.

-- Should poor people really be blamed for being swept up and away in a tide of sexual permissiveness that exploded with the sexual revolution of the 1960's, which was promoted by many educational and cultural leaders in our country, who the poor looked up to for guidance?

I love the way “progressives” create problems and then advocate for government programs to address the symptoms rather than fixing the problem. It was liberals who were behind the sexual revolution of the 60s. Still today they oppose those of us who promote “traditional values” and “faith-based solutions” and the nuclear family (heaven forbid that we again stigmatize illegitimacy for that would hurt the feelings of those breeders).

-- Most poor, slightly educated and otherwise powerless people are at the mercy of the larger social, cultural, religious, political and economic forces in the society in which they live, and those forces shape the very thoughts they think, and the way they live their lives.

Ditto my previous response. Also, funny how new immigrants from Asia where their cultures value the family unit and education managed to have their first-generation children thrive here in America. Not that this would matter to the Poverty Institute - ideological blinders are the order of the day.

-- To blame poor, uneducated, powerless people, for being manipulated and negatively influenced by rich, educated, powerful people, who forge and promote most of the destructive trends we've seen in society, from the sexual revolution, to the promotion of materialism and violence in movies, music and television today, is misguided, and a form of blaming the victim.

I just knew that “blame the victim” would come along somewhere. I can’t wait to see the Poverty Institute update the old Horatio Alger books and turn them into modern equivalents, including DVD, and begin promoting a more uplifting message throughout the “disadvantaged” communities to counteract the negative influence, apparent brainwashing according to you, being perpetrated by the “progressives” who run Hollywood.

-- btw Ragin' Rhode Islander, it was slavery and it's multigenerational effects that destroyed the family unit in black communities, not the social programs designed to alleviate some of their resultant suffering. The (im)permanent black underclass in America was created largely as a result of that inhumane institution, in which families were torn apart, husbands from wives, and children from parents, to be sold, beaten, raped, oppressed and murdered on plantations, in mines and timber groves all across the USA, particularly in the South.

Actually the black family unit stayed remarkably intact into the 1960s, it was after the war on poverty began that illegitimacy rates started skyrocketing. Look it up.

-- The white underclass, on the other hand, was largely created as a result of the sexual revolution of the 1960's, in which traditional values were mocked and tossed aside, at the urging of cultural and educational "leaders" who the people looked up to as an alternative to the destructive and misguided military-industrial complex dominated establishment. Unfortunately those rebellious youth were sold a false bill of goods, and the result is millions of single parent families, where millions of children were born out of wedlock, with the predictable resulting social chaos and economic hardship.

Funny I thought that Appalachia and “Okies” and such preexisted the 1960s cultural revolution, as did the Beverly Hillbillies on TV! And I think that you’re confusing the “military-industrial complex” with academia and Hollywood (though this provides a convenient rationalization for your worldview). The “white underclass” embraced Evangelicalism after the 1960s, not Hollywood, thus formed that anathema to you the “Christian right.”

-- The only solution is to reform and replace this cancerous culture that is poisoning the minds and lives of millions of people, while at the same time pressure our religious, business and political leaders into providing real guidance and rewarding work opportunities to our young people.

You might want to consider including parents and family members in that equation.

Posted by: Ragin' Rhode Islander at December 16, 2008 11:08 AM

The intricacies of racial economics in America are very convoluted and beyond my understanding. Luckily the race problem seems to be resolving itself, slowly but surely.

The economic problems in America however appear to be the result of what I've been told is a "reversal of time", in which life is slowly reverting back to the agrarian way of life that our ancestors knew hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Without alternative energy technology, the oil will almost certainly run out, and then what?

Agrarianism... that's what I've been told by men wiser than myself, and what I seen on the horizon as well.

Considering all the abuses of modern technology, from genetic engineering, cloning, biological warfare, atomic warfare, technological brainwashing and degradation, late term aboritions, and stem cell research, it appears to be a good thing that the human race will be forced to return to a simpler way of life.

Posted by: Erik D. at December 16, 2008 11:21 AM

That last post was a brief response to Will and Joe.

Ragin' Rhode Islander wrote:

"Human society has always been hierarchical, and always will be. Hence the folly (at the cost of millions of lives during the 20th century) of collectivist utopianism such as communism, fascism, socialism and more recently Obama-ism."

E: Personally I think the reason those movements failed is because the relied on demonization, force and violence. Marx and Engels never advocated violent revolution to my knowledge, but merely state that Communism would be the economically evolutionary result after pure Capitalism gradually transformed into Socialism.

RRI: "Your attempts to invoke Jesus Christ to justify the “poverty pimps” may be clever, but is misplaced. While there may always be poor people, that does not equate to the current level of poor people nor to the ineffectiveness of the “war on poverty.”

E: The problem with a "war on poverty" is twofold. First, all wars imply aggression, which is a primitive approach to problems. Second, since poverty will always exist, it can never be entirely eliminated, but just managed humanely, which is what the social workers try to do.

RRI: "How else to explain 14, 15 and 16 year old girls having multiple illegitimate babies..."

E: MTV, VH1, BET, Hollywood & Madison Avenue.

RRI: "by multiple “fathers” "

E: Moral ignorance, due to lack of proper religious instruction and/or lack of appropriate role models. All substandard behavior is the result of ignorance. Ignorant people are not to be demonized, but instructed.

RRI: "they certainly don’t have jobs skills sufficient to support themselves, much less a “family,” but they certainly know how to sign up for the “benefits”! The 50% and above illegitimacy rate in the cities belies your “just don’t see it."

E: Job skills to fill what jobs? Our political, corporate and economic "leaders" have been offshoring and otherwise eliminating American jobs for decades, so there are fewer and fewer jobs to acquire skills for. People instinctually know this, which is probably one reason why the youth have lost interest in school.

RRI: "Yeah, it’s never their own fault or the result of poor choices."

E: Peoples choices are generally a reflection of their level of moral and intellectual education, which is a societal conglomerate.

RRI: "Does the media have an impact? Absolutely. But when conservatives decry the filth coming out of Hollywood by the “progressives” that run the place we are told to mind our own business, that it is free speech, and that we are throwbacks."

E: Hollywood and Cable TV should have been brought in line by the government a long time ago.

RRI: "Moreover, the primary reason underlying the increase in illegitimacy, which is the single greatest predictor of poverty, is the poverty Institute and its ilk refusing to stigmatize illegitimacy and its practitioners..."

E: Why stigmatize already weak and struggling people?

I mean, compared to war and killing, creating more human beings under less than ideal circumstances is hardly the worst thing people could be engaging in.

I think violence and war is far more objectionable than out of wedlock childbirth, and if we didn't sacrifice an estimated $3 Trillion dollars on these two wars (direct and indirect costs according to two Harvard economists) we would be able to afford to take care of our people, poor, working and middle classes alike.

RRI: "will also advocating insulating those people from the consequences of their irresponsible behavior by providing them with “social services” such as taxpayer funded daycare, healthcare and housing and food stamps. (You can now insert the standard / reflexive retort “if you stop those programs you’ll just be punishing the children!)"

E: When you have a government that spends many times on war what it spends on children, priorities appear to be misplaced.

RRI: "Poverty has always been with us, and very likely always will be with us, due to the differentials in knowledge, wealth and education among different strata of people. Which is why public education was started, to enable those with the ability and motivation to “move up the ladder.” Of course now the inner city schools have been hijacked to protect the teachers unions, and the so-called “advocates” for the poor are shilling for the unions and not for the poor."

E: I really don't know much about teachers unions in public schools, so I can't really comment on that.

RRI: "'Should poor people really be blamed'...I love the way “progressives” create problems and then advocate for government programs to address the symptoms rather than fixing the problem. It was liberals who were behind the sexual revolution of the 60s. Still today they oppose those of us who promote “traditional values” and “faith-based solutions” and the nuclear family (heaven forbid that we again stigmatize illegitimacy for that would hurt the feelings of those breeders).

E: I agree, but I don't see the dichotomy of "liberal/conservative" as very useful. What exactly do people want to liberate or conserve? Absent those specifics, politics just devolves into a counterproductive "us vs. them" mentality. Again, I don't see paying to raise and care for children as somehow inferior to paying to conduct wars and kill millions of people.

RRI: "Also, funny how new immigrants from Asia where their cultures value the family unit and education managed to have their first-generation children thrive here in America. Not that this would matter to the Poverty Institute - ideological blinders are the order of the day."

E: I guess they weren't subjected to the destructive effects of slavery and sexual permissiveness.

RRI: "I just knew that “blame the victim” would come along somewhere. I can’t wait to see the Poverty Institute update the old Horatio Alger books and turn them into modern equivalents, including DVD, and begin promoting a more uplifting message throughout the “disadvantaged” communities to counteract the negative influence, apparent brainwashing according to you, being perpetrated by the “progressives” who run Hollywood."

E: Well, considering Hollywoods propaganda and imagery is having a regressive influence on families and individuals in America, you can't really call them true "progressives". Real progressives promote policies that lead to genuine progress, so in the sense that our ideas work or make sense, you could any one of us "progressive".

RRI: "Actually the black family unit stayed remarkably intact into the 1960s, it was after the war on poverty began that illegitimacy rates started skyrocketing. Look it up."

E: Ok. Do you have any links handy?

RRI: "Funny I thought that Appalachia and “Okies” and such preexisted the 1960s cultural revolution, as did the Beverly Hillbillies on TV! And I think that you’re confusing the “military-industrial complex” with academia and Hollywood (though this provides a convenient rationalization for your worldview). The “white underclass” embraced Evangelicalism after the 1960s, not Hollywood, thus formed that anathema to you the “Christian right.”"

E: I'm not right or left... I'm just a guy with some opinions.

RRI: "You might want to consider including parents and family members in that equation."

E: The media and government are more powerful than most parents these days. If kids don't get exposed to cultural poison at home, they'll get exposed to it at some other kids house, or at school, via some other kid.

Government has a responsibility to protect it's citizens from dangerous and destructive media, just as it has a responsibility to protect its citizens from dangerous and destructive food and medicine.

Parents, individually or in groups, do not have nearly the power that large media, medical or food corporations do, hence the need for governmental oversight and regulation.

As a self identified cultural Conservative, I assume you would agree?

Posted by: Erik D. at December 16, 2008 3:25 PM

Posted by: eenicker at April 28, 2012 11:11 AM