Submitted to The WAVE for publication, July 5, 2019
School Scope: The
Debates: On Busing, Capitalism, and Socialism
By Norm Scott
The initial debates, while shallow in
terms of drilling down, touched on a number of essential issues, at times
raising more questions than answers. Headlines stressed the Biden/Harris
confrontation on race and busing. I remember the contentious battles over
busing back in the 60s and 70s and the consequential racial divides. Biden, as
he often does, danced and obfuscated a bit by saying he opposed forced busing
imposed by the federal government and we should leave it to the local
communities. Harris pushed back about local communities run by people who are
anti-segregation. We know there is a history of federal involvement in forcing
integration in the schools from both parties – you know, when the Republicans
were still a rational party – Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock and Kennedy
to Alabama and Mississippi.
I found Harris’ raising the issue,
while legitimate, somewhat artificial – especially when those tee-shirts of her
as a little girl started appearing the next morning. I would like to have all
candidates raise their hands if they support busing as a solution to
segregation today. I wonder if Harris would have raised her hand. When Bernie
was asked specifically about the issue on Sunday, he gave a rational response
that we rarely see from politicians: Is it a good idea to put kids on buses
takes them out of their neighborhood for up to an hour ride each way? It is a surface
tool that should ideally only be used when absolutely necessary. Real solutions
call for housing and economic reforms. By the way, look at the streets on
school days and count the buses.
The debate also focused open attacks on
Bernie for being a socialist, with loaded questions from the NBC panel - the right always points to them as liberals
but they are as opposed to socialist oriented ideas as is the right.
Hickenlooper who apparently sees Bernie’s ideas as a real threat, never missed
an opportunity to attack Bernie indirectly by talking about socialism. (The
July 1 New Yorker has an article: John Hickenlooper’s War on Socialism.)
I was disappointed in some of Bernie’s
responses which were stock and repetitive, but he did hammer the point that
many of our problems are due to outrageous profits on health care. Yes, he said
we would raise taxes but at the same time cut the costs of health care which is
also a tax of sorts. Get rid of insurance companies and the cost of their
profit disappears. He pointed to our high costs compared to universal health
care nations with much lower costs (see Germany).
Bernie’s policies align with social
democratic parties in capitalist Europe, many of whom have run the governments
at times. Not to be confused with Democratic Socialists (DSA) who are closer to
traditional anti-capitalist ideologies. DSA is a broad socialist tent and the
majority seem to believe that socialism can be achieved by democratic means.
But there are also people who do not support liberal democratic norms, like a
multi-party system. Confusion around these terms should be cleaned up
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner
in economics, a voice representing a vision of left-leaning economic analysis, was
often ignored – until the 2008 crash and the crisis it created within
capitalism and its structure. He has a new book, People, Power, And Profits which makes a case not for socialism but
for progressive capitalism, sort of where Elizabeth Warren is coming from. He
argues that we don’t have really free markets, a faux bedrock of capitalism,
but an economic system concentrated in the hands of the few who in turn
exercise control over the political system, thus leading to an increasing
economic gap which has spurred populism on the right and the left. I know
revolutionary socialists who believe in overthrowing capitalism who are cheered
by this news since they feel it is pretty much what Marx predicted would happen.
What he didn’t predict was that the right populists could defeat the left, as
it did in Germany under Hitler.
A closing note on free markets. Trump
Dept of Ed. appointee Betsy DeVos’s has rolled back Obama-era regulations, intended to protect students against predatory for-profit
colleges, which trap students into high debt they can never repay,
guaranteed by the federal government which funnels money into their hands.
People who ask when Bernie of Warren talk about free college how are we paying
for it don’t ask the same question about those tax payer funded profits.
Norm blogs for no profit at
ednotesonline.com.
Comment from a parent activist:
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Comment from a parent activist:
A good article on busing by Matthew Delmont.
https://www.theatlantic.com/
"Buses had long been used in the South—as well as in New York, Boston, and many other northern cities—to maintain segregation. This form of transportation was not controversial for white parents. Put more starkly, school buses were fine for the majority of white families; busing was not."
"Buses had long been used in the South—as well as in New York, Boston, and many other northern cities—to maintain segregation. This form of transportation was not controversial for white parents. Put more starkly, school buses were fine for the majority of white families; busing was not."
Plenty of parents are willing to make their kids travel out of their neighborhood to attend G&T programs.
