Mandatory Water Restrictions in California Fail to Address Abuse of Resources

A good short interview. All over the world people are thinking we have an abundance of water & hence, we can use it as we wish, for as long we wish. Ask about the lack of water from those people who don't have access to this precious commodity; water is the blue gold.

In water stressed countries, governments & the general public needs to start thinking how to conserve water. We can't stop its use but we all need to start self-auditing ourselves, in regards to water usage, & start thinking how do I save water. Governments, like when California was going through drought, need to start mandating how much water people can use. Problem is people start thinking about water conservation when it's too late. Water conservation strategies need to be thought out & implemented way before the deadline when water is expected to be finished for all.

In Pakistan, the general public & the government are thinking that building dams is going to save the country from impending water crisis. Heck, no!! Dams is one of the solutions out of many, to help a little bit in alleviating the pain of water scarcity. Dams will be able to store some water that when the water crisis hits, the public can be provided with water for a few days. But that stored water will eventually end. Then, what? Water conservation strategies still need to be implemented. But saving water at that time would be a lot harder, since the public is not used to it, then implementing those strategies right now, when water is almost scarce, & work towards postponing that water crisis deadline for as long as it's possible.

As Maude Barlow says it in the end that, "there isn’t a place in the world where we don’t have to start taking care of water in a very different way than we have."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo7uA2ZN93A

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Governor Brown of California’s mandatory reduction of 25%, I guess, is first of all a reflection of a broad, global problem. But let’s start first of all with California. Do you think this measure is adequate?

MAUDE BARLOW, NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON OF FOOD & WATER WATCH: Well, it’s terrible that it’s taken so long for California to actually take this kind of action. It was only last year that they brought in legislation to give some kind of control to their groundwater, which has just been a free-for-all. Everybody’s known this has been coming for 30 years. There’s no snowpack, the overextraction of water is incredible. In California, 80% of the water use goes to agriculture and much of that is for export to other states, but they produce all the almonds, 80% of the almonds for the world, for instance. I mean, they use so much water to produce almonds every year that you could take a shower for ten minutes every day for the next 86 million years. That’s how much water it takes.

So there’s no, there’s been no control. There’s been no limit. There’s been a kind of everybody can take whatever they want mentality. Move it around from one place to another through canals and aqueducts and so on. And hence the problem. And this is not only in California but around the world.

We have this notion that, what I call the myth of abundance, that we don’t have to take care of our water and we wait until the crisis hits before we take inadequate measures.

JAY: with climate change, at least to begin with. If I understand it correctly, California’s been draining water from neighboring states for decades, also affecting the water table in those states. And everyone knows this has been coming.

But how much does climate change, do scientists thing, have to do with the current drought?

BARLOW: Well, climate change, of course is a part of it. But it depends on how you define climate change. Most people think of it as greenhouse gas emission changes the climate and warms the climate, and that’s true and that impacts water. But what we’re beginning to really understand is that when we displace water from where it is put in watersheds, or we displace the vegetation that protected that watershed, we actually change the local hydrologic cycle.

What’s happened in California is not as much climate change from greenhouse gas emissions as climate change from the abuse, mismanagement, and displacement of water. Water has been put where it belongs. As you say, not only has California been borrowing from other states, it’s been borrowing from its future groundwater. They’re pumping groundwater far faster than it can be replenished by nature, and the system of water rights that gives these big industrial interests the right to do this basically says they can keep doing it till the cows come home.

Well, at some point, something’s got to give. It’s like a bunch of people around a bathtub, and they all have blindfolds, and they have straws, and they’re drinking the water as fast as they can. And they think it’s fine. And it is fine. Until one day it isn’t fine for anybody.

They have had a system of allowing basically the commodification of water, privatization of water, through these water rights. And what California needs to do is declare its groundwater to be a public trust. They need to bring in terribly strict management. They have to bring in a hierarchy of access. And frankly, they’ve got to stop making all the almonds and the, the hay for Japan, and everything. Alfalfa that they ship off to Japan. They’ve got to start taking care of their water, and put it back in the center of all policy.

JAY: But can you do that and at the same time have such a massive agribusiness in California?

BARLOW: No. You can’t have both. But you’re not going to have it, anyway. The water dries up, it’s gone. I remember being in Australia a couple of years ago when they first announcement that the rice exports were down 98%. I mean, the bottom fell out of the rice industry, which is huge in Australia, because they ran out of water. So ... it’s not like jobs versus the environment. If you don’t have water, you can’t grow crops. There isn’t any such thing as big agribusiness, or small farming, if we don’t have water.

We have to have what I call a new water ethic, where water is put in the center of our lives, and all policy, from how we grow food to how we produce energy, to how we trade with one another, asks the question about the impact on water. And until we do that, California’s just going to be one of the many crises we’re going to face around the world.

Another happening right now is Brazil. Brazil, up until recently, has been seen as the most water-rich country in the world. But greater São Paolo has about 20 million people. They don’t think they have enough water to last six months. That’s because they’ve cut down the Amazon, and that has removed the whole hydrologic cycle that produced the rain.

So, we have to stop thinking that somehow, big technology is going to fix this. We are a planet running out of clean, accessible water.

JAY: That certainly is the thinking, that somehow eventually it will become economical to spend the money for technology to save us. So for example, in California, at some point it becomes profit-making and worthwhile to bring water down from Canada. There is lots of fresh water not that far north of California agriculture.

BARLOW: There’d be an awful big fight if Americans or California or businesses think that Canada’s going to sell its water to the United States. It’s a very, very hot issue here. We need our water. We do not have that much. We have about 6.5% of the world’s available water. Most of our water is running North, in mighty rivers running north, and there is no way that we’re going to allow the re-engineering of our entire environment to, frankly, to feed a state that hasn’t looked after its own water.

I mean, I think a lot of people around the world are going to say, what did you do to protect your water? And when you run out because you haven’t heard the warnings that have been at least 30 years coming, why should other parts of the world so-called share their water, or sell their water to you when you haven’t taken care of it yourself?

We need to understand that everywhere there are maybe different water realities, but there isn’t a place in the world where we don’t have to start taking care of water in a very different way than we have.

"Domestic Spying" by Rob Rogers

"Domestic Spying" - Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US

Only those who never knew it could be 'proud' of colonialism

A good opinion piece describing the feelings when someone from the colonized land hears about the colonizer boasting about their cultures & development over centuries. Although, the piece is about an British-Indian-African speaking against the British rule in African countries, this can be easily expanded to include America, & other European countries (Germany, France, Belgium, Spain etc.)

British boast that at one point in history their empire was so big that sun never set in that empire, & they are proud of the legacy of their empire. But those British also forget to mention what British did in those colonized lands, in Australia, SouthEast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, several African countries, & of course, even in US. British policies colonized, humiliated, & subjugated the native people of these lands. They looted & transferred billions of treasures (if we value those treasures in current money) to UK. Even after exiting their colonies, they still interfere with the domestic policies of their colonies, because they still think that these regions are their colonies.

Let's talk about Americans. They proudly say that America is the most powerful country in the world, they have the best "democracy" in the world, & other regions, & their residents, should learn from America that how a country & its people should live, so these people can also develop. Americans don't stop to think how did their country become so "powerful"? By constantly interfering with the domestic & foreign policies of those countries, & if someone doesn't listen to the dictated terms of America, then they are forced to change their thinking or get punished severely. This is what political scientists have named, "imperialism."

If we look this international, diplomatic relationship on a micro level, it's very similar to a school yard bully forcing another student to do what the bully wants him / her to do. If that another student refuses to do such act, he / she is severely punished. When this happens on the school grounds, all of us, including Americans, call it bullying & condemn it, wholeheartedly. But these same Americans conveniently forget what America does on the international level is exactly same; "do what I say or you won't like the consequences for disobeying."

After all, an Iraqi, a Panamanian, a Colombian, a Yemeni, an Afghani, & the list goes on & on, won't feel such affection for America. They have felt, & are still feeling & living, the death & destruction of what America did to them. They don't feel happy or proud that America is such a powerful country, because that power is achieved by spreading terror, violence, misery, suffering, death & destruction. All that knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is useless if it is not backed by work, which doesn't harm anyone else. All that philanthropic work of Americans around the world is no good if those same Americans' tax dollars & moral support is for that same American army, which spreads misery, death & destruction in the poor villages of Afghanistan, Iraq, & Yemen.

After all, as the author of this piece pointed out, all empires, old & new, are "motivated by greed & cultural disrespect," & when one country wants to forcibly rule another country, it will always spread more misery & destruction than create anything valuable.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/only-those-who-never-knew-it-could-be-proud-of-colonialism-a6831196.html

Way back in 1973, when I was a postgraduate student at Oxford, I fell out with my new best friend, Samantha. She was the daughter of a South African businessman and I had been exiled from Uganda. Africa bonded us for a while, then things fell apart. She couldn’t understand why I went on and on about colonialism and its impact on the subjugated. And I couldn’t forgive her for not understanding. ...

A new survey found nearly 43% of Britons are proud of the British Empire. They hang on to these feelings because this nation has never gone through an honest assessment of that past. Though British rule did deliver some good, like all empires it was motivated by greed and cultural disrespect. The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon observed, “The history of empires is the history of human misery.” They who have assiduously painted over dark episodes in British history should know that whitewash is unreliable and temporary. Truths will out.
...

Ah, the many lessons we subjugated natives had to suffer through, amid the daily micro-humiliations of Western supremacy. The British banned home languages from playgrounds and spicy food in lunchboxes at our school; money spent on educating black children was a fraction of the funds made available for white kids in occupied lands. Just like in the UK, when the poor stole food, they were punished with extreme harshness. Resistance movements, like the Mau Mau in Kenya, had members tortured, imprisoned or killed.

Around 85 million Indian people died in famines between the years of 1760 and 1943, partly because of ruthless grain control policies. Churchill was unmoved when millions were perishing in Bengal. Indians, he thought, were “beastly people with a beastly religion.” They had no food because they bred like rabbits. There has not been a single deadly famine in India since independence. The Great Hedge of India (2001) by Roy Moxham described a vast hedge that was built by Victorian administrators so they could collect salt tax. Impoverished Indians were no longer able to afford this essential. Many suffered illnesses as a result or died.

What Rhodesians did to black people during this period remains hidden from British people. All they hear about is Mugabe, a monstrous product of colonialism, as was Idi Amin.

My last book, Exotic England, is both a critique of and a paean to my nation. I am here because they, imperialists, were there, in our lands. Though never equal, the relationship was not black and white. We learnt things, changed, fell in love sometimes. All of us have a responsibility to look honestly at this history, because so much of it lives on.

... Our education syllabus focuses on imperial vanities not realities. The media and arts do not yet reflect modern, global Britain.

So too, our foreign policies remain colonial. Blair was proud of the empire, so too Brown. The British still own the Chagos archipelago. In the Seventies, inhabitants were forcibly removed from the islands by our government and the largest atoll, Diego Garcia, turned into a US military base. A report quietly published last week suggests 98% of the dispossessed Chagossians want to go back. They do not matter. ...

That is not to mention the unconsciously colonialist British culture. A travel supplement on South Africa in a Sunday paper featured happy pictures almost all of European travellers and commentators, plus two local ladies selling fruit and a vineyard worker ... .

"The Long Shadow": Race, Class and Privilege in Baltimore (4/5)

This discussion is good enough that I don't have to say much. This should be an eye-opening discussion for those people who think racism & discrimination no longer exist in 21st century North America or anywhere else in the developed world. Racism & discrimination in every sphere of life is alive, & being vigorously practiced, all over the West / Global North / developed world.

As per the discussion, social mobility is restricted, or at least, severely handicapped, due to this discrimination, & the general public incorrectly thinks that African-Americans, or every non-white / non-Caucasian, is poor or destitute because he / she is lazy or does not know how to find jobs. It's not that black & white.

Non-whites / non-Caucasians are hard-working & studious, & want to find gainful employment, but they are being restricted from doing such. But they & their families need that money, too, so they get involved in criminal endeavours, for which, society treats them very harshly. Severe punishment is not going to make the problem of people turning towards crimes, but eliminating the root cause will solve that problem, & the root cause is racism & discrimination in the society.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FBcnrDf_l0

JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Out of the 790 Baltimore children you surveyed in 1982, 33 moved from low-income to high-income brackets. What was different about them? ...

KARL ALEXANDER, JOHN DEWEY PROF. OF SOCIOLOGY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV.: Well, let me say, just to clarify, that's not income. The way we classify their families and themselves as young adults, it's socioeconomic standing, which is a combination of income, occupational status, and level of education. So it's all three of those things combined. And that movement up, what we do is we classify families as low, medium, and high in terms of their socioeconomic standing, and we do that for the parents and we do it for the children. And then we cross-classify the two so we can see how many children went from low to high, how many children went from high to low, and so forth.

And so, yes, we find that just 33 of the children who grew up in lower socioeconomic status families made it into the higher realm as adults. The number of children who started out in favorable family circumstances and dropped to the lowest level, there's just nine of them. So there is upward mobility, there's downward mobility, but that's relatively infrequent ... .

So there's children who moved up from the lowest, from the bottom category to the highest of our classification. That was 9.5% ... . The ones who dropped down from high to low was just 6.3% of the group that started out high fell to the lowest category. ... But that 9.5% moving from low to high is contrasted with 41% who started low and stayed low, so when there's a fourfold difference in the likelihood of moving up from lower origins to the high destinations. The 6.5% who started out high and dropped low, that's against 50% who started high and stayed high. So that's more than almost a tenfold difference.

So ... that actually does a good job of kind of capturing the whole experience globally over the span of years, 'cause it anchors children in where they started in life in terms of their family conditions and then compares it to where they wound up in life in terms of their own conditions as young adults. And the predominant tendency is to stay where you started. Some people move up, some people drop down, but a predominant tendency is to stay where you started. And that's what really the "long shadow" imagery is intended to convey. Economists that look at these mobility patterns, they call it stickiness at the extreme. You know, you're kind of stuck where you started out.

How did the people move up who did make it out? ... the stories are so different one from the other it's hard to generalize. But some did it by being successful in school, ... , the way your parents probably told you to do it and the way my parents taught me to do it, ... , stay the course, study hard, come to school prepared, and do what your teachers tell you, and you'll be successful. Some of them did that. ... We have others who have moved up by being entrepreneurial, doing well without the advantages of a college degree. ...

So the paths to moving up--now, there are different ways you can do this, and many of our study participants have been quite resourceful and energetic and entrepreneurial and have managed to rise above. But, again, the predominant tendency, the pattern, is to not move up. If you start out in a disadvantaged family, the likelihood is that you're going to be in a disadvantaged family yourself as a young adult. So there's movement up, but there's also stability, and the stability in terms of your position in the stratification, hierarchy ... . Stability is the norm. Most people stay where they start. And the ones who break out and are successful, we applaud them, and it's great to see that, but you'd like to have it from more than just 9.5%. You'd like it to be ... 100% if you could. But short of that, you know, something. You'd like to see greater opportunities for children to get ahead in life who start out kind of behind.

NOOR: ... So, recently Paul Ryan, he said that inner-city men are lazy; and that's why they're not successful, that's why they don't have jobs: they don't want to get jobs. And what has happened since you started this study is that you've had under the Reagan administration a massive amount of cuts in social spending, cuts in social security and welfare in the Clinton years, and the escalation of the war on drugs, mass incarceration. What is your response to Paul Ryan? What are your thoughts? And this is also a common idea throughout society.

ALEXANDER: Yeah, no, it is a common idea. It's widely held. And I think it's just--it's certainly too superficial, and it might be just out-and-out wrong. Certainly as a blanket statement, broadly applicable, it's certainly wrong. We certainly don't see this in the experiences of our group. They try to get ahead by getting additional education, and there are just obstacles that stand in their way, so they're unsuccessful. They try to find jobs, but they don't have family members or neighbors or ins with the boss that can help them get into the door.
...

... I think, as a social social concern, I think much attention is focused on the limited opportunities for African Americans. But it's absolutely wrong about all inner-city people, 'cause one of the things that our book establishes is that the whites of lower background have are much more successful in terms of finding stable and well-paying employment, good-paying employment, much more successful than African-American counterparts and the women of either--, black and white.

... it's clear that they, African-American men in particular, lag behind, and it's challenging for them. And then their challenges kind of trickle down to affect women who are trying to establish lives and take care of families, many of them on their own. The national literature says that African-American men are more likely to apply for jobs than are white men when they need them and are eager to find employment. That much is clear.

It's also clear that the stain of a criminal justice record is a greater impediment for African-American men [than] for white men. We see that in our research, but it's also seen nationally.

So I think there's a relevant history here that we haven't even touched upon. But it has to do with the way opportunities open up in the kind of blue-collar workforce. And it goes back to the World War II industrial era, industrial boom. So what it wasn't too long ago, I think, that Baltimore was the economic engine or powerhouse of the Maryland economy. It's easy to forget, but--because we've been mired in these difficult times for decades now, but in the World War II era, when during the height of the war mobilization--Beth Steel, for example, was the largest steel mill in the world, with 35,000 workers, and now it's being sold off for scrap. That was a time--some of the literature refers to this as the moment of the blue-collar elite, where you could find steady work and high-paying work on the assembly lines, in the steel mills, on the docks. So there was a lot of good, steady work to be found.

But Baltimore was highly segregated during that time, and most of that good, steady work was available to blue-collar whites and not blue-collar African Americans, who were relegated to the least-promising kind of employment. They did all the dirty work and the nonskilled laboring work. And so we're talking three generations back. We're talking about the--our study, youngsters' grandparents.

Also there were restrictive residential covenants. So the white working-class in Baltimore were substantially isolated in residential enclaves. If you know the area locally, the first thing you think about when you--what comes to mind when you think about whites in Baltimore are the upscale neighborhoods that are exclusive--the Roland Parks, the Guilfords, the Homelands. But in point of fact, there are working-class, white working-class neighborhoods scattered throughout the city that also are long-standing and very much insulated by residential segregation--Curtis Bay, Brooklyn, and there's over on the west side (near the B&O Railroad Museum) Pigtown, Sandtown, low-income working-class, white working-class neighborhoods that are insulated in terms of being racially segregated.

So you put these two things together in a historic perspective, you've got really a booming industry of high-skill, high-pay blue-collar work and whites having access, greater access to that kind of employment, and you have segregated residential neighborhoods, where people, blacks and whites, don't mix and mingle. They didn't back then, and they don't do much better today. White parents who have social networks through those in the workplace or in the neighborhood, a lot of employment in the non-college workforce is word-of-mouth, ... recommendation from a friend or a cousin or a neighbor that can help open doors. And working-class whites are much better able to provide those opportunities for their children than are African Americans, than are working-class African-American parents.

So what happens is, in the historic context, you see--in the book, we quote a sociologist by the name of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. He's a sociologist at Duke University. And here's the quote. It says, the racial practices and mechanisms that have kept blacks subordinated have changed from overtly and eminently racist to covert and indirectly racist.

So I think this history is where the overtly and eminently racist practices come into play that excluded African-Americans from high-wage work, blue-collar work, and that excluded them from neighborhoods where they could develop social contacts that would be helpful to their children. That's 50 years ago. But if you fast-forward to today, you still have these same isolated neighborhoods, and you still have word-of-mouth hiring for these kinds of--on the construction sites and whatnot. And so white parents are better able to help their children get this kind of work. And they do it. They do it.

I'm going to kind of in a very roundabout way get back to your Paul Ryan quote. The white guys are working hard and doing rather well, inner-city white guys working hard and doing rather well. Because they have these network advantages through their parents, relatives, and friends, they can get into this kind of work. And they grew up with it. ... if your father was an auto mechanic, you're helping him. If he's an electrician, a small-jobber, you're on the job with him. So you get worked in that way. African Americans by and large don't have those opportunities and that access.

But the African Americans that we know through our project are also highly motivated and willing to work hard. But they have more impediments, maybe more barriers in the way that keep them from finding, realizing the same kinds of success that the lower income background whites realize. And so I'm very dismissive of that kind of attitude about inner-city young people, African-American or white or/and white. It just doesn't ring true. It doesn't resonate with what we've seen in the experiences of our children growing up, and it doesn't resonate in terms of what I know of the broader literature that speaks to these very same kinds of issues.

"Americans" by Ted Rall

"Americans" - Ted Rall, Universal Press Syndicate

“The Long Shadow”: Race, Class and Privilege in Baltimore (2/5)

A brief discussion on a social study looking at how racism holds back African-Americans in one city, Baltimore, in regards of education & employment, against their Caucasian / White counterparts. People all over the world think that there's no, or minimal, discrimination in Europe & North America in the areas of employment & education, & merit rules the day. But, this & several other studies will confirm that racism & discrimination very much exist & affects the minorities very much so.

Now, we have to keep in mind that this study is looking at the racism effect on African-Americans & Caucasians / Whites; people whose religious beliefs & social attitudes might not differ so much & the only difference between them will be the colour of their skin. Now, what if we factor in the religious beliefs? Those religious beliefs will show up in the subjects' names, familial & social connections, social attitudes, & perhaps, their outlook (facial hair, dressing style etc.). Per my own observations & experiences, these factors adversely affect the individual & make his / her climb up the social & corporate ladder that much harder.

That's why, 2nd-generation immigrants (children of immigrants) usually shun the habits of their immigrant parents & adopt their host countries' customs & cultures. This adoption helps them in gaining acceptance in the social & corporate arena & seemingly makes their life that much easier. Children who stick to their parental cultures keep suffering. Other people in their family & friend circle start pointing out that how people they know are getting ahead without acknowledging some simple facts that how those children who are getting ahead have forsaken the cultural & religious practices of their immigrant parents, & have adopted their host country's customs & cultures.

The simple reason the general public wants to believe that there's no racism is that it's much easier to lay the blame of a Muslim teenager rebelling against the society with a gun or an African-American man being homeless & broke on their own abilities & competencies, instead of how hard it is to succeed in life when the cards are stacked against you from the time of your birth, simply because of the colour of your skin, or your religious belief, or your family's networks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8BPTpSQCYY

KARL ALEXANDER, JOHN DEWEY PROF. OF SOCIOLOGY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIV.: 40%of high school dropout rate overall. We all would want better than that for our children, much better. One of the interesting things, because there's a lot of discussion of high school drop out is that that's the end of the story. But 60% of the study youngsters who left school without high school degrees eventually get some kind of high school certification, and most of them do the GED degree, which is an alternative certification, but by the standards of federal government accounting that's high school completion. 10% who dropped out return to high school and finish with regular diplomas.

So what started out as a 40% high school degree at age 28 is down to 25%, which is still really very high, but it's not 40%. So these kids who leave school, many of them realize that this wasn't a very good decision and they regret it and they try to do something about it. When we talked at age 28 to everyone, 80% of the total panel said that they intended to get additional education, 80% at age 28. It was 85% among high school dropouts. We call them permanent high school dropouts because by age 28 they didn't have a GED or a high school diploma. ... it really is quite impressive to see how the success ethos that school is the way to get ahead has permeated through even a very disadvantaged population of urban youth. So these kids want to succeed in life, they want to do well, and they understand, many of them, that school can be the path out, up and out. But there are just so many barriers that stand in the way that for many of them, they're not able to see it through.

JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: And there is a racial disparity in high school dropouts between white and black, who found work even though they were high school dropouts.

ALEXANDER: Yes, there ... is a racial disparity, but it's not the one that you might anticipate. So one of the interesting opportunities that we had here, because we did start out with a very diverse sample within the framework of the Baltimore City Public Schools system is that we have a large presence of low-income white children. And there's a vast literature on the problems of the urban poor and concentrated poverty in our big cities, but you very rarely see low-income whites as part of that picture, as part of that story. And that's regrettable, because there are low-income whites in Baltimore and there are low-income white neighborhoods in Baltimore. There have been all along, and there still are. But very rarely do you see them brought into the conversation about the challenges of the urban poor and whatnot.

So we were fortunate in being able to include a large group of these youngsters in our study, and we monitored their experiences over time as well. And what we find is that the lower-income whites, white children, white males specifically, of disadvantaged family background have the highest dropout rate, non-completion. At age 28, their average years of schooling is about 10.2. So the typical lower-income white male growing up is a permanent high school dropout in terms of the way--our coverage of it.

Now, the others--and the comparisons we make are lower income against higher income, or lower socioeconomic standing against higher socioeconomic standing growing up, African American and white, and male and female, men and women. And when I say that the white males of disadvantaged family background have the lowest high school completion rate, had the highest high school dropout rate, I'm not saying that the others are going gangbusters. In fact, for the other three groups, they're all eleven-point-something years. So for all four--lower-income white men, white women, African-American men, and African-American women--at age 28, the typical youngster out of that group, all four of those groups, has not finished high school. But white men, if you look at the numbers, are least successful of all. ... in terms of using the educational system as the vehicle for moving up in life, 'cause they've got the lowest levels of formal schooling on average. ... .

But then to turn the page, ... they are most successful in the world work--so least successful educationally and most successful in the world of work, and across a whole host of particulars when you look at it: they're more likely to have worked full-time; they find jobs fast, more quickly, and they're ready to move on to the next job; their earnings are higher; and they have a very distinctive pattern of successful vocational development--from adolescence on, their employment experience is much better than that of African-American men of like background, and much better also than women of like background, both African-American and white. So these white guys don't use schooling as the vehicle for doing well in life, but they do have employment opportunities that aren't as readily available to the others who grew up in the same kind of circumstances.
...

... what we find, which is really tremendously striking is that at age 28, 45% of these guys are working in the high-skill, high-wage jobs in manufacturing and in the construction trades, 45% are working as either electricians, plumbers, welders, things of that sort. But the kinds of jobs that used to be the backbone of the old Baltimore industrial economy and everyone says that they're gone with deindustrialization ... , but if you look around, people are still building buildings, they're still doing a road repairs to the highways. If you need to upgrade your electricity at home, you call an electrician, or if you need a new hot water heater installed, you call a plumber. So there are people who are still doing this kind of work and working in these trades. And what we see is that it's white men of lower-income background who have the greatest access to these kinds of jobs, 45% of white men. 15% of African-American men are working in this same sector, the way we classify it. ... so the white advantage, just in terms of penetrating into this sector of employment, is threefold advantage. But on top of that, the white men who are working in the sector, their earnings are twice that of African-American men, roughly $44,000 against ... $22,000.

A little bit more than double. And that's at age 28 in terms of 2006, 2007 dollars. So these guys not only have better access to this high-skill, high-wage work in the blue-collar economy, but ... their positions that they find themselves in are much more--they pay a lot more than the positions African-Americans of like background find themselves in.

This is actually longstanding in Baltimore. We see it in the experiences of our study group, but there was a report that was published in the early '60s that looked at the earnings, using Social Security data, ... of the automobile mechanic graduates to Baltimore vocational and technical high schools back in the day. Actually, it was Mergenthaler and Carver. They were segregated at the time. And the white graduates, the white auto mechanics graduates four or five years afterwards were making twice what the African-American graduates were making in the same program, auto mechanics. So this is a longstanding pattern.

And so there is another--there's a second option for how to establish yourself in life and achieve a reasonably comfortable standard of living.
...

... I say men because it is particularly men. There aren't many women, white or are African-American, who are working in these kinds of jobs. When you look at the sex composition of the employments of our study youngsters, there is a high-degree of sex segregation, and it's very traditional. The women are concentrated, African-American and white, in the traditional pink-collar sectors.
...

That's service and clerical work--with some sales, but service and clerical. Service and clerical employment makes up 60-70% of lower-income women's--in terms of family background. ... And they pay less. ... So women and men substantially are finding themselves at different places in the labor market, and men are in more lucrative positions than women.

And that actually--it's interesting. We see the same thing for those who were from more favorable family backgrounds, and most of whom attended college, and many had completed college, but it's at the upper end of the employment hierarchy. So those women are concentrated in the professional fields. And you could name them as well as I, probably, 'cause they are gendered. It's teaching, nursing, social work, the helping professions. Men of like background are more likely to be in executive or managerial positions or to be in the high-level technical positions of today's postindustrial economy. And those jobs pay more than the helping-profession jobs that women access. So we see men being advantaged in terms of employment opportunities--.
...

So what we describe in the book is this pattern where white men of modest background are advantaged in terms of their employment experience over everybody else. Why that happens is a larger question. And there's a historical backdrop to it. There are--in the long shadow, we think there really are two--it's a story about two kinds of family privilege. And the flipside of family privilege is family disadvantage. But there's middle-class family privilege in terms of helping children do well in school. And that's what we see. Children of parents who themselves were college-educated, who have middle-class jobs and whatnot, their children are doing just fine.
...

... this pattern of differential success in school, it's not particular to what we see in Baltimore. It's we see it nationally as well that children from advantaged families are more successful in terms of family income, parental levels of education, and so forth. So that's one success narrative.

This other success narrative involves blue-collar attainment, and where--parents can be helpful there, too, but in a not quite as obvious way, 'cause we know about middle-class parents. Middle-class parents can do all kinds of things to help their children do well in school. They buy expensive educational toys, they do enrichment experiences, and so forth. Blue-colar parents, it's not so obvious, until you step back and think about it, how they can to help their children be successful. And the way it plays out in the experiences of our study group is that blue-collar parents can help open doors to good steady employment through social networks. When we asked at age 22 our study participants how they found the work, white men of modest background much more often said through family and friends, and African-Americans much more often said through themselves. And if you're on your own and you're not well connected, that makes it--that's not an easy thing to do, to find your way to a good opportunity. ... It is white privilege, working-class white privilege specifically.

Another facet of that is we have--the white high school dropouts at age 22, 80% of them were working. ... African-American male high school dropouts at age 22, 40% of them were working. So whites just have these employment advantages all along the way. And what we find is, if you look at those groups specifically, between age 22 at age 28, 5% of the whites acquire a criminal record along the way. I think it's 45% of the African-Americans acquire a criminal record along the way. So they have limited job opportunities, and they're trying to figure out a way to get by, and they get in trouble.

Avengers Quote

Only if American government, its military apparatus, & its people can understand this ...

IMDB          RottenTomatoes          Wikipedia

World Bank & IMF Polices Behind the Inadequate Health Infrastructure to Quell Ebola

Another interview where it is being reiterated that IMF & World Bank, the international financial institutions, are essentially, tools of the developed countries to keep the developing countries from ever developing. I have blogged about this several times before this post.

IMF & the World Bank are the instruments of the West, to keep the development goal, out of reach, from developing countries in Latin America, Asia, & Africa. These institutions provide billions in loans to countries with known corrupt leaders & then impose harsh restrictions, like austerity measures, to recover those loans. The corruption of the political leaders are well known. Those austerity measures tie the hands of the successive governments, regardless of how much they are well-intentioned, behind their backs, & the developing countries fail to develop.

These countries are instructed to privatize everything, increase prices & taxes for the local citizenry, but decrease their taxes & royalties from natural wealth, & let the international corporations loot the developing countries of their natural wealth. Of course, then, is it any wonder that developed countries keep developing further & amassing huge wealth, whereas, the developing countries stay at the bottom of the pile. If, by any chance, the leaders of the developing countries resist following the demands of the IMF, World Bank, of the political leaders of the developed countries, then political assassinations & interference, & ultimately, war, is imposed on those developing countries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nghGovphphw

SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: … do you think this is an adequate response on the part of the World Bank?

NII AKUETTEH, FMR. DIRECTOR AT AFRICA ACTION: I don't think so … the World Bank and the IMF have contributed to the weak health systems in Africa … . So, therefore, so to speak, they contributed to the problem; therefore they need to own up to their mistakes and they need to do more to help rescue these countries.

PERIES: What do you mean by that? What role has IMF and the World Bank played in West Africa in the past?

AKUETTEH: Oh, well, you know, two phrases. One is structural adjustment programs. Anybody who's been studying Africa since independence knows that especially since the '80s, when Ronald Reagan got into power in the United States and the World Bank and the IMF actually made themselves the economic stewards of economic policy in Africa, structural adjustment, otherwise called austerity measures, they have imposed these policies on the African countries regardless of what the people want, regardless of what the leaders wanted. So structural adjustment is one of those phrases. And the governments were told, were forced, that in order to get a good mark from the World Bank and the IMF, you have to keep government small, you have to slash government officials' pay; after you have slashed the number of government officials, you have to privatize everything and you have to force people to pay, and especially to pay for health care and to pay out of pocket for education.

So I think, though structural adjustment went on for decades and they devastated the African economies, the other phrase that I wanted to throw in is IMF riots. This actually came from Africa, where every time the IMF would impose economic conditions, ordinary people in the street were so hit hard that they would riot. And so it actually created a new phrase in the English language and in economic writing: IMF riots.

PERIES: So, Nii, explain more, in the sense that, yes, of course the IMF would have these horrendous austerity policies and neoliberal economic policies and force governments to shrink their bureaucratic and civil service, all these things in the past were set up in order to service their people. But why are they forced to come to these kinds of agreements with the World Bank and the IMF?

AKUETTEH: I think that's a great question, because on the surface of it, a government, a country can simply say, sorry, your conditions are too harsh, we don't have to deal with you. After all, the United States doesn't take the advice of the World Bank and the IMF. A number of big countries don't. But for African countries, number one, they are economically small and weak. Secondly, having just gotten out of colonialism--I know this is about 50 years ago, but when you are trying to restructure economic systems that was built over more than a century, it is not easy. And so they are tied into the global economy. They are tied into their former colonial masters. That is especially France and the U.K. And they are tied to the United States.

Now, those three countries, the United States, the U.K., and France, play a major role in the World Bank and the IMF. And therefore the World Bank and the IMF actually act as policeman and gatekeepers for the entire global economy if you are an African country, because the rest of the global economy says to you, we will deal with you only if the World Bank and the IMF says you are well behaved. And the World Bank and the IMF will say you are well behaved only if you agree to their conditions. And therefore it's almost impossible for an African country to say, listen, I don't want to do this anymore.

You know, everybody who reads the news, Africa news, and especially U.S.-Africa, will know that the West doesn't much care for Robert Mugabe. Usually you will be told that it's because he is internally repressive and other things. But I happen to think that one major factor also is that for about ten years after Zimbabwe became independent, Robert Mugabe followed the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF very closely. And after about ten years he said, no, this is not working no more. For instance, they made Zimbabwe sell its stock of maize, and say it's uneconomical to hold it; sell it, buy it when you need it. But that was bad economic advice, because when they wanted to buy it, they had to pay more. And so I am saying that countries that defy the IMF and the World Bank get punished by the larger global economy, and therefore it's not been very easy for those countries to reject what the World Bank and the IMF recommend, because they were doing it on behalf of the global economy.

PERIES: But these economies are very resource-rich. I mean, places like Sierra Leone have diamonds and gold, and West Africa is considered one of the natural resource rich regions of the world. The World Bank adopting these policies is really opening the doors and the gates to a flood of corporations coming in to do business in the region and reap the resources out of the region and leave very little behind. Can you sort of describe those complex relationships between the World Bank, the IMF, the local governments, the corporations that have left--the conditions that they have left in the region that is now unable to cope with … a grave epidemic of Ebola in the region?

AKUETTEH: I think that question is fantastic. I mean, because the reason that the World Bank and the IMF do what they do, the reason that they squeeze the African countries and say to them, you do what we tell you, never mind what your own people might want, never mind what your own leaders might want, the IMF and the World Bank, there's a method to their madness. And I believe said the method, the reason they do what they do, is actually to make it safe and hospitable for international corporations to go in and plunder Africa's wealth. It is as simple as that.

Now, it's been going on for years. The IMF and the World Bank are creatures created after the Second World War. They're Bretton Woods institutions. So, after the Second World War, with the U.K. and Western Europe being weakened, they were created to help stand up again in the global economy. So they took over what has been done, which is plundering Africa's wealth, leaving very little for the Africans … . That question goes to why this is done. The World Bank and the IMF would tell the African countries, keep governments small; you can't afford--. I mean, when I was in school, our governments were being told, listen--I'm from Ghana--you are a small country, the United States doesn't invest this much into education, so why should you? You shouldn't invest in education; let parents pay for it, when most parents are poor and when education is an investment. So they want to keep governments small. They want the people of the country to get as little as possible from the wealth--the bottom line is because they want the Western corporations to continue taking the wealth from out of Africa.

This is precisely why they do it. Even as recently as in Liberia, when Ms. Johnson Sirleaf--whom I know well because she was my boss at a certain point-- when she became president, she got a lot of kudos from the West because she is well known in the West and it was great that a woman had been in elected president in Africa. But behind the scenes, she was told that, listen, you will get a lot of corporations investing if you don't insist that they clean up the environment, if you don't push hard for labor protections, if you don't insist on high taxes, so all the things that the World Bank and the IMF says.

I'm saying your question is great because it goes to the heart of it: it's designed to make it easier for Western corporations to plunder Africa. It's as simple as that.

When it comes to the Middle East, Ottawa sits on its hands to keep Trump happy

A good op-ed piece on Canada abstaining from voting, on Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of Israel, in the UN General Assembly. As the piece says that this abstention was against Canadian official foreign policy on Israel & Palestine but when push came to shove, when it was time to stand for your principles, when it was time to show the so-called "bully" of the world that the world will not meekly follow whatever Mr. Trump will say, then Canada quietly, feebly, meekly, ran away from the fight with its tail between its legs.

That's Canada for you, ladies & gentlemen !!! That's the so-called "leadership" Canada is trying to show to the world !!!

If you may recall that there were dozens of Justin Trudeau's pictures circulating on the web, after his election win, showing him sitting for Iftars with Muslims & fasting for a day with Muslims, & several other pictures of him mingling with Muslim voters. Him & his party officials "opened the gates" to Canada to refugees running away from US, to Canada.

People all over the world, & esp. Muslims, were proudly saying that Canada is the best country to live in & Justin Trudeau & his party support Islam & Muslims. However, when it came to show how much skin you have in the game, principles & all that verbal support for Muslims evaporated in the thin air, & Canada acted like an Ostrich; bury your head in the sand & hope for the problem to go away. All those pictures & oral support was just for electoral show, because, actions speak louder than words, & such an important vote, regardless of it being not legally binding, was still politically important, & needed Canada to show where it really stands in foreign policy circles. Couple this decision with Liberals not backing away from selling armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia, amounting in the billions, even though, the whole world knows that Saudi Arabia openly violates human rights, & we can see how much Liberals, & Justin Trudeau, support Muslims.

This vote was the time for Canada to show if it can make decisive decisions. A leader makes decisive decisions, rightly or wrongly, & then stands firm on those decisions. Donald Trump's actions might be horrendous, & pretty much, every American leader before him, but, US is still considered a world leader in foreign policy matters, even after making horrible mistakes with even more horrendous consequences several times, from World War 2 (dropping atomic bombs on innocent Japanese) to invading Vietnam to putting through Iraqis, Afghanis, Libyans, & now Yemenis, from unforgettable nightmarish life-long moments, but still, what America says, goes.

Yes, certainly, desperate times like these need leaders, who, despite heavy odds against them, take a strong & decisive stand for their principles they believe in. If you don't stand for your principles, then you don't have any principles. You are merely going along wherever the wind takes you. Nobody will ever take you seriously & you will never be considered as a leader in anyone's eyes. That's Canada for you.

Regardless of how much Canada wants to become the darling of the world, & be considered for leadership roles in the international fora, Canadian leaders are too afraid of making ripple effects. But that's what makes you a leader. It's too easy to be a nice person when everything is going great. Tough & testing times separate the men from the boys, & separate the followers from the leaders. This vote in the UNGA was the time when Canada should've stood up for its principles, regardless of its ongoing trade negotiations, & voted with other G7 countries, because, at the author says near the end of the piece, those trade negotiations still might not work out in favour of Canada, because, hey, after all, who listens to a follower!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2017/12/21/on-the-middle-east-ottawa-sits-on-its-hands-to-keep-trump-happy.html

And so the year draws to a close just as it dawned — with Canada walking on eggshells around Donald Trump.

Thursday at the United Nations, the Liberal government had two choices. It could poke Trump but stand on principle, or continue a pattern of voting with the U.S. on the Middle East.

With the world watching, it did neither.

It abstained.

It moved to the sidelines and let the rest of the world take a position.

Mostly, it didn’t want to rattle Trump’s cage with the future of NAFTA very much in doubt.

A vote to declare Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “null and void,’’ passed 128 to nine with 35 abstentions.

The U.S. won the support of key allies like Togo, Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Honduras, Guatemala and, of course, Israel.

Take Israel out of the equation and the entire population of those backing the U.S. is less than the population of Canada.

Canada, on the other hand, was the only G7 nation beside the United States that did not vote to condemn the move by Trump.

An abstention, at first glance, does seem to be a craven move, especially in light of the crass threats and bullying delivered by the American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley.

Haley was defending Trump’s right to make an unnecessary, provocative move in the Middle East for strictly domestic political reasons.

Oh, she was going to take names. She wasn’t going to forget this vote.

She was going to remember when nations come calling for America’s financial help or its global influence.

It was an appalling performance, coming on the heels of Trump’s flat-out threat to cut off aid to anyone who voted against him.

Don’t disrespect us, Haley warned.

The Americans were going to take their ball and go home if others were mean to them.

In short, it was the type of speech that should have sent nations on the fence into the “screw you’’ camp against Washington.

Canada stayed quiet.

In Canada’s case, an abstention does send a message, because the Trudeau government, like the Stephen Harper government before it, has slavishly backed the U.S. in voting against UN resolutions perceived to be anti-Israel.

But overwhelmingly the message sent by an abstention was that Ottawa didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to take a stand, wished that this would just go away.

It was in keeping with Ottawa’s initial non-reaction reaction to the Trump move, a statement that did not mention the U.S. or the president, but merely affirmed Canada’s support of a two-state solution that includes agreement on the status of Jerusalem.

By abstaining, we did not support Trump, nor did we poke him, but, of course, Washington immediately spun the results to indicate those who had abstained had backed them.

It’s been a long year for a government dealing with Trump as a neighbour and with NAFTA talks resuming next month, 2018 could be tougher.

We have been “disappointed” by his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, and have “disagreed vehemently” with ridiculous tariffs his commerce department slapped on Bombardier.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland skilfully vowed Canada would take on a greater global leadership role as the U.S. turns inward (without mentioning Trump) and, with U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer at her side, she delivered the message that a “winner-take-all” mindset cannot lead to a satisfactory renegotiation of NAFTA.

In Ottawa’s defence, no one sitting at the General Assembly Thursday, with the exception of Mexico, was living cheek-by-jowl with a president whose next move might jolt this country. Mexico also abstained Thursday.

Canada has bilateral interests with the U.S. that compel it to be careful, certainly more careful in condemnation of Washington than countries separated from the U.S. by an ocean.

In its most important bilateral relationship, the Liberal government has been dealing with a man in the White House who stands against virtually everything this country stands for.

And it is doing it with its most important trilateral trade relationship hanging in the balance.

This country has lost its voice on the Middle East so as not to upset the U.S. president.

Thursday, Canada could not even vote for a resolution that reflected its official policy.

Ottawa sat on its hands to appease a leader who has toyed with us during NAFTA negotiations.

They could find that tiptoeing on eggshells and losing our international voice may make no difference because if Trump wants to walk away from NAFTA, he will.

A year of playing nice and biting our tongue could still count for nothing.