tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post1830873299629740073..comments2023-08-07T09:56:04.428-05:00Comments on Better Than Machines: The War in Afghanistan: A Conservative Feedback LoopDavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11154351095467482965noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post-75366513550832458502009-12-17T17:19:46.578-06:002009-12-17T17:19:46.578-06:00Interesting points. If I may paint with very broa...Interesting points. If I may paint with very broad strokes for a moment... In general I think the effect/purpose of conservative feedback loops is to accumulate power into the hands of the few who are already powerful. Well, you can't <i>give</i> power to someone without <i>taking</i> it from someone else, so that's what most conservative policies do. <br /><br />Now consider quality public education. My God, it's like a painfully bright light to the hard right wing! Quality public education seeks to empower <i>everyone</i> with the tools they need to be <i>thinking citizens</i> rather than just consumers of what is fed to them. Citizens rather than consumers. Will we be manipulators of the world around us or just parts of a machine manipulated by someone else? Education goes a long way toward answering that question.<br /><br />Veronica, I think you're right. California kids who can no longer afford a good education are more willing recruits to an army where they will have no voice and more willing applicants to a low-wage economy that requires a permanent underclass.<br /><br />Keep up the good fight! Public education is a progressive feedback loop. But empowering every young person necessarily means that those at the top have less relative power, so the aristocracy will always be annoyed by a thriving UC system.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11154351095467482965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post-60477461730943676892009-12-16T21:39:11.961-06:002009-12-16T21:39:11.961-06:00Great post, and great follow-up, Veronica. I hadn&...Great post, and great follow-up, Veronica. I hadn't heard of the idea of feedback loops, but it makes total sense to me. And in addition to the aspects you list, I think there is just an overall conservative feedback machine to creating certain habits of mind in the electorate, particularly, maybe, in young people who are forming their ideas of what's "normal." Think of college freshman right now--we've been fighting the "War on Terror" since their early childhoods.Beckyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06517252487552392654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post-56700644734944124282009-12-16T21:23:12.349-06:002009-12-16T21:23:12.349-06:00It's not worth fighting. I'm disappointed ...It's not worth fighting. I'm disappointed in the latest troop surge. This war may or may not decrease terrorism in the world. That's the only benefit that I see. The hope that it may decrease. It's gambling and sacrificing human lives for a chance at a safer world (safer for who?)in the future. <br /><br />Barack Obama and the Last Crusade at a cineplex near you!Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08738343141272365073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post-53584609197750088362009-12-16T16:17:17.726-06:002009-12-16T16:17:17.726-06:00BTM, a very cogent argument. I despair of ending ...BTM, a very cogent argument. I despair of ending this mess with anything that even resembles a satisfactory outcome. <br /><br />Veronica, I spent 33 years working in a public school system, mostly with low-income and minority students. I came to see the unrelenting right-wing attack on public education as a part of a larger effort to marginalize those students. Although it makes no sense to me, it seems as if someone has made the calculation that it serves the interest of the monied class to transform the US into a third world country with a population of a very tiny elite, a small middle class, and a huge under-class. In the long run, how can that do anything but breed violence and revolution?Camp Papahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03918758148818443535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4065910512732060865.post-36471800954964044922009-12-16T14:00:47.470-06:002009-12-16T14:00:47.470-06:00I like the language you use about “feedback loops”...I like the language you use about “feedback loops” here, and I think you’re absolutely onto something—I’ve been thinking along similar lines lately about education AND about war in this country. I work (or, worked, as the case may turn out to be) for the University of California, where we’ve been seeing shocking slashes of budgets and funds. There continues to be a lot of rhetoric about the importance of public education, the importance of diversity in education, etc., and it kept striking me as strange—if you care about diversity, if you care about educating the entire public, why are you slashing funds from the part of our department (Writing) that teaches basic, introductory college-level composition (i.e. composition for students who did not go to high-ranking high schools with AP classes or who struggle with English composition because they were raised in multilingual households, i.e. composition for (for the most part) students of color, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, multilingual students)? It doesn’t make sense. BUT, I started to realize that if you think of the goal of public education as NOT educating a diverse population but instead feeding into the military-industrial complex, it makes perfect sense to educate only an elite portion of the population, and drive others away from higher ed and toward the army. <br /><br />Same deal, in my mind, as the war: if you think of the goal as what the rhetoric is about—“spreading democracy,” ensuring our safety and freedom in the world, etc.—then it seems to make no sense to send in more troops, or to risk killing more innocent civilians in a country whose very unrest makes us feel unsafe. It would make more sense to go the sort of Peace Corps-esque route we talked about in one of your previous posts. But if you think of the real goal as something along the lines of this conservative feedback loop, then suddenly the escalation of war makes perfect sense. <br /><br />Sorry for the long-winded reply; thanks for the interesting post!Veronicahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13098484108934155881noreply@blogger.com