You Might Be Too Stupid to Work
In the last presidential election debate the president's response to the question, "What would you say to the laid-off worker" was basically a shift from jobs to education, his premise being that if you are unemployed for whatever reason, the antidote is more education. (I realize that the president has to deflect attention from jobs since what his adminstration has done to create any is so miniscule.)
Immediately I thought of the person with a degree or several, or the person who had taken technical courses, or the one who had many years of on-the-job training hearing this and thinking how would that help. I felt like his response was so telling--that for how religious Bush claims to be, he is not compassionate. I can guess he is hopeful and interested in the 'transformational power' of things. Would realizing that you didn't get a good education transform your joblessness into a job?
A few days ago I watched "Roger and Me" for the first time. The thing I took away from the movie was that in the eyes of some law-makers and corporations, if you are unemployed it is your fault--not theirs. That is the position Bush took when he answered the question in the debate and why to his mind it makes sense for the unemployed to figure out a way to better themselves. Essentially he was speaking to the person who was fired for their own fault, and further that all lay-offs are probably in his opinion the fault of the worker. Why else would you answer in such a completely out of touch and callous way?
If you believe that thousands of people are now unemployed because they lack some refinement doesn't that make you sociopathic in some way? I'm not afraid to label.
Immediately I thought of the person with a degree or several, or the person who had taken technical courses, or the one who had many years of on-the-job training hearing this and thinking how would that help. I felt like his response was so telling--that for how religious Bush claims to be, he is not compassionate. I can guess he is hopeful and interested in the 'transformational power' of things. Would realizing that you didn't get a good education transform your joblessness into a job?
A few days ago I watched "Roger and Me" for the first time. The thing I took away from the movie was that in the eyes of some law-makers and corporations, if you are unemployed it is your fault--not theirs. That is the position Bush took when he answered the question in the debate and why to his mind it makes sense for the unemployed to figure out a way to better themselves. Essentially he was speaking to the person who was fired for their own fault, and further that all lay-offs are probably in his opinion the fault of the worker. Why else would you answer in such a completely out of touch and callous way?
If you believe that thousands of people are now unemployed because they lack some refinement doesn't that make you sociopathic in some way? I'm not afraid to label.
posted by c'est trivial at 11:28 AM
2 Comments:
I understand your feelings on this issue, but I think it is a bit simplistic to refer to Bush's answer as "sociopathic" or "callous." I understand that Roger & Me can lead one to view the world though Michael Moore-colored glasses, but I'm not sure that applies here. The President cannot create jobs, he can only provide the proper environmental conditions for job creation. By the same token -- and contrary to the feel of your post -- businesses generally have no duty to employ anyone (witness "at will" employment laws). Bush's answer to the question, then, was hardly pat. he was recognizing that employers' biggest complaints are the lack of skilled workers. By seeking to increase the education level of the workers, they become more attractive and more employable.
In short, I don't believe that Bush's analysis is callous in any way. Currently, unemployement is rather low (hovering around the "full employment" zone), so it is difficult to say that Bush has failed to provide the proper environment to foster employment.
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