73 Comments

My final career from 2003 to 2021 was with the tech industry and it is true that there are a lot of H-1B visas out there. And there is a huge cultural difference. College education is cheaper and easier to obtain in India for SOME people and it is high quality education. To get into an Indian University you have to pass a series of qualifying tests and they aren't easy - I'd put them at the level of GRE (Graduate Record Exam) or LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) both of which I took and passed. For Indian students the SAT would e a piece of cake.

Our problem here is we leave public school education (K-12) to the mercy of the States of which more than view education as the lowest level on have-to-do list. As I've said so often, if you're born and raised in Massachusetts you've got the sun on your shoulders, if you're born and raised in West Virginia, tough patooties.

But it's also true that some companies AND State governments, use their American employees to lesser qualified workers (who also are willing to work for less) then fire those Americans (no matter how many years they have put in) when the new employees are trained.

It's all part and parcel of the shareholder vs stakeholder economic view.

However, we have a worse history; for the past 150+ years too many States have paid for bare minimum education for the masses because ignorance is far easier to control. This has to end if we are to retain our position in a digital world. Every child deserves the best education that child is capable of attaining. No more turning out obedient little automatons.

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Turning out obedient little automatons was what I fought against for 12 years.

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For me it was 16 years, and I doubt my success - maybe I got to 3 students.

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You probably got to more students than you think, Fay. Things begin to click later on for many. They will remember your words and the sense that you cared about them even if they didn’t seem to be tuned in at the time. That is true in my own experience as a student.

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Thank you

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Sounds like anything any other teacher said, so I accept that as a statistic.

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this is exactly what I've complained about here for a few years now.

in NYC, the usual method is to prepare for the "big" tests which, when you see them, are disgracefully easy (AP exams are pretty okay). when the kids don't do especially well, the teachers are blamed (occasionally with good cause). if it keeps up, schools are closed. and good luck to any teacher trying to get a new job who's ever taught in a "failed school."

this approach was one Obama got on board with when he appointed Arnie Duncan his Education Secretary...BIG mistake (a Rahm Emanuel recommendation?).

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The thing is, David, teachers are supposed to maintain discipline in a class of 30 to 40 individual students with a few ADHD kids and maybe some functional autistic children with intelligence levels ranging from just shy of average to genius level. All with a State determined curriculum that reaches only the median to lower levels of intelligence.

Children are no more identical than adults. Yet we assume they are little automatons that all learn the same material in the same way at the same time. To be polite HOGWASH.

I do not blame the children or even their clueless parents. I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the stingy State legislators who either purposely or without a clue, place education at or near the bottom of their to do list.

1 teacher with 30 to 40 students, even if they were equally identical can not teach every child in that class to the best of that child's ability to comprehend and absorb the lesson. But, the computer platform has been available for at least 10 years now to do just that - teach every child in the United States to the best of that child's ability to understand.

It will be expensive in the beginning to set up, but the cost can be amortized over several years AND in the end we would have a nation of people capable of independent thought, job ready, and capable of thinking.

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If it was bad and comes from the Obama Administration it was a Rahm decision.

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I too have been following this story...git a bit earlier today with Tim of the Bulwark. Yeah. Pass the popcorn, but let's make sure all this fire and smoke burn a huge magat patch. Thanks Tom for enduring all the X(shitter) s*** in order to post verbatim what thus crowd is saying. Talk about pulling off the lizard masks! We can learn a lot about how the world of rapcious capitalist fascism works. BTW today FB removed one of my posts for allegedly going against their "community standards". Want to know what I posted? A clip from The Great Dictator...Adnoid Hynkel's speech! What a bunch of dweebs! I resisted and posted it again plus some additional clips AND a documentary by Costa Gavras about The Great Dictator. 30 minutes and a fascinating story of how Charlie Chaplain brought that film to the screen. It is fucking fantastic and everyone should watch the film and the documentary. Thanks again Tom!

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Good for you!

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Thank you for this Linda M. You're right---viewing the ugly face of capitalist fascism. Lots of people are going to have buyer's regret, and hopefully, big time. I bet (or hope) Mar a Lago is a mess.......

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I've been following this story, and I can't believe it, but Coulter is right! So what is Trump doing? He's gone silent and is playing golf. Musk owns him. Pass the popcorn indeed.

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The magas voted for a shit show now they own it!

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Well that didn't take long!

Perhaps The DOGE Bros could possibly suggest that nimrods stop infiltrating school boards with intent to ban books and harass trans kids, and instead insist upon curriculum that actually teaches critical thinking skills?

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and by the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Trump say "I LOVE THE POORLY EDUCATED!!"

sigh

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He did.

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Helno and Ramasmarmy--or any of the techbro employers--don't WANT American workers! You heard them: American workers want decent pay and better work conditions and better work/life balance. The techbros like to bring in the H1N workers who can be trained, work for less and they CANNOT leave their employer--essentially it's merely a dressed up version of indentured servitude and/or slavery.

Yeah...this is going to be war.

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Speaking of education…because we’ve become infatuated with STEM subjects and careers, we are tanking the humanities and social sciences. Result: lack of civics education, a knowledge of history, and critical thinking skills. Thanks, bruhs. Not.

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Also, lack of any actual, hands-on, vocational training. The fact that electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, other trades are and will be needed - and paid WELL - no matter how many tech bros or how much AI there is. The "tech bros" need someone to clean their homes & offices, care for their kids, pick their fruits/vegetables, serve their meals - not only foreign engineers, but the "little people" who take care of the nitty gritty parts of their lives - many of them just ordinary immigrants & possibly Americans, who still do that kind of work.

I dont mean thats more important than civics, history and critical thinking, of course - but we do need a large number of educated and trained people. Could it be that the maga bunch could possibly be enlightened slightly about this? Or maybe just pissed off because they are being shown a bit of truth?

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"Imagine how many more JD Vances are out there.”" Posobiec has a point, but probably not the one he thought he was making. One Junior Dictator is one too many.

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That comment made me scratch my head. People don't realize that J. D. Vance was middle class. He wrote a good book but it wasn't an actual biography. After that he was taken under the wing of Peter Theil and given every kind of support so that he would land where he has landed. Now they will get rid of Drumpf one way or another and J.D. will be Musk's VP. It was all planned and worked out well for the oligarchs but not so much for America.

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I don’t think Donnie wants the job of President. He knows he’s not up to it. What he wants is the respect the power and the money that goes with the presidency. I believe Elmo and others have arranged for him to get everything he wanted as he handed the reins to Elmo and the higher-ups.

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I left out Donnie’s main need for protection from being tried and convicted for treason.

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He’s also all about the grift. Trump is actively using the presidency to enrich himself, e.g. $200 sneakers, autographed Bibles, $10,000 guitars, inflated secret service stays at his properties, gifts from foreign nationals, etc. He needs the $$$ to maintain his wealth. And he will need it to pay the E. Jean Carroll and the State of New York judgments.

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I really believe that's the main reason. A get out of jail free card, compliments of the bought off and corrupt six Supreme Court justices and the Heritage Foundation. As much as he's Elmo and Putin's puppet, he's their project 2025 poster boy and useful idiot. He does love the attention and admiration but he has no intention of actually working. He didn't the last time and his cognitive abilities have taken a nose dive since then.

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J.d. wrote a nasty book. Read "What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" by Elizabeth Catte.

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Especially since anotBFF.

techbro Thiel is his bff.

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Wow. The hypocrisy of the MAGAts has never been clearer. In every situation their goals are at cross purposes. Clearly, what is needed is MORE FUNDING FOR EARLY EDUCATION!! But oh no, we have to cut funding for all that. The "average American" (read: rural residents) are far too stupid to take advantage of education anyway! And it's best for the autocrats to maintain an uneducated low-paying workforce, people they can dupe into voting against their own interests. So, we stop "all" immigration, except for the highly qualified engineers and tech experts needed to make more profits for the oligarchs. It's far too costly to put money into small town schools and wait 16 years for those workers to be available. Mass deportations, which will destroy the home-grown farmers, and raise prices for locally produced goods. Tariffs to raise the price of imported goods. Real "Muricans" are screwed, and they are going to start figuring that out.

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Did you mean rural people are too stupid to be educated? Stupid is a permanent condition. Please tell me you meant ignorant due to a poor education.

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I'm only summarizing what Musk is saying. I don't believe any of that. Our education system needs to have the investment we put into professional sports and movie making. But Trump and his nominated Sec of Education want to destroy public education. Every child in this country, every person is capable of being educated.

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And yes, everyone deserves the best education they can get. Apparently not with the system that exists in some states. I lucked out. My kids received excellent educations. Too soon to tell much about the grandkids. So far so good.

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Thank you. I read your comment as your literal opinion. My mistake.

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This brouhaha is fascinating! Will donthecon bite the magat hands that put him in office or side with the gazillionaires who are funding his retirement? Is it time for donnie to show us his academic record which he’s been hiding so successfully? How about his tax returns? May the 💩💩💩💩 hit the fan asap 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🤮🎃💩🤡

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There is truth all over the place in this which is a major problem for all of the participants, nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong. I watched Alex Wagner tonight conduct interviews with union members in Saginaw MI, the interviews were in mid-late Sept, this year. People our age Tom, or maybe a little younger all got it, they knew who was on their side, the young people both men and women were clueless, they knew nothing about Dobbs, were brainwashed about the border and how they were all losing jobs to illegals, never mind that they were all fully employed in union jobs working on infrastructure projects and will be for the next 10 years at least, without any kind of college degree. Out of about 80 people, from young to about to retire age when she asked for a show of hands if they knew what Dobbs meant only one hand went up. Those people are so fundamentally ignorant they are unreachable, if they and others like them all over the country had just voted in their own interests, Kamala would have won. Alex did another segment with Hispanic men, culturally there was no way in hell they would ever vote for a woman, no argument could win them over. It’s no wonder that the tech industry wants to import people. It makes perfect sense.

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Yeah, the ignorance and willful stupidity was really shocking.

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I find it interesting that they elected a woman for President in Mexico. Is it the Hispanic culture here?

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I'm certain the lower classes in Mexico acted like their brethren here.

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Excellent report Tom. I had

seen part of this earlier on

The Guardian. Posted Note as

In Fighting Begins. Hope it

keeps up and they destroy

themselves by tweets.

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If only.

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Magdi Jacobs posted this on Xitter:

"Here is what I am saying: Democratic voters organically--& understandably--retracted both our attention and energy after fighting like hell for nearly a decade. It also happens to be the case that this same retraction of attention and energy is turning out to our tactical benefit.

"When we refrain from giving Trump a foil, the atmosphere starts to shift criticism more sharply on Republican discord, Republican policy, etc. Republican voter discontent."

Pretty much all the attention is on the breakup of the MAGA coalitions over the H1B issue at this point. Meanwhile anti-Trump advocates, according to NBC, are building a resource network with free legal and financial help for those that could be targeted in the Trump administration. While the R's fight and get nothing done, steps are being taken on our side.

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This is exactly what I’ve been thinking but couldn’t articulate it. Thank you.

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Does it occur to any of the Magats that now is the time to invest more in American education rather than dumbing it down? How about strengthening the Department of Education rather than abolishing it? Shall we help train more US teachers to specialize in math and science? Why not throw in a few civics classes in high school in addition to middle school so kids will truly know how the government works and maybe even help improve the government? Would this perchance help fill the shortages our tech industry leaders bemoan and “make America competitive again?” Then again, hiring mercenaries, who have no rights and can’t vote, is easier than dealing with informed citizens.

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Remember when it was the *Democrats* who were famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? Is it 2028 yet?

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“Rama-Swama-Ding-Dong”. This has to get into the Oxford Dictionary.

Time to get serious: This is fun!!! I don’t have the time right now to consider the implications of this infighting, but suffice to say the internal contradictions of MAGAville is becoming more obvious to its adherents sooner than expected. And immigration is just the start. Coming up are the boots-strappers vs the entitlement users. And the cost of living worry-warts vs the market-giveth-and-the-market-taketh-away libertarians. And the jingoists vs the isolationists.

Talking to MAGAts has always been like talking to your drunk uncle at Christmas: nonsensical stream of conscious disquisitions driven by unfocused grievance. Turning that blabbering into policy was bound to be impossible to reconcile. Let’s hope that, given time, they will talk themselves into paralysis.

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The eternal question: "Who put the bop in the bop-she-bop?"

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What will it take - how many electoral cycles - for Republican-voting working-class people to understand that they are acting directly against their own self interest? I agree that the Democrats had a huge publicity problem with the seemingly porous southern border, but Trump will now have exactly the same drama.

But even the "thousands" entering illegally are not taking decent-paying jobs from educated Americans ... the tech bros run international (transnational) corporations, and they will put their factories where the labour is cheapest, or in the alternative bring in educated immigrants on work visas and pay them half an American worker could earn.

Capitalism is a global enterprise, and no matter how nativist and "America First" you feel, it's not going to lead to well-paid jobs in the US. Trump huffing about tariffs won't solve a thing either.

Marx was right to a point - the proletarian revolution requires a major crisis and failure of the aristocracy and ruling class - but he didn't count on the vast American poorly paid being duped so thoroughly.

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BTW, for all of you who are reading these comments, but haven't subscribed... Please consider: TC provides a huge amount of relevant, vital content, and those of us who have subscribed can comment, for all of you to read. And that's good - it's important to get this information out to as many people as possible. But if you have the ability to be a financial supporter, I guarantee you'll get even more out of it. Please consider doing that today.

JMHO.

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Popcorn ready. And I hate popcorn.

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Pick up some on-sale holiday tri-popcorn cans (butter, cheese, caramel) on sale!

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