I won't call the reality exactly unfortunate. The responses tendered were, for the most part, very well thought out and obviously a reflection of passion for the subject by the author. However, this week I am sorry to say we received only 5 entries from Gentlemen, supplemented by 2 very well-written Guest Gentlemen. Far from lackluster, but below expectations.
Thus, I will have to strive in the following week to bring about even greater success in our weekly conversation. However, in this week's edition, our 7 contributors examine what they would do given the power to eliminate whatever they see as America's greatest problem. While not as numerous as I had hoped, These Gentlemen nonetheless continue to impress. Continue to read and debate the points of the Roundtable, and look forward to more of our brain trust next week, when the Roundtable returns yet again.
Bombay Graham
Education. Forget Healthcare, the recession, the war in Iraq, the war on drugs, the war on poverty. I would put every cent/man/company I could into public education.
Renovating schools, training teachers, modernizing classrooms, raising salaries, instituting the arts, redrawing district lines to reflect population as opposed to money vs. not money, standardizing expectations (ie. only teachers who are trained in a subject can teach it), funding AP classes and tests, funding and staffing after-school activities so parents don't have to pay for them, instituting child care programs for teachers and students, training teachers and programs for special-needs students, rehauling tenure, funding equipment for science, the arts, and physical education, filling libraries, and funding and staffing both college prep and career oriented classes.
I would do everything I could to make school a haven, and a way up and out of whatever situations students find themselves in across the country. Most of what the system needs is pure money, but a lot of it is politics, too. But you said unlimited, and that's what I would do.
Max Nova
So the easy way out would be to say Universal Health Care. Obviously the lack of Universal Health Care in the states is a big deal, and there are various technical ways to correct things. But we've had a bit of that discussion before, so instead I'd like to suggest passing a law forcing all goods and services to take into account all reasonable externalities and reflect those in the cost. This would level the playing field against polluters or those businesses who make short sighted decisions to save a buck in production costs now. The execution would be tough, I admit, but we could employ a lot more economists and policy wonks, so that would be good for the economy. Here's an example. When you buy a soda, there's a lot of things going on. First of all you're slowly contributing to your own poor health, which over time will take it's toll on society's bottom line. You are also consuming corn syrup, and that corn is grown in huge monocultures on the midwest. These "farms" are environmentally and biologically dangerous in the long run. Large amounts of pestisides are needed to keep the corn from being destroyed by insects. The repeated use of the same land drains the soil of the complex nutrients that should be making plants better for us. And this list goes on. These and other externalities need to start being reflected in the costs of what we consume.
David Pratt
I admit to a slightly unfair advantage when it comes to the Roundtable. I am able to read everybody else's response well before composing my own. Sometimes this can influence my own decisions in what I post or how I phrase things. In this situation, I'm happy to say, I am a lone voice in the crowd.
If I could do one thing to get rid of America's greatest problem, I would break our addiction to corn. That's right, corn. It's the most insidious tangle in the complicated knot of our system, and I will gladly tell you why.
Corn products are in everything. Corn starch, corn meal, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup; it goes into practically every mass-produced food item on the line. Not just our snacks and sweets, either. Here's where it gets nasty. Livestock in this country is fed corn meal instead of grass. The stomach of a cow is designed to process grass; by eating corn they can easily become sick. To combat this, powerful antibiotics are injected into the cows. As time passes, the cows need stronger and stronger antibodies, and so they're given increased doses or more intense medicines. They then transfer them into humans upon consumption. As we consume the cow antibiotics, we too then require stronger medicine the next time we get sick.
The reason we feed cows corn instead of grass is that we just grow so much of the stuff that we've got to do something with it. So, we profit from it. We take up all the extra corn grown on crop-based farms and sell them to livestock-based farms. This means the corn is not going towards other uses, such as providing foreign aid for third-world countries or domestic help for our own starving citizens. It's not going towards being converted into fuel for ethanol, creating a gas alternative and helping keep oil prices down. No, corn is being used to keep cows fat and sick.
As they would say in ancient Rome or Earth-3, Cui Bono?
Factory farms. Pharmaceutical corporations. Big oil.
Given boundless time and resources, I would eliminate corn from the top of the food chain. Cows would be fed a diet of natural grass. Excessive corn grown would go towards feeding hungry humans or gas substtutes. We'd start putting natural sugar in our food and taking out preservatives altogether. As our food becomes healthier and our need for stronger antibiotics decreases, the price of medication would plummet. Americans would be healthier. With more money to spend as health care becomes affordable, they rejuvenate the economy. This is also driven by the fact that foreign oil is no longer preventing them from being able to afford trips out. The money farmers make selling the corn abroad or to the government, or tax write-offs they receive from donating it to aid programs more than makes up for anything they lose by poisoning the country with it.
I would run corn out of town. It helps that it's already yellow.
John Ozkirbas
Daniel Strauss
Every single person in the United States has GOT to have healthcare. Period. End of story. So I'd use the money for that. And I think it'd be pretty simple, you know, just nationalize healthcare. So easy
Ali Daniels
The economy received its bailout(s). The environment has Al Gore. Hilary Clinton's going to mop up the Middle East. I'd say the adults of the United States have been saved from themselves time and again, only to screw it all up once more. So I think it's time that the kids have their chance. Let's reform the American educational system. Please?
Guest Gentleman: Brett Abelman
The first thought that comes to my mind when given such a hypothetical is: "No matter how much time and how many resources I might have, people still get in the way." The biggest problem in America, in my mind, is that no matter what problem you try and tackle - welfare, gay marriage, Iran, changes to Facebook - there are people who disagree with your approach, and lots of them, and they'll disagree so violently that in trying to improve things you're likely to do more harm than good, or at least cause the Internet to become plastered with 10,000 more incorrect usages of the word "fascist."
Liberal, conservative, it doesn't matter, mudslinging and fact-twisting will sink any attempt at true problem-solving. So, there's three ways for a would-be reformer to respond to the inevitable backlash. One, try and win over the masses - good luck, unless you're willing to stoop to actual brainwashing. Two, ignore the ignorant pricks who disagree - cuz after all, you know you're right, and they'll come around to your point of view as soon as they're getting cheap universal health care, right? I believe that is both overconfident and morally suspect (after all, in Bush's head, wasn't that the approach he and his administration were taking in regards to, well, everything?) and so I prefer option three, which is my actual answer to the Roundtable question now that you've read this far:
Education! (Cue confetti and noisemakers.) The answer, I believe, is to educate, educate, educate, because to do so will be to tackle the root problems of so much that plagues us today: ignorance, apathy and gullibility.
It doesn't have to be anything wildly progressive - after all, trying to teach (reasonable) stuff like sex ed can cause a major shitstorm - no, all you have to do is truly leave no child behind, teach the kids how to think critically, and eventually, given enough Time, society will enter an era when nah-nah-I-don't-hear-you, flame-throwing, straw man-and-spin doctor arguments are a thing of the past, because they won't work on all those smart young people. All that will be left to use in public debate will be facts, wit and reason. But what would it take to grab America's children by their butts and lift them up out of the mire of mediocracy? (I apologize for that imagery.) Simple: serious Resources. But since they be all, like, UNLIMITED in this here scenario, that's no trouble.
Use money and manpower to pack our schools with the best teachers - steal them back from the corporations that used good pay and crispier fries in their cafeterias to lure the good people away to office jobs. Heck, establish a 30-student-to-one-counselor ratio, and pay those counselors to follow that same small group of students from kindergarten through college, like Mr. Feeney in Boy Meets World. Teach mandatory classes in civics, conflict mediation, and how to use a credit card. If an approach isn't working at a particular school, try another, or let the kids skedaddle to a different school, offer rewards, whatever it takes. You'd have to fight dirty, in a way, but if you can (once more I apologize for the imagery) beat the under-served and disaffected youth into intellectual submission with the club of Resources, then the results will domino and in a generation or so, the public discourse will be elevated and real solutions and progress will be possible. Or, well, at the very least, when political factions do butt heads in this happy future, they'll do so with a much more refined air, like eighteenth-century British reformer John Wilkes who, when his rival the Earl of Sandwich shouted at him, "Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!," responded, "That, sir, depends on whether I first embrace your Lordship's principles or your Lordship's mistresses." Zing! Syllepsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
In conclusion: education is the root of all. I went to high school in a small, small town that let many kids slip through; learned helplessness was both real and epidemic, and these kids dropped out, went to jail, repeatedely declared themselves "stupid." Many of them I know from personal experience to be naturally bright; the main difference between myself and them is that I was lucky enough to have attentive mentors and affluent preschools early on. If they had just been given attention, not given up on, they would not only be better informed, but happier. It is a rare person who can build themselves up on their own when they've been disregarded since childhood; it merely is a lack of Resources and effort (along with some institutional prejudices) that constitute the chasm. With the President's gift, I would fill that chasm up. Everything else will follow, and I believe that with utmost sincerity.
Guest Gentleman: Alex Keiper
So I spent maybe twelve seconds trying to come up with an interesting or original problem to address, perhaps something that would allow me to be pithy and clever, but then I gave up because clearly it HAS to be education. Once you fix that, you’re well on the way to solving a myriad of other problems.
When I say ‘fix’ I’m not talking about buying new textbooks and better microscopes. With no price limit, I would raise teachers’ salaries, hire more teachers, pay college tuition for people who want to be teachers… basically do whatever it takes to get a ton of incredible teachers into our schools. Then we could actually impose rigorous standards on those teachers, since there would be plenty to replace those who were inadequate. I’m not kidding; I spent half of my sophomore year American history class listening to discussions about hunting and watching Band of Brothers. We need teachers who can actually make students want to be in class, learning.
As for those students who still don’t want to be there- I would pay them. Seriously. Give monetary incentives for turning in assignments and doing well on tests, and make it payable at the end of the semester, contingent upon attendance. Yes, I’m sure there are huge flaws in that plan, but there has to be a way to force students into classrooms, and at the moment money seems like reasonable motivation.
3 comments:
oz- well said.
I think maybe the Gentlemen & guests should form a Coalition for Improving Education Through Bribery.
I have about $12 in my bank account. I'm willing to donate it to the cause. Let's do it!
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