The Exceptionalism of America (Or Lack Thereof)

[johnkarls]

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I have been asked by many of the 150 recipients of our Reading Liberally e-mails since my 7/9/2014 proposal for our Aug 6th meeting on the subject of “American Exceptionalism -- Fact or Fiction???” whether I believe America is exceptional.

I have been responding that America would indeed be exceptional if there were implemented the recommendations of our 24 (count them, 24) “Six Degrees of Separation E-mail Campaigns” posted in the first section of this bulletin board.

Several of them relate to America turning its back on its inner-city children and The Promised Land demonstrated by Eugene Lang’s “I Have A Dream”® Foundation.

[The old “I Have A Dream”® programs of the 1990’s transformed the typical SINGLE-DIGIT inner-city high school graduation rates to over 90% graduating and going to college.]

The third and fourth sections of this bulletin board describe “Inner-City Holocaust and America's Apartheid ‘Justice’ System (In Honor of Jonathan Kozol and In Memory of John Howard Griffin)” which will document how 21 U.S. and California governmental officials starting with President Obama, refused to permit $84 billion of privately-available funds to be used to provide “I Have A Dream”® programs FOR 10 MILLION INNER-CITY CHILDREN WHO WERE THEIR CONSTITUENTS!!!

And how 42 news-media superstars starting with Glen Ifill and Chris Matthews, refused to lift a finger to publicize this tragedy when each of them knew that a single news item might be sufficient to save the 10 million inner-city children.

The permanent under-caste that America has created breaks my heart every time I read about a new study concerning social mobility -- all of which show that in contrast to virtually all other economically-developed countries, AMERICA RANKS AT OR NEAR THE BOTTON IN TERMS OF SOCIAL MOBILITY DESPITE THE MYTH THAT AMERICA IS THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

[As stated in various places on this bulletin board, “Inner-City Holocaust” comprises my “throwing in the towel” on the hope that America’s present generation of leaders will ever do anything about America’s Permanent Undercaste, and it is now time to begin the “tilting with windmills” of trying to capture the hearts and minds of America’s next generation with an electronically-published book for use in undergraduate ethics, philosophy and political science courses of Americas colleges and universities, and in the ethics courses of America’s law schools and divinity schools.]

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It also breaks my heart to know that American unemployment could be eliminated completely and the American standard-of-living would resume its upward spiral if President Obama would simply renew 1968 Executive Order 11387 (which was promulgated 1/1/1968 at the beginning of President Lyndon Johnson’s last year in office and continued for another 5 years by President Richard Nixon until 1/29/1974).

[Please see our “Six Degrees of Separation E-mail Campaign” entitled “Renewing Exec Order to Halt Amn Job Exports” which is the second item posted in the first section of this bulletin board.]

Renewing Executive Order 11387 would go a long way to improving inner-city conditions.

And would actually do something about the “class warfare” that masquerades under the fraud of “the 99% vs. the 1%”!!!

Why do I consider “the 99% vs. the 1%” a fraud???

Because the politicians and news-media “talking heads” who rail against the 1% and against “income inequality” do NOT represent the interests of America’s Permanent Undercaste!!!

They are simply catering to the interests of the Middle Class!!!

All you have to do is ask yourself whether they have ever lifted a finger to help America’s Permanent Undercaste!!!

Or whether they are actually proposing anything that would help to transform the lives of our inner-city children who are condemned to “a fate worse than death”!!!

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In all fairness to President Obama, the White House issued a press release this morning about the President’s attempt to publicize some non-governmental programs that are aimed at helping inner-city children.

[The press release appears immediately below in a “Reply” to this posting.]

Although I salute everyone who is involved in each of the 8 efforts described by President Obama --

(1) none of the 8 efforts will have the success rate of the old “I Have A Dream”® programs of the 1990’s in transforming the typical SINGLE-DIGIT inner-city high school graduation rates to over 90% graduating and going to college, and

(2) 6 of the efforts comprising pledges totaling a mere $90.5 million and the other 2 efforts comprising only a pledge of mentoring by an unspecified number of former NBA players and a pledge of “good intentions” by a handful of inner-city educators -- WILL NOT TRANSFORM THE LIVES OF 10 MILLION INNER-CITY CHILDREN WITH $84 BILLION.

[johnkarls]

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Subject: New Commitments in Support of My Brother's Keeper
From: "The White House" <info@mail.whitehouse.gov>
Date: Wed, July 23, 2014 9:16 am - MDT
To: john@johnkarls.com


The White House
Washington
Wednesday, July 23, 2014

New Commitments in Support of My Brother's Keeper

Earlier this week, President Obama visited the Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C. to participate in a town hall with youth, and to announce new commitments in support of the My Brother's Keeper initiative.

Find out more about the new commitments here. [Clicking here produced the following White House blog.]

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President Obama at My Brother’s Keeper Town Hall: “America Will Succeed If We Are Investing in Our Young People.”

This afternoon, President Obama visited the Walker Jones Education Campus in Washington, D.C. to participate in a town hall with youth, and to announce new commitments in support of the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative.

As the President said today, "We want fewer young men in jail; we want more of them in college. We want fewer young men on the streets; we want more in the boardrooms. We want everybody to have a chance to succeed in America. And it’s possible if we’ve got the kind of team that we set up today."

Watch President Obama answer questions during today’s town hall:

In February, as part of his plan to make 2014 a year of action focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans, the President unveiled the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.

The Administration is doing its part by identifying programs and policies that work, and recommending action that will help all our young people succeed. Since the launch of My Brother’s Keeper, the President’s Task Force has met with and heard from thousands of Americans, through online and in-person listening sessions, who are already taking action.

Today, leading private sector organizations announced independent commitments that further the goals of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative and directly address some of the key recommendations in the Task Force Report. These commitments include:

1. The NBA, the National Basketball Players Association, and the National Basketball Retired Players Association announced a five-year commitment in partnership with MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, Team Turnaround, and the Council of Great City Schools. The partnership will focus on recruiting new mentors and work with educators in at-risk schools to provide incentive programs that increase attendance and improve overall school performance.

2. AT&T announced an $18 million commitment to support mentoring and other education programs with a mentoring component.

3. Becoming A Man (B.A.M.) and Match tutoring programs announced $10 million in new funding to expand to 3-5 new cities over the next three years and support a large-scale study on the programs’ long-term effects.

4. Along with their partners from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, the Emerson Collective, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, will collaborate with districts and educators to launch a competition to find and develop the best designs for next generation high schools. Together, they will contribute $50 million for this effort.

5. Citi Foundation is making a three-year, $10 million commitment to create ServiceWorks, a national program to help 25,000 young people in ten cities across the U.S. develop skills they need to prepare for college and careers.

6. Today, the leaders of 60 of the largest school systems in the country, which collectively educate nearly three million of America’s male students of color, have joined in an unprecedented pledge to change life outcomes of boys and young men of color by better serving these students at every stage of their education.

7. The College Board is investing more than $1.5 million for “All In,” a national College Board program to ensure that 100 percent of African American, Latino, and Native American students with strong AP potential enroll in at least one matched AP class before graduation.

8. Discovery Communications will invest more than $1 million to create an original independent special programming event to educate the public about issues related to boys and men of color and address negative public perceptions of them.

Learn more about the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, including previous commitments and steps the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force is taking.

Cameron Brenchley is Senior Digital Strategist in the Office of Digital Strategy
Related Topics: Jobs, Education, Urban Policy