Capitalist School/Hospital etc.

This time of year you see a lot of articles and bickering about the holidays and school.

Which leads me to the capitalist conjecture as it applies to school.

School is about #1 Money, #2 Power (in some cases it is reversed), and #3 education ONLY as much as it gets you #1 and #2.

Now...Teachers are mostly lovely people who are, mostly, fairly altruistic. They have my sympathy. They are crushed between #1 and #2 without much to do with it or about it.

When the schools have a "Christmas" program. They are making their power known. When they have a "Holiday" program, they are again, making their power known. There are so many God/Secular fights at school primarily because they have taken what power they can from parents and desire to turn children into product.

Again, this is not even on a consious level, but when money is the goal, and power is the tool what is one to do?

Hence, the "socialist" in my blog name.

Look at the health system Socialized medicine was recently maligned in the River Cities Reader by a guest columnist.

But, capitalist medicine, uncontrolled, has led to the most inefficient and expensive delivery of medical care on the planet. Not to metion the increase in suffering the current system causes even in those it "cures" but burdens with debt.

The capitalist education system does the same thing at the University level. Our higher ed system is also the most inefficient and expensive in the world.

Our public school system only lags behind because of government mandates that it not charge disabling fees and educate "everyone" (which it patently does not, but that's another column).

Overall, money gets in the way. The church, the school, the hospital...none of them can deliver on their core promise because of money and the trend, unfortunately, is to turn these places into a "Business!"

Even this socialist is burdened with making the payments to keep the show on the air.
(see the fun stuff you can buy at the bottom of this page).

So lament, lament. Many of Jesus' teachings were taken up with money.

We're about to blow a load on Christmas (something that, I'm sure, embarrasses the namesake to no end).

Capitalism may be the lesser evil. Though, with its friend power along for the ride, it tends to be a great evil.

So let's give the school's to the students for Christmas, and the hospitals to the patients for Solstice. Maybe Santa can even bring Jesus to the Megachurch.

God Bless.

(Boy, you'd never guess I was in a good mood tonight. Which I am.)