Obama is Bart in Blazing Saddles

So according to AP, Obama is losing ground on the health care debate. Maybe he should pull a stunt from Bush's playbook and start a war... I mean, with another country. Can you believe that Bush is going to pull a presidential salary until he dies? It seems like your exit polls should determine your retirement pay. In a truly capitalist society, that's how it'd work. Then again, if we were in a true laissez-faire capitalist government, we would let the auto makers go where their business practices led them. Imagine if we spent $50 billion on training auto plant workers to make wind turbines instead of bailing out CFO's.

Though Bush left a legacy that isn't unrivaled, it's damned impressive in its ineptitude. He reminds me of Hedley Lamarre in Blazing Saddles, conniving the people for his personal gain. Like the townspeople in the film, the U.S. voters had to get desperate before they'd listen to a black leader, only to find he's the only one who can save their cumulative ass. Like the town folk, the majority of Americans are easily duped and intellectually short-sighted, who trust the good ol' boy more for his familiarity than his intelligence. Just like the movie, Obama had to outwit the people to make them realize he was the best man for the job. Guess that makes Joe Biden the drunken gunslinger who comes through in the end, as well. Hmm, would that make the newly recruited thugs, the extreme right of skin heads and "methodists"? There were clan members in Lamarre's line-up, after-all. Though Mongo really serves as the best example of the current republican party... bashing their way into political discourse with accusations of moral degeneration (or was that socialism?) by the democratic party, only to be proven how stupid their tactics are when they get caught with mistresses in hotel rooms, personal state offices, and Argentina. Guess Mel Brooks was even more prescient than we ever gave him credit for.

Did they just need tutors?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) was put in place to prevent workplace discrimination due to race, religion, or sex (but not sexual orientation... yet).  In addition to the obvious discriminatory actions, it also challenges testing if it appears to have a disparate impact on a single group.  Sotomayor (and her supporters) say that her original ruling on the case of the CT firefighters was in support of this Act since all but one of the racial minorities who took the test, failed.  The mostly conservative firefighters who managed to get her decision overturned feel vindicated that the test was fair and they are simply superior firefighters.  So who was right?

Temporarily ignoring the fact that racism in the CT firefighters history of promotions is well known, it seems the main problem in this scenario is that rightness isn't the question.  The question should be, how did we arrive at this juncture?  Both sides were looking for quick victory rather than examine why the disparity occurred in the first place.   The problem isn't the test.  It's the educational system that supposedly provides an equal education for all, but consistently comes up short in poor areas.  Poor areas tend to have a high percentage of racial minorities.  It is not because poor people are stupid, but because they do not have money in their schools because though the nation distributes money equally to all schools, the communities fill in the blanks with taxes and propositions that grant line items to the educational budget.  Thus, the racial minorities tend to have a lower quality education because they can't foot the bill (and thus are too poor to leave the community and the cycle continues). Most people from poor areas (no matter the skin tone) tend to score poorly on standardized tests.  Throw in social pressure from inside the racial group to not become part of the dominant social  group for fear of losing racial identity and a general culture of white privilege, and we have ourselves a perfect case for affirmative action, right?  

But affirmative action in the form of hiring people who might not be as skilled or educated is a band-aid.  There's no question that individuals of equal intelligence with equal social support and education will score equally well on the same test.  Rather than throwing out the test, why not see which of the fire fighters came from an educationally compromised background?  Those individuals could then be given some tutoring, provided by the state, to bring them up to speed and then retested.  If they don't do as well, no one can claim race is a factor.   Enough of the finger pointing.  Just acknowledge that the system is flawed and take responsibility for creating an equal playing field for all.  Sadly, our capitalist culture uses social Darwinism (something Darwin never thought or approved of) to determine that poor people are that way due to their own faults and weaknesses.