I was not surprised when the morons came out of the woodwork to blame the female pilot while aircraft parts were still falling from the sky into the Potomac. I don't know how these types support themselves because it appears all their energy is spent hunting down incidents of confirmation bias, and if they can't find an incident, they'll fabricate one out of thin air. There are plenty of competent males and females of all shades, and there are plenty of examples of incompetent males and females of all shades. DEI gave cover for confirmation bias, but the morons will not go away with the good riddance of DEI. I thank God every day for a military pension that allows me to run a small farm, and I only work with those who don't lose their lunch over a woman doing non-traditional things like driving heavy equipment, managing livestock, and engineering a road. I've found the males who are at the top of their fields are easy to work with, but with many others I'm treated as a threat. For the morons who immediately screamed "unqualified" about the female Blackhawk pilot, my response is to ask if every male pilot who gets in an accident is unqualified. I remember picking up a naval aviation safety magazine several decades back and it was full of incidents. Most incidents were pilot error, and virtually all were (white) males. No matter how good the pilot, mistakes are made, but only those with pigment or female are blamed due to their pigment and/or lack of a Y chromosome.
As a kid, I dreamed of becoming an airline pilot. But around 15 years ago, the FAA increased the number of hours required to become a first officer from 250 to 1500. In theory, that should have made the skies a lot safer by requiring pilots to have more hours.
Accumulating 1500 hours of flight time is incredibly expensive and time consuming. You either have to join the military, or invest several hundred thousand dollars. By drastically raising the barriers to entry to becoming an airline pilot, they drastically shrunk the pool of potential applicants, which exacerbated that already impending pilot shortage.
Poorly performing pilots are no longer weeded out because airlines can't afford to lose anyone. I don't know if I would have made a good pilot or not, but the point is that I never bothered to try because it was financially out of reach.
If anything, the pilot shortage is the opposite of DEI because low and middle income individual face a very difficult path to becoming airline pilots. Much like doctors and lawyers, it's become a profession dominated by those born into wealth.
Really insightful perspective, Seth. My 15-year old son is working on his pilot’s certification now, and it’s definitely not cheap. He needs 50 hours, and even at a small airport in Montana that amounts to $17.5K + ground school costs. That’s just entry level. I can’t imagine the cost to reach 1500 hours for a commercial license.
It’s so true that this profession, much like practicing medicine, is becoming a path available to the upper class only.
I worked in public education for many years. About 15-20 years ago, I started noticing something similar to what you're describing. I didn't know what it was, but I felt a rise in incompetence and neglect ... in our children, and in the expectations we had for them. We were easier on our children in order to develop (and certainly not injure) their self-esteem. But it became apparent to me (a few years into this movement) that these kids had no work ethic, no motivation, no drive AND no self-esteem! My generation may have all been insecure, but at least we knew how to work, how to be competent and conscientious, and how to care about the bigger picture and the right thing. We have gotten ourselves into a real pickle!
We are in such a pickle, and I’m not sure what it will take (or how long) to unwind it! You’re spot-on about the lack of self-esteem. That’s a huge factor, and it’s created such fragility in younger generations. I believe this is why they are so easily triggered.
The biggest factor IMO is simply lack of a moral compass. As long as kids are raised with a sense of ethics and civic duty, everything else falls into place. But kids without a moral compass become adults without a sense of morality or duty, either to themselves and others.
And when people without a moral compass are put in positions to lead…it doesn’t end well.
The overwhelming MAJORITY of lily-white teachers who work in predominantly Black and other people of color school districts - have ALWAYS engaged in "incompetence and neglect ... in our children, and in the expectations [they] had for them. They have ALWAYS been "easier on our children in order to [so-called] develop their self-esteem." Guess what that's called???
I work as a special education teacher and am an interventionist in general education freshman clssses. Low expectations are by absolutely no means related to race. It’s everyone.
I have NEVER said "eliminating racism is the only way to improve performance at RCSD." Actually, if we understand the nature and scope of RACISM, the statement is in essence, ludicrous. Those are their words. However, I have said, and I do maintain that until and unless we confront RACISM (in deadly serious, decisive, as opposed to wishy-washy manners), and work to significantly reduce it in concrete, significant, measurable ways --- it is NOT likely that there will be any widespread, permanent, improvement regarding academic achievement --- period. YES, I'm saying that ONE OF, IF NOT THE most critical, underlying issue is individual, institutional, and structural RACISM --- period: http://minorityreporter.net/the-tripartite-beast-and-illness-of-individual-institutional-and-structural-racism/ . A group of us developed a Plan to do exactly that, but Rochester City School District Superintendents and Board members have NOT had the political will to embrace the Plan >>> https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenrochester/pages/1/attachments/original/1614048303/REAL_Racial_Equity_Action_Plan_11-25-19-compiled.pdf?1614048303 . It is the only Racial Equity Action Plan that exists among the "21 school districts and 2 component BOCES" in Monroe County ( https://www.monroe.edu/domain/1513 ).
So much dumbness comes from "all or nothing" thinking. A problem can't be from multiple sources. In this case, it's either from DEI or nothing. A fire or plane crash is DEI, not budget cuts going back years, manufacturing failures, pilot shortages or massive retirements, the pandemic or feckless leaders. Two things can't be true at the same time. It's DEI and nothing else.
In one of his many excellent books, Thomas Sowell makes a point about the changing definition of knowledge, using the example of milking a cow. In the past, he says, the test of whether someone knew how to milk a cow was a pail and a cow. You give the pail to the person who claims to know how to milk a cow and if the pail is full and the cow is empty in a short time they pass, otherwise they fail. Nowadays, though, the person might be judged to "know" how to milk a cow if they can write an essay on cow milking. Our culture has lost the respect of experience and actual doing that it used to have; if you can talk about it, that makes you "knowledgeable". Aviation is in the same situation as vaccimulgence. Everybody believe they know if they can speak about it. In the past, Democrats mocked John McCain for having crashed a military plane or two. That proved that he was a loser, I guess. I myself thought that I could not judge, but you can guess that military planes are not easy to fly. Commercial passenger jets are optimized to be easy to fly and land, military planes are not. It's like the difference between the family Volvo and a Formula 1 race car (whatever that difference is, I'm also not a race car driver). But all this commentary on the recent crash seems to me just the same kind of thing as the dissing of John McCain all these years ago. A lot of people have no concept of their own ignorance to restrain them. Everybody has a narrative to push, and they do, whether it's anti-John McCain or anti-DEI. And social media amplifies all this. It's really a completely generic problem, and the particulars are almost not worth bothering about, in my opinion.
A tremendous article, Monica and such an important point that needed to be made! DEI is absolutely terrible and I’m glad to see that it’s being rolled back. We need to have a colorblind and merit based society here in the United States! But it can’t be used as a scapegoat for every single problem this country has. The big problems our society faces have nothing to do with DEI and were created long before it came around often by white and male officials. For example, with the LA wildfires not DEI, but rather incompetence, neglect and myopia led to the devastating fires that consumed whole parts of the city and wiped out whole communities in the blink of an eye. The fire hydrants weren’t working, the fire departments’ budget had been cut and they were understaffed and the city’s reservoir was bone dry. Governor Newsom and his predecessor Jerry Brown and LA Mayor Karen Bass and her predecessor Eric Garcetti did nothing about these serious problems at all. The airline accidents are due to staffing cuts by the FAA. The disastrous response to COVID was because of poor leadership, corruption, bad science and the repression of any disagreement with it, and partisan politics. Not to mention the vaccine was rushed out and never tested. None of this can be laid at the door of DEI. Conservatives need to stop blaming DEI policies for every problem under the sun. The woke right is just as bad as the woke left. Systemic change and massive government reform is what it will take to solve these problems not reductive and frankly, idiotic partisan takes on a culture war issue. The United States has many, many problems. A broken healthcare system. A broken and outdated public education system. We are the sickest and most unhealthy people on earth. Our government is ridiculously corrupt and irresponsibly spends our taxes dollars. Our elected officials serve until their in their 80s and 90s. The Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit in a decade. Our birth rate is far too low. The American family is broken. Our infrastructure is crumbling and in need of repairs ASAP. The vast majority of Americans with disabilities are unemployed. LGBT people still don’t have full equal rights. Wages have been stagnant since the 1980s. Political polarization and tribalism have torn our society apart. Crime is the highest it’s been in a long time. That’s just to name a few. Getting rid of DEI won’t magically fix all this.
I heard someone say that happy people want to have children. And that to fix what is wrong with America we need to support economic policies that allow people to succeed and to want to have children. I think part of that lies in crushing the culture of greed.
Absolutely. I believe this is why we have a crisis of depression and suicide in this country. Many people have simply given up hope of surviving, much less getting ahead.
A culture of greed has hollowed out our country. It destroyed the American Dream long ago. It's difficult for people to get excited about their future under these circumstances. And they won't make the decision to have children if they're not optimistic about their future. We shouldn't be at all surprised that the birth rate is declining in this country and other western countries that have been hollowed out.
It is true that Reagan fired striking ATCs. But that is ancient history in terms of air travel. In the 90s, I think, very specialized training of ATCs was developed. Reportedly with very good results. But during the Obama administration the requirements were changed to include what we now call DEI. However many could not pass the proficiency test as written so the standards were lowered.
This is well-ariculated and makes very good points. But it is my understanding that the air traffic controller shortage is impacted, mightily, by DEI policies. And it is my belief that the education debaucle is as well. That being said you are correct in that WE did this. Ordinary citizens who failed to understand what our government was up to, much less hold it accountable.
Thanks very much for that perspective, Lynne. I do think that DEI has impacted the FAA’s hiring policies for air traffic controllers. However, this shortage — like the pilot shortage — is a crisis that’s actually been decades in the making; DEI exacerbated an existing problem.
You may remember that when air traffic controllers famously went on strike in 1981 President Reagan fired thousands of them. Sadly, the industry never recovered:
“Retired air traffic controller Colin Scoggins said that it's not uncommon to see air traffic controllers working multiple jobs at once, and it has been an issue ever since his career started more than 40 years ago.
"Staffing has been an issue with the FAA since the strike in 1981," Scoggins said. "They've never really had enough controllers."
It was during that strike that former President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers. Scoggins said staffing has never recovered.”
Holding the government accountable is tremendously difficult for ordinary citizens to do, especially those with children and jobs. This is a significant part of the problem, which I address a small amount through my efforts as a citizen reporter. But it's uphill work. For example, I wrote to the media contact at my local school district a few weeks ago clearly identifying myself as a local reporter and requesting some information. The response: none. The steps: (1) write again, (2) call, (3) write to school board, (4) talk to city council, (5) FOIA. Could be interesting, but that's a lot of work for one person to do to get some information that should be freely available to any citizen.
All true. But as a result we have a massive bureaucracy too unwekldy to manage. Thus accountability is unlikely. I am a confirmed luddite but I think the DOGE team is employing AI. And I think that is the only way to get a grasp on 1) what the federal government actually encompasses and 2) what is spent in relation thereto. My hope is that the result is a much smaller, efficient federal government with much handed off to state and local government. Regarding your quest for information I recommend you develop FOIA or Open Records Request forms and use them. I think Matt Taibbi's Racket News here on Substack is putting together a site with information about how to search databases, FOIAs and other info to assist curious citizens. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for writing this, it is 100% necessary apparently. Which is comical since by and large we know how incompetent so many white men are, and yet when they screw everything to hell and back we don’t say “oh, it must have been another white dude.”
And if we did, they would not listen or care anywyas, because they seem incapable of self-reflection or self-awareness of their own brand of incompetence.
Women won’t put out? Can’t possibly be because of themselves. Nope.
They are failing to get higher education? Must be all the perks all those queers and black folks get. Right.
Cant get a job or move out of your parents basement? Again, it is just everyone’s fault but them or the government that is by and large run by ancient white men.
I am no fan of DEI because it is not a fair system and it is demeaning to the people it claims to help. I also do not like the culture of elitist rich white people who created that system seemingly to hide the fact that they are as racist and classist and sexist as ever.
But good grief, i’ve never seen so much Dunning-Kruger syndrome in motion as pathetic sorts who hide behind blaming everything on women and minorities, as if we actually have any power in this world.
So well said, Kazza! This is precisely what motivated me to write this piece. The double standard is unreal. The whole MAGA movement is built on restoring America to its former stature. Yet no one ever mentions the people who were responsible for its decline…
Spot on Monica, once again. While we must keep bridging the divides, even with humor (see below), we must not forget when the world is doing bad, it's going mad and start seeking scapegoats. we must keep the two emergencies in minds. The first is local, tribal, emotional distress and fear caused either by the economic hardships or by WWIII approaches. The second is global, cosmic havoc, disruption and fears caused by the rapid decay of empires.
DEI came into existence because people were afraid of being sued, so let's blame the lawyers.
- Too many people graduating from law school over the decades, chasing the all mighty billable hours.
I'm sure that there are statistics showing the number of lawyers per capita increasing since WWII that lends itself to my argument, but I can't be bothered to collect any data to prove my point.
I think my comment proves your point. HA!
BTW, as facetious as my point may seem I can point to too many examples of court cases that resulted in changes to longstanding practices being overturned that resulted in disaster a generation after the decision.
But I digress.
"Deresiewicz discovered that these institutions had become high-pressure conveyor belts, cranking out Type A graduates trained to work hard and flawlessly regurgitate whatever their professors fed them. He called these single-minded high achievers “excellent sheep” because they were supremely skilled at following directions and performing any task without asking questions. They were more concerned with getting the “right” answers so they could ace a test and less concerned with the validity of their answers. They were consumed with credentialism and accumulating gold stars."
That answers a number of questions that I had in some of the novels that I'm working on.
- That's a major "Recurring Theme" in my stuff.
I had seen it, but didn't have it spelled out for me. Richard Feynman commented on this in his books many times.
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
Great article, but I would make one note. The Boeing 737 scandal was over a minority contractor. They screwed up a part that failed. There are MANY contractors on big jobs such as building the most popular regional and short-haul aircraft. It may just be a coincidence why that the offending contractor was minority owned, but that allegation did not come out of thin air.
I was not surprised when the morons came out of the woodwork to blame the female pilot while aircraft parts were still falling from the sky into the Potomac. I don't know how these types support themselves because it appears all their energy is spent hunting down incidents of confirmation bias, and if they can't find an incident, they'll fabricate one out of thin air. There are plenty of competent males and females of all shades, and there are plenty of examples of incompetent males and females of all shades. DEI gave cover for confirmation bias, but the morons will not go away with the good riddance of DEI. I thank God every day for a military pension that allows me to run a small farm, and I only work with those who don't lose their lunch over a woman doing non-traditional things like driving heavy equipment, managing livestock, and engineering a road. I've found the males who are at the top of their fields are easy to work with, but with many others I'm treated as a threat. For the morons who immediately screamed "unqualified" about the female Blackhawk pilot, my response is to ask if every male pilot who gets in an accident is unqualified. I remember picking up a naval aviation safety magazine several decades back and it was full of incidents. Most incidents were pilot error, and virtually all were (white) males. No matter how good the pilot, mistakes are made, but only those with pigment or female are blamed due to their pigment and/or lack of a Y chromosome.
Amen!!!!
Do you not see any irony in your use of the word "morons" in a post about confirmation bias?
I stand by my comment. Those who incessantly use their energy in the hunt for confirmation bias are morons.
Great article Monica
As a kid, I dreamed of becoming an airline pilot. But around 15 years ago, the FAA increased the number of hours required to become a first officer from 250 to 1500. In theory, that should have made the skies a lot safer by requiring pilots to have more hours.
Accumulating 1500 hours of flight time is incredibly expensive and time consuming. You either have to join the military, or invest several hundred thousand dollars. By drastically raising the barriers to entry to becoming an airline pilot, they drastically shrunk the pool of potential applicants, which exacerbated that already impending pilot shortage.
Poorly performing pilots are no longer weeded out because airlines can't afford to lose anyone. I don't know if I would have made a good pilot or not, but the point is that I never bothered to try because it was financially out of reach.
If anything, the pilot shortage is the opposite of DEI because low and middle income individual face a very difficult path to becoming airline pilots. Much like doctors and lawyers, it's become a profession dominated by those born into wealth.
Really insightful perspective, Seth. My 15-year old son is working on his pilot’s certification now, and it’s definitely not cheap. He needs 50 hours, and even at a small airport in Montana that amounts to $17.5K + ground school costs. That’s just entry level. I can’t imagine the cost to reach 1500 hours for a commercial license.
It’s so true that this profession, much like practicing medicine, is becoming a path available to the upper class only.
I worked in public education for many years. About 15-20 years ago, I started noticing something similar to what you're describing. I didn't know what it was, but I felt a rise in incompetence and neglect ... in our children, and in the expectations we had for them. We were easier on our children in order to develop (and certainly not injure) their self-esteem. But it became apparent to me (a few years into this movement) that these kids had no work ethic, no motivation, no drive AND no self-esteem! My generation may have all been insecure, but at least we knew how to work, how to be competent and conscientious, and how to care about the bigger picture and the right thing. We have gotten ourselves into a real pickle!
We are in such a pickle, and I’m not sure what it will take (or how long) to unwind it! You’re spot-on about the lack of self-esteem. That’s a huge factor, and it’s created such fragility in younger generations. I believe this is why they are so easily triggered.
The biggest factor IMO is simply lack of a moral compass. As long as kids are raised with a sense of ethics and civic duty, everything else falls into place. But kids without a moral compass become adults without a sense of morality or duty, either to themselves and others.
And when people without a moral compass are put in positions to lead…it doesn’t end well.
The overwhelming MAJORITY of lily-white teachers who work in predominantly Black and other people of color school districts - have ALWAYS engaged in "incompetence and neglect ... in our children, and in the expectations [they] had for them. They have ALWAYS been "easier on our children in order to [so-called] develop their self-esteem." Guess what that's called???
The covert racism of low expectations.
I work as a special education teacher and am an interventionist in general education freshman clssses. Low expectations are by absolutely no means related to race. It’s everyone.
The mediocrity is SO pervasive.
Absolutely. But I was specifically responding to a comment about the attitudes of white teachers in predominantly black districts.
NO DOUBT!!! I watched it up close (at the level where the rubber hits the road - classroom - for 23 years). https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/communities/time-to-educate/stories/2018/07/13/racism-rcsd-rochester-city-school-district-howard-eagle-investigation/760499002/
I have NEVER said "eliminating racism is the only way to improve performance at RCSD." Actually, if we understand the nature and scope of RACISM, the statement is in essence, ludicrous. Those are their words. However, I have said, and I do maintain that until and unless we confront RACISM (in deadly serious, decisive, as opposed to wishy-washy manners), and work to significantly reduce it in concrete, significant, measurable ways --- it is NOT likely that there will be any widespread, permanent, improvement regarding academic achievement --- period. YES, I'm saying that ONE OF, IF NOT THE most critical, underlying issue is individual, institutional, and structural RACISM --- period: http://minorityreporter.net/the-tripartite-beast-and-illness-of-individual-institutional-and-structural-racism/ . A group of us developed a Plan to do exactly that, but Rochester City School District Superintendents and Board members have NOT had the political will to embrace the Plan >>> https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenrochester/pages/1/attachments/original/1614048303/REAL_Racial_Equity_Action_Plan_11-25-19-compiled.pdf?1614048303 . It is the only Racial Equity Action Plan that exists among the "21 school districts and 2 component BOCES" in Monroe County ( https://www.monroe.edu/domain/1513 ).
So much dumbness comes from "all or nothing" thinking. A problem can't be from multiple sources. In this case, it's either from DEI or nothing. A fire or plane crash is DEI, not budget cuts going back years, manufacturing failures, pilot shortages or massive retirements, the pandemic or feckless leaders. Two things can't be true at the same time. It's DEI and nothing else.
"California Governor “Gavin with the Good Hair” Newsom (a member of the underrepresented elite class)" This had me cackling. Fantastic lol
I love Monica Harris’ perspective/writings. Please write more!
Thank you! I so wish I had the time to do more writing…
Wow, an article of luminous lucidity and sanity. Thank you!
Thank you, Robert 🙏
In one of his many excellent books, Thomas Sowell makes a point about the changing definition of knowledge, using the example of milking a cow. In the past, he says, the test of whether someone knew how to milk a cow was a pail and a cow. You give the pail to the person who claims to know how to milk a cow and if the pail is full and the cow is empty in a short time they pass, otherwise they fail. Nowadays, though, the person might be judged to "know" how to milk a cow if they can write an essay on cow milking. Our culture has lost the respect of experience and actual doing that it used to have; if you can talk about it, that makes you "knowledgeable". Aviation is in the same situation as vaccimulgence. Everybody believe they know if they can speak about it. In the past, Democrats mocked John McCain for having crashed a military plane or two. That proved that he was a loser, I guess. I myself thought that I could not judge, but you can guess that military planes are not easy to fly. Commercial passenger jets are optimized to be easy to fly and land, military planes are not. It's like the difference between the family Volvo and a Formula 1 race car (whatever that difference is, I'm also not a race car driver). But all this commentary on the recent crash seems to me just the same kind of thing as the dissing of John McCain all these years ago. A lot of people have no concept of their own ignorance to restrain them. Everybody has a narrative to push, and they do, whether it's anti-John McCain or anti-DEI. And social media amplifies all this. It's really a completely generic problem, and the particulars are almost not worth bothering about, in my opinion.
A tremendous article, Monica and such an important point that needed to be made! DEI is absolutely terrible and I’m glad to see that it’s being rolled back. We need to have a colorblind and merit based society here in the United States! But it can’t be used as a scapegoat for every single problem this country has. The big problems our society faces have nothing to do with DEI and were created long before it came around often by white and male officials. For example, with the LA wildfires not DEI, but rather incompetence, neglect and myopia led to the devastating fires that consumed whole parts of the city and wiped out whole communities in the blink of an eye. The fire hydrants weren’t working, the fire departments’ budget had been cut and they were understaffed and the city’s reservoir was bone dry. Governor Newsom and his predecessor Jerry Brown and LA Mayor Karen Bass and her predecessor Eric Garcetti did nothing about these serious problems at all. The airline accidents are due to staffing cuts by the FAA. The disastrous response to COVID was because of poor leadership, corruption, bad science and the repression of any disagreement with it, and partisan politics. Not to mention the vaccine was rushed out and never tested. None of this can be laid at the door of DEI. Conservatives need to stop blaming DEI policies for every problem under the sun. The woke right is just as bad as the woke left. Systemic change and massive government reform is what it will take to solve these problems not reductive and frankly, idiotic partisan takes on a culture war issue. The United States has many, many problems. A broken healthcare system. A broken and outdated public education system. We are the sickest and most unhealthy people on earth. Our government is ridiculously corrupt and irresponsibly spends our taxes dollars. Our elected officials serve until their in their 80s and 90s. The Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit in a decade. Our birth rate is far too low. The American family is broken. Our infrastructure is crumbling and in need of repairs ASAP. The vast majority of Americans with disabilities are unemployed. LGBT people still don’t have full equal rights. Wages have been stagnant since the 1980s. Political polarization and tribalism have torn our society apart. Crime is the highest it’s been in a long time. That’s just to name a few. Getting rid of DEI won’t magically fix all this.
I heard someone say that happy people want to have children. And that to fix what is wrong with America we need to support economic policies that allow people to succeed and to want to have children. I think part of that lies in crushing the culture of greed.
Absolutely. I believe this is why we have a crisis of depression and suicide in this country. Many people have simply given up hope of surviving, much less getting ahead.
A culture of greed has hollowed out our country. It destroyed the American Dream long ago. It's difficult for people to get excited about their future under these circumstances. And they won't make the decision to have children if they're not optimistic about their future. We shouldn't be at all surprised that the birth rate is declining in this country and other western countries that have been hollowed out.
Spot on! Thank You!
It is true that Reagan fired striking ATCs. But that is ancient history in terms of air travel. In the 90s, I think, very specialized training of ATCs was developed. Reportedly with very good results. But during the Obama administration the requirements were changed to include what we now call DEI. However many could not pass the proficiency test as written so the standards were lowered.
This is well-ariculated and makes very good points. But it is my understanding that the air traffic controller shortage is impacted, mightily, by DEI policies. And it is my belief that the education debaucle is as well. That being said you are correct in that WE did this. Ordinary citizens who failed to understand what our government was up to, much less hold it accountable.
Thanks very much for that perspective, Lynne. I do think that DEI has impacted the FAA’s hiring policies for air traffic controllers. However, this shortage — like the pilot shortage — is a crisis that’s actually been decades in the making; DEI exacerbated an existing problem.
You may remember that when air traffic controllers famously went on strike in 1981 President Reagan fired thousands of them. Sadly, the industry never recovered:
“Retired air traffic controller Colin Scoggins said that it's not uncommon to see air traffic controllers working multiple jobs at once, and it has been an issue ever since his career started more than 40 years ago.
"Staffing has been an issue with the FAA since the strike in 1981," Scoggins said. "They've never really had enough controllers."
It was during that strike that former President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers. Scoggins said staffing has never recovered.”
https://www.wmur.com/article/former-air-traffic-controller-staffing-013125/63635303
Holding the government accountable is tremendously difficult for ordinary citizens to do, especially those with children and jobs. This is a significant part of the problem, which I address a small amount through my efforts as a citizen reporter. But it's uphill work. For example, I wrote to the media contact at my local school district a few weeks ago clearly identifying myself as a local reporter and requesting some information. The response: none. The steps: (1) write again, (2) call, (3) write to school board, (4) talk to city council, (5) FOIA. Could be interesting, but that's a lot of work for one person to do to get some information that should be freely available to any citizen.
All true. But as a result we have a massive bureaucracy too unwekldy to manage. Thus accountability is unlikely. I am a confirmed luddite but I think the DOGE team is employing AI. And I think that is the only way to get a grasp on 1) what the federal government actually encompasses and 2) what is spent in relation thereto. My hope is that the result is a much smaller, efficient federal government with much handed off to state and local government. Regarding your quest for information I recommend you develop FOIA or Open Records Request forms and use them. I think Matt Taibbi's Racket News here on Substack is putting together a site with information about how to search databases, FOIAs and other info to assist curious citizens. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for writing this, it is 100% necessary apparently. Which is comical since by and large we know how incompetent so many white men are, and yet when they screw everything to hell and back we don’t say “oh, it must have been another white dude.”
And if we did, they would not listen or care anywyas, because they seem incapable of self-reflection or self-awareness of their own brand of incompetence.
Women won’t put out? Can’t possibly be because of themselves. Nope.
They are failing to get higher education? Must be all the perks all those queers and black folks get. Right.
Cant get a job or move out of your parents basement? Again, it is just everyone’s fault but them or the government that is by and large run by ancient white men.
I am no fan of DEI because it is not a fair system and it is demeaning to the people it claims to help. I also do not like the culture of elitist rich white people who created that system seemingly to hide the fact that they are as racist and classist and sexist as ever.
But good grief, i’ve never seen so much Dunning-Kruger syndrome in motion as pathetic sorts who hide behind blaming everything on women and minorities, as if we actually have any power in this world.
So well said, Kazza! This is precisely what motivated me to write this piece. The double standard is unreal. The whole MAGA movement is built on restoring America to its former stature. Yet no one ever mentions the people who were responsible for its decline…
Spot on Monica, once again. While we must keep bridging the divides, even with humor (see below), we must not forget when the world is doing bad, it's going mad and start seeking scapegoats. we must keep the two emergencies in minds. The first is local, tribal, emotional distress and fear caused either by the economic hardships or by WWIII approaches. The second is global, cosmic havoc, disruption and fears caused by the rapid decay of empires.
HA!
DEI came into existence because people were afraid of being sued, so let's blame the lawyers.
- Too many people graduating from law school over the decades, chasing the all mighty billable hours.
I'm sure that there are statistics showing the number of lawyers per capita increasing since WWII that lends itself to my argument, but I can't be bothered to collect any data to prove my point.
I think my comment proves your point. HA!
BTW, as facetious as my point may seem I can point to too many examples of court cases that resulted in changes to longstanding practices being overturned that resulted in disaster a generation after the decision.
But I digress.
"Deresiewicz discovered that these institutions had become high-pressure conveyor belts, cranking out Type A graduates trained to work hard and flawlessly regurgitate whatever their professors fed them. He called these single-minded high achievers “excellent sheep” because they were supremely skilled at following directions and performing any task without asking questions. They were more concerned with getting the “right” answers so they could ace a test and less concerned with the validity of their answers. They were consumed with credentialism and accumulating gold stars."
That answers a number of questions that I had in some of the novels that I'm working on.
- That's a major "Recurring Theme" in my stuff.
I had seen it, but didn't have it spelled out for me. Richard Feynman commented on this in his books many times.
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GEEB960
I have the book in my to-be-read stack. It's one of so many great books I've found reading your Substack.
Thanks...
“Excellent Sheep” is a brilliant and prescient book that explains so much of what we are seeing. You will really enjoy it!
It’s very good.
Great article, but I would make one note. The Boeing 737 scandal was over a minority contractor. They screwed up a part that failed. There are MANY contractors on big jobs such as building the most popular regional and short-haul aircraft. It may just be a coincidence why that the offending contractor was minority owned, but that allegation did not come out of thin air.
Other wise, this was excellent.
@skipppe Thanks, that’s a super interesting tidbit. Do you have a link to that story?