Public school system is a sad joke today. I am not Catholic, but what this country needs is to bring back the nuns and knock these rebellious miscreants upside the head. On the other hand teachers have been fed the socialist line, so no wonder there is chaos in the schools. They never should have been taken out of the local communities' control to begin with. People seemed to be smarter back then.
Two points: 1. The "rest of the world" wants a weak America. Hence any U.S. President who they feel contributes to a lessening of American economic, military and diplomatic power along with depreciating American prestige and influence is hunky dory. Do you think the average guy in France thinks "Go America, you rule!!"? Of course not. Euro types want a U.S. that's as fucked up as they are. 2. Obama's trip to Europe for the G20 was heralded by the American press as a "great success." But what was the reality? He asked Europe for additional deficit producing stimulus and they said Bug Off. He then asked NATO to supplement the U.S. commitment to war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their response? A token number of troops-all of them non-combat and 60% of them (3k out of the new 5k-while we just put in an additional 21k) as temporary peacekeepers for the Afghan election. Kind of funny, eh? We heard nothing except "Bush goes it alone in Iraq with his cowboy diplomacy" but the reality is we're equally going it alone in Afghanistan. Of course nothing different than hearing "Bush spends like a drunken sailor" with the same duplicitous fucks now abetting Obama's deficits under the caveat that "something had to be done to save the economy'. As if Bush wasn't equally concerned about the effects of the tech collapse and 9/11. As Hillary supporters learned to their chagrin, yes there's a bias in the U.S. media toward far left politicians and policies. Those who keep waiting for the adage, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" to come into play will be waiting in vain.
And many of the biggest opponents of 'vouchers' in Congress, which would allow parents trapped in terrible school districts to liberate their children by making quality education at a school of their choice accessible, have their own kids in private schools or the top performing 'blue ribbon' public districts. So, that single mom who's stuck in one of the very worst school districts in Chicago, D.C. or Detroit Public Schools has no ability to do what's best for her child. Can you say HYPOCRISY ON A GRAND SCALE? It's like Orwell's 'Animal Farm,' where the after the pigs took over as the leaders, they drafted rules that applied to everyone but themselves.
Obama's capture by the Wall Street establishment that caused, or was asleep at the wheel during, the current crisis is by far the most bearish thing IMO. Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson etc all said things were contained and wouldn't get worse - back in 2007 and early 2008. They were full of shit, and either totally clueless about the economy, or arch manipulators (probably all 3). It is scary that the world's major economy is being run by people who have such poor forecasting ability, and scary that the government does not hold them accountable for their failure in any way.
If you look at the UK in 1970 when it had a pretty big manufacturing base, the next 10 years were total disaster and it became the economic basket case of Europe. From 1980 to present - the period where it went towards a much more service-oriented economy, where the manufacturing base collapsed - it went from near the bottom to near the top of living standards in Europe. In other words, the record shows the exact opposite of your claim. If the USA over the next 30 years follows the UK trajectory from 1979 to 2009 then it'll be doing pretty well. Compare this to Germany or Japan in the last couple of decades - a heavy reliance on manufacturing has not exactly been a roaring success for them. As for the current problems, don't confuse the consequences of a credit bubble with trade & industrial policy. Your proposal is basically just a variant on socialist-style economic central planning, something with a terrible record throughout history. If manufacturing is really the way forward, then the US has plenty of innovative firms in that field and they will do a lot better if left to their own devices than if some government apparatchick is trying to browbeat them into following their latest pet 5 year plan. Perhaps if the failed US manufacturers were actually allowed to fail, and the strongest to take over, things might improve a bit quicker?
You seem to misunderstand that the doctrine of 'personal accountability' means YOUR accountability to THEM. THEY (your superiors) are not accountable to anyone ... but themselves. And seem to think they are doing a bang-up job anyway - no ego integrity problems there! Not a conspiracist, but you can't deny double standards at the highest levels. Frankly, it is undermining the rule of law.
Don't forget Gitmo: Europe clamored for the closure of Gitmo and cheered the news when Obama announced it. Yet France agreed to take just 1 (one!) prisoner from Gitmo. As bad as that was, it put them way out in front of the rest of Europe who would not take a single innocent, tortured, misunderstood poor Muslim from Gitmo.