... are doomed to repeat it. (Perot was also partial to conspiracy theories, especially those aimed at him and his family.)“Perot was a brash, can-do showman who expressed contempt for politics as usual and promised voters that the path to national greatness was to send an autocratic businessman with a touch of jingo to the White House to kick ass in Washington.” https://t.co/scMB5uShbH— John F. Harris (@harrispolitico) July 10, 2019
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
Those Who Do Not Learn from History...
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I remember at the time he ran the first time, a young relative of mine who clearly watched too much TV said, "He's got some really good ideas." When I asked her what those good ideas were she couldn't cite one and she was very far from stupid, graduating from a good university with high honors in a scientific major.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall Molly Ivins was fair enough to write that he had, actually, had some ideas on education reform, one of which was de-emphisis on the cult of football.
The myth of the savior businessman goes back farther than that, as in the awful movie State of the Union, ahead of its time in so many ways but built around that absurd concept. As if someone who has been all for himself in his previous career would suddenly be a good public servant.
Perot cursed Texas schools (and then all schools) with "accountability" through testing. The basic idea is that students are widgets, legal jargon for fungible goods. I still haven't forgiven him for making Texas schools worse than they were. Today they still "teach to the test." Which isn't teaching at all, And in my near 18 years experience teaching college English, has made students coming into my class more ignorant, not less.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of his ideas? I hadn't remembered that. Well, to hell with him, then. Not that I ever had any great respect for him. There used to be someone on the radio up here, one of the small independent stations, who did a hilarious imitation of him. I can't even remember which station it was.
ReplyDeleteYeah, another one of those ideas nobody studied but everybody liked. "Will it work?" "HellifIknow, but it looks good on paper!" "That'll work!"
ReplyDeleteWe've been cursed with that stupidity for a long time.