We know by now that Newt Gingrich thinks he’s smart. And we know there are plenty of people in the corporate media who believe the same thing. How do they show their love for the brainy Republican presidential candidate? Time‘s Joe Klein shows the way in this week’s issue (12/19/11) of the magazine. He doesn’t think Gingrich should be president, but he does think Gingrich is full of interesting ideas.
Well, what about that plan to have kids work as janitors cleaning their schools? Klein’s problem with it is that it doesn’t go far enough:
I’ve known him for 25 years. I’ve had more creative policy conversations with him than with any other elected politician (with the possible exception of Bill Clinton). He is one Republican who is legitimately interested in improving the lives of the poor–although his ideas, which almost always involve market incentives, are quite different from the suffocating paternalism that many Democrats favored until Clinton came along. As early as 1990, Gingrich was paying poor children in Atlanta $2 for every book they read. He also proposed paying foreign-language-speaking students to tutor their English-speaking classmates in their native languages. He also proposed giving every literate child in the poorest neighborhoods a laptop. His recent idea of paying poor kids to help clean their schools–which has been the subject of a shrill, silly gust of liberal ire–is more of the same. It’s a good idea, which would be much better if it were expanded to all public middle and high schools, with the work seen as an unpaid form of public service, a way to build community spirit and teach civic responsibility.
It calls to mind Paul Krugman’s line about Gingrich–that he’s “a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.”
The thing is, Klein ain’t stupid, is he?
He frames Gingrich’s ideas as benificence, omitting his large hand in perpetuating the dire conditions his supposed beneficiaries endure.
It’s a very old trick. The slice of bread is feted, while the hoarding of the loaves is hidden from view.
In PR circles, I imagine it’s known as “the lie of largesse”.
And do we know Newt’s stand on the minimum wage? And how many high school students are already working–yet bringing home little?
Perhaps our young people could “learn work habits” by watching Newt give public speeches, and wheel and deal as an entrepreneurial consultant operating on the fringes of ethical conduct.
I don’t think Newt knows much about kids. The “poor” kids would clean the schools? Oh my, and then the entire school knows who’s poorest of the poor. What a win for the bulllying crowd.
Of course too, the child janitor most likely to be hazed would be like Sisyphus, rolling that garbage back up the hill after the student had cleaned it, and cleaned it and cleaned it.
It would seem, Newt, that the child’s time would be better spent in the classroom, or sadly, they might forever be locked into the janitor career, UNTIL, a younger student came along. How old is too old for a janitor?
Don’t forget that an adult janitor has experience and more pay, no doubt more pay than a student janitor, and that adult janitor would be out of a job. How much would these student janitors be paid, just in case the son or daughter of the janitor got the job? Enough to support the family as before?
Just to be certain that this would work, I would like to suggest that Newt take under his wing, students from local D. C. schools and have them clean his offices. This would, of course, be an after school job, and that would give many in Congress a reason to knock off at 3p.m.
Because so many in D.C live at poverty level and do not have many electronic items that so many take for granted, perhaps the janitor students could also use Congressional computers to type their papers. That Newt, would be heart warming.
simply bizarre… A janitor works for pay. This is really all that is required to point out. The rest is just dribble… does this man wear seniors diapers… yet? He apparently needs something similar for his ‘brilliant mind’.
While many people are aware of the philosophy that”You judge something by its fruits”, my mind wanders back to “The contract with America.” Boy, that paid off!
Can you imagine the adult janitor who would be in charge of the circus that would ensue when kids are released all over the school to clean it?
Newt has been declared a smart man but he has no common sense.
Pretty hard to believe, reading stuff like this, that Klein was once motivated to write a biography of Woody Guthrie.
Invasion of the body snatchers?
According to Newts way of thinking, similar concerns could be raised about the value system of privileged kids who never learned a work ethic, because everything was handed to them. Shouldn’t they grab a broom and sweep a few floors too?
Klein and Gingrich make quite a pair. They want to return to the middle ages where the serfs were locked into their status in the culture for generations and the landed aristocracy never lifted a finger. If either Klein or Gingrich had ever had to do any manual jobs as children maybe THEY would be better people. Matter of fact, why don’t you both try it just to see what it’s like.
They don’t call him “Joke Line” for nuthin’. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around those two idiots talking about the poor and how they can “help” them.
Had not the upper middle class Gingrich family not seen fit to adopt Newt, he could have fit into this catagory.
Is this what caused the low self esteem on speaker Boehner, sweeping his father’s bar after- chool? It is apparent he has low self esteem by his constant (s)weeping.
oops, “category and school.”
Gee whiz. About fifteen years ago someone forgot to flush. Now we hear a scheme to punish children of the poor.
I’d say the Newt is thinking ahead, beyond cleaning schools. Those little bodies would be great, trying to crawl through spaces in coal mines where adults can’t go. Those little fingers would be so agile, weaving homemade rugs for the one percent. Perhaps the Newt is trying to prepare kids to help out with household expenses after his policies increase family poverty.
As I listened to Newt saying this i too thought of all the reasons why this can’t work.Or why any such idea can’t work.Because this bleeding negativity of a nanny state mentality bleeds every which way.Even to me.Then i thought of myself working in I-Hop ,or cutting lawns,when I was 16.Or being a beach life guard.I always had tons of jobs.Cleaning studios after hours.Then I thought of all my friends and their similar stories.It was great.We had a ball.We were young and we had a few bucks.No job was too small.I think he he just saying we need our kids to work.To learn the process.
From the article: “which would be much better if it were expanded to all public middle and high schools, with the work seen as an unpaid form of public service, a way to build community spirit and teach civic responsibility.”
Wait, what? Now Klein doesn’t think the poor kids should be paid so they can learn a sense of community spirit and civic responsibility? The irony in this statement is deafening. If creating a sense of community spirit and civic responsibility in today’s “entitled and lazy” kids were the TRUE goal, Klein (and Gingrich) would be advocating for the RICH kids to clean the schools… for no pay. Un-freaking-believable.
Let the Newt and Joe go into an inner city jr. high school and organize the school to clean it. They’ll be checking one end of the school and the unmonitored kids at the other end will be throwing wet blackboard sponges at each other.
But let’s give the Newt and Joe an opportunity to transform everyone, build community spirit, and teach responsibility. The gist of this is that I want the Newt and Joe to show us how it’s done and all with free labor. Don’t throw it in the lap of one adult janitor (since Newt wants to fire the rest).
BTW, he wants to fire the rest because they belong to evil unions and make too much money.
“I think he he just saying we need our kids to work.”
Uh, no, Newt has only mentioned putting POOR kids to be employed specifically as janitors (not “to work,” which implies employment in general).
“I think he he just saying we need our kids to work.”
Uh, no, Newt has only mentioned having POOR kids be employed specifically as janitors (not “to work,” which implies employment in general).
Dan I think sadly he believes kids from certain households,middle class and up, already work(not always true).He feels there may be a problem in the poorest among us teaching their children this process.
I think we need our kids to put their time and effort into schoolwork and I’m carrying his idea to Newt’s next level. Start with cleaning schools and move into other areas from there. When they leave school, they’ll be working for the rest of their lives, till they drop dead, if the rate this country is going is any indication of what’s ahead for them.
Uh, if you’ve never seen a janitor clean a school building (especially during the hot summer months when school is not in session), it’s hard, hot work, especially if the building isn’t air conditioned. There’s no other word for it but “work.” Don’t split hairs between “work” and “employment” when the end result is the same, except that these kids won’t get paid.
“I think he he just saying we need our kids to work.”
“Dan I think sadly he believes kids from certain households, middle class and up, already work (not true).”
Those two statements clearly contradict each other, Michael.
Well Dan i was commenting on a disturbing(to me) trend I see among some of my wealthier friends, who pay for those great schools their kids go to on up and past college ,never asking them to work at all.They feel school is what their focus should be on -and later(once they step into that plum job)there will be plenty of time for work.Im not sure they are not doing the same thing those at the lower end are doing.A work ethic transcends pay.It is in everything you do if it is correctly instilled.
School does promote a work ethic. Studying for tests, getting homework completed on time, having a positive attitude, participating in school activities (some of which might be community oriented), making a time schedule, paying attention, getting along with peers–all of this promotes a work ethic. Having a job to report to takes away from school, which should be the first priority at this age.
Exactly, Elaine. School is not technically “employment,” but it IS work.
As in: “I employ my spare time in reading.”