When are the citizens of the United States, especially those located in economically and educationally depressed areas going to wake up and hold the public employees’ unions responsible for the collateral damage caused by their transformational changes in education and the workplace which appear to have decimated decades of Americans?

Consider geographical areas where high-skill/high-wage jobs are nowhere to be found and that a large portion of the workforce consists of those with low to moderate educational and skill levels. And many of them lacking soft skills such as basic hygiene, dressing appropriately, showing up on time, and being respectful of authority.

Can you forgive the unionized educational establishment for mandating that everyone should have a college education and the subsequent elimination of trade programs for those who did not want to participate in a “college prep” program?

How many citizens have been lost in depression, the  dejection of circumstance when they were unable to understand higher mathematics or the subtleties of comparing and contrasting 19th century English authors? Citizens who would have eagerly embraced training in the so-called manual arts. Comprehending  required mathematical and communications concepts as a part of learning a marketable trade that could be exchanges for a middle class lifestyle?

Can you forgive a progressive unionized educational system which produced a cadre of political activists with few marketable talents? How many productive companies will hire someone who possesses a degree in Transgendered Hispanic Studies?

Can you forgive the unions in demanding that all workers be graded by the same season when some individuals clearly have superior skill levels?

Can you forgive the unionized government establishment who accepted seniority over merit, complacency over innovation and insured that more and more workers were hired to do smaller and smaller portions of work? Until the labor of an ordinary worker – complete with salary, perks, healthcare, benefits and retirement – priced them out of the real marketplace. Rewarding non-existent skills that involved looking busy while doing no productive work and which produced a generation of bureaucratic functionaries who reveled in their small piece of administrivia – and could do virtually nothing else unless re-trained in an expensive training program.

We are now finding that the government will be funding the re-training of bankrupt Solyndra’ s workforce …

“The Labor Department today announced that it had approved Trade Adjustment Assistance for the former employees of the bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra.”

“That means all of the firm’s 1,100 ex-employees are eligible for federal aid packages, including job retraining and income assistance. The department has valued packages at about $13,000 a head.”

“Taxpayers will have to cough up yet another $14.3 million as a result of Solyndra’ s bankruptcy. They are already on the hook for $528 million in federal loan guarantees to the company that are unlikely to ever be paid back.”

Excuse me? Why is this even necessary? Why were these employees hired? Did they possess fundamental skills necessary to build solar panels or were they simply an assembly line necessity? Were they educated? And  why should the public engage in providing these employees with the education, skills and training that they should have already had when they graduated school.

Was Solyndra a Potemkin's village designed to milk millions out of the government; providing the investors and executives with underserved riches? If not, why could the physical plant not be re-purposed to produce something of value that can be exported to other countries? Or will the plant be purchased by some special interest “friends” at a sweetheart price?

With all of the government billions sloshing around in the contemplation of building high-speed rail systems to politically-determined destinations of no practical value, why don’t we hire these people to clean up the inner cities?

To push back the rot and decay in the same manner that individualists pushed back the desert that was Southern California? But without the political interference of bureaucrats who add absolutely nothing to the process. Without the bloated contracts to special interests for cleaning supplies which could be purchased locally at the Wal-Mart or other superstore for a fraction of the price.

Obama talks about community organizers – what the hell do they organize except political power and government-derived profits for themselves.

An idea …

We have an overabundance of bank-owned abandoned property … so what would be the harm in giving the financial institutions 90-days to clean it up – or face condemnation; paying the fair market value in tax credits  which could be retained by the financial institution, sold to others for cash money, used to meet core capital requirements or CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) goals.

Bottom line …

It is time that we remove socialism from our national agenda; reducing the size of government, reducing taxes, buying America and most of all – eliminating unions who do nothing for our national agenda.

-- steve