@QMS The reality of the UN delegates, as well as of the political class that pull their strings, is the one described by Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner:

This new electoral structure is related to the rise of a new regime of accumulation: let us call it political capitalism. Under political capitalism, raw political power, rather than productive investment, is the key determinant of the rate of return. This new form of accumulation is associated with a series of novel mechanisms of ‘politically constituted rip-off’. These include an escalating series of tax breaks, the privatization of public assets at bargain-basement prices, quantitative easing plus ultra-low interest rates, to promote stock-market speculation—and, crucially, massive state spending aimed directly at private industry, with trickledown effects for the broader population: Bush’s Prescription Drug legislation, Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Trump’s cares Act, Biden’s American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure and chips Acts and the Inflation Reduction Act. All these mechanisms of surplus extraction are openly and obviously political. They allow for returns, not on the basis of investment in plant, equipment, labour and inputs to produce use values, but rather on the basis of investments in politics.

Yeah, sure, the details of the politically constituted rip-off differ from nation-state to nation-state. But they, the political classes of each nation, are so engrossed in this rip-off that it's a wonder they bothered to make time for Roger Waters. I would have clapped when his speech was over.

As for the NCLBA, it isn't programming so much as it is a monstrous waste of time. The younger kids see education as play, and they do their real learning in the times of day when they are granted the right to play. Sometimes play can be a repurposing of the time the grownups have made for "study"; this is what the grownups call "goofing off." The goofing off is the real learning. This is a game the grownups can win, though they rarely did so even before the NCLBA. The older kids see the educational institution as a place to make friends or to pursue "college prep." Nobody really gives two hoots about dumb NCLBA tests, but everyone, student, teacher, and principal alike, is forced to do so, so waste of time it is.

As Frank Zappa said, long before W. was President: "“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts." Robby Soave needs a library -- perhaps we could all send him copies of some William Blum or Noam Chomsky?

#1.1

says a lot about intelligent thoughtfulness
of course he is an old guy and missed the
NCLBA programming
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[video:https://youtu.be/xZXMmRg9ZcU]