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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!jj
From: jj@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: AA/Quota's, etc, why I don't like them...
Message-ID: <3890@alice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 12:44:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: alice.3890
Posted: Mon Jun 24 12:44:04 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Jun-85 07:49:22 EDT
Organization: New Jersey State Farm for the Terminally Bewildered
Lines: 81

> >I hardly claim that the world is perfect, but destroying people's
> >self respect via AA(and via discrimination, sexism, and 
> >other forms of sheer stupidity)  and expecting them to convey a good sense of
> >self to their offspring is a ridiculous position.
> 
> >There are many psychological studies of the results of Hopelessness
> >and Helplessness, where the person learns that their situation and
> >environment are independant of their behavior.  Ghettos,
> >racial crime  and many other
> >things are clearly indicated as the results of hopelessness.
> >In order to emiminate these things, one must remove the CAUSE.
> 
> jj, are you saying AA is the CAUSE of ghettos and crime?  That's what it
> looks like, although I think(I certainly hope) you're only saying it's a
> major factor.  I doubt AA can be considered much of a factor compared to
> the dual knowledge of ghetto blacks that

I'm hardly saying that ghettos are caused by AA.  In case you haven't
noticed, ghettos far predate AA, Civil Rights acts, the Emancipation
Proclimation, the Magna Charta, and so on...
I AM saying that hopelessness (the feeling of the individual that no
action by the individual can help that individual's standing) is an
extremely strong impetus to remain in the ghetto.  When I talk about 
education, I mean that people must learn that their own actions DO
influence their situation. Furthermore, the necessary outside actions (by
others) to ensure personal responsibility are required as well, so that
the individual has everyday feedback, like most of us.  A lot
of individuals from "disadvantaged" backgrounds are indifferent (I DO
NOT SAY predisposed) to criminal acts, because they see the law
as only another power beyond their control that exists to
keep them in their place.  (I hope that even the most blase'
of nutnews readers can see where anger is a simple outcome...)

Those of you who haven't experienced the following situation, consider:

	You have little to eat, of low quality, and lower nutritional
value.  You cannot get a job because you're too skinny, unhappy, and 
unhealthy.   You cannot enhance your health
until you are employed.  You point this out, and are told, "Tough,
you're [black, irish, purple with red spots, etc], and that's the
way that life is".  
	What do you do?  Futhermore, why should you care about the
law, since the worst that will happen is that you will die, and you
already know you will do that?


My objections to AA are simple:
	1)  The person hired because of a quota, who knows it, is
being reinforced in helpless behavior, NOT in positive behavior.
	2)  The person displaced is encouraged NOT to accept, rather
to reject.

	The only advantage of AA, as Martin Taylor has pointed out,
is the effect of a better life on the next generation.  I can't shrug that
off as of no account, if the next generation learns to be less hopeless,
and more positive in approach, something HAS been gained.  

	I think that such can be accomplished without AA, through
education, counciling, etc.   I don't say that it's fast,
but I feel (perhaps incorrectly) that effects that are understood
by those who are benefitted are much more long lasting, and less likely
to be subverted.  The ability to fight back on an even basis is
essential to self-confidence.

	AA damages the employees, employers (also important,
since they DO provide the work and product to keep your
standard of living where it is, guys), and the public, in several
important ways.  Providing the employer with a healthy,
effective, employee helps everyone, including the employee.

How to decide who to help? I don't know.  I think it's safe
to say that nobody does.  One thing that IS clear is that those who
are helped must be given the tools to be able to help others.  

sigh, back to work, JJ.  Life sucks, and then you die.
-- 
TEDDY BEARS MAY BECOME EXTINCT! HELP AN ENDANGERED SPECIES!
"...So many years have passed, though I'm older but a year, my mother's
eyes, from your eyes, cry to me."

(ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj