I posted this recently in another thread, but decided to give it its own section so everyone can take a look.
In my city we have a program called the Kalamazoo Promise. Wealthy families from Kalamazoo who were grateful for the city and its people that helped create their wealth, helped shape their character, and helped raise their children donated tens of millions of dollars to a fund that gives a FREE college education to ANY graduate of Kalamazoo Public Schools that chooses to go to any publicly funded school in Michigan. In a few short years the program has been widly successful and popular, giving record numbers of poor and minority students, who have no college fund and maybe not the grades to get a free ride, a chance to go to college. It also pays for the schooling of rich white students on the west side of town who get BMW's for graduation presents and have had mutual funds in their names since they were fetuses. (That is called equality.) Now this program is the envy of every school district in the state, and many have made plans for future county ballot proposals that would raise property taxes to create similar organizations that are publicly funded in order to produce the same spectacular results. "Socialism" is always bad, eh? You wouldn't pay an extra $85 a year or so on your house to ensure that every child in the district you live in has a fair shake at higher education? The way I see it, it is an investment in the future, and one we cannot afford to pass up. But had a private organization headed by the Stryker and Upjohn families not done it first, we would've never known a program like this could be so good, mostly because selfish assholes like Gaar are too concerned with stroking their egos and throwing out buzzwords to scare people to actually give a shit about how to DO SOMETHING to better the lives of the people in their country and community. Be brave, Gaar. Have faith in your neighbor. Love your country, and wish it well no matter whose in charge. Start loving yourself by loving others. Good thoughts breed good actions. Good actions breed good results. Owners of two capitalistic profit loving corporations walked this walk and made a difference that can never be measured in dividends and profits, for the joy of the grateful recipients is infinite. I know every word of this post will be picked apart by the bitter shades who eternally haunt the reasonable folk in this forum, but I invite them to come to Kalamazoo, talk to everyday citizens of every color, age, religion, creed, political affiliation, and social background and see what a difference a Promise can make. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
