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Nibbling
North Miami Beach, FL 12-22-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then, Opinions pro or con are welcome.
NIBBLING
There are many kinds of nibbling. The one most are acquainted with is the
picking up a cracker or a sweet and just taking little bites out of it. If
you are like me you find that those little nibbled bites add up to a lot
eating after a very short while.
Another kind of nibbling is a tool called curiously enough a nibbler. This
takes little bites out of metal. I don't think there is a similar tool that
bites away wood or plastic in the same way.
This final example of nibbling is widely seen. Parents know the kind that
kids use to wear them out. They refuse to accept no and go after the prize
again and again. The wise child doesn't throw a tantrum. The wise child
nibbles away at the parent's will.
Political parties have adopted this kind of nibbling. The most notorious
has been the Right Wing Conservatives who bridle at the name "Reactionary".
But that is what they are. They want to nibble away the great gains we have
fought for since they cannot do it all at once. They have items on their
agenda that were defeated earlier, but they keep bringing them up again and
again. Finally, they wear down the opposition or build up the numbers on
their side until they gain a little. Then a little more until they have
mostly what they wanted in the first place. Nibbling did it.
I am reminded mostly about the nibbling at the edges of the system of
public education that used to serve us so well. The parochial and private
school advocates have demanded little pieces of what we grudgingly spend on
education until they created a few schools which were to be beacons in a
morass of darkness - for the few who attended them. The agenda was to
abandon the mass of children who were poor, emigrant, racially unwanted and
from the unwashed classes of our classless society. They did the same thing
with vouchers - just nibbled away. And, look at where we are now. The main
event of creating a public school-less education system is about to be born.
You ignored the nibbling because, Heck! Everyone does it. Carol's
Evaluation: 7 out of 10. Carol also says: "Oh, we have politics and public
education again! Oy!"
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