Op-Ed: Education Shapes
Our Economy, Then
Both Shape Our System

‘08 Election Offers Remedial Choices For 21st Century.

Photo Courtesy: ncgs.org

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Very few people today will disagree that this nation --especially its economy and its schools-- are in “one mell of a hess!” There are unmistakable, undeniable, inevitable -- and insufferable-- reasons, clearly spread on our history for all to see, and understand, now.

That must surely be the first step for any possible rational, reasonable remediation which may return to us what we once had -- a democratic republic, proven in over 200 years of success and development.

Ever since the turbulent 60s and ‘70s, American education has been stagnated and stymied by near-fatal consequences, for itself and for our economy; forced by false choices and false confrontations, cannily compounded by contending political forces for their own malign purposes.

Those mistaken actions were further distorted and perverted by radical/neocon policies, broadened and then further sharpened during the Reagan-era in our political history.

Deregulation, privatization, and globalization driven by “free trade” were all put into widening practice, and have been decimating the American middle-class ever since.

Major union-busting --definitely designed to kill off any possible preventive and protective mutual actions by cooperating groups of workers at all levels-- was an essential tool, demanded by the dimensions of the other three most-damaging neocon dogmas.

Out-sourcing millions of American jobs to easily exploited lower-wage workers worldwide followed, as inevitably as the sun rising; with those developing nations being set up for such comprehensive manipulation by the “free-trade” myth, created by Chicago School/Friedman pressures --and adapted as the tool-of-choice by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

That profits-driven sequence of funding-access is now seen as widely responsible for manifold malign consequences, wherever applied; forcing even the Bank and IMF to back away in distress and dismay.

Deregulation removed essential governmental oversight and supervision separating commercial and investment banking, opening the door for the wild-woolywishful/thinking process finally forcing current widespread mortgage-security collapses.

That’s now recognized as leading to failures of credit operations across the world --and panic-forced action to apply “socialism for the rich and well connected” by unheard-of huge governmentally-funded rescues for “those too big to fail”.

The erroneous Supreme Court “purchased precedent” providing false “human-personhood” for corporations --and thus “corporate campaign contributions”-- has played a major role in the current climate of corruption and careless ethical/fiscal practice in Washington, and throughout corporate America.

Those massive amounts of easily-accessed cash -- often now brashly delivered hand-to-politician at every level-- have submerged and seduced whatever small remaining force-for-correction any oath-of-office may have retained.

To make it all work, over the ever-increasing objections of awakening middle-class and lower-income citizens, a political-precepts “noise machine” was created to kill off any effective “free press and broadcast” public-service communications with those same workers and all supporting citizens.

Millions of middle-class voters have been seduced by huge expenditures for political-noise and press-and broadcast propaganda manipulations; including distortion and perversion of true American values, the partial consequences of complex legislation cannily contrived for private-profit gains.

Those are now skillfully disguised as authentic -- and sometimes reasonable-sounding-- “political goals”. Indeed, that effort was at one time so successful that the very word “liberal” was converted to a kind of political-curse -- only now returned to ready use with no bad-taste grimace!

Meanwhile the neocons captured and beat into submission what had once been a proud, independent and fully-contributing political party; long proven an absolute essential addition to ANY successful workings of our republican democracy, early founded on two-party structure.

That effort has been further abetted and applied in-depth by Far Right billionaire fueling of a still burgeoning cabal-gang of lushly “foundation”-funded “think-tanks”; propagating neocon dogmas and manipulating the public view of our democracy --emphasizing our educational system--at all levels; while still further concealing those inevitable impacts on our culture and economy.

These malign forces recognized early-on the very close connection of the educational system on shaping and powering our whole economy. They understood and applied the power of manipulation by public opinion; providing long-range influences on our culture and its underlying democracy; especially for all considerations impacting their private-profit business-corporate interests.

Those private-profit major interests clearly always include worker-preparation and wage-levels, as well as many other economic essentials, bearing heavily on both corporate structure and its outmoded management, now, solely for profits.

That attention, most authorities now believe, is generated --and has been produced for a long time -- by the brute fact that educational costs for the common school system are, inevitably, near the top of the list for public expenditures.

Thus they become, willy-nilly, a major target for those whose goal is tax/slashes no matter how obtained; benefiting most the richest and overlooking most others in our middle classes; despite damage to the commonweal via consequences for all who gain by education.

Mainstream media have made themselves thoroughly complicit over all these years by surrender of their unique-in-the-world Constitutional responsibilities to inform and educate all citizens, still responsible for local, state and national decisions. Under increasingly insistent corporate ownership, our once-”free” press/members have monstrously distorted and perverted that responsibility --one main element in their specially-privileged status, treatment and protection under our American system.

But it’s the false-choice value-decisions, promoted and pressed on every front by neocon and other also complicit groups which have brought us to this far-from pretty/pass painfully familiar to all astute citizens today --surely demanding our thoughtful, informed action now, as great opportunity presents itself.

Given the already-known and well-appreciated circumstances of the coming Presidential election --and the accompanying new-choices involved, at every level, in every state-- we can change that picture once-again. We can not only “affect the politicians involved” but also the policies, the processes --even the working procedures --via our control of local and state levels, for all legislative and governance activities; as well as the Presidency, the Congress, and all of those burgeoning federal, state, and local bureaucracies, too.

Ironic, is it not, that “conservative” governance in place powerfully ever since the Seventies, pledged to the principle that “less is more” for ANY government, and deeply dedicated to the dogma that “Government IS the Problem !”, has found itself the failing perpetrator of these truly-desperate consequences.

“When will we ever learn ?” --not only what all our learners must have to progress into the new Century but WHY --and HOW we can win on all levels?

We can do so by building education, which in turn builds our economy AND our democracy.

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(The second in this series will examine these impacts on education in detail, with specifics about what must be done, and how it can be readily accomplished NOW.)

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Reader’s Note:
This is the first in a new sequence of Op Eds closely examining current developments striking heavily on the personal interests of every reader. Their content is now tested for comparative reading levels, to maintain easy, rapid access to the information requisite to their conclusion, when required. Checkable links are available for every relevant statement, on request with ID to Editor Tim, for your “see with own eyes” evaluation. We do NOT list all references-used here to fully conserve limited publication space, providing for more Comments to share your OWN evaluations and insights. For the record, more than 50 sources, including more than 100 Internet-recorded pages and the writer’s files, were consulted in preparation. Quotes are shortened, combined, summarized from a verbatim record-maintained, for the same purpose.