Russia Teaches America the "Ugly Truth"

Facing Facts About Trump Voters

No, they're not Russians.

But then...what are they?

Plenty of things have been "concluded" as the Russia - Trump connections have gradually "drip, drip, dripped" into the light of American understanding. Most of this "material" has been about just how nasty the Russians have been and just how much treasonous "collusion" has gone on between Vladimir Putin and his orange skinned, Kremlin "asset" now ensconced in the Oval Office.

All of these revelations are important.

However, there is an even uglier demographic "causality" lurking in the shadows behind all these outrages. To get a clear picture of that, we'll need to set aside our grisly fascination with Trump's treachery and Putin's geopolitical avarice. We will need to turn our attention to the [Clinton: 65,844,610 (48.2%), Trump: 62,979,636 (46.1%), Others: 7,804,213 (5.7%) source/DailyWire] 63 million Americans who voted for him. 

Who are these people? Why did they do this?

That, of course, may represent little more than a conveniently academic question at this point. However, there emerges an even more important question now that the damage has been done. Although the election results are in, and the new President is now seated, the Trump supporting voters who shocked the world are still there -- still grumbling about in the beer halls and trailer parks all across "forgotten America."

But...what are they grumbling about?

This question presents the point of this post.

The First Ugly Truth

What Trump Supporters "Wanted"

and What Trump Supporters "Got"

For some reason their election victory still leaves

 them far short of the delirious joy they were expecting.

A little "ancient history" will probably help to clarify the "edges of the mystery." MeanMesa is old enough to have been quite active during the disastrous Vietnam War. That war looked endless during the 60s, and politics -- driven largely by massive, continuous protests -- became directly focused on the positions held by politicians concerning what to do with this endless, brutal conflict.

Importantly, the anti-war political sentiment very clearly centered the politics contemporary to the time on this "burning question of the day." Political candidates were supported or opposed based on their respective positions about the war. Among MeanMesa's anti-war peers political candidates were supported because they, too, were against continuing the war. A political victory would have been the result of an election which resulted in ending the war.

Unhappily, although this outcome finally materialized years later, there was no "hammer breaking the anvil" moment when a candidate was elected who would quickly change the nation's course on the issue.

Now, returning to the demographic of Trump supporters, we see a fascinating, historical dissimilarity. The Trump supporters, unlike the highly focused anti-war movement of the 60s, didn't seem to want anything in particular. There didn't seem to be any particularly discernible result they were seeking by casting ballots for the President. There was not anything the newly elected President could have done to satisfy the "will of the people" or "meet the needs" of these supporters as a repayment for their votes.

Instead, there was very little of any substance at all beyond the lumbering series of talking points Donald Trump very artfully employed during his campaign rallies. The historically common question after his election might -- during more normal times -- have been "When will he deliver on his promises?" But in this case those campaign "promises" were so elusively immaterial and gaseous that no one in Trump's base of voters even seems particularly able to answer this question now that he's been elected.

The first ugly fact is becoming clear. It is evidence of a shocking nihilism.

Even if Trump had turned out to be a somewhat competent politician, he would have still been unable to deliver something -- anything -- which could have even begun to satisfy what seemed to be the "demands" of his voter base -- "demands" which fired so much passion among them during the campaign.

The Second Ugly Truth

"Disgruntled and Alienated"

Is Not Enough Of An Answer

The political analysis is frighteningly shallow.

Although the political analysis of "what happened" has been intense, there remains an "elephant in the living room" which has remained mysteriously absent from all the theories. The questions driving these various analyses focused on the "reasons" that so many wouldn't vote for Hillary or the "reasons" so many stayed home in November. 

These analyses took a "second, more penetrating look" when these simple explanations seemed to be falling flat. The ficus shifted to specific features of "life in the red states," "life in the fly over states," and "life in the rust belt states." The addition of these further details seemed to fill in the gaps of the more generalized models, but there still seemed to be something missing in the equation.

Then the first credible news of the Russians' involvement began to develop. The analysts breathed a sigh of relief. 

The beginning of the explanations of the impact of Russian involvement in the process focused on hacking and revealing "testy" emails held in Democratic Party computers, but the sheer inertia of American electoral politics had survived such embarrassments in fairly good order a number of times prior to this instance. The domestic American media had been carrying stories of the release of embarrassing emails for years -- since the first appearance of factors such as Anonymous and WikiLeaks.

To many of those watching this story become struggling to become more complete, the "abundant foliage in the forest of reasons" began to, once again, look a little forlorn. MeanMesa couldn't agree more. The story still seemed to lack any "cute photos" of the elephant.

Oh Golly! Should there be an investigation?  [MeanMesa]

It turns out that that "elephant" is, actually, the unavoidable harbinger of The Second Ugly Truth.

Sure, the US communications technology offered the Russians a standing vulnerability. Additionally, the US infatuation with social media [This blog is posted on BLOGGER -- a social media.] offered open access to a monstrously huge potential audience for the Russians. The Russians have always been propaganda opportunists, putting a masterful finish on the art during the Cold War which, clearly, remains today.

MeanMesa even supposes that it's quite fair to even denounce the oligarchs who own the Russian Federation as a thoroughly wicked, maleficent gang with the wild ambition to spread their autocracy as far and wide as possible.

However, the narrative falls apart when we try to "blame" what happened in the last disastrous election on Russian maleficence. It's probably better to think of this as rats penetrating one's granary. Although the outcome is very unpleasant, the rats were, well, "just being rats." The Russians were "just being Russians."

This leaves The Second Ugly Truth stranded in an open field for all to see.

The Russian Federation provided the resources and the perpetrators, but our own US social culture provided the demographic vulnerability.

Finally arriving at this realization even left MeanMesa in a momentary daze. This old American had greatly underestimated the size of this demographic quietly nestled in the darker corners of the American population. What "demographic" is this?

Uninformed: This is a demographic which has consistently isolated itself from any -- even mildly -- objective news. The members of this demographic have no idea what is actually happening all around them.

Alienated: This demographic has a constant mind set that it is being victimized, even if the details are as cloudy as its perception of the reality around it.

Uneducated: This demographic lacks sufficient education to be able to skeptically identify what is being presented as fact or as "news."

Trump, probably under the proffered tutelage of the same Russians, capitalized on this artificially developed psychology of those in this demographic during his campaign. 

They didn't have good jobs, but they also couldn't do much. A high school diploma isn't much of a career foundation in the 21st Century.

They, generally, didn't know why they had health care. They had no understanding -- or interest -- in the details of the legislation which had been provided them with whatever coverage they had. Many of them have difficulty reading, a fact which explains their frustration with the ACA. The details required by the policy seemed to insult them at every turn.

They had been groomed by decades of incendiary media which provided them with a bizarre perception of reality and an infuriating explanation of why their lives were so difficult.

As is usually the case with people in this situation they were dangerously racist and xenophobic -- and they were maintained in that state of mind because it was useful for the politicians who wanted to exploit it. This was useful to Trump while he was campaigning, and, thinking of the superfluous "rallies" he's conducting after election, it remains critical necessary for him now that he's in office.

The President has a voter base of around 1/3 of the population of the electors in the country.

This Is NOT a "Russia Problem"

OR a "Technology Problem"

This problem is much broader than mere technology.

We probably can't keep the Russians out,

 so we must become much less vulnerable to propaganda. 

The actual problem is a lack of interest.

There has already been plenty said about "reaching voters," "motivating voters," or about "getting people to the polls." These are, most likely, reasonable avenues of consideration, but the mere fact that such "reasons" need be considered reveals much more of an explanation of why our democracy is faltering.

MeanMesa really doesn't care if a voter is disgusted with the current politics or has lost faith in the current state of the democratic system. What's needed here is a little perspective -- unhappily, that means perspective made possible by even the smallest amount of education about what's actually going on here. Perhaps a little geography so that American voters know what's going on elsewhere would assist one of these tantrum soaked "not for me" voters in being slightly more interested. Perhaps a little history might present a more convincing picture of exactly how remarkable the US experiment in democracy really was.

Does anyone know who this guy is? [image]

The simple existence of 63 million voters naive enough to swallow the twisted media narrative -- with or without the further augmentation provided by the Russians is "driving the nail of a final verdict" through the wide spread pretension that American public education is actually producing something which might possibly serve as a population of interested and informed voters.

Trump is not a surprising "twist of politics." Trump is the result of a population with a frightening large percentage of voters who are dumber than a bag of hammers.

Education: "Nothing New Under the Sun?"

MeanMesa is republishing an interesting article from the Huffington Post which introduces some refreshing -- and encouraging -- individuals who are "out of the box" as they present their respective new ideas about education.  In each case, the article reveals the horrible obstacles encountered as such innovative people face the quagmire of institutional fortresses which seem intent on maintaining our present failed education system.

The difficulty we face now is not a simple matter of a little obsolete bureaucracy lodged in awkward spots  here and there -- modern public education is a matter of a dreadful, ossified system,  a self-validating, sickening sort of hybrid blend of superstition and intellectual suffocation.  The reduction of the American electorate to a controllable horde of semi-literate, uninterested and uninteresting has a suspiciously conspiratorial aroma.

Is MeanMesa careening "off the tracks" again in another geriatric tirade?  Please remember that New Mexico is near the bottom of the national averages for effective public education.  Do we see anything similar to these examples at work in our local schools?  Do we have a "way forward" for our local high school graduation rates which seem stuck at 50% - 60%?

You decide.  

Take a quick look at the eight examples of the alternative shown below.  ( link to the original article here ) Please pay close attention to Myron Rolle, Edward Burger and David Cho.  Each of the examples includes a link to more information about the corresponding "game changer."

Who is the Ultimate Game Changer in Education?

Huffingon Post  - 9-20-2010

Jill Biden

Changed the game by ... making community college students a priority. Biden might be the Second Lady, but she's first in the classroom: a longtime English professor in Delaware, she has spent the semesters since her husband was sworn in as vice president at Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches English as a second language. President Obama asked her to convene a national summit on community colleges, and she has pushed for more Americans to consider them as a cheaper, but equally solid, education opportunity, while at the same time successfully lobbying the federal government to expand their support. "For an immigrant or first-generation American, community college is often the place to begin a postsecondary education," she wrote.

Fun Fact: Biden didn't always want to be a teacher. She first studied fashion merchandising at junior college, but hated it and transferred to University of Delaware, where she stayed fashionable, but declared an English major.

Must-click link: Jill Biden's op-ed on community colleges

 

 

Myron Rolle

Changed the game by ... proving that, yes, NFL-caliber football players can also be aspiring neurosurgeon-philanthropist Rhodes Scholars who hang out with Bill Clinton. Last year, Rolle was in Oxford studying medical anthropology on a Rhodes Scholarship, which he received after graduating from Florida State in two-and-a-half years. This year, he took a break from his studies to join the Tennessee Titans as a rookie defensive back. He fell to the sixth round in the NFL draft after some coaches and pundits worried that he might not be fully committed to football or (gasp!), might be too smart. If the NFL doesn't pan out, there's always med school, or his foundation, which has already begun work on a free clinic in the Bahamas and a training program for Native American kids struggling with obesity.

He said it: "I think my pursuits academically have helped me in football. You learn discipline, you learn time management, you learn structure, you learn organization and as a football player those are obviously valuable assets and traits you can use to be great.”

Must-click link: Myron's site

 

 

 

Michelle Rhee

Changed the game by ... shaking up the D.C. school system. Rhee has been the chancellor of Washington, D.C. schools for three years, and her gung-ho desire for reform has irritated vested interests and ushered in a new culture of accountability. Seniority rules that kept bad teachers in place have been repealed, hundreds of teachers that Rhee said were underperforming have been fired, and the federal program Race to the Top just recognized D.C. as one of its winners, sending money its way to continue reforms. Rhee was one of the earliest members of Teach for America to rise in education politics, and is proof that its young network of alumni has the ability to deliver a message of educational reform from positions of power.

Fun fact: Rhee makes up half of education reform's most glamorous couple—her new husband, Kevin Johnson, is a former NBA all-star and the current mayor of Sacramento.

Must-click link: Rhee's site

 

 

 

Anya Kamenetz

 

 

 

Changed the game by ... reporting a way out of a failed system. In 2004, the then-24 year old Kamenetz burst onto the scene with her book "Generation Debt," which grippingly laid out the maze of financial traps and obligations holding down young people. Now a star writer for Fast Company, her most recent book, "DIY U" came out in April and caused an immediate stir. Kamenetz's reporting explains how race and class have driven up the price of an elite education and explores the bustling new alternatives to stuffy, expensive, overrated Ivy-coated classrooms – including online collectives and top-notch community colleges.

Key Kudos: Kamenetz's book received praise from across the spectrum, but perhaps the most impressive were the accolades given by legendary economics reporter William Greider. "Her book will be devastating for older people who still believe one more graduate degree is the road to personal success and a prosperous economy," he wrote. "Younger people will feel relief that someone has finally told the truth about their predicament. Kamenetz offers a radically different way to think about the future and she gives young people a more rational and promising way to think about theirs."

Must-click link: Anya's twitter

 

 

 

Edward Burger

Changed the game by ... making math seriously fun. Burger, a former writer for Jay Leno, is a charismatic number theorist and mathematics professor at Williams College who has gone far beyond the confines of his day job to convince the world that math isn't as hard as it looks. An early pioneer of online, multimedia textbooks, it was recently announced that California was launching a pilot "digital textbook initiative" in which students would be given iPads to read his interactive textbook and watch his video lecture series. His successes in teaching—he was the 2010 winner of Baylor University's Cherry Teaching Award—have also generated insights about the nature of creativity that have opened up new conversations across academic disciplines.

He said it: "In all my courses, I emphasize the power of failure: learning from failed attempts and taking risks. Five percent of students’ final grades are based on their narrative of failure: how they learned from their failed attempts. I judge the quality of their failure by the size of the risk they’ve taken and the amount of insight they have generated from their mistakes. I do that as an invitation to the student to take risks, to try ideas without fear of failure."

Must-click link: Burger's site 

 

 

 

Beverly Daniel Tatum

 

Changed the game by... helping teach America how to talk about race. Tatum is the president of Spelman College in Atlanta and an eloquent advocate for the importance of historically black colleges. She has pointed out, time and again, that even in the age of Obama, HBCUs are major engines of economic and academic growth in the African-American community. (In March, Obama signed an executive order encouraging federal support of HBCUs.) A clinical psychologist and author of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" Tatum's work in teaching young women, delivering intelligent commentary, and pushing for open dialogue in not-yet-post-racial America, has made her a key part of an essential national debate.

She said it: "When you are in the period we think of as the college years - late teen/early twenties and you are really developing your sense of identity, who you are, what you want to be in the world - there can be a real advantage to being in an environment where you know you are guaranteed by the mission of the institution to be at the center of the educational experience. ... That's not to say that if you go to a coed institution or a predominantly white institution that you are not going to be encouraged or be successful, but those institutions were not created with that intention in mind."

Must-click link: Tatum's Huffington Post blog

 

 

David Cho

 Changed the game by ... living the DREAM. Cho is a rising senior at UCLA; he has a 3.6 GPA, and is the first Korean-American drum major of the UCLA marching band. He also is an undocumented immigrant—he "came out" this past spring at a big rally in Los Angeles, where he roused the crowd of thousands. The winner of this past year's Campus Progress National Speaker Contest (co-sponsored by HuffPost), he is one of the strongest advocates for the DREAMAct, which would offer a path to citizenship for children who came to America at a young age and succeeded in school.

He said it: "I actually want to serve in the U.S. Air Force after graduation, I want to attend Harvard Kennedy School of government, and I ultimately want to be a U.S. Senator because I want to make changes in this country. These are my goals, my dreams, and my American dream that I want to achieve but I cannot fulfill them because of my status. Today, however, I stand before you all freed from doubt and fear and filled with courage and confidence for I believed in the power of our generation and I know that we will never lose hope in this time of trials and tribulations."

Must-click link: Cho's stirring speech at this year's Campus Progress conference

Shai Reshef

Changed the game by ... taking the world to school. In 2009, Reshef founded the University of the People, a Pasadena-based project that streams lectures and assignments to people around the world, allowing them to take college classes online for less than $100—and ultimately get accredited degrees. At this point, there are 500 students from 100 countries discussing topics and meeting regularly in online forums. Reshef is aware that not everyone has easy access to the Internet; UoPeople is preparing communication centers in Zimbabwe, the Dominican Republic, Bangladesh, Haiti, Liberia, and Palestine. "There are hundreds of millions of people around the world unable to afford higher education," he told Fast Company. "We are offering them an alternative."

How it all got started: Reshef worked in the for-profit side of education, when he joined the Israeli test-prep company Kidum in 1989. Under his leadership, it became the largest education-services company in Israel, with revenues of over $25 million before Kaplan bought it in 2005. “I’ve made enough money," he now says. "It’s time to give back.”

Must-click link: UoPeople.org

Education Reform Without the Lipstick

Another in the MeanMesa "Lipstick" series. This time: President Obama's Plan for Education Reform. 85

A Little History:

Last week the President made a speech which officially places education reform in the role of a “leg” on his three legged stool for national recovery. That speech, nestled into a daily news cycle of speeches, any one of of which would have induced uncontrolled bleeding twenty four months ago, still arose filled with phrases not dissimilar from those which have filled traditional speeches about education reform at about the same early point in every Presidential term in recent history.

The implied consequences of not “educating better” have trailed along with the string of competitors our nation has faced through the years. There were the Soviets with their relentless, cast iron, collective system which seemed to crank out legions of nuclear physicists, chess players and spies. There were the ambitious Indians who seemed to be able to duplicate the results of even our most expensive efforts with their tin cans and strings. There were the Asian youngsters who seemed to be able to almost effortlessly become industrial manufacturing geniuses whether in the poverty of their ancient homelands or the worst schools the American system might offer their immigrant parents.

Defending our side were the unfaltering voices repeating the mantra, “If they are so good, why are we still richer?” Uh, right. The United States population apparently hit its highest literacy rate in the 1950’s, one of the very few constructive results of decades of US/Soviet MAD geopolitics (Mutually Assured Destruction).

Some commentators (Thom Hartmann) cite the beginning of public education during Freidrich’s Hohenzollern Prussia. The population of orphanages had grown so large that the King became interested in developing the boys there to become obedient soldiers, loyal subjects and profitable, respectful employees. It seems that, once all that had been figured out a few centuries ago, there hasn’t really been much cause to consider the matter any more since then.

Back to the Future: 2009

Perhaps the notable departure from past Presidential education reform speeches is not to be found in the words of Obama’s speech so much as in the incredible inertia of the man who spoke them. And, notably, wrote them. Such words become more credible when we realize that they were not simply handed to the President a few minutes before air time to make sure he could pronounce everything that was going to appear on his teleprompter.

President Obama has done his part. So, let’s set aside the “lipstick,” and do our part. Let’s take a shot at “boiling the thing down to its bones.” What conclusions can we make about the essential necessities required for education reform?

As with most political questions, we immediately encounter that apparently unavoidable human trait, “humiliation avoidance.” We seem to suffer an unreasonable fear of making decisions which will turn out to be less than optimal. Those would be decisions about the nature of a “good education,” about the actual amount of resources we will need to dedicate to the effort and about means and methods of testing our proposition as it goes along. We would very much prefer to know as early as possible -- or better yet, even beforehand! -- if the decisions we have made are really producing the results we seek. Otherwise, of course, we would not be “avoiding the humiliation” of having made such bad decisions.

By the way, this “bad decision” business has grown legs. One might think that our past efforts at education have been so ill conceived and misdirected, that is, so “humiliating,” that any reasonable person would be extremely “gun shy” about even so much as attempting to ever make such plans again. Our present situation, although neither particularly reassuring nor satisfying, is not yet a cataclysmic, world ending, “Death to America” disaster. However, given its tepid results, that historical approach is, most likely, at its end.

One result of this realization has been to discourage any public participation in redesigning the system at all. As with many modern quandaries, the electorate has been carefully groomed to passively accept the idea that the solution, if one exists at all, is far too complicated for “mere mortals” to comprehend. The entire matter must be turned over, along with a very big check, to the “education experts.” Only the hyper-qualified denizens of the educational world have the background to propose some painless improvement, at its best probably only a “little better” than what we have now. We have tried this one already. Several times. Too many times.

Another result is a cowardly and thoughtless appetite to “collapse to tradition.” This plan reverts education efforts to their earlier states. Those “early states of education” might be “the way things were when I was a boy,” or “when my dad went to school,” or “when the nation was young,” or even “back in the old country.” A loftier version might reflect positively on conditions young Alexander encountered while living with Aristotle, or Scian ‘jiou while living with his dark teacher from Abarabia, Mullah Edin. We will need to learn from the past, but there is little future in reliving it.

As a culture we seem to retain plenty of the demand that things should be simplified, our traditionally American, folksy, anti-intellectual tantrum. We have watched enough old movies to have been thoroughly convinced that “good old American common sense, saturated with naiveté and an innocent, ebullient, ‘can-do’ optimism made possible by not knowing our limits” has allowed us to overcome Nazi’s, alien invaders and hopeless, impending cometary collisions. We probably should not be quite so convinced that the same approach has delivered a polio vaccine, a man on the moon, the internet, the United Nations or Viagra. Education did that.

Finally, returning the the “humiliation avoidance” idea, we have grown gangrenously cynical. We have relegated the responsibilities for defining the measurement of our educational system to the most unlikely people. Dirty shirt preachers and southern speaking coaches have been left with the task of defining educational success as they mindlessly transform adolescent boys into leaders, unthinking generals and admirals, more pastors and coaches, national league athletes, Senatorial hillbillies and the like.

We have been listening to those who say that a good education can be measured by high school graduates who are well prepared to work in factories or join the military without rehabilitative training. An occasional “star” who invents something against all odds (even a rotten education), who makes billions of dollars in the stock market or who composes a brilliant symphony drives the “last nail to seal the lid” on this case.

Don’t Trust Anybody.

The “straw man” is comprised of several parts. The most appealing of them is the almost universal insistence to test the education system in any new design to see if it is accomplishing its mission. Closely behind those voices is an unending interest in determining whether or not its product is a “good deal for the money.”

The validation derived from a testing regime has generated significant traction. Because no current educational proposal package can reach media maturity without centering on “credible testing,” elaborate testing regimes have become as central as educational substance itself. The testing systems have risen in importance until they now validate the educational systems more strongly than what is actually being taught.

The missing piece, although conveniently hidden by the testing distraction, remains the definition of the educational goal. Coaches and pastors aside, what are we willing to agree on when it comes to over all objectives for our new educational effort? The “trained up” soldiers and factory workers concept doesn’t carry much water. The “states rights” bigots insisting on education promoting a six thousand year old planet aren’t really anything we are interested in spending federal dollars to sustain.

Where does this leave us? Who will tell us whether or not we are doing the right thing?

Oh dear.

Let’s ask the teacher. That’s right. Let’s ask the teacher if the students in his class are receiving a correct education. Surely the teacher would know something like that.

Wait a minute! We can’t “just ask the teacher” because we don’t trust the teacher. Those darn teachers will trick us! They will tell us that their students are getting a good education so they can have a chance at one of those merit raises. Maybe those teachers don’t really know if their students are getting a correct education or not.

What does this mean? It means that we have teachers we don't trust and who, we think, don’t really know whether or not they are providing a correct education in charge of educating our young ones. Does this mean that we should increase funding and inject merit pay into the mix or just spend lots more money devising testing regimes that these tricksters cannot manipulate?

After all, the prevailing religious mythology has continuously promoted the idea that men are evil opportunists who can’t be trusted. Why would we expect these teachers to be any different than the rest of humanity? They’re not saints, so we can’t trust them. Since we can’t trust them, we must try harder and harder to expose their trickery (or be humiliated by winding up with kids the army doesn’t want and who can’t work in factories). It isn’t our fault if we have to work so hard on exposing them that we simply haven’t got time to worry about what kind of education is being accomplished.

We can’t even agree on a few guiding principles which might define what kind of education we want to accomplish! When that question is placed on the table, every vested interest emerges from the culture swamp to enjoy a bite of lunch! There are speciously useless text books for a $100 per copy, the products of dithering committees of experts and consultants, contracts based on political favors and “certified” by someone as being precisely the books which are absolutely, critically essential to a “good education,” whatever that is.

There are confused college students marching through a numbing chaos of education classes which avoid any relevance to the essence of the teacher’s motivation beyond the capture of merit pay, tenure and union membership. There are bellowing, cracker politicians snapping worn out harangues about waste and frivolity in the schools, all imposed by some sinister parasites with no interest other than extracting tax money.

Ideologically, we see the vacuous hilarity of those bemoaning a lack of “critical thinking.” In dull moments we can always “tune in” to the latest spectacularly depressing news about sex education or school violence. We can find common cause with those who would like to blame parents, civilization itself, poverty, teen sex or video games.

What in the hell are we doing?

This rapacious maelstrom of default thinking is not anything that will benefit from more “education reform.” Its stench has grown far, far too strong for that generosity. This is both an unavoidable wake up call and an opportunity surfacing in the teeth of calamity.

The problems we face in education seem to be incomprehensible because the grotesque thing we have created under that name is, well, incomprehensible. (Doubtful? Try to envision a future history which explains how we reached this failure state. Does your history make sense?) It is a monster consuming huge tax resources, brazenly diverting all its assets to its own protection, producing terrifyingly dismal results and worst of all, denying American youth the opportunity of their birth right to have a chance to develop themselves into something they might actually want to be.

It is clearly the intention of Great Nature that parents assist their children in every possible way to reach the age of responsibility, self-sufficiency and individualism. No amount of persuasive details or comforting, mitigating expertise exonerates a failure to accomplish that parental obligation. Parental obsessions with the goal of perpetuating religion mythology, aging, unexamined ideas or the ambitions of somehow converting their children’s futures into ideological, social or political currency are criminal.

This is childhood’s end.

But not childhood’s end for the children. Their childhood has already been through the meat grinder. Literally hundred of millions of them have had their dreams permanently crushed already by this hideous thing.

This is childhood’s end for the parents. No more being the “half-cocked,” inch deep, gushing ninny at the PTA meeting. No more being the passive, long suffering stoic without any ideas to improve things. No more being too busy to get involved. No more bitching about the property taxes. No more simply refusing to think.

No more turning the young ones over to the television for four hours a night. No more credit-card problem solving. No more “too tired.” No more exhaustion -- there is no exhaustion permitted when it comes to the little people who are counting on you to help them dream.

The following link to You Tube contains a complete video (36 minutes) of President Obama's speech in Dayton, Ohio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGcr1UZpBfA