Investing in Education in Corporate Owned America

Last night the President spoke of investing in America's future. As an American I don't care. As a global citizen I am terrified. For politicians, investing in our future means that they are investing in the growth and consolidation of the giant corporations that have our elected leaders in their pockets. This means more foreign conflict, aggressive economic sanctions against third world people that do not comply with American privatization, and more unregulated destruction to the environment. That last one is caused by the industry that profited the most last year, big oil. I will address that in a moment, but first one thing Mr. Obama said really stood out to everyone was his sputnik reference. He stated:

"Half a century ago, the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik. We had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment."

This is quite true. The Cold War brought tons of money to the universities in order to beat Soviet technology and create more advanced weapons. Our university’s and likewise our economy flourished. Investing in higher education and government projects like NASA certainly played a large role. My issue with the President's reference here is that this will not happen again. Not only because it is impossible to get any significant change through our inept political process, but also because using artless patterns in history for making important policies today is frustratingly short sighted. Indeed the Cold War competition motivated the government to invest in these programs, which in turn created jobs and a new class of intelligent Americans, but this is not 1957. This is 2011, and corporate America has its grip on every decision of the government especially in education and scientific innovation.

The most promising new industry that we should invest in is green energy. I cringe when I say “new” because green energy has been trying to make a revolution in America since the 1970s. To give you an idea of how much progress we have made take a look at this clip:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future

(Note: I know it's a comedy show and all that, but honestly who doesn't agree that the Daily Show is a better source of news than anything else on cable?)

The most striking point is at the end of the clip. Richard Nixon set a goal of getting America off foreign oil by 1980, and since then each administration has set more timid goals when it comes to energy. Why? Because the oil companies make more money than any other industry in the world (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/).

We can't invest in America in the same way we invested in the 1950s and 1960s when more and more money is thrown at our politicians by greedy companies seeking less rules and more profits by any means necessary. Those means include starving third world countries, assassinating foreign leaders that get in the way (see CIA assassinations in Latin America and overthrow of the Shah of Iran). They also include destroying the air, forests, and oceans.

The investment in education starting in 1957 was a major success at creating the critical thinkers and mass student movements of the 1960s and 70s. Since then, as colleges privatized and demanded more and more money from students and focused their resources in financial and business arenas, straying from social sciences, we have become an apathetic and politically unaware nation. My generation fails to question any of this treachery by corporate America, and our universities backed by our corporately owned government have played a major role. This is outlined wonderfully in an article by Terence Ball entitled The Politics of Social Science. He states:

“Survey researchers discovered that most Americans are politically ill informed, inactive, and apathetic. By “traditional” democratic lights, this was cause for considerable alarm. Yet, according to the newly emergent “elite theory” of democracy, it is widespread political participation that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Fortunately, an antidote is readily available. That antidote is apathy. Widespread apathy allows well educated and affluent “democratic elites” to have a disproportionate say in the shaping of political possibilities.”

In other words, a government controlled by corporate money (which many define as fascism) is not interested in critical thinkers capable of changing the world. It wants universities to produce obedient workers in the financial and service sectors, not innovators that will challenge the energy giants. They don't want critical thinkers that criticize the way our economic system works. The corporate owners that control the politicians (less than 1% of the population) are the ones that benefit enormously from that system, while the rest of us are given less education, lower paying jobs, pathetic benefits, and longer hours of work. Meanwhile, we are told by the mainstream media that we should feel bad for complaining, and that if we are not rich then we have no one to blame but ourselves. The president's sputnik reference was a nice poetic display, something Mr. Obama is great at, but it is nothing more than theater. It is the false idea that our government has our interests in mind and that it is not motivated by the pistols to their heads held by big oil, the banks, insurance companies, and all the rest.

What is wrong with the world?

What is wrong with the world? I feel that in the deepest areas of my heart I know the answer to that question. From my empirical view of the world and careful consideration of multiple ideologies compounded with economic, social, and cultural facts, I can begin to at least write a scattered response to the question of what has been so baleful to this world. Our political economic discourse revolves around two ideological camps: those who want the “free market” to have control of the economy, and those who want a sizable amount of government intervention and regulation. This is at least the discourse of the western world, most notably contentious in the USA.

It is estimated that by 2015 the USA will be in $18 trillion of debt. When looking at the view of conservatives and government overspending, that estimate can easily be manipulated for their cause. But if we examine the root of that deficit, it stems from our days of living beyond our means that began in the early 1970s, when the “free market” was in full swing. Compared to our tea-baggers of today Richard Nixon would have been considered a Commi, but his economic policies were rather centered on small government and free market capitalism, straying away from the Keynesian approach begun by FDR. It was thought, and still is, that our excessive debt would be corrected in the world economy through the free market. What happened? We just sunk in to more and more debt. The free market made it much more profitable for American corporations to use cheap labor in other countries to make their products. The result: Americans don’t make anything anymore… that is, except debt. Consumer culture under free market ideologies made it not only tempting to live beyond your means, but practically impossible to live otherwise. As corporate profits rose, the wages for an American worker stagnated. Corporations found a way to save on labor, meanwhile financial institutions found ways to milk as much as possible out of the American that needed to borrow money in order to live up to the culture of consumption.

Can we blame the consumers? Many will say yes. Corporations certainly try to push some of the blame away from themselves and on to the consumer. But when the American Dream is pounded in to your head, and you work hard but do not reap from the benefits of your labor because of that wage stagnation (even though the overall economy is growing) the only sensible thing to do for a person who strives to meet that middle class American dream is to borrow and live that life with the belief that your hard work will pay off. The hard work seldom paid off, and now those Americans who created what they thought would be only a temporary artificial version of the middle class dream, never brought the dream in to reality. Instead, their picket fence dreams turned in to a homeless nightmare.

Will this teach people to live frugally? It seems to have taught some, but the majority of people are still obsessed with accruing material wealth. That is a cultural facet that has been rooted in us since the end of World War II and the rise of the Disneyland dreamworld. It has carried in to 2010 as Americans watch and invest their time thinking about rich housewives on TV bicker about petty nonsense. Our obsession with rich celebrities, including these useless people on sickening reality TV, grossly overpaid athletes, and greedy CEO’s who have no regard for human welfare and the environment, may just overshadow the lessons we should learn from the economic crisis, and the problem of living beyond your means.

So, what is wrong with the world? Well I answer this rather superficially and of course with an Americentric attitude, but I believe that the American culture, economy, and political system is so pervasive in the world that it is difficult not to focus on the west when answering such a vague and interpretive question. When it comes down to it, the problem facing the world is that the vast majority of the people are uneducated, and those that are partially educated through western school systems are not taught to think critically about the world. They are not taught that every component of their life has been molded by political and economic policies of the past and how they interact with popular culture. It is no wonder that most Americans would rather watch what I consider pornography (a word that is defined as obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit), than watch or read anything that has to do with complex ideological debate.

We can go even further and say that this lack of education is caused by the out of wack system of profits and unregulated global capitalism protected with guns and nuclear weapons. However, there are people, many people, who can see the world critically and attempt to develop solutions to our problems. Complaining about the fundamental issue of the entire social system is useless. It’s too big to change immediately. In fact, I’m not even sure a ubiquitous social system even exists. But there are many macro and micro systems that are in dire need of reform. It is up to those that have been blessed with the education in not only knowledge but in critical thinking as well to teach the broader public. The internet has been a great tool for this, but it is often countered with backwards, ignorant, and racist ideology as well. I may have defined what I think is wrong with the world, but I can merely come up with possible answers. But I don’t think the answer is going off the grid as some of my friends have insisted. That will not solve anything. Part of the answer is to confront these demons that have ruled this world for far too long. These demons are fear, ignorance, apathy, and greed. We can fight those demons with unsullied education, exposure through non-profit journalism, and care for all forms of life. It is not one person or group of people we need to confront, it is a culture that rewards greed, stupidity, and glorifies apathy, and edaciousness. I believe it can be done, and I will work for my entire life to find others who feel the same way, and to teach others that accepting the world as it is, is the greatest demon we face as a species.

Credit Card Crisis

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4179-credit-cards/

Now, I thought this was a really funny and sad graph of American debt, but the article that follows puts all the blame on banks. I certainly am no fan of banks, but how can you blame them for wanting to make as much money as possible? That is the game. Our current system is one that embellishes greed. Both the banks and the consumer are victims of this.

It's totally irresponsible for anyone to only pay the minimum balance, but people are not educated on this matter. Anyone can get a credit card. We also have to think about how our education system works. Our students are not taught about responsible consumerism in high school, and in order to get a college education most people need to take out loans!

Credit cards are one thing, probably more of the blame does go to the consumer. As for student loans and mortgages how can you blame someone for wanting an education and a home? So many people are screwed because of college loans. I think as a country we are irresponsible for not providing affordable, if not free higher education in the 21st century, as well as shelter for poor people. But I guess the problem is that those who own everything do not want educated peasants who could rebel against a system that is geared to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Arlen Spector and the Two-Party System

The big political news of the last few days is the switch of Senator Arlen Spector from a Republican to a Democrat. The reason why this is so important is that it gives the democrats 60 votes in the Senate (baring the ongoing recount in the Minnesota senate race). This of course gives the Democrats the power to break a filibuster, and more easily get their legislation passed.

Indeed, this continues to signify the shift in American politics and perhaps the public to the left. However, our country has created such a dichotomy of Democrat and Republican or Liberal and Conservative that the shift just goes back and forth. After 8 years of clear policy failures we are seeing the cycle shift back to the left. This cycle seems to me to be a function of an educated majority. Let's face it, we don't really have the best education system in the world. In fact, it's quite inefficient. While our children are not being effectively taught math or science, we have also neglected to provide them with a real and honest education in history, civics, and economics.

Our lack of history allows for the public to easily get swept up with war rhetoric, our lack of economic education allows for an uneducated mass of people scratching their heads at a very complex but important economic crisis. Finally, the lack of civics has allowed us to continue to elect incompetent and corrupted leaders from the same two ruling parties.

Now this may be a generalization, but there is something fundamentally wrong with a two party system, especially when the public is so uneducated and apathetic toward the process. One of the biggest issues is local and congressional elections. In 2006 80,975,537 people cast their votes for the mid-term elections. The number of people eligible to vote was nearly 220,000,000 people (and the voter turnout that year was good relative to recent congressional elections before it). This means that well over half of the eligible population does not vote for our lawmakers, and an even smaller amount actually voted for the person who is suppose to represent a large portion of the public.

So here we are with a Republican switching to become a Democrat and most of the country doesn’t care. Why? Is it because they are lazy and apathetic? Many certainly are, but the majority of the people are just not educated very well. Many see two parties that do not realistically relate to most working class people. Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally the same, with small deviations on certain issues. Neither party represents or even tries to carry out the will of the people. Yet, these people remain in our government mostly through an ever-exhausting tradition.

The election of Obama put a lot of faith in the Democratic Party. In the end, as we are already seeing, the message of hope and change was a fabulous marketing strategy by the Democratics. To give credit to Obama, he has not deviated from his campaign. The issues that were discussed (although very rarely during the campaign), have been addressed consistently. The problem here is that elections are never about the issues because both candidates seldom have the same ideas as the majority of the public. The problem is that the majority of Americans want to fully leave Iraq (as oppose to keeping “non-combat” troops), they want the government to look into a single-payer health care system, most want the Bush administration to be brought to justice for torture. They want better education, more regulation and to address climate change. And the list goes on. The problem here is that many think that the president is the one to look to in order to carry out these initiatives. People need to have a better understanding of the democratic-republican process, and to make informative votes for congress. I don’t mean to suggest that voting is the main answer, in fact I think voting is somewhat useless in a two party system, but the two party system is not permanently embedded into the legal structure of the country. We do have the ability to create more parties; it will just take a deeper grassroots effort. We saw a huge grassroots effort with Obama, but once most of those people realize how Democrats and Republicans are all part of a very similar agenda, they will hopefully put their efforts towards real change in American politics.