Grazing The Range




Sunday, April 8, 2012

Education

“Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. It’s no use pretending otherwise and telling us, as Thomas Friedman did in the Times a few days ago, that educated people are the nation’s most valuable resources. Sure, they are, but do we still want them? It doesn’t look to me as if we do. The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.” Charles Simic
I find it hard to believe that more than a handful of people actually set out to deceive us as he suggests, but it sure seems that as soon as a few of them saw what Karl Rove and others were accomplishing by inflating the bubble of untruths everyone climbed aboard to ride it. Some did not outright tell little white lies but they sure as hell bit their tongue and zipped their lips because it was making them money and gaining them support to at least look like they agreed with the lies. The lies were making money.
The bullshit put out there in the last three years is enough to choke a horse yet many Americans have swallowed it all and in doing so have furthered the cause of the perpetrators making it even easier to pull off lies yet to come in the next election cycle. Once a lie takes off it is easy to add to; Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist! No wait, he IS a Christian, he just went to the wrong church where the Pastor is un-American! I can see the wind whipping to and fro in my mind’s eye as the story evolves into his being a Socialist then no, he is a Nazi, never mind there is zero similarity between the two, these people will never notice the switch. Back to the birth certificate, that unauthentic document the State of Hawaii faked 50 years ago in preparation for Obama being President so he wouldn’t get caught at being a Muslim from Kansas. No…he is not from Kansas, he is a terrorist by God set to take over our lives! Of course all the while the CIA, FBI and Secret Service have been clueless as to his entire history because the Patriot Act did not allow for enough surveillance capability back when this charade was all planned so long ago in Kenya in the country of Africa near Hawaii.
It could be amusing to think of a Muslim, Nazi, Socialist and Terrorist from Africa without a birth record living within the same body and mind as a Harvard graduate if it weren’t so pathetic to imagine people believing this shit.  Are we really that stupid to think that any one in public office can slip by the scrutiny of not only the federal agencies but the media? Are we stupid enough to think that someone can be all those things and not be at war within? I hope he doesn’t inhale!
We are paying more every year for anything to do with health care yet we believe these days that reforming health care is bad for us? We elected Obama because of his promise to try and fix health care before it breaks completely so why is it we are falling for misinformation that it is “bad” for this country; are we not the ones who should be deciding that? Are we not the ones who are shouldering the burden of keeping it afloat? If you answered yes then tell me why the hell are we listening to people who get their health care for free tell us that we do not need it ourselves? Why aren’t we demanding folks work together to get it right if it is indeed wrong instead of dumping the whole thing? Are we really that stupid to throw away something that can help us?
Some in power are going to extremes to tell us that colleges and universities are anti-American think tanks and that being “uneducated” is somehow cool. One of the candidates for President of this country actually said that allowing everyone the opportunity for education is snobbish, good thing he was not standing in front of his law credentials huh?  You can bet he does not believe any of that for one minute, but he now has a following that does because he planted that seed so he can’t help but milk it. I guess being uneducated is cool if you want to clip lawns and hair for those same guys for a penny on the dollar of what they make and rent a trailer house for the rest of your life. Personally, my parents taught all of us to have pride and to always strive for excellence, not complacency. Education does not necessarily have to come from organized schooling, but along with the junk we get through email there is also a wealth of info on the Internet if we only have the gumption to go get it. Generally though folks don’t…it is more fun to jump on someone when they are down. We are all bully sheep at heart.
 My parents came from poverty that so far we have avoided thanks in part to them and others like them. They realized from a very early age that education is the only thing that would ever sustain them for the long haul so they gave to their kids any opportunity they could to get ahead and to get educated. They gave us the means so we would not be fooled as they had been by smooth talking politicians and bankers. Are we willing to squander that under the direction of a few who stand to gain from our ignorance? What are we thinking?
The XL pipeline that some are toting as the save all for Americans is being built for two reasons; getting oil to ships to export it, and getting it to a free port where they do not have to pay export taxes; neither one of those reasons are a secret folks. It is not being built to keep us from importing oil or to keep prices at our pumps low. It is being built to make oil companies more money on the world commodity market that is abuzz with futures trading. Will it have some benefit for us? More than likely some, until it starts leaking and that will not be long in coming. In fact, with the amount of sand in it I give it maybe ten years from now before we are paying to clean up the mess. We are so well trained.
Many of you reading this will never retire. You will never realize the dreams you had yesterday. You may never have an aspirin when you have fever because a whole generation, maybe two got fooled into believing everything they were told. A whole generation fooled into believing that legislators doing nothing are good for this country and that education is for sissies and “real Americans” carry guns not books. ”Real Americans” also bleed but they won’t tell you that; it is bad for ammo sales.