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I just read an article about India testing their own shuttle early next year. Last year they blasted the Chandrayaan I to the moon and took pictures of the moon and beamed those pictures back to earth. Many have called the India, China, Japan race to space, the Asian space race.
As I reflect upon these technological achievements of Asian countries, I have to wonder what exactly has the US done to remain competitive. All of the US's scientific technology is centered on weapons development. Most of our technical colleges answer directly to the Pentagon. What is the US developing in the realm of peace?If you graduate with a science degree in this country what do you do exactly? You can study nature. You can help develop pharmaceuticals for big Pharma. You can make weapons. You can develop pesticides for Monsanto. You can work for Ford developing more gas guzzling dinosaurs. ( I noticed recently that Volkswagon recently developed a vehicle that can get 258 miles to the gallon. Yes. You read that right.)
While the world races ahead of us, what exactly are we doing? Are we investing in our education or are we making education so expensive that the middle class can't afford it. What's worse is that we are discouraging people from even trying to get a degree. What's the point of getting a degree when you wind up with a 100,000 student loan and a lousy job making $14 bucks an hour. Employers lately have been refusing to hire people with degrees making things even worse.
My fear is that our obsession with war is destroying us intellectually. While we focus our energy on destruction, others are taking action to move ahead leaving us in the dust. When the empire collapses after excessive spending on defense, what are we left with exactly?
