What is important to our nation? In recent weeks we are seeing our nation's environment being destroyed. We are seeing the livelihood of many families devastated. We will be seeing our taxpayers' dollars dumped into the hands of private corporations as we assume the financial obligations of private businesses who have been profiting greatly at our expense for decades.
Meanwhile, on a more hushed scene most Americans are not aware a more devastating blow to our nation's future is taking place with nary a word from the corporate media propagandists (CMP) as our nation faces the loss of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 public school teachers, librarians, counselors and other employees slated for layoff.
It became more apparent this past week that politicians in DC are more concerned with their personal immediate future than that of our nation as they failed to appropriate $23 Billion, as part of the spending bill for the war in Afghanistan, to what is our nation's future - an educated youth. It appears the fiscally conservative members of the House and Senate did not want to defend another vote that would increase the deficit, especially for some public program as opposed to one involving a privatized corporation with deep pockets to support their re-election efforts. This refusal should be easy as the CMP and politicians have been portraying teachers as incompetent, over paid, and easily replaced for decades. Replaced by whom? Private corporations, subsidized by taxpayer dollars, of course. The citizens will still foot the bill, but will have as much input or control as we now have over the private Federal Reserve Bank, BP, Halliburton, the healthcare system, or any other private corporation.
It would be interesting to see how quickly the money would become available once their goal of privatizing our nation's education system becomes a total reality. Unfortunately, that end is well on its way and will be expedited as classroom populations escalate to twice what they should be in order to provide adequate educational assistance to our youth. The result will be more youth failure, more drop outs (some major US cities now have a dropout rate of 70%), more youth crime, more expenditures for penal institutions (more and more of them are "privatized" being subsidized by taxpayer dollars). It would be interesting to see how much of the additional spending for the war in Afghanistan goes toward the "privatized military', or mercenaries. Of course, the CMP does not let the people know that.
Education has been, and still is the future of our nation. As it continues to slide, for a decade nothing of value has been done by federal politicians to improve, or even promote a sound learning process for our youth. We have had a bumper sticker educational process, No Child Left Behind, which held its entire goal at passing a test. It's unstated goal was actually privatizing education, as corporations support re-election campaigns, public agencies do not. How much of that 58% taxpayer dollar going to defense would there be without those privatized corporations pouring $millions into the coffers of politicians, as opposed to the meager 7% which is allocated to education, social programs, training, and employment COMBINED. Of course there isn't much opportunity for the politicians to fill their pockets from these services, unless they can be made "private.'
They tell us this would shrink the size of government, but they don't tell us we would still be on the toll for paying for these. The money would simply go to private corporations, with some going to the re-election campaigns. Of course, the taxpayer would also have an expense. What is less expensive to the taxpayer as a result of privatization? Remember there was no income tax until 1913 when the government privatized the bank. The income tax was imposed in order to pay the interest to the privatized Federal Reserve Bank. Of course we have spent over a $Trillion to bailout the banking mega corporations. How many $Billion will we spend to bail out the private BP and Halliburton? The amount remains to be seen, but you know it's going to happen. The same people who cry that to have any program where the government provides for the people is "socialism", yet they have no concerns when the government provides for the private corporations. A bit hypocritical? No, a lot hypocritical.
When it comes to our nation's main resource - our youth - there appears to be nothing. The attitude among politicians is "If it doesn't pay me, the hell with it.'
