Across the country, the GOP has slashed funding for public education.
It justifies doing so by claiming that we are broke, but this is merely a pretext.
In truth, the GOP wants to keep the masses uneducated--and this is exposed within these 14 aphorisms.
1) Democrats and Republicans both have large numbers of low-income supporters: generally, the urban poor lean Democratic while the rural poor lean Republican.
Each party must peddle the benefits of its platform to preserve and expand its share of poor voters.
When talking about the economy, Democrats can exhibit their many social programs, which are not tough to sell.
Republicans, on the other hand, have nothing better to offer than "trickle-down" tax cuts for the aristocracy; hence, to make the crucial sale to the poor, they become lying hucksters pitching a product that is inappropriate for their targeted buyers.
Moreover, since it is easier to play this "confidence trick" on the unschooled, the GOP is pursuing a decades-long strategy to dismantle our educational system.
Ignorance is the lube of the Republican machine.
2) In response to a slave rebellion in 1831, several states enacted laws to ban the teaching of all black people.
In 2008, Congress passed the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act without the backing of many Republicans who argued that it would lead to more troops refusing to re-enlist.
These two episodes show that our aristocracy has always recognized the need to control access to education when subjugating the masses.
3) By sabotaging our educational system--thereby disempowering our citizens--corporations could create an army of wage slaves.
Of course, to implement such a vile plan, these moneygrubbers would need accomplices--such as a political party of capitalist toadies..
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4) Democracy is a complex machine, and our citizenry is responsible for its upkeep.
Since the care of any complex machine calls for education to minimize breakage, we have civics classes to teach the workings of government.
Despite the vital role that these classes play in preserving a healthy democracy, schools--mainly poor ones--are quietly marginalizing and eliminating them.
The societal price for this slashing of civics is high: with little understanding of government and their place in it, young persons are less likely to participate and vote--while those who do are more likely to fall victim to manipulative politicians.
This is "coincidently" an optimal outcome for the GOP--particularly for the way it affects impoverished citizens.
5) Republican efforts to control the rabble have made it far easier for poor citizens to go to prison--and far harder for them to go to universities.
This strengthens the GOP's "tough on crime" image while purging probable opposition voters (i.
e.
, lower-class university graduates most often vote Democratic, but convicts and many ex-convicts do not get to vote at all).
6) The fate of the GOP agenda hinges on the wisdom of Edmund Burke: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
" It is by warping our memory of history that the GOP can keep reselling the same harmful policies to lower- and middle-class voters.
If too many of us were to dig too deeply into the past 30 years--recalling how the GOP has repeatedly enriched the wealthy at our expense--the party would need to abandon its agenda or perish.
7) If you do not learn your sums in school, the GOP will bamboozle you with its brand of creative math (e.
g.
, claiming that we can cut tax revenues collected from millionaires without increasing our budget deficits).
8) The GOP exploits deficient English skills with euphemisms (e.
g.
, civilian deaths are peachy when rebranded as "collateral damage" and the estate tax is yucky when rebranded as the "death tax").
9) It is much easier to win someone's support for a military action when that person is clueless concerning where the target country lies on a map or what the "enemy" is like.
In other words, with our failure to learn elementary geography and sociology, we have given our leaders a free hand to attack any country.
10) Beyond teaching us about the universe, science classes build our reasoning skills.
Without these, beliefs guide us--or misguide us.
And that explains the GOP's war on science: our children's beliefs in things like Santa please us--just as our silly, feel-good beliefs in things like free markets, supply-side economics, stable climates, and American exceptionalism please the GOP.
11) The documentary, Waiting for Superman, points out that in a math test of students from eight developed countries, our scores were at the bottom--but in confidence of how well we thought we did, we finished at the top.
With this unmerited arrogance, students will see no faults with their education.
They will insist that they are learning enough.
And when they become adults, they will join other swaggering Americans who also mistakenly brag about exceptionalism.
12) Local control of education has a fatal defect: ignorance begets ignorance (i.
e.
, when a community raises a generation that fails educationally, that generation goes on to instruct the following one in the same flawed way).
Is it a coincidence that the GOP is the staunchest supporter of this system? 13) By being thrifty with universities and their students, we do not make them leaner; we make them anemic.
Universities are begging for resources and cutting corners on educational services, while students are spending more of their limited time working instead of learning.
One does not need a degree to comprehend that this is an idiotic misuse of brainpower.
14) I cannot guarantee that we will improve our public school systems by spending more money--but I can guarantee that we will worsen them by spending less.
The heart of a healthy democracy is a well-informed electorate.
Hence, we should decry as treason any act that deliberately sabotages our public education system.