America’s public school system has been a failure because of a successful 30-year GOP effort to de-fund the system in favor of private and charter schools. The purpose of this policy was always to destroy the learning environment of the students, and extinguish the average child’s innate desire to explore and learn.

This indoctrination – as opposed to actual learning – has ruined the critical-thinking skills of most American kids by the time they reach middle school.

The goal was to take higher education out of reach of the “riff-raff” by grossly inflating costs and burdening college students with tremendous debts. This came about because of all the anti-war protests  in the 60s and 70s. The Masters of War were horrified at what happens when the sons and daughters of the ‘non-rich’ suddenly get educated.

Back then, it was a rebellion against the establishment and a repudiation of materialism and pointless war. Young people showed their anger and frustration through massive protest movements, antiwar activity, and by organized draft resistance. They helped to expand the counterculture ethos.

The war was eventually ended as a focus of rebellion, and instead massive college debt was created to keep the ‘riff-raff’ out and to deter any political potential activity or participation in future social movements.

Young people are so disconnected from the world now because of the plethora of vapid infotainment feeding into their everyday environment. The days when society shared experiences via live television is lost in the modern world. History and context are non-existent.

Divide and conquer applies here as well. Nobody even cares whether something is true anymore. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference anymore, thanks to AI and the wonders of CGI.

But you only get good politicians when you have an informed electorate. It’s crucial to have educated, aware and empathetic voters. Otherwise democracy throws up fucking stupid things like Donald Trump.

It’s clear that better educated people would never have elected this charlatan. Only stupidity could lead someone to do that, and only profound stupidity would lead them to defend their stupid position.

So there you go.

It appears that America is slowly transitioning into just another third world labor state which discards those who aren’t of current use to the war machine. Anyone who dreams of revolution needs to consider this: how many people are gonna risk losing their jobs or student loans by “rising up” knowing there’s nothing to fall back on?

A dumbed-down public has been persuaded to vote against their own interests and support the billionaire oligarchs once again. Unfortunately, most US corporations have gone global and are no longer dependent on US workers for their survival.

Reasoning with these people is not going to work; pointing out to them that what they are doing is counterproductive isn’t going to work, either. Begging them to have some common decency is not going to do it. Expecting them to even be polite is too much to ask for, apparently.

They are doing exactly what they said they were going to do and they are doing it as fast as they can because that’s what criminals do. It’s only a slightly more sophisticated version of the old ‘Smash & Grab.’ They are nothing more than petty thugs. How we deal with people like that is beyond my remedial political mind, but if somebody doesn’t stop them soon we will be living in a place that no longer deserves to be called the United States of America.

If everyone is fine with that, then we all deserve what comes next; and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. But the days of conspicuous consumption are clearly over.

It’s time to get back to work.

[Edited re-post from 2017]