In Part 1 of this blog on education, I stated that, “I am going to dive into the major reasons that are leading to the death of public-school education.” In this part, we will look at the role that our political leaders play in murdering public school education in America.
How our politicians are helping to kill public school education
Kill or murder? I have used both words to describe what the Right-Wing political faction is trying to do to public school education. Let me be clear on this point. The Right-Wing politicians and their cronies in the media are systematically and deliberately trying to destroy public school education and any semblance of a free and open democratic educational system whether it be in kindergarten or in a university.
Liberals in America have always supported at least in a token sense a system of democratic free public-school education. Their support dwindles when it comes to the university level. When it comes to eliminating elitism in schools and eliminating anti-intellectual bias, liberals have too often watched from the sidelines when conservatives have been on the attack. This is to say that conservatives support elitism and anti-intellectualism while liberals twiddle their thumbs and remain silent.
I want to trace a chronological picture of the attack on public education from when I first noticed it up until this past week. We will start by going back to 1973 when my daughter entered kindergarten.
1973
I was twenty-seven years old and had been married for six years. We were living in Providence R.I., and I was attending Rhode Island College days and working nights. My daughter Christy had been in a Montessori School since she was three and my wife was working part-time. With Christy turning six soon we decided to enroll her in a public school. Two advantages for us were cost and proximity. The public school would be free, and it was only a few blocks from where we lived.
I walked down to the public school to see about enrolling Chris. When I arrived, I was shocked. The school had broken windows all over and the ones that had been repaired had thick Plexiglas installed inside of windowpanes. The school yard was full of junk and debris. The whole place looked like a prison that had just survived a prison riot. I turned around and went home. I was never going to send my daughter to this school. I would sell my soul first.
After some discussion with my wife Julia, we found that our only option was an expensive private school up the “East” side of Providence near Brown University where all the rich people lived. The school was called Gordon.
The Gordon School is a racially diverse nursery through eighth grade coeducational independent school in East Providence, Rhode Island. Child by child, the Gordon School community cultivates successful students by inspiring joyful learning, encouraging intellectual leadership, fostering an empathic spirit, and stimulating a drive for positive societal impact.
The tuition at the time was a fortune for us. We were living in a 3rd floor apartment and paying 75 dollars a month rent. We budgeted everything including purchasing light bulbs. The cost for Gordon in 1974 was almost 3 thousand dollars a year. Currently, the tuition varies by scholarships and financial aid but the web lists Gordon tuition for 2021 as $39,000 a year. For us, it was either this or send Chris to the dilapidated run-down school I had visited. Christy went to Gordon for two years until I graduated college. After graduating with a degree in Health Education, our family moved to a small town in Wisconsin called River Falls. There Christy was entered into the public school system where she remained until after high school.
At the time, I never made any connection between Republicans and their desire to destroy public school education. I was pretty radical in my politics, and I voted Socialist Labor, Citizens Party, Green Party and any other party except for Republicans or Democrats. I did not like conservatives or liberals. The only thing I was aware of was that teachers were low paid and public schools in the inner cities were severely under-funded. Things were much better for public education in small towns like River Falls.
1982
I enter a doctorate program at the University of Minnesota in Vocational Education. I read “Anti-intellectualism in American Life.” This book was written by Richard Hofstadter in 1963 and in 1964 won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
“Here the politician expresses what a large part of the public feels. The citizen cannot cease to need or to be at the mercy of experts, but he can achieve a kind of revenge by ridiculing the wild-eyed professor, the irresponsible brain truster, or the mad scientist, and by applauding the politicians as they pursue the subversive teacher, the suspect scientist, or the allegedly treacherous foreign-policy adviser. There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies.” — R. Hofstader
After reading Hofstader’s book, I began to see a connection between politics in America and the problems with public education funding. I still did not see any conspiracy and I just assumed it was a case of prejudice and bias with random attacks against education.
1997
I finished my Ph.D. program in 1986 and had been working with a management consulting firm for seven years before going on my own in 1993. I was now working part-time as a private consultant and teaching part-time at Metro State University in Minneapolis. I would drive to school to teach MBA night classes. On my way to school, I would turn on AM 1440 Patriot Radio and listen to Mike Savage, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, and Mike Medved. They were all extreme right-wing commentators. I listened to them over four years for two or three nights a week on my commute between White Bear Lake and downtown Minneapolis.
Each one of these commentators were well educated at an American University. Savage obtained a Ph. D in 1978 from the University of California, Berkeley, in nutritional ethnomedicine. Hewitt graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in government in 1978. After studying at the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt received his Juris Doctor (JD) degree in 1983. Ingraham earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1985. She then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was a notes editor for the Virginia Law Review. She graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1991. Medved entered Yale University as a 16-year-old undergraduate. He received his B.A. with honors in 1969, and later attended Yale Law School, though he did not finish his JD degree.
For over four years, I listened to these “scholars” bash educators. Bash teachers. Bash universities. Bash college professors. On and on each of them would go night after night after night. Labels and epithets like commies, pinkos, intellectuals, liberals, socialists, subversives, and anti-American were consistently used to denigrate teachers and professors. It was assumed and even a creed that most universities and schools had a “liberal” orientation.” To these commentators, a liberal orientation was akin to being aligned with Satan. A liberal was the devil incarnate and was on the side of “god-less communism.”
More and more I began to understand that the right-wing hated educators, hated free thinking and hated anything that had any vestige of a liberal arts education associated with it. I still did not see any conspiracy though and I assumed it was simple ignorance and fanatical beliefs that united the Republicans, White-Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and other Right-Wing fanatics.
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”— Thomas Jefferson
2010
I read “The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy” by Joshua Holland.
“We have all grown accustomed to conservative’s conspiracy theories about the corporate media having a far-left bias and college professors indoctrinating American youth into Maoism.” — J. Holland, 2010
Holland goes on to describe how a cabal of rich right-wing billionaires including the Koch Brothers organized to fund a group of “research centers” such as the Heritage Foundation. The purpose of these groups was to counter what they saw as a left-wing bias in education and the media. These groups heralded the start of organized right-wing think tanks to fund laws, bills, newspapers, radio shows and other narratives that would combat liberalism and progressivism in American politics. These groups would routinely rely on the strategies of Madison Avenue to get their messages across.
I began to see more clearly that the right wing was orchestrating a systematic attack against not only universities but also against public school education. However, it has only been in the last few years that I realized how ubiquitous this assault was. The appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education under Trump was a message that meant the right-wing were more powerful than anyone had yet realized. The attack on public education is now an all-out assault.
What I still did not see was how the now noticeable decline in public support for American Democracy was highly correlated with the right-wing attack on public education. The right-wing and their political allies have been undermining public education with a goal to replace it with a system of elite education. The purpose of right-wing education is to train people not how to think but what to think. Fundamentalists, technocrats, wealthy elites, corporations, and right-wing politicians see no value in “free-thinkers.” If you believe Thomas Jefferson, democracy can only survive with people who know how to think and not just what to think.
November 2, 2021
D. Vance, a Republican candidate for Senator of Ohio gave a keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference (November 2, 2021) titled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” He said:
“I think in this movement of national conservatism, what we need more than inspiration is wisdom. And there is a wisdom in what Richard Nixon said approximately 40, 50 years ago. He said, and I quote: ‘The professors are the enemy.’”
On his campaign website, under the heading “Protect Conservative Values,” Vance complains that “hundreds of billions of American tax dollars” get sent to universities that “teach that America is an evil, racist nation.” These universities “then train teachers who bring that indoctrination into our elementary and high schools.” The speakers and presenters at this conference read like a “who’s who” of Trump loyalists and big lie theorists.
Finally, it is clear to me that a conspiracy or call it a concerted effort exists to defund public schooling, to undermine confidence in public education and to create a system of private for-profit schools or elitist academies that will educate the rich. The poor will be left where the poor have always been left, at the bottom of the heap. Democracy will be destroyed, and authoritarians will dictate religion, politics, education, and work rules. There will be no independent thinking in America since independent thinking and democracy go hand in hand.
December 16, 2021
I pick up the local newspaper, the Casa Grande Dispatch to read an article discussing a curriculum debate at a school board meeting. Seems as though several people are challenging the right of the schools and educators to decide what should be in the curriculum. Conservative parents and right-wing politicians are increasingly trying to dictate curriculum. Often their assumptions about education or ill-formed and simply ignorant. Regard the quote from one of the attendees at this meeting:
“Once this curriculum is in place they will have to teach it, whether they agree with it or not.” Said David Logue, a deacon at Passion Church in Casa Grande. “Although I don’t have a lot of information on this, I am against it. It is ungodly.”
This deacon admits that he does not know much about it, but he is “AGAINST IT,” because it is “UNGODLY.” How can any intelligent person be against something, without even knowing what they are against? And to call it ungodly? What in heavens name is “ungodly” curriculum? Episodes like this are taking place all across the USA and they are not isolated instances. They are not random happenings. The right-wing politicians have been fanning the embers of discontent with the public schools in this country for some time now and the results can be seen at school board meetings in every state in the Union. No one is clamoring for more education about democracy and freedom of speech. Instead they are screaming because of things they know little or nothing about like Critical Race Theory and Diversity Education.
December 29, 2021
“Republicans eye new front in education wars: Making school board races partisan” by Andrew Atterbury and Juan Perez Jr. The assault on education today is not just about Critical Race Theory or Diversity Education. It is a war on school boards to help determine the course of American Politics. It is not a question of teaching students “how” to think, it is a question of teaching them “what” to think. Make no mistake, the conservatives and Republican Party want to turn the clock back on history. They want a one-party majority of white conservative reactionaries. They have a design for a “white” America free of the influence of minorities, women, the poor and the less educated. This design is not based on a balanced diet of hopes and dreams and visions of what America could be. It is not based on any concept of democracy by the people and for the people. It is based on a unilateral one-sided elitist view of what education is for and who should receive education.
“There’s still no equality in education,” said Young, a plaintiff in a lawsuit from the Southern Poverty Law Center to keep public money in two Tennessee school districts instead of diverting the funds to unaccountable private schools. “To me, it’s still a form of segregation.” — Weekend Read: 66 years after Brown v. Board, schools across the South still separate and unequal
The problem has been that good liberals and progressives have not realized that a war on education is being waged. This months Southern Poverty Leadership Report (Winter 2021, Volume 51, Number 4) has an article titled, “Calculated: The right’s attack on the U.S. education system.” The words in the title are very appropriate. The attack is “calculated.” The battle for school board partisanship is being supported by a coalition of conservative leaders — including representatives of the Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute.
The word “attack” is also appropriate. We are not talking about reform or change. Conservatives want nothing less than the destruction of public-school education.
“Anti-mask efforts are, in essence, anti-public education tactics, a wolf cloaked as libertarian policy designed to devour the public’s fain in public education…. The aim of undermining public education as schools are increasingly gutted of funding and support with each legislative cycle, is to make privatization more appealing than public education.” Calculated: The right’s attack on the U.S. Education system.
In Summation:
I have given you a chronology of my experiences and insights concerning some of the attacks on public school education by the political right. I started out by seeing the demise of public-school education due to its paradigmatic inefficiency at meeting the needs of twenty first century students. Along my journey, I found an all-out political assault on public schools by Republicans and conservatives. You might think I am being a hypocrite when I condemn the Republicans since I also condemn the current model of public-school education. However, my solution to providing a democratic education system is very different than what the Republicans want to create. I will talk more about this difference in the final part of this series on education.
“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
John,
I appreciate your observations on trends. As a parent you knew what was best and chose a different school; and today parents want to keep the school and change the curriculum. Your graphics emphasize each of your points. Seeing the discontent, the elite provide the alternatives in either charter schools or private schools. Catholic and other parochial schools, and religiously affiliated universities were for families who wanted to instill their religious beliefs while educating. Home education movement does the same. Again the monetary sacrifice to do so. The poor have no choice and tolerate what is given in “free”public education. — Socorro
I look out and see lawyers with Magna and Summa Cum Laude degrees from Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, and other Ivy League Universities who can fashion legal arguments designed to circumvent and pervert any sane person’s idea of justice. They have corrupted our Criminal Justice System into a Criminal Injustice System. The winner in a court room is the one with the most money who can hire the best and brightest lawyers. An argument by one defense attorney claims that a self-styled vigilante shooting three unarmed people is a tragic case of self-defense. Another defense lawyer for three murdering racists suggests that the victim in the case was shot because he had come to Satilla Shores “in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails.”
I look out and see corporate executives who will ignore the danger posed to the environment and climate because they can make more money today than by creating a sustainable system. I see too many people willing to “shop till they drop.” A materialistic mentality that supports the greed endemic in Corporate America. A focus on short-term thinking that drains the earth of the resources it needs for sustainability in order to reap mega-profits today. The “hell with the future” is the motto of Corporate America.
Is there any meaning to what I am seeing? Am I just getting too old? Is my brain incapable of understanding things anymore? Journalists are murdered because they report the truth. Innocent people are slaughtered while they watch a Christmas parade. A pregnant woman is shot eleven times on her doorstep. Fifty or more people rob a series of stores in what the news calls “mass grab fests.” A six-year-old child is killed in a car seat by some maniac with road rage. There is no bottom to the bizarre. No one can imagine what the next day will bring. All attempts to discover what is causing these problems or how they can be stopped seem futile. They are meaningless crimes without rhyme or reason in a world that George Orwell would never have imagined possible. Up is down, right is wrong, facts and truth do not exist, everything is fake. There is no sanity.
This morning while doing a 4-mile run in the Casa Grande Mountains, I thought a lot about his advice. I realize that much of what I have said above could be considered a rant. I would like to think it was somewhat of a catharsis. Another friend told me yesterday that I sounded like a man in despair. I resonated with the word despair. I regard optimism as ideologically unsound given our present world. Many people have advised me to stay hopeful. There is a fine line between hopeful and optimism. I am not sure I can manage the divide. Despair on the other hand fits my mood just fine. Despair is defined as: “The complete loss or absence of hope.”
We have elected people that will support an insurrection against free and fair elections. The most important element of Democracy. People that prefer to ignore that on January 6th, we almost had a coup against democracy in America. On November 17th, we had these same people vote to ignore the censuring of one of their comrades who parodied the killing of an opposition opponent.
I look out my window and see a public school system that is being dismantled by racists, bigots, elitists, and sexists who do not want the schools to actually teach anything that might be construed as controversial. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for trying to teach the children of the Athenian elite to think for themselves. Schools and educators are still being attacked for trying to teach children to think. How can our future generations create a better world when they are besieged with information that keeps them in a past that never existed and feeds them myths about the way the world works?
Will the USA survive? All great empires have eventually declined. It took 300 years for the Roman Empire to fall after it began its decline. We are witnessing the decline of the American Empire. How long will it take to fall is well beyond my ability to foresee. If history is any indication, it will take many years and the decline will be gradual but punctuated by episodes of tragedy and elation. The tragedies will far outnumber the elations. Study any system in decline and you can see the gradual disintegration that accompanies all declines. It is already clear that our Public Education, Political Systems and Legal Systems are in decline. Trying to stop the declines is futile. You cannot stop the decline of an old bridge or an old building. You must rebuild from the ground up. Sadly, I see neither the drive nor the desire to do the work that needs to be done to help restore democracy in America.
The abyss It is so big that there is no bridging it. None of the sides can see the other side. None of the sides has any common ground with the other side. None of the sides understands the language that the other side speaks. We might as well be earthlings talking to Martians. There is no lingua franca. Many of the “well-meaning” experts exhort both sides to try harder to bridge the gap or to work more diligently to listen to the other side. It seems to be assumed that all it will take to jump the gulf is good intentions. I cry bullshit on this. As the old aphorism goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It will take more than good intentions to heal the wound that infests our country.
The wants advertised on the TV and in the media are never fulfilling. We have a nation of brainwashed consumers who mistakenly think that more toys, bigger houses, more guns, and luxury cars will make them happy. We are a nation on a never-ending treadmill of consumer materialism where like rats we keep spinning the wheel and hoping to find happiness, but happiness never comes, and drugs take its place. 
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the tensions in society grow ever more divisive. We see more road rage, more senseless shootings, more violence between men and women, less loyalty between employers and employees. The underpinning of society that should be based on human integrity and morality is replaced with an opportunism based on an amoral value system. Whatever we can get as long as we break no laws is considered to be moral. We see most politicians that have no commitment to anything except to collect more money so that they can stay in office. Their highest goal is to help the rich get richer, which of course includes themselves. 
I am not talking about the devil here or about spirituality. I am talking about a kind of insidious propaganda that has been spread by many groups and individuals. In this propaganda, one side of America is labeled as moral, ethical, righteous, and just. The other side is the opposite. The other side is everything negative. The other side is a composite of all the demons and evils that Americans believe in. The other side are communists, fascists, atheists, anti-democratic, anti-patriotic and un-American. One side is good. The other side is evil incarnate. You cannot talk to evil. You cannot discuss with the devil why he wants your soul. You cannot debate with Satan over the values that he has. Heaven and hell do not have weekly discussion groups. The language heard today, and what the media publishes drips with hate, innuendo, and disdain. The language fosters violence. I doubt the Founding Fathers ever conceived that the First Amendment would protect such speech. There are three elements that contribute to a hate speech culture that demonizes the other side: 
Malicious labeling is the name calling that goes on between both sides today wherein each side is labeled. You can hear it on almost every talk show program in America today. Name calling and name labeling. Commie pinko leftists! Intellectual elites! Radical socialists! Racist rednecks! Fascist dictators! Politicians, commentators, newscasters, and radio talk show hosts all use malicious labels to insult and demean those they disagree with. What have we let this country become when we allow such name calling? This kind of hyperbole demonizes the other side and creates a divide that cannot be overcome by rational conversation.
I do not think that the Founding Fathers of our nation believed that Government was evil. Certainly, they felt that there could be too much government intrusion on the rights of the populace. They invoked certain safeguards to protect both human rights and states rights. Nevertheless, they did not demonize government and not a single one of the Fathers ever referred to government as evil. Edmund Burke, the famous English conservative said, “The government that governs best is the government that governs least.” He never said, “government was evil.” It has become common place to hear refrains denigrating the role and necessity of government. This steady drumbeat of antigovernmental rhetoric has created a group of people that have no value for government and who support the idea that government should be abolished.
A few years ago I began to wonder why groups like the KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, Antifa, The Proud Boys and many other such groups advocating violence against the government were not labeled as Terrorist Organizations. I asked a lawyer this question and he replied, “it is all politics.” I found that almost all the groups listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “hate groups” were designated as “extremist groups.” This means that they are not illegal, and they have the right to organize, march, rally and basically spread their hate across America. In 2019, The SPLC listed 940 hate groups across the USA. If any of these groups was labeled as a “Terrorist Group,” they would be on the same list as the Taliban, Boko Haram, The Mafia, Mexican Cartels and Al Qaeda. What is the difference between an extremist group and a terrorist group? It might surprise you to learn that a terrorist organization is defined as follows:
If this definition does not apply to the groups that tried to storm the US Capital on January 6th, 2021, I do not know what does. Just yesterday the Canadian government labeled the Proud Boys as a Terrorist Organization. This delegitimizes the group and takes their rights away. For Canada, it is a start. I am wondering when we are going to get started in the USA on such an effort. The First Amendment was never construed to allow hate speech and the advocating of violent actions to overthrow the government. Why do we not have the political will to outlaw these groups? We seem to have little compunction in penalizing Black groups like the Black Lives Matter Movement or the Black Panthers. We have a different standard when it comes to White Supremacy groups. 
The newspapers, TV and the Internet are today the major carriers for the hate and vituperation that has spread across America. On one side of the divide, we find the NY Times, the Washington Post and CNN News. On the other side, we find the NY Post, the Washington Examiner and Fox News. There are countless other purveyors of extreme and fanatical views. Each side reeks of headlines supporting nonobjective views and biased reporting. If objective reporting ever existed in the USA, it has been murdered and buried by the most pervasive media to ever exist. The media carries the hate and violence that is created by politicians, pundits, radio commentators and hate groups and ensures that it gets widely disseminated. Without the media, much of the divide would never have occurred. Hate needs a platform to be spread and the media is more than happy to host anything that it believes will sell itself and its advertising. 
Twenty-three years later, when Douglass gave his speech, the turmoil in the United States over the issue of slavery was growing. It had always been a major source of dissension in the United States, but things were coming to a boiling point. The Dred Scott decision had recently been rendered by the US Supreme Court. This decision held that black people were not citizens and that slaves could not sue for freedom. In March of 1857, James Buchanan was sworn in as the 15th President of the USA. Buchanan was no friend of the abolitionists and he joined the Southern leaders in attempting to admit Kansas as a slave state. He strongly supported the Dred Scott decision and today he would be considered an ardent racist. The contrast between Lincoln who was elected four years later and Buchanan in terms of their policies towards slavery was the final straw that led to the Civil War.
Today we are witnessing a descent into tyranny and demagoguery the likes of which have never before been seen in America. We have a President who lies whenever he speaks. We have a Republican party that abhors social justice and will do everything they can to suppress the rights of Americans to vote. We have a base of supporters for Trump that are racist, fascist, and anti-democratic. Lured by whatever sirens they listen to; they support the right of Trump to do whatever he wants to do. They call him their Messiah and voice unconditional support for his attacks on the press, minorities, immigrants, women, blacks, Latinos, disabled, foreign countries and even the disabled. A President who is willing to sacrifice thousands of lives to support his quest for a second term.
required be different? Could children hear the same frequencies as rats?
seem like there was any long-term strategic plan here.
Most of what people learn about Marx is far removed from his actual ideas. Given that Capitalism has been diametrically opposed to the very name of Karl Marx, it is not surprising that he is routinely disparaged. Even at the University level, it is rare to find anyone studying Marx very deeply. Many educators and instructors describe Marx’s economic theories as “Totally Discredited.” Few people in America have any good words for Karl Marx. Any politician in the USA who might suggest that Marx ever said one good thing or had one good idea would court instant political death. Marx is the devil in our Capitalistic system.
Marx did of course hate capitalism. He saw Capitalism as a system that exploited workers and allowed the greedy to benefit at the expense of those less fortunate or less aggressive.
The antipathy directed towards Marx and his critique of Capitalism has discouraged any real in-depth understanding of the limits and myths of Capitalism by most Americans. Capitalism resides in America on the same level as Mom, God, and Apple Pie. Woe to anyone who would dare to attack Capitalism. In the United States, Capitalism is as hallowed an institution as Christianity. In fact, most Christians think that Capitalism and religion go hand in hand, which to a large extent they sadly do. Unfortunately, not all Capitalism is the same. In America, we have a home-grown version that is more appropriately called Corporate Capitalism. What is the difference you might ask? Well it gets even more complicated since economists define four types of Capitalism. These are: 
Over the past 40 years, the Supreme Court has radically expanded constitutional rights for corporations. The original charters for corporations written in the late 19th century, allowed corporations powers never before seen in companies. The abuse of these powers soon led to a considerable amount of legislation designed to reign in some of the most egregious of these abuses. Laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed in 1890 to stop monopoly practices and the Clayton Antitrust Act passed in 1914 to stop unethical business practices were somewhat successful at ameliorating corporate abuses. Unfortunately, corporations were still left with considerable power to thwart the goals of democracy and good government.
Corporate interests easily dominate the interests of the common person. The common person has nowhere near the financial clout of corporations. In 2010, the Supreme Court passed the Citizens United Decision which gave corporations unlimited power to finance and support political candidates running for office as well as to lobby on behalf of any laws that they wanted. This decision basically upheld the idea that corporations had a right to free speech much like any citizen of the USA and that campaign spending was simply a manifestation of free speech. Corporations are now being treated as living breathing people despite the fact that corporations can live forever, and corporations are not organic entities. They are not born, and they do not die like any other creature on the face of the earth.
One of the most popular movies in the eighties was Wall Street. In the movie, Michael Douglas gave a “Greed is Good” speech which was actually applauded by audiences all over the United States. Some corporations have been sued by stockholders for not being greedy enough.
There have been many theories proposed for the policies held by Trump and his Republican supporters. They include “Greed Theory.” The Republicans are held to be greedier than most people and only want to accumulate as much money as they can. Another is “Hate Theory.” This theory holds that since most Republicans are White European in ancestry, they loath and detest any people who are different then they are. This includes Asians, Blacks, Indians, Latinos and any immigrants not from Europe.
About a week later, I was substitute teaching in a Casa Grande High School. I drew an eleventh-grade social studies class. The teacher had left an assignment wherein the students had to find certain terms and concepts associated with the second industrial revolution and write definitions for each of them. Included among such terms as: robber barons, corporations, patents and trusts was the term “Social Darwinism.” One of the students asked me to explain it beyond the simple definition she found on line. I tried to recall my ideas relating to this concept from many years ago. I gave her my explanation and then later I looked up the definition at Wikipedia. I was struck at how well my memory had served me. It was at that point that the proverbial light bulb or blinding light of inspiration hit me. I suddenly realized that the Republican Party was not just trying to create elite systems but they were also trying to build on the theories of Herbert Spencer. The following excerpt explains this theory very well as it applies to many current concepts such as: trickle down theory, privatization, corporate welfare and tax reform.
So, there you have it. Trump and the Republican Party are not greedy, hateful or fearful of others, they simply do not believe that you have a right to anything unless you are also rich and successful and White like they are. Based on the concepts of Social Darwinism, they have the right to whatever you have if they can find a way to take it away from you. If you cannot keep it, that means you are inferior. If you are inferior, you have no right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. According to Social Darwinism, the elite will eventually Trump the poor because they are stronger, smarter and more fit. This will eventually result in a society wherein everyone is fit, and everyone is trying to screw everyone else.
Aging Capriciously 