Here is the startling truth
about America's biggest national security problem
by Brian Karem, Salon
With apologies to Paul Simon, and despite
all of the information available to the mortal man, there are still millions of
Americans who currently believe they're gliding down the highway when in fact
they're slip slidin' away.
As President
Biden prepares to travel to Europe to meet with the Pope and our NATO allies
next week, there remains a huge national security problem for him to grapple
with, one that hasn't been addressed in any meaningful fashion for many years.
It is the root
cause of our problems with China. It's why some people don't want to get
vaccinated. It's why some people still gleefully follow Donald Trump. It
explains why Congress can't get together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with
infrastructure, health care and gun control. It's why we have problems
understanding climate change. It explains voter suppression. It's why
"critical race theory" has become controversial, why elements of our
population on the left and right are at war with each other and why some
believe the earth is flat and the Holocaust didn't occur. It's why some of us
believe we're still the "No. 1" nation in the world when — other than
having the largest military — we clearly lag behind other major nations in many
critical factors. More than anything else it explains why we fail.
The United
States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs,
unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education.
And the lack of education in this country is such
a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week
as a critical issue for our national security. "I do consider it a
national security problem," he told me during a White House briefing on Tuesday.
"In fact, it's Dr. [Jill] Biden who has repeatedly said — and the
president frequently quotes her — that any country that out-educates the United
States will outcompete the United States, and that is a fundamental national
security issue.”
NPR reported Tuesday that, in part because of
COVID-19, we have 500,000 fewer students enrolled
in colleges this year. Does anyone really think we can compete in the modern
workplace with just a high school education?
I coached high
school football for many years. I can tell you firsthand that the quality of
education of the "average" student today would have been below the
level of a remedial education when I was in high school. There are scores of
students who are functionally illiterate as well as scientifically and
mathematically illiterate, and have no idea how government works or what their
responsibilities in a democracy are. Many scream about "rights."
Fewer understand responsibility.
Many are hoping
and praying to find a menial job where they can "survive," and rarely
do they dare to dream they might thrive. Many cry out for universal health
care, but don't believe we'll get it. Some don't even understand how to get a
decent salary, paid medical leave and other benefits, let alone how joining a
union could help them accomplish those tasks. They don't know what socialism or
capitalism are — other than thinking that one is bad and the other is American.
They don't know our history, have no view of the future and are moribund in a
present they fear, hate and don't understand.
We have to do
better. The reasons are clear. Biden is correct: Without a competitive education,
we sentence our progeny to industrial servitude while those who are educated
amass power and wealth. Look around. We're in a new space race with China.
We're behind in hypersonic technology. Our scientists say we must have a
nuclear rocket to beat the Chinese to Mars, but millions of people believe
that Clorox might treat the
coronavirus. Some even tried it.
Biden wants to
provide free or affordable post-secondary education, and has pointedly reminded
us how useless a mere high school diploma is today — and that frightens some of
us. George Carlin warned us that the overlords of society want you smart enough
to operate the machinery, but no smarter than that. Some believe that to be
true. Others in Congress tell us that such educational outlays in the budget
are cost-prohibitive — while at the same time nodding reflexively each time we
increase our bloated military budget.
This is not a
recent development. Our dedication to education has fallen steadily during the
last 40 years — and like most of the rot that has occurred in this country, I
place the blame at the feet of Ronald Reagan and the ultra-conservatives he
used to get elected and that he helped bring into the mainstream.
If you don't
want to accept that Reagan was a feckless fool who destroyed unions, education,
the free press and health care, and took us down the road to ruin, then look at
the stench stirred up by George W. Bush and his infamous "No Child Left
Behind" education policy.
That moronic
mantra became every child left behind, creating an entire generation of
Americans who were taught how to pass tests — but never how to think
critically.
Many of those
children who grew up being trained to pass tests are adults now and beginning
to populate mid-level management positions in the American workforce. They have
become part of what H.L. Mencken described as a "vast and militant
ignorance" a century ago, which reminds us that arrogant ignorance isn't a
new phenomenon — only that No Child Left Behind exacerbated the problem.
"Team America World Police" and "Idiocracy" look more like
documentary films than satire these days.
What's the most
striking example of the lack of education? Two words: Donald Trump.
And I have one
real question I'd like answered: Will someone please stop sending me emails
from Donald Trump and his children, relatives, underlings and minions, begging
me for money and guaranteeing me private time with the Donald?
Don Jr. even
sent me an email telling me he was going to tell his daddy if I didn't give
some amount of money NOW! I also got promised a football if I contributed to
Donald Trump — who isn't even officially running for office yet, but certainly
has honed the art of conning people out of their hard-earned cash to a
laser-like precision.
I know dozens
of other White House reporters who are apparently on the Donald's email list,
and none of us signed up for his systematic harassment and panhandling. He's an
internet stalker and homeless vagrant rolled into one. Apparently the former
president took the White House correspondents' email list with him when he fled
D.C. Since I'm also getting email from the Sarah Sanders campaign and a few
other close Trump associates who hold office, I can only assume they are
sending me their scatological musings because Trump has shared the email list
with his itinerant, angry, brain-dead acolytes.
They all send
me content designed to make the uneducated howl at the moon and scratch
themselves like a junkyard dog with fleas. These "press releases"
from Trump's moronic disciples are met with yelps of pleasure from their fans.
Poor grammar and spelling aside, these fecal releases usually make no sense and
appear to be the mutterings of simpletons who've ingested tainted
hallucinogens.
The idea that
the most qualified candidate in the Republican Party for the highest office in
the land could once again be a guy who was impeached twice and encouraged us to
ingest Clorox and shine ultraviolet light inside our bodies — that's
something even an overabundance of psilocybin in your bloodstream can't
explain.
But a lack of
education explains all of it, including but not limited to Jim Jordan, Matt
Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Our lack of
education is the single greatest threat to the existence of our nation. Jake
Sullivan is right: It's a national security issue.
"And
though my lack of education hasn't hurt me none/ I can read the writing on the
wall," Paul Simon also told us.
Today, I'm not
sure how many people can even read that.