Liberal Arts

With Mitt Romney Out Of Race, Scott Walker Vs. Jeb Bush Seems Like The Presidential Race Leaders For The GOP!

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With Mitt Romney out of the race; with his statement that a new generation of leadership (a knock against Jeb Bush) should lead the Republican Party to victory; and with Scott Walker seen as impressive at the Steve King promoted Iowa Conference of Tea Party and Right Wing forces; and new polls showing Walker gaining by Romney’s dropping out, it seems clear that the frontrunners for the moment, at least, in the Republican Presidential race are Jeb Bush as the Establishment figure; and Scott Walker as the Koch Brothers-Tea Party-New generation inspired alternative.

The situation will, probably, change often over the next year, until the Iowa Caucuses on February 1 and the New Hampshire primary later that month, but for now, we seem to have a choice between another Bush, who is clearly competent but turns many people off on the fact alone that he is a Bush; and the arrogant, cocky, egotistical Governor Scott Walker, who now has declared his desire to destroy the “Wisconsin Idea” concept of higher education developed under Governor Robert LaFollette Sr a century ago, and pursued for the past century by both Republican and Democratic Governors, and supported by most Wisconsin members of Congress and the state legislature, putting Wisconsin in the forefront of educational standards nationally.

Instead, Walker wants liberal arts education to be dropped, and instead promote “work force” education only, a system that would fulfill the Koch Brothers desire to move young people away from an education that promotes thinking, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, tolerance, and open mindedness. This is the equivalent in many ways of the thought control process in the old Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and must be opposed with every last ounce of strength by those who see the danger to education presented by Scott Walker and his cronies!

Even if one finds Jeb Bush objectionable in many ways, the goal must be, IF the choice is between Bush and Walker for the Republican Presidential nomination, to defeat Walker at all costs, as a man dangerous to our future, and totally unqualified in foreign policy, as proved in a recent interview. The man is a menace to our future political system!

War On The Liberal Arts In Florida, Texas, North Carolina: The Promotion Of Dumbness!

Ronald 1 Comment

The right wing Republican Governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have declared war on public funding of the liberal arts at the state university level in their states!

Considering that poverty is very high in these states, and educational attainment is lower than in the Northeast, Midwest, and Western states, it is clear that the Republican Party in these Southern states wants to keep people dumb, and prevent the promotion of skills that are essential for a good productive life–like reading, writing, analyzing, and simply THINKING!

A person who gains a college education with little or no exposure to the liberal arts is a person denied basic knowledge and appreciation of the great contributions of mankind over the millenniums!

To say that no one needs to major in anthropology, or literature, or history, or classics, etc is to declare war on intellectual pursuits, and it is clear that we have many people coming out of college ready for the technical and business worlds who have no basic communicative skills, but are simply robots who cannot read, write, analyze or think clearly!

And to say that different fields of knowledge are unworthy is to declare war on the whole point of education, to make people better human beings, not just train them for a field of work that might, very likely, disappear over the course of a work life!

To gain intellectual skills is to gain vision, gain a sense of humanity and compassion, and to have a quality life, not one only judged and based on materialism and greed!

These governors—Rick Scott, Rick Perry (and his likely successor, Greg Abbott), and Pat McCrory–prefer stupidity and ignorance, as that makes it easier for them to pursue their right wing goals to undermine the future of their states, among the lowest in achievement, and bound to get worse with this kind of damaging attack on the liberal arts! They are only out to promote the top one to two percent, and want a work force that is unable to compete in a way to advance and, actually, challenge the establishment elite!

Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it! We still need anthropologists, historians, poets, playwrights, artists, musicians, and others in the liberal arts, as part of a humane society, and no student should be denied the opportunity to major in any of these or other liberal arts fields, and they are often better educated than those who come out of colleges with no exposure to the liberal arts!

There is a need for a strong reaction to this detrimental attack on basic human knowledge by the scholarly community!