[Vision2020] A 5% percent pay cut

[Ted Moffett]

Joe Campbell philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Sun Feb 6 14:32:31 PST 2011 wrote:

http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-February/074507.html

Post in full at website above:

"I'm against colleges in general and state universities in particular
becoming trade schools. We already have those kinds of institutions. Real
education, and how best to make it available to the general public, is a
much more complicated and difficult matter than you imagine it to be."
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Of course.

To argue otherwise is to woefully dismiss some of the essential
functions of education, which cannot be reduced to economic variables,
or or least the sort of economic equations which are often employed in
the world of business, banking and finance, that do not include
externalities essential to the full development of being human, and
the full consideration of the implications of the profound scientific
truth that the Earth is a living system which humanity is dependent
upon, as a subset of the system.

Perhaps my points here have already been made in the "5% pay cut"
thread, which I have not followed extensively.  If so, I apologize for
the redundancy...

Jan. 8, 2011 I wrote:

http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-January/073763.html

"If making valid probable evaluations of the truth of a given complex
difficult subject, whether it be foreign policy, economics and taxes,
human rights, scientific issues, etc. is not possible for
non-specialists without a PhD., then the public very often could not
make informed educated votes to determine the best course for society.

We perhaps should adopt Plato's model, where society is run by
committes of PhD. experts (I hope I am not too greatly distorting
Plato's thoughts).

And if not, if we are to defend the assumptions of
Democracy, then a broad based education offered broadly to the public
is mandated for the very health and foundation of Democracy, so that
the public can make valid informed evaluations of complex issues when
they vote."
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I'll expand on these comments with specific examples of the serious
consequences of the failure to educate the public with a broad based
education that develops independent critical thinking skills, on a
wide variety of subjects, that impacts how they vote, thus how their
representatives vote, and the legislation or lack thereof that is thus
passed into law:

Propagandists manipulate the US public in 2002-3 with scare tactics
about non-existent WMD in Iraq (the "mushrooom cloud over America"),
encouraging an invasion and war that has cost the US dearly in lives
and treasure.  Read what I wrote on Vision2020 Jan. 20, 2003, prior to
the invasion of Iraq, where I offered my top ten reasons for the
invasion: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2003-January/000218.html
"But what, you might say, about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq
sponsored terrorism?  I think any realistic analysis of these threats
exposes them as minor, blown way out of proportion to be used as moral
justifications for what is nothing more than good old fashioned imperialism.
Numerous other states are more of a threat with weapons of mass
destruction and sponsoring terrorism."
---------------------
The public is manipulated to accept deregulation of Wall Street and
banking by voting for politicians promoting capitalist free market
fundamentalism, resulting in the greatest economic collapse since the
Great Depression:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magazine/28wwln-reconsider.html
"Their near-religious belief in the powers of the market led them to
conclude that the mere fact that a company was willing to make an
investment made that investment O.K."
---------------------
The public is manuipulated by the promotion of junk science and junk
science journalism, into a widespread belief that the scientific
community is engaged in massive fraud or/incompetence on the issue of
anthropogenic climate warming, resulting in legislative inaction to
mitigate a problem that will have immense negative impacts.  "Climate
Cover Up" by James Hoggan exlores this issue:  'How to Manipulate
Public Opinion"
http://knowledge.allianz.com/?547/climate-cover-up-how-to-manipulate-public-opinion-hoggan
----------------------
In the past 16 years, numerous US states passed DOMA or Super DOMA
laws, unconstitutionally discriminating against a group for their
sexual orientation, promoted in large measure by religious groups who
believe that a book with numerous contradictions and exhortations to
commit cruel acts, contains the perfect word of God:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_mar6a.htm
----------------------
Numerous other examples of the harm to society resulting from a public
that does not possess a broad based education that develops
independent critical thinking skills, on a wide variety of subjects,
could be offered...
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett