The Fight for What's Left and The Race to Destroy It

Two editorials in one day:

Michael Klare warns on: Energy Wars Heat Up

James Hanson tells us it's: Game Over for the Climate

How do we End It? With "the Bang" or with the "Warm Whimper"?

Education? Only If Economically Justified !

Economics professor ...

Peter Morici talked on 5/3/2012
about his Des Moines Register article
on the value of a college degree
in comparison to tuition costs,
accrued debt, and salaries earned after graduation. He said that employers require college degrees
for jobs that do not pay enough to justify college costs, in part due to high schools' failure to adequately prepare students for the work force. He urged incoming college students to major in science fields, which pay higher salaries and provide specific job skills.

IMHO, his advice is a perpetuation of the Doctrine of "the Wealth of Tunnel Visions".

The idea is that everyone
randomly takes his or her
own path of specialization
and then
out of this sum of random actions,
together we form a seamless
network (no holes or gaps)
of ingenuity for tackling
all the world's problems.

There are no cracks in that theory.
Are there?

We are raising one generation after the next of of narrow-minded "specialists".

Few will have a broad enough of a mind frame to take in the big picture.
Few will grasp what is going on overall within our civilizational system (our civilizational complex).

So what happens?

We will have a mass of narrowed minded specialists who are each incapable of engaging in "(truly) critical thinking".
(More on (truly) critical thinking here, here, here, and here,)

Each holds the hammer of his trade.
And every problem is merely a simple nail to be tacked down with a swift and thoughtless smack down of the specialist's one and only tool.

Our problem is y=f(x)?
No problem!
I went to Z school.
"The ANSWER" is Z101 (the basic course in my Z school).

1) For the "economics" specialist, the answer is this:
[free markets]

2) For the "politics" specialist, the answer is this:
[compromise]

3) For the "business" specialist, the answer is this: [BAU]

4) For the "technology" specialist, the answer is this: [the singularity]

Oh and BTW, Thanks-Not for your Dys-Service

In a far off and
dystopian future,
we will be brain droned into
saying, "Thank you for your service"
every time we see a fellow citizen in uniform.

Mind you that I am in no way talking about the here and now.

After all, we live in "America", home of the "free speech"-ifiers and of the brave and of those who blink not when speaking truth back into the face of Homeland securing power.

Our Founding Fathers did not shrink from challenging the Homeland securing red coats of their day.

Was it not Patrick Henry, when spotting a British Redcoat in uniform, who said, "Oh and BTW, FU for your Dys-Service"?

So why not say it again today?
Why not challenge the brain droning palliatives of our day?
Why ask not, what has my country done for me recently?
(Other than sucking financial well being out from every orifice the TSA can find in my body?)
Am I better off today than I was before 9/11?
Or are the fear factor centers in my brain being played?
By them who know how to push those buttons?

The "Hunger Games" are Now

Top Topic of the Day= The "Hunger Games" are Now

The above linked-to HuffPo editorial scores some strong points.

Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and political wars in the "Capitol") are distracting Survival Island games which oppress and kill the poor while keeping the 1% in their one percentage strong hold.

Our Easter Island political system is driving us toward self-annihilation.

We are divided into warring factions (Dems versus Repubs versus Aliens and Predators).

Which Sci-fi writer of the 50's and 60's foresaw this dystopian present?

We have met the Krell, and they are us.