Extreme polarization
in American politics has become the norm, and it’s wreaking havoc on public
education.
The old labels of conservative and liberal must be set aside. “Conservatives” are intent on conserving
nothing. These so-called conservatives—at least the most ardent of the tribe—are
actively working toward resegregation of U.S. society not only along racial and
ethnic lines but also along economic lines. The destruction of public education
is one way they are trying to achieve it. This objective can best be
characterized as an iteration of greed capitalism. The philosophy is not “I’ve
got mine, you get yours” but rather, “I’ve got mine and now I want yours.”
Greed capitalism is
rooted in fear, and there’s been plenty of that to go around. Although the
1990s brought nearly a decade of growth and prosperity, that happy time was
disturbed as the world moved with mythic anxiety toward the turn of the
century. Y2K was a boogeyman. Much of his boogeyness was steeped in a deep
distrust of technology. The Digital Age didn’t arrive like the rosy-fingered
dawn. It raced in with bells, sirens, and flashing lights. If you were content
to live in some prior misremembered Golden Age, say, the Fifties, such a clamor
represented a threat that, for all its subsequent banality, seemed all too real
to many people at the time. New technology then and still today raises the fear
of change.
And then, of course,
there was the all-too-real assault on U.S. sovereignty of the terrorist attacks
of 9/11. Given a political hysteria already stoked by other forms of fear, it
was no surprise that overreaction was the order of the day. Two ill-considered,
illegal, and largely unnecessary wars torpedoed prosperity and plunged the
country into massive debt, while policies favoring greed capitalism set America
up for the economic knockdown of 2008, just when the country ought to have been
recovering from its excess of imperialism.
So-called liberals
experienced a fleeting resurgence in Barack Obama’s politics of hope, which
were a reaction to the then-dominant politics of fear. But the 21st century’s
not-so-great depression put some holes in hope, and the election—and
reelection—of a black-identified President, of course, fueled the poorly concealed
racism inherent in greed capitalism.
Today’s liberals
would have been middle-of-the-road conservatives in those golden Fifties. A
virulently radical rightwing cadre under the big tent of putative conservatism
has dragged the entire body politic to the right. If there are any ardent
leftists remaining, they are plowing their organic fields well away from the
fray. If true, honest-to-Eisenhower conservatism has been subverted by the
radicalism of greed, then true FDR liberalism has been subverted by apathy and,
ironically, a reemergent sense of hopelessness.
The American
Founders, by and large, well understood the dangers of absolute democracy, such
as strict adherence to majority rule. A tyranny of the majority has always been
a real threat. Democracy in the New World could succeed only on the basis of a
social contract: government for the common good. Of the people, by the people,
for the people—accent on for. This is
the essence of our civil democracy—not socialism, as rightwing critics accuse.
A cornerstone of the
common good has been, since near the beginning of our nationhood, public
education. Truly public education is
premised on notions of equity and equality. The common school is a reification
of the common good, providing everyone the opportunity to achieve success and
prosperity to the extent of his or her abilities and efforts. In attending to
the common good, the Founders were focused on the notion often expressed in the
cliché about a rising tide lifting all boats. When all prosper, the nation
prospers. When prosperity is privileged, the nation falters.
Rightists give a
wink and a nod to “democracy,” “Christianity,” and other wholesome notions and,
in so doing, have hoodwinked a substantial segment of the population into
believing that what’s good for the rich is good for everyone. Gold-enthroned
televangelists have nothing on these purveyors of the greed-is-good philosophy,
for whom there is no common good.
Common is for commoners. Greed capitalists are creating an aristocracy of
wealth. In 21st century American politics money rules wherever good people have
been fooled into voting against their own best interests, something you'll
never catch a greed capitalist doing.
So where does that
put public schools? Smack in the middle. They are the red flag at the center of
the rope in the socioeconomic and political tug of war, pulled this way and that.
Adherents of the Founders’ vision of democracy tempered by social conscience
are fighting to retain public education as the means by which the American
dream can be realistically offered to everyone—no exceptions.
Greed capitalists
and their dupes are pulling hard in the opposite direction, using vouchers,
charters, and “choice” sound-good rhetoric (and accompanying legislation) to
ensure a permanent, and growing, economic underclass—serfs for the aristocracy.
The gulf between the wealthy and the impoverished in the United States is
astonishingly large in comparison to other nations in the developed world.
America has now become a shining example not of democracy realized, but of
democracy imperiled.
Those who believe in
the American Founders’ vision of a social contract, of the common good, of a
land of opportunity must grasp their end of the rope and tug with increased
fervor. Make no mistake, the opportunists of greed are doing just that from the
opposite direction. The battle to keep universal public education public is a
battle to save American democracy.
