World Affairs and American Public Education: Why We All Should Be Concerned (Charleston, South Carolina, is 'Proof')

June 25, 2015. Post Script. In the Shadow of Charleston, SC shootings. [ref., Perched Eye, June 25, 2015]
This postscript deals with a recent terrible shooting murders in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015. That event that is not something to be proud of as a human, but it bears out this writer's warning..in a sad, gothic-surreal way.

It seems that much of the sentiment in this original post was made real by the mass shootings (and killings) of 9 African -American church goers on June 17, 2015, at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Pericles21 emphasizes his shock (and concern) that 'anyone' with an ounce of analytical ability and common sense should not have seen 'Charleston' coming and should not have been surprised by the identity and profile of the shooter, a recently-turned 21, white 'man-child'- poor, a school drop-out and societal castoff, an abandoned and innocent soul set adrift by defunded public services (notably, public education) in a sea of right-wing media sharks without the mental acuity equipment to swim away from danger, falsehood and the deliberate distortions voiced by the extremist media stars (Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter,the Fox News crews, the KKK, the Conservative Citizens Councils, etc.).

Finally, Pericles21 sees the Charleston shootings as 10 innocent persons (the 9 murdered church goers and the shooter) caught up in the modern american whirlpool of ignorance, profiteering and loss of a regard for the 'Common Weal' which could have prevented the mental erosion and vulnerability of the shooter, Dylann Roof.

Dylann's story and Charleston's tragedy is a modern American tragedy that could have been prevented but wasn't because a trail of persons (politicians, profiteers, extortionists, etc) chose the easy 'Way of the 7 Deadly Sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

The 'shooter' was/is Dylann Roof, a recently-turned-21 white youth, by looks a 'man-child',...poor, very much undereducated, ...then abandoned by 'society' to be netted by the fact-distorting, extreme right-wing hate mongers one finds freely wandering the radio and TV airwaves...claiming the wondrous ability to make complicated issues (especially race in America)'simple'. What makes this event surreal (in the true American tradition of gory surrealness, ala Natural Born Killers) is that the shot-at victims invited the shooter to first sit with them at Bible study, not knowing his intent to shoot them. To add to this Hollywood-like script, the shooter described to police later that this act of open kindness almost convinced him not to carry out his macabre plan...but his 'resolve' won out. So, no modern 'Amazing Grace' to bring down the curtain.

The message is reinforced by the terrible picture in Charleston June 17 - What has happened to America's concern for the Public Weal, most notably in the form of public education and family services?

A final comment: 'WHEN IS THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR GOING TO END?'


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America has its 'good' and 'faults', and the rest of the planet is critically affected by both aspects of America. America operates by a democratic election process that leads to a legislative-leadership structure that formulates national policy. Consequently, America's foreign policy - international interests, international friends and allies, willingness to militarily intervene in other countries affairs - is at its roots, dependent on the intelligence and awareness of the American public about world affairs as well as 'at-home' problems and needs.

In turn, the general intelligence and awareness of the American public is strongly shaped by the American education system which leads to the final point - can the rest of the world (and no doubt America itself) sleep easily knowing that the most powerful and influential culture on the planet has a significant number of its population who believe in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian 'Bible' wherein the world was 'created' only 7,000 years ago and who believe that fossil records showing dinosaurs lived millions of years ago are deliberately falsified lies perpetrated by political progressives intent on (1) destroying fundamentalist Christianity and (2) along the way to destroying Christianity, destroying America's the euro-racial (i.e., 'white' population).

This logic makes the problems within America's public education system a concern not only for America but for the entire planet.

First, education is perhaps the most important aspect of a developed nation today. Life is complex and requires insightful and trained minds to comprehend global issues and then, to resolve them.

Second, America is still the dominant nation economically and is arguably THE major influence shaping global culture ...and values.

Third, with all the above influence-factors, plus by virtue of it's armies and defense budget, America is too powerful a determining factor to the physical safety and sanity of the globe to have major issues in the education of Americans. Yet, America is failing to educate itself with the result that American beliefs are erroneous and are increasingly simplistic, isolationist, and xenophobic (race, nations, geographic regions).

Fourth, America has problems with its public education system. IMHO, America began to abandon and defund its public education system beginning with the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s with the racial integration of public schools. America showed it could not adjust to a diverse population reality as compared with the unreality of enforced (and forced) racial segregation after the Civil War followed by the Jim Crow era which operated to unofficially but effectively restore the pre-war racial separation under slavery, especially in the 'public' service sectors that includes 'public' education. This issue has not been resolved. Moreover, in some ways, much of America has managed to re-verse itself from the Civil Rights era and resurrect old segregation patterns in the public schools. This reversing trend has been aided and made quicker by the added devices of school 'vouchers' and 'charter schools' which operate much like private schools yet receive public funding.

Along with the increase in charter and school voucher programs has come the most dangerous kind of academic 'freedom' - new opportunities for special-belief charter schools to receive funding for erroneous beliefs that would not have been taught in the days of strong, professionally rigorous public school systems with synchronization from the Department of Education in Washington, DC.

It is as if American education threw up its hands and gave up on the challenges and needs of diversity and open desegregation, and said, 'OK, you local neighborhoods, fix things yourselves. We (Wash, DC) only want some nominal bow to national education goals ..about which we don't know a solution.'

America needs to solve this. But, overall, it appears to me the biggest problem with American education is the lack of a national perspective on what is the purpose and content of its school teaching, and the interference (or local dominance) from religion and regional 'prejudice'.

The gaps and faults in our lacking a consistent national education program seems a 'down side' of the American version of democracy which opens up the formatting of school curriculums to states and cities and towns with distinctly different 'beliefs' that can over-reach into curricula taught in the classrooms of America.

An example of the consequences from the lack of a national consensus on education is the morass America currently experiences with creationism vs evolution. There are varying, and hotly debated, school philosophies in America on that subject and in some parts of Americat 'Creationism' is winning, or has won, over evolution. One fears how detrimental the supremacy of Creationism will be to the children who are receive an susch an education.

And these differences in education emphases seem to arrange around geographic 'poles' in America.

These poles are first, geo-political, i.e., 'Red (Republican Party, conservative, southern and formerly rural, rebel states that lost the Civil War)' vs 'Blue (Democratic Party, progressive, coastal and more northern, urban-industrialized winners of the Civil War)' states. Then there are divisions by race, economics, religion, gender tolerance, etc.

America suffers from a 'relativity dissonance' in that there is no national ethic or agreed-on scientific principle set that unites the country on just about any of these subjects. This is maybe the downside of a democratic society where 'laissez faire' marketism (so called 'free market') dominates almost al thinking about just about all topics, including education.

This 'laissez faire' replacement of science and logic seems to be the current substitution in America for a national ethic. Until this 'laissez faire' creed is tempered or is replaced by a more considered, real policy/ 'philosophy of state' the American education system will continue to be fragmented and drift.