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Doubling-Down on Dumb: The GOP War on Being Smart - Peter Smirniotopoulos
http://govinthelab.com/doubling-down-on-dumb-the-gop-war-on-being-smart/Were supposed to be exploring every conceivable alternative for turning the domestic economy around. So why are Republicans, at state and federal levels, waging a rhetorical, legislative, and administrative War on Education?
At the state level, Republican governors like New Jerseys Chris Christie, Floridas Rick Scott, and Wisconsins Scott Walker have been cutting funding for public schools, community colleges, and/or state colleges and universities. Moreover, Christie and Walker have demonized teachers unions, often punishing them severely with budget cuts for teachers and administrators salaries and benefits.
At the federal level, House Republicans continue to pick on the U.S. Department of Education as a source of purported deficit-reducing budget cuts. Head Start and Early Head Start programs have been targeted for decades by Republicans for substantial cuts in funding or de-funding altogether. And on July 1st the interest rate on Stafford student loans will double, from 3.4% to 6.8%, on outstanding student loan balances.
But whats most-striking is that pretty much since the start of President Obamas candidacy for the 2008 presidential election there has been a consistent theme among conservatives, particularly on the far-right and those who identify themselves as Tea Party members that education, and being educated, are bad things.
Class and race provided a subtext to Obamas campaign. Projecting an image of black middle-class respectability, Obama understood that displays of emotion, especially anger, put him at risk of being framed as a thug. (Note how the Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has used this tactic, referring to his administration as gangster government.) Paradoxically, Obamas opponents also used his Ivy League credentials, cerebral manner, and air of relaxed confidence to accuse him of being, in Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmorelands words, uppitya term historically used by whites to disparage African-Americans considered too smart or successful for their own good. Race, Class, and Obama, August 28, 2011
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Doubling-Down on Dumb: The GOP War on Being Smart - Peter Smirniotopoulos (Original Post)
swag
Mar 2012
OP
Icicle
(121 posts)1. This has been going on at least since the 1970s
The Republicans need a bunch of people who believe propoganda, don't question authority, and can be talked into voting against their own interests.
The smarter the electorate is, the less votes the Republicans get.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)2. The 1960's convinced the Repubs that higher education is a liberal stronghold
And they decided to attack it, just like they have done with Unions, the media, and social help groups like Planned Parenthood. All part of the same plan. Destroy or subvert/take over.
saras
(6,670 posts)3. They were right, too. ALL CIVILIZATION is a liberal stronghold. Just sayin'
Archae
(46,343 posts)5. Even before that.
Isaac Asimov wrote an essay "The Cult Of Ignorance" that took attitudes especially from the entertainment media to task, for their disparagement of education.
Just look at the 1952 presidential election, Eisenhower was "One of the guys" against an "egghead," Adlai Stevenson.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)4. I would call it the GOP war on common sense and logic.
recommended.
Kablooie
(18,638 posts)6. When people actually learn about things they tend to become liberal.
When they have no clue they are easily turned into right wing parrots.