Sirota: Election '08 Meets the Great Education Myth

[antigop]

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/election_08_meets_great_education_myth

As I said to start, the Great Education Myth is a corporate creation. It exists to distract the public from demands to change our trade and economic policies so as to raise up all workers. If Big Business can get us all to be mad at the education system alone, then theoretically we won't demand serious populist reforms of an underlying economic system that is currently benefiting the Big Money players in Washington, while crushing the rest of us.

Now, the whole Great Education Myth is hitting the presidential campaign trail. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have announced their support for the NAFTA-expanding Peru trade deal all while - rather shockingly - engaging in a true Theater of the Absurd by continuing to tell union audiences that they oppose the NAFTA trade model. John Edwards, by contrast, has come out strongly against the Peru deal, and yesterday issued a statement tying the upcoming Senate vote on that trade deal to the Great Education Myth and the Economic Policy Institute's report. Here are some excerpts:

"Today, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report that should come as a clarion call to everyone concerned about the impact of unfair trade agreements and practices on America's working families. In their report, the EPI concludes that between 25 to 30 million American jobs -- about one in five American jobs -- in states all across the nation, are at risk for being offshored over the next decade. And it's not just manufacturing jobs - the report shows those jobs that require at least a four-year college degree are actually the most at risk. This report makes clear what the labor community has known for far too long: bad trade deals, cheap foreign labor, illegal foreign subsidies and foreign currency manipulation are having a devastating effect on American workers...Given this reality, I find it alarming that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have chosen to support a flawed Peru Trade deal that will only further expand the NAFTA-model that has already cost us well over a million jobs."

[Demeter]

1. As If Re-Education Will Stop Outsourcing

Tell it to the computer nerds!