My letter to Congressman John Kline re: H.R. 4170

Lately I've been doing my small part in the political process by putting my name on various petitions, and communicating my opinion to Federal and State representatives. This invitation came to my inbox via signon.org.

There's a bill before Congress now, H.R. 4170, The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. The amount of debt that students are taking on is staggering. The fact that they're allowed to assume as much debt as they do needs scrutiny; doesn't this remind one of the subprime mortgage fiasco? In any case, these students will be defaulting on their loans in massive numbers, because the burdens of debt are unaffordable. The fundamental problem is that state universities have become too expensive for students from low-to-middle income families. Another problem are the commercial colleges that are in many cases a ripoff.

Here's what I wrote to the Chairman of the House "Education and the Workforce" committee:

Chairman Kline,

Please hold hearings on H.R. 4170 as soon as possible. The amount of student college debt held by recent graduates is a scandal in a prosperous country like ours, and doubly scandalous when compared to many European and Asian countries.

We Americans need to do more to support our smart and ambitious students. A democracy without educated citizens cannot stand. The rate of increase in tuition costs at state universities presents an insurmountable burden for students from low-to-middle income families. If we want to keep the American dream alive, we must make college affordable and accessible to motivated students.

Please move forward with the Student Loan Forgiveness Act, which should have strong bipartisan support. Compare the cost to the very expensive and nearly pointless wars we have recently engaged in, and we should see clearly by that comparison how we can pursue the public good with sensible economic policies that support education and the lives of working people. We should be talking more about supporting the public good, and affordable quality education should be at the forefront of that discussion.

As liberal democracies decline into fascism...

I love this Daily Show.

What more can I say?

Well, since you asked, I'll try to be succinct:

Democracy requires an informed, educated, active, healthy and nourished population. As our newspapers and new outlets succumb to journalistic mediocrity and underfunding, there is a natural tendency for journalists to collaborate with corporate and government interests in controlling information and the cultural narratives. It is the most basic aspect of human nature to cower before authority, to seek protection and guidance from leaders. The challenging of authority and questioning of the accepted world-view is a perilous undertaking and usually regarded as a threat of the highest order. That, my dears, is why Socrates was put to death.

As people become less educated and informed, they become easy subjects for manipulation by those who wish to exert power and control. The means of that control is to use fear to encourage citizens to willingly surrender their freedoms and rights. You can read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine to see how cataclysmic events and engineered false flag operations are used by governments and autocrats to grab control.