Is saving class privilege a priority?

As the financial crisis deepens and wars drag on without end our children's education is taking the biggest hit. Currently, states and districts across the country are cutting millions if not billions from their budgets - firing teachers and putting further strain on our precarious educational system. During the next three years it is estimated that states will cut 18.5 percent of their spending to accommodate for the worsening economic crisis. Evidently, our politicians believe it more important to funnel taxpayer dollars into Wall Street coffers, ostensibly so that these same corrupt banks responsible for the crisis can save us and our economy by lending back to us, with interest, a fraction of our money, than investing in the education of our children so that future leaders will be wise enough to circumvent such crises. Also more important than education apparently is feeding our pathological addiction to military might, with our total military spending equal to that of the rest of the world combined. It seems we just can't do without endless war and 700-plus overseas military bases, no matter how our children suffer. But perhaps the most blatant absurdity is that, given our dire reality, some politicians refuse federal aid to ensure proper education because it goes against their bankrupt ideology. Governors like Sarah Palin reject stimulus funds not because their states don't need the money, but because their ideological devotion to "small government" (which applies only to social spending, and not the military) and "market-based solutions" trumps human need. So what does this prioritizing of war and greed over the needs of our children say about us? Are we really devoted to life, liberty, happiness and knowledge or are we more concerned with maintaining global hegemony and class privilege? Our political and corporate elite have done much to destroy our present; must we let them destroy our future as well?

Charles Tyler

Wheaton