Last Friday, Steven Pinker, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, wrote a long – very long – opinion article for the New York Times, about the attacks by the Trump administration on the school.  He looked at the issue, in part, from the perspective of a psychologist, calling the attacks related to a “Harvard Derangement Syndrome,” and noted, as well, “Psychologists have identified a symptom called ‘splitting,’ a form of black-and-white thinking in which patients cannot conceive of a person in their lives other than as either an exalted angel or an odious evildoer.”
 
To show his fairness on the subject, Prof. Pinker opened his analysis by presenting his bona fides criticizing his school, providing a laundry list of articles he’s written that have taken Harvard to task.  So, he has, indeed, been very fair-minded. 
 
He is also, in this article, monumentally misguided.  And just utterly horrible at his sense of timing.
 
In his effort to be seen as fair, Dr. Pinker offsets his defense of Harvard by sprinkling throughout his long (very long) article such comments as “Yet some of the enmity against Harvard has been earned.”  And “Another area in which Harvard’s shortcomings are genuine, but seeing it as all bad does not help in the long run…”  And “Though Harvard indisputably would profit from more political and intellectual diversity…”
 
Steven Pinker is described on his Wikipedia page as “a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.”  Dr. Pinker is a very bright man, who writes here in scholarly detail and at great length about Harvard strengths and just as pointedly about its flaws.  I hesitate to say “thoughtfully,” though, because (while it attempts to be that and succeeds on the surface) it totally misses the forest for the handful of flowers.
 
What he misses is that none of the attacks against Harvard by Trump and those echoing him are about whether Harvard would profit from more political and intellectual diversity.  Or whether Harvard’s shortcomings are genuine.  Or how much of the enmity against Harvard has been earned.  The attacks are because Trump and MAGOPs hate Harvard.  Because it’s Harvard.  If Harvard had no flaws, they would hate Harvard.
 
Trump is presenting himself in his attacks against Harvard as a Great Defender of Jews Against Anti-Semitism.  The very last thing anyone needs is Trump as a defender against Anti-Semitism.  Trump is arguably (bordering on inarguably) the most Anti-Semitic president the United States has had since the start of the 20th Century.  Perhaps ever, but my awareness doesn’t stretch back that far, so I won't make the claim.  The only time that we know of Trump ever defending anything Jewish is when he stated that he only wanted Jews doing his financial books, because he has an anti-Semitic stereotype they’re all good with money.  And for his MAGOP acolytes and enablers to also huddle close to him in their own supposed defense of Jews against anti-Semitism transcends pathetic and repugnant, since they and much of the Republican Party for well-over the past half-century has been in the forefront of promoting anti-Semitism.  Consider:
 
When the base of your party is Christian evangelicals, and when the reason that base supports Israel fervently is because of the Rapture – the epochal event when all believers in Jesus as the Savior will be brought to Israel and rise up in the air to be with Jesus, and non-believers (which, of course, includes all Jews, unless they convert) will be engulfed in flames to burn and cleanse the old world, marking the End Times – then trying to present yourself and your party as being the great defenders of Jews against anti-Semitism is a combination of mass self-delusion, soulless hypocrisy, and running an eternal flim-flammery con game.
 
Keep in mind that when Trump's words and actions signaled to his MAGOP base that it was okay to smear and attack minorities, all such attacks went up, and anti-Semitic attacks against Jews went up significantly.
 
Keep in mind that Trump – while trying to position himself as wanting to protect Jews from anti-Semitism – is the same venal anti-Semite who for the past eight years has relentlessly and publicly tried to define to Jews who Jews are, and that if they didn’t support him, then they weren’t real Jews.
 
The last thing anyone Jewish  --  or anyone who has even simply heard of Jews, or for that matter, has just seen a bagel -- needs is Trump telling them anything (anything!!) about being Jewish.  Then and now and ever in the future.  I’m not sure if an exorcism would even be able to redeem Trump from his anti-Semitism.  It may be too ingrained in him.  
 
And Trump is trying to scam the public into thinking that he is trying to destroy Harvard all and only because he wants to defend and protect Jews!!!

By the way, if Trump himself truly believed what he is trying to say about how actual anti-Semitism is disqualifying, then he would resign from office.
 
Trump doesn’t care about anti-Semitism and protecting Jews.  His Attorney General and DHS Secretary pushing his efforts don’t care about anti-Semitism and protecting Jews.  His spokespeople don’t care about anti-Semitism and protecting Jews. His loyalists don’t care about anti-Semitism and protecting Jews.
 
Trump hates Harvard.  Because it’s Harvard.  And anyone who even just tries to figure out Trump’s "thinking" of why is on a fool’s errand that risks getting them sucked deep into Trump’s void.
 
And meanwhile, Dr. Steven Pinker writes a long (monumentally long – so massively long it makes my own articles seem like paragraphs) detailed article of dialectics and “splitting” and earned enmity of Harvard and Harvard shortcomings and how Harvard would profit from more political and intellectual diversity – as if that’s what this is about.
 
Consider:
 
To supposedly defend Jews against anti-Semitism, Trump wants to freeze $2 billion to Harvard meant for medical research and for funding teaching hospitals like Mass General and Boston Children's Hospital, and wants to ban all foreign students, 27% of the student body, from attending Harvard.  Issues that Steven Pinker himself notes.  (And worse, this is before the news just this morning that Trump has issued a new statement that he wants to cut all federal contracts with Harvard and cut an additional $3 billion in funding -- though without explaining where such money would be coming from, since federal contracts with Harvard don't come close to that amount).  Yet while Dr. Pinker bends over backwards so far that he can touch his chin on the ground behind him and while getting himself and his readers lost in the interminable length of his explanations of Harvard’s "earned enmity" and good deeds and all his analysis, he totally misses that Trump and the MAGOPs attack on Harvard is about absolutely none of that.
 
Nor are Trump's assaults against all the other universities he’s attacked and frozen billions of dollars medical research funding from.  Nor is his effort to close the  Department of Education.
 
That’s what this is about.  Trump hates Harvard.  Trump hates elite universities.  Trump hates education.  This is not hyperbole. You need only look at his words and actions.

Further, you need only remember, too, that Harvard is a private university.  This isn't Trump individually trying to control the federal government.  This is Trump wanting to impose his rule, enabled by the acquiescent MAGOPs in Congress, on all institutions, public and private.
 
And Dr. Pinker – in what he thought would be an erudite, well-developed presentation of how we must not conflate some flaws into meaning all flaws and on and on and on and on and on (and on and on) about enmity and splitting and psychological analysis – merely serves to give ammunition to those who hate everything he himself does and stands for by him pointing out all the things Harvard has not done perfectly, just exactly like all humans have not done perfectly, which allows Trump and his MAGOP enablers to justify their hatred and justify their efforts to crush medical research that benefits all mankind and tear apart international outreach for education.

None of which has anything to do with anti-Semitism or protecting Jews.  In fact, what such punitive actions actually hurt most is the government itself and ultimately society, since the billions of frozen research grants for things like heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's is money the federal government not only wants outside facilities to spend, but needs them to because the government doesn't have the ability to do all the research.  So, that the United States can stay the world leader in such development, rather than cede such leadership to other countries, most notably China.
 
At some point in time, a long (very long) article by Prof. Pinker on the strengths and weaknesses about Harvard might be very apt and even valuable.  Unfortunately, this is not that point in time. 
 
Because at this point in time, he totally missed the point.
 
And in missing it, he did himself and his issue a huge disservice.  And harm.

Yesterday, Trump issued an Executive Order to dismantle the Department of Education.  He didn't order it eliminated, but that's because he's not legally able to -- it was created by Congress, and only Congress can get rid of it.  Not that Trump won't do what he can to get around this...or that the MAGOP-controlled Congress won't let him.

Over the years, I've reposted articles I wrote long ago about how the Republican Party has had a "War on Education" for almost 75 years, if not longer.  Back in February, I posted one of them here.  I thought today would be an awfully good time to repost another of them -- one which I wrote 14 years ago for the Huffington Post, that had the pithy title "The War on Education."  Where or where did I ever come up with such an offbeat phrase as that...??

And to be very clear, this is not about Trump, but the elected MAGOPs in Congress.  I know that I often say that, added that they don't just enable Trump, but are the ones who actually, literally vote to pass his policies and make them law.  And in doing so, make his policies theirs, as well.  And that holds true here, as well.  But -- what adds to that is how actually, literally the Republican Party has not just been pushing this War on Education for 75 years, but members of Congress have actually, literally voted to get rid of the Department of Education.  Really.

Note the passage in the article below, written in 2011 -- "Last year, 111 Republican senators, congressman or national candidates were on record to abolish the Department of Education. "

So, this isn't about Trump.  It's about the elected MAGOPs in Congress.  And a 75 year War on Education by the Republican Party, long before MAGOPs were a twinkle in their eyes.

Look, I know that no one likes to be called stupid.  But it seems to me that if you like to be painted as being smart, then at the very least, at its most basic, you shouldn't support a party that has promoted stupidity by attacking education for 75 years.  And if that's too hard, then not enabling your leaders to get rid of the Department of Education is an even easier place to start.

So, here then, from 14 years ago -- December 1, 2011 -- is just one of the many tales of how Trump ordering the dismantling of the Department of Education is nothing new, and not just about him.  It's who the MAGOPs and Republican Party have long been.

It may read like a story from yesterday,  it's 14 years ago.  And it could have been longer.

                                            The War on Education
                                               December 1, 2011 
 
Several years ago, a conservative fellow I was talking with got into a lather about a criticism he often heard.  “Why is it,” he asked, “that liberals always say that Republican politicians aren’t smart?”
 
I politely avoided the quick answer.  Besides, it wouldn’t have explained things properly.  The truth is that “Republican politicians” aren’t remotely stupid.  And there are plenty of Democratic politicians who are head-banging idiots.
 
That doesn’t mean the ball field is equal.  It’s not.  And conservatives only have themselves to blame for the rules they wrote and have been playing by for over half-a-century:
 
You Can’t Trust Really Smart People, Education Gets in the Way of Common Sense, Science is the Enemy of Religious Faith, College is for Over-privileged Elitists, Facts Matter Less Than What You Believe.
 
Those are the familiar rules that Republicans created.  But it’s only the starting point.  Because after making the rules, they played the game. 
 
When Adlai Stevenson ran again Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952, the big criticism that Republicans launched against Stevenson was that he was “an egghead.”  Meaning, he was much too smart to be trusted.
 
When John Kennedy was elected president in 1960, Republicans disparaged him for filling the White House with his “Harvard Mafia.”  Meaning, there were all these people so smart they were scary dangerous.
 
After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he put college students high on his Enemies List.  Meaning…well, that one’s pretty obvious.  Especially considering that troops were later sent onto the campus of Kent State, and four students were shot dead.
 
In 1988, the first George Bush campaigned for president as “the education president” – yet in a speech to service workers in Los Angeles explained it wasn’t necessary to go to college.  This was an absolutely valid position, but spoke volumes from a leader supposedly promoting education.
 
When the second George Bush was president, he trumpeted his “No Child Left Behind” program – and then under-funded it, leaving those very schoolchildren far behind.
 
In 1996, the Republican Party platform stood for abolishing the Department of Education.  
 
Last year, 111 Republican senators, congressman or national candidates were on record to abolish the Department of Education. 
 
This only touches the surface of the ground-and-air war against education that conservatives have been playing.  A relentless pounding against the importance of education, to reject facts, ignore history, dismiss science.  To mistrust the news media.  When information is diminished, it requires needing to rely on others.  It demands having faith that others will lead you safely.
 
Indeed, it is no accident that conservative politicians court the religious right as their party’s base.  Religion is centered on belief, on unquestioning faith.  And that is the path to unquestioning faith in everything.
 
It is no wonder that New Yorker author Ron Suskind reported a Bush White House official ridiculing those who live in “the reality-based community.”
 
It is no wonder that the far right dismisses the science of global warming.  And when science offers the breadth of cures from stem-cell research, we saw the far right fight the science. 
 
And it is no wonder that conservatives cry to see Barack Obama’s report card, hoping the mere suggestion will demean his impressive education that includes being elected president of the Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
 
If one doubts this, consider that you never heard Republicans demand to see George Bush’s college report card.  Or called for the report cards of John McCain – who graduated 894 out of 899 students at the Naval Academy.  Or insisted that Ronald Reagan release his report cards from Eureka College, where he did theatricals.
 
Yet Republicans made Ronald Reagan a conservative god.  And it had zero to do with his education.  And y’know, it didn’t even have as much to do with his conservative credentials, given how often he raised taxes, massively increased the national debt, signed a bill for amnesty to illegal immigrants and, as governor, signed an abortion rights bill. He might not be able to get past the primaries if he ran today.
 
Many conservatives don’t realize all these things about Mr. Reagan’s politics, but then…well, that’s the whole point of education, which teaches you how to learn such quaint things.
 
But when you are told for half-a-century that you can’t trust smart people and science, you end up with a party that lays itself open to a leadership vacuum. 
 
And so, at one time or another, we get Donald Trump, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, a pizza guy and even Sarah Palin leading the pack for the Republican nomination.  And now Newt Gingrich, who, as Paul Krugman put it, is a “stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.”
 
No doubt, some will be up in arms by how supposedly-elitist this all is.  Of course, wanting everyone to be as educated as possible is the exact opposite of elitism.
 
But then, calling others “education elitists” is one of those standard, conservative rules to demean education.  Which proves the point.
 
Which brings us back, finally, to my conservative acquaintance wondering why liberals always say that Republican politicians aren’t smart.  The problem is that he was looking at the wrong thing.  This isn’t a matter of who is smart.  There will always be people much smarter than you, me and even the smart people.  Reading about a Francis Bacon, Voltaire, Galileo, Denis Diderot or Benjamin Franklin can only make one feel breathtaking awe.  Republicans and Democrats are both bright and foolish.  What this is about is the intentional, driven campaign for 60 years of Republican Party leadership to intentionally downgrade the importance of education.  And what results from that when a party does such a thing to itself.
 
In short, it’s simple:  if you don’t want to be angered when your candidates are perceived as less than brilliant, then promote brilliance.  Don’t make it your platform to abolish the Department of Education.  Don’t claim that opinion supplants fact.
 
Ultimately, though, there is something far more important at issue than mere politics. 
 
Will Durant, with his wife Ariel, wrote the legendary Story of Civilization.  Eleven volumes, over 8,000 pages of discovery that remains today insightful, even-handed and remarkable.  And after they finished, they put together The Lessons of History.  Written over 40 years ago, in 1968, its perception is as fresh as any news headline you will read.
 
“Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign.  Education has spread, but intelligence is perpetually retarded by the fertility of the simple.  A cynic remarked that ‘you mustn’t enthrone ignorance just because there is so much of it.’  However, ignorance is not long enthroned, for it lends itself to manipulation by the forces that mold public opinion.  It may be true, as Lincoln supposed, that ‘you can’t fool all the people all the time,’ but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.”
 

On Tuesday, the morning of his Address to Congress, Trump posted the following.  It got some attention, but not much because of his speech, and so it landed someone hidden in the weeds.

For the life of me, I’m still trying to figure out what an “illegal protest” is.
 
And that’s before we get to Trump not only wanting to expel students who were “illegally protesting” (again, whatever on earth that is), but expelling them permanently!  Which he believes he can do because the government…no, sorry, I haven’t figured that one out either.
 
And…and not just expel students permanently, but imprison American students who protest on college campuses.  And not just deporting foreign students on visas, but departing them permanently. For protesting illegally.
 
Left out of his tweet is what exactly an “illegal protest” on a college campus – or anywhere – is.  Which seems like an important detail to leave out.
 
And all that is before it kicks in that this fascist proposal is from the leader of the self-proclaimed party of free speech.
 
And that’s before we get to his “NO MASKS!”  So the leader of the self-proclaimed party of personal freedoms is not telling Americans what they can wear.  (By the way, I’m not sure how this “NO MASKS!” policy will play with white supremacist groups who regularly cover their faces on marches and at rallies with masks so that they can’t be identified.)
 
And while calling for the arrest of students at “illegal protests” (??), even that’s before we get to remembering that Trump signed presidential pardon for 1,500 people who actually, literally were convicted of crimes, hundreds of them violent, after a protest over a legal election being handle fairly.
 
(I note it was for actions “after” a protest, since no one was arrested on January 6 for just protesting, but rather for illegal acts, like entering a government facility without permission and causing physical damage to government property – not to mention assaulting police officers.)
 
And this is before we get to protest being literally the foundation of the United States of America, starting a rebellion to break off from England.  Not to mention it being literally the foundation of the Confederacy, as Red States seceded from the Union which began the Civil War.

All this from someone who said he was "king" and wants to be a dictator.
 
Still, my favorite part of the pure fascist, dictatorial tweet calling for the arrest, permanent expulsion and permanent deportation of protestors…and basically bashing students, Americans, and free speech over the head with a lead pipe, is Trump’s last line, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
 
Hey, politeness counts!  The only thing missing was him asking for your “kind attention” – which someone far more attuned to politeness would not have let slip through.
 
And, of course, it came just days before word comes that Trump is about to call for getting rid of the Department of Education.
 
It seems unlikely that Trump is going to push this any further than this, and so it’s not going anywhere.  But the larger point is that, once again, Trump shows loudly and crudely who he is and what he wants.
 
And every MAGOP in Congress must understand that this is their leader who they have pledged fealty to, and are complicit in it all.  Because Trump knows he can go full fascist without worrying that his party in Congress will disagree with him, making his positions theirs.

 
Among the many of the MAGOP’s greatest bugaboos, I've long thought that its "war on education" may well be at the top of the list.  Hard to imagine, I know, given how so much the base of the party gets its information from a source that is not only literally anonymous, but says so in its very QAnon name.  A segment of the base that truly believes that JFK is going to come back from the dead.  And that Anderson Cooper eats babies.  But then, since their dear leader Trump hatefully refers to the mainstream media (which is called that because it reports facts, has standards and requires confirmation from sources) the “Enemy of the People,” it pretty much follows.  And the result is that they believe him blindly and drink deep at the no-news, no-education, "Ignorance-Only Here" well.

I know that nobody likes to be called ignorant.  But then learn, study, demand confirmation, demand standards, require evidence, check multiple sources.  However, if you choose to think factual news is the "enemy."  And that there are "alternative facts."  And that JFK is coming back to life to run with Trump.  And that you can get real information from a totally anonymous website.  And think immigrants are eating pet dogs and cats despite every town official saying it's untrue and there's zero evidence.  And think drinking deadly bleach will kill COVID rather than you.  And choose to give up your own thought process and instead just totally believe everything from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies, found liable of rape, and found guilty of fraud who psychologists say has dementia.  And more and more and more -- the result of all that is ignorance.  There's no other proper word.
 
The thing is, and this is the important point, it's been the way of the Republican and now MAGOP party for the past 70 years – an active, ongoing effort against education:  keep as many people as possible ignorant, not knowing what to trust or who to trust, and you can bamboozle them with anything. And alone can fix it. This may have first occurred when Republicans slammed the 1952 Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson for being “an egghead” – y’know…smart.  And then slammed the next 1960 Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy (before the base believed he’d have to come back from the dead) for having advisers Republicans disdained as “the Harvard Mafia” – y’know, smart.  And their own party leader Richard Nixon got elected in 1968 and put students on his Enemies List – and it resulted in students at Kent State University being shot to death.  (No word from today’s MAGOP base if they think those students will come back from the dead.)  I’ve written about this repeatedly through the years, so it’s no surprise to seeing it being brought up yet again now that the party in all its hubris thinks that this is a good thing.
 
The other day, Trump 'efficiency' co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy (and dear Lord, what a title that is and how ghastly that it’s held by two flim-flam, uber-arrogant, fascist con men, along with Elon Musk) was on CNN.  Since Trump has talked about his dislike of the Department of Education, Ramaswamy was asked whether the two crackerjack “efficiency” mavens would suggest closing down the department.  He danced around the question, but -- rarely having met a fully-developed idea he didn’t like -- answered, “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated.” To which he added “So yes, we expect all of the above and I think people will be surprised by, I think, how quickly we're able to move with some of those changes given the legal backdrop."
 
Actually, I think it’s Ramaswamy who will be not just surprised, but gobsmacked flabbergasted by how slowly he’ll be able to do pretty much anything, most especially given the legal backdrop.  (We’re still waiting for Trump’s big, beautiful new healthcare plan that he first announced seven years ago is coming in just two weeks.)
 
But it has perhaps been MAGOP Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction (which some consider an oxymoron) who has been doing his best to push this concept for the Trump administration.  As a guest on CNN, he began to pontificate that “This country was the greatest country in the history of the world, was built without a federal department of education. It was a one-room schoolhouse that helped forge some of the greatest minds in the world.”
 
And what more do you need?  Because there you have it.  This one, simple paragraph is perfect, pure MAGOP doctrine from a party that has been demeaning education for 70 years.  There he is, trying to make the point in today's world of computer processing, 24-hour news channels, and world information and history available online at a person’s fingertips, we should go back to the Little House on the Prairie and one-room schoolhouses, with a school marm teaching six grades of students together.
 
Yes, you read his self-aggrandizing, weepy statement correctly.  That was not satire from The Onion.  Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, is actually arguing against education!  This better than almost anything explains why the state of Oklahoma ranks – (take a guess, I’ll wait… Hint: you can't guess too low) -- #50!!  Yes, last!!!  Dead last.
 
(No word yet if MAGOPS believe Oklahoma education will come back from the dead.)
 
You can check it out here.  I’m not lying.
 
For all of Mr. Walters' attempt at faux-patriotic flag waving, this country was also "built" on allowing slavery and not giving women the vote. I certainly hope he isn’t proclaiming that those are the foundational standards we should maintain.  Furthermore, without arguing whether or not the United States is "the greatest country in the history of the world," it was not "the greatest country" at its birth.  It's growth took time for a brand new, developing nation, one that had to compete with developed countries and cultures that had head starts of a thousand years -- or more.  Even accepting Mr. Walters' argument, the United States didn’t begin to mature and reach its greatness as a majestic world leader until probably after the Civil War.
 
Fun Fact:  The Department of Education was created in...1867!! If people like Ryan Walters studied history they’d know that. As much as such people – including the Ramaswamys, Musks, Trumps and MAGOP haters of education want you to believe, and perhaps believe themselves, the Department of Education is not a “Woke”, new-age concept.  It’s been here for 147 years!  And it is a significant part of why the United States reached a point where the Ryan Walters all around us call the U.S. the greatest country in the history of the world.
 
That said, the MAGOP pushing ignorance, pushing anonymous information sources, pushing actual news as the "enemy" is what risks tearing that greatness apart by getting us to the point where Google Trends actually reported that on Election Day, the search query “Is Joe Biden still running for president” began trending at 8 AM and peaked at midnight – only to trend again the day after the election!

I know people don't like to be called ignorant.  But sometimes, there's no other word for it.
 
And just to give Ryan Walters a farewell topper, this Christian nationalist (and yes, I’m sure so many of you are “shocked” to learn this…) actually, literally issued a mandate that all teachers in Oklahoma must show a video in their classes of him praying for Trump.
 
Yes, really.

 
                                     Every Child Left Behind

Several years ago, I had a realization: conservatives don't care about education.  

It's a generalization, I admit.  And sounds outlandish.  Yet for the past 60 years, conservatives have made crystal clear their utter disdain for education.  Hoping to convince others.

It began in 1952.  When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president against Adlai Stevenson, the contemptuous attack Republicans made was that Stevenson was "an egghead."  Someone who was really - smart.  And you just can't trust those smart people.

In 1960, when Richard Nixon ran against John Kennedy, the Republican blast was that JFK was advised by his "Harvard Mafia."  Smart people.  So smart that they were dangerous.  And you can't trust those smart people who go to good colleges.

When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he hated those smart people who go to colleges so much that students made his Enemies List.  And later his "get tough" policies on student dissent (including wanting the Secret Service to beat up protestors) resulted in Republican governor Jim Rhodes sending armed troops sent the campus of Kent State University -- and four "enemy" undergraduates were killed.

In 1988, George Bush claimed to be "the Education President" - yet on an campaign stop in Los Angeles told a rally of service employees that not everyone had to go to college.  A valid sentiment, certainly, but for a candidate supposedly promoting education, it leaked his true feelings.

And in 2000, George W. Bush failed to fund his "No Child Left Behind" education program.

It's continued for 60 years, as conservatives have demeaned public education, pounding away at the national consciousness that learning for the masses is a bad thing to be scorned and mistrusted.

There's an understandable - and historic - reason for this, of course, because the less educated the public is, the more it relies on authority figures, rather than question anything.  And the more that education is disdained, the less that inconvenient facts will be believed.

And so, instead, we get an attitude that challenges any assertion of education with a contemptuous, "So, you think you're better than the rest of us??" - conditioning people to wear with pride that they know less.  In all other areas of life, we want the best.  We want more riches, more success, to be faster, stronger, cooler - better at everything.  Except, after 60 years of conservative pounding against education, not to be as smart as we and our children can be.

And while this conservative effort has been surreptitious over the past 60 years, it's finally released itself:  open, unrelenting Republican attacks in Wisconsin against teachers - teachers, for goodness sake! - and a widespread Republican war against education.

In Florida, $3.3 billion has been cut from education over the next two years, almost 15% from the education budget to our children.  While $1.6 billion has been given in corporate tax breaks.

Texas has proposed $9.8 billion in cuts in education assistance to school districts.  (Bringing a loss of 100,000 jobs.)

Wisconsin cut $834 million from state aid to K-12 education over the next two years.  That's 20% of the proposed cuts in the budget.  And cuts to teacher pay and pensions.

We have always heard the praise that teaching is the most important job.  That teachers are preparing our most precious resource, our children, for the future.  How teachers are underpaid heroes.  But from the other side of their hypocritical mouths, conservatives will slam teachers as lazy slackers with three months of vacation, overpaid plunderers of public pensions - and for 60 years desensitize the public for stripping away public education.
 
And now, they couldn't be any more clear:

Last Wednesday in Iowa, three prospective Republican presidential candidates bluntly stated their condemnation of public education at a home schooling rally.

"The public school system now is a propaganda machine," said Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX).  "And they condition them to believe in so much which is totally un-American."  Like, apparently, the Pledge of Allegiance.

"It is not up to a bureaucrat to decide what is best for your children," insisted Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who home-schooled five children.  "We know best."  Except about U.S. history.  Home teacher Bachman recently placed the cornerstone of the American Revolution - Lexington and Concord - in the wrong state.

"That's all we want," said Herman Cain, a prominent businessman testing a GOP presidential run. "For government to get out of the way so we can educate ourselves and our children the old-fashioned way."  Note:  "the old-fashioned way" included one teacher for six grades in one room, few women and minorities, and teaching math with an abacus.

But it was left to the event's host, Justin LaVan, to explain plainly how so many conservatives truly see education.  "Talking about our Creator.  Our rights that came from our Creator, acknowledging that and giving Him the glory."  Of course, that's why God invented church.  For educating children to succeed in a global community where others are learning science, history and geography, it's a disaster.  If prayer worked in school, every kid would get straight-A's.

And in the end, that disaster is what conservatives have long wanted from education.  No need to learn anything.  No public education.  Just private schools and home schooling.  Which is the end of an educated nation.  

Private schools limit education to those who can afford it.  Home schooling limits education to families where one parent can afford to stay home.  While hoping that the parent completed high school.

This is known as every child left behind.

But for conservatives, that's okay.  The wealthy and privileged will get their children a great education.  And the rest of America?  You're on your own.

Public education is what helped make America the envy of the world.  A nation of well-informed citizens.  Leading the way in the space race, technology, finance, and medical advances.

But conservatives? They want to go back to "the old fashioned way."  Like the Dark Ages.  Where kings and the aristocracy ruled.  And you peasants, obey thy overlord.  

Make no mistake, this is nothing new.  The attack against education is the drug that conservatives have been pushing through history.  

In this case, "the other night" is last Sunday, so this is the right night, just a week late.  Though, actually, it's really more like a few nights late because the show now doesn't post its episode until Thursday.  However, I wasn't able to get to it until today.

The Main Story here is School Lunches -- and it's a very good, interesting one -- filled, of course, with a lot of good humor.  The point of it all is the policies that many school districts have that make it either difficult for families in need to participate, or onerous for the children.  All with the overriding awareness that studies regularly show clearly that when children are in class with a full stomach, they learn significantly better.
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Don’t become a vegetarian.
 
Israel does have a right to exist.
 
Putin is the bad guy.  Not Zelensky.  

The Philadelphia Eagles are the bad people.  Not Saquan Barkley.
 
Whenever you are told something by a politician or college administrator, always keep these questions in mind:  Who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my body or my money, what words to use, or how to think?
 
Always do the right thing and try to help people.  It will always come back to snap you in the ass in some way.  Just enjoy the drama.
 
Never say anything bad about a person behind their back.  Say it to their face.  Your life will be so much richer.