POLITICAL SCIENCE MUST BE ADDED TO HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM

The only solution to America’s legendary political ignorance lies with its public schools.

I HAVE CONTENDED for decades that far too many Americans are extraordinarily naive and overly susceptible to falsehoods when it comes to their understanding of politics.

I first put this assertion in print in a column I wrote for my old college newspaper. And sadly enough, the electorate — over the past 30 years — has just continued to build more evidence in support of my case!

Without at least a basic knowledge of our political system — not to mention the underlying economics behind it — voters are easily sold on virtually every piece of propaganda that is thrown their way. And believe me, propaganda in politics is as common as Jesus in Christianity!

And it is for this very reason that we got straddled with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for eight agonizing years. It is why the masses were sold on the Iraq War, presented  to them under completely false pretenses.

But even more pertinent, this is how they bought into Ronald Reagan’s “Voodoo economics” — the way it was described by former President George H.W. Bush before being chosen as his rivals running mate in the 1980 election.

Reagan convinced America that its economic woes were due to the  regulation of  Corporate America, which he maintained needed to be given more room to breathe. By doing so, he contended, they would create more jobs and the wealth would “trickle down” to the working class.

So with the support of John Q. Voter, Reagan began the lengthy process years ago that took Big Business out of the light of scrutiny, while offering them major tax breaks and incentives.

The result was a bunch of  buyouts, takeovers and mergers that eliminated much competition that for years kept pricing competitive. So the corporations got rich, but not a penny “trickled down” to the middle class or poor.

And how did he pay for this: by dismantling social programs that had helped the most impoverished, disabled and underprivileged Americans.

But then when Bush Sr. succeeded Reagan, the cracks in the system grew noticeably, throwing the country into a major recession — one that was undeservedly blamed on Bush and cost him his reelection bid in 1992.

Then came eight years of Bill Clinton, who left office and the nation with a multimillion dollar budget surplus — the first in over 25 years — and more new jobs than people to fill them.

Geometric logic would have dictated an easy win for his vice president, Al Gore – also a progressive thinker. It was a foregone conclusion a year earlier that Gore could handily beat any opponent the Republicans chose.

Yet, the voters –  in complete contradiction — moved 180 degrees to the Right and elected the inarticulate Bush Jr. Almost immediately, “W” reemployed “Reaganomics,” almost bankrupting the country, while starting two wars without exit strategies.

With a great deal of hard work and creativity, Barack Obama’s campaign team convinced the public to  restore a Democrat to the White House in 2008.

The current president, as both a candidate and president-elect, warned the people it would take at least two years to see any progress on the economic front. He did so a third time as well just weeks after his inauguration in front of a joint session of Congress on national television.

Although the voters — who almost predictably flip-flop in opinion polls every other day — seemed to both understand and accept the Obama plan and timetable, it was only a matter of months before the GOP propaganda machine convinced them he was failing. And in the past few months, they ran scared and gave the Republicans victories in a few governors races as well as the Massachusetts special election to elect a replacement to finish the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s term.

So this is the American electorate: uniformed – or at the very least misinformed —  and gullible.

But there is a solution: let’s educate our kids as they are growing up as to what makes the system tick. Let’s mandate a political science course to the high school curriculum and henceforth give our newest voters at least a basic knowledge about core political concepts: how special interest groups operate, as well as corporate influence on the people they elect allegedly to carry their will.

Let’s teach them about the Constitution and how the Supreme Court which interprets it depends solely on the justices chosen by the person they elect president.

It wouldn’t hurt either to enlighten them to what the almighty filibuster is and how it negates the Senate’s ability to be a truly representative body.

The way our educational system is structured, this information is only available in college freshman Political Science classes, which are only required by a small percentage of the student population. So this leaves the masses of even college grads with a huge educational void in this extremely important subject!

This is exactly why the U.S. Department of Education needs to encourage local education boards throughout the entire country to incorporate and mandate Political Science 101 into their respective high school curricula for all students.

It is only then that this country’s voters can begin to make some intelligent, well-informed decisions at the polls, while becoming far less vulnerable to the bullshit thrown their way each day by their legislators and  chief executives.

This would also put the real power back in the hands of the citizens, who would finally be able to elect a Congress — and state legislatures — which were willing to change our campaign system from the current one that is privately funded to the time-tested effective European model that is publicly financed. This in turn would completely minimize — if not virtually obliterate — the influence of  Corporate America and special interest groups on politics.

Then, and only then, would we honestly be able to call ourselves “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

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