Wake Up Little US-ie [View All]

It's a given that most of Americans have NO CLUE as to where they fit into the world as a whole. We have been "jingo-ed" into actually believing that we are all-powerful,all-knowing, and just a whole lot smarter than almost everyone else on earth.

Just because we consume more, and are relatively protected by two friendly neighbors and a whole lot of water, does not insulate us from being citizens of the world.

We know very little about the world.

The time has come for parents who claim that they love their kids, to STAND UP , and DEMAND that their kids be taught world history.. We need a crash course, and we need it YESTERDAY. It's nice to know about all the cute anecdotes about the cherry tree, and the returned penny, and the crossing of the Delaware...and all the other things that kids are taught....but they NEED to know about the world...as it is NOW.. Their lives may (and probably WILL) depend on it.

No doubt, there will be some who will be afraid that they might be taught a skewed version of that history, and that may actually happen, but every effort needs to be made to start taking the rest of the world seriously. For school districts , it should not be too difficult to present several courses of study that would , in the end, present a balanced vision of what lies beyond our shores.

The youngsters who navigate through our school systems, on average, leave it virtually unschooled. Some can read, and do basic math, but other than the ones who go on to college, most are prepared for very little that will make them a productive citizen of the world. We can no longer afford the luxury of undereducated kids.

Uneducated people fall prey to nationalistic fervor, and the problems that accompany that line of thinking. It's two or three decades of this nonsense that has brought us to the pivot point we are precariously perched upon. Every day, I hear people talking about "the war" or "the Arabs" or "the soldiers". When asked for their opinions on any of those subjects, they seem to have no original thought about any of it. They are only able to parrot phrases that they have heard. When pressed to explain what they have just said, they cannot. Anger usually ensues, and they leave, content that they are "right".. Right about what?? They don't even know WHY they are saying what they say. They have NO context on which to base any of their own comments.

I hear people just yuk it up when they talk about "Jay-Walking", and how college educated people think that we got our independence from France, or how they think that Germany was our ally in WWII. How can this be funny? I know that these are the ones who got it wrong, and that's WHY they are in the piece, but the message it sends, is this... It's "cute" to be dumb....and people will like you more if you are not an "egg-head".

George W Bush, or the next president, or the next, or the next will NOT "win the war on terrorism", and our kids, and probably THEIR kids will be dealing with this nasty tactic . The days of conventional warfare are OVER. As long as there are unhappy people who would rather DIE than live, because their lives are SHIT, we will hear from them in the only way they can get our attention.. They do not have (or need) tanks,planes, battleships,massive armies or even actual countries. Cheap explosives and their own bodies are all they need.

While we were "sleeping", the world has lapsed back into tribalism, and religious zealotry. Our children MUST be prepared to live in this world.

If your schools are NOT teaching them about the world, YOU must. They need to know and it's even OK if it scares them. The world is a scary place now, and being afraid is NO reason to hide from the truth.

If parents think back to the fairy tales they read to their children, they might wonder why such gruesome stories were actually even considered "children's stories", but if one looks at the historical times during which most of the famous ones were written, it's easy to see that times were not that great then either. Maybe those tales were a way of parents conveying "news of the day" in a way that even small kids could grasp .

There are a lot of hungry, angry, and ignored people "out there" in the rest of the world, and they are DEMANDING our attention. We can no longer claim "adolescent" ignorance , go fill up our SUV and go shopping.

We claimed dominance, and it's time that our citizens start acting like they are part of the world. It is much cheaper and safer to make friends, than it is to make enemies. This is NOT appeasement. It is common sense. We all share the same planet, and except for an accident of geography, we could be the ones without.