David Brooks, in his New York Times Op-Ed of November 4, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/opinion/05brooks.html?_r=1&hp points out that America has not figured out how to build a decent future for the working class families of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Arkansas. But that to remain a predominant power it must, and if it can't then it won't.
These regions were our base of our manufacturing economy which has now given way to a knowledge worker economy. The knowledge worker economy demands college educated workers but the percentage of the population with college education in these depressed areas is the lowest in the country.So they are out of work.
The paradox is that those areas with lowest levels of education voted overwhelmingly for conservative, tea party and republican candidates who oppose increased funding for college educations. In fact the chief benefactor of the tea party, Charles Koch (per August 30, 2010 New Yorker) would like to eliminate the Department of Education altogether. The Obama administration is pushing for ways to bring college education to a larger proportion of the population, but the victims of inadequate education rejected his policies.
So, how do these folks think that their lot in life will be improved by supporting those who are against doing what is necessary to make it happen for them? Sadly they grasped for help from anything that looked different and were duped. Clearly, the current administration failed to communicate and let the right wing dominate the message for their own interest at the expense of the well being of the people supporting them.
It was recently reported that our education system is now 10th among nations. We will not maintain our predominance unless that is fixed, and now. This was not true when we saw all the innovation in electronics in Silicon Valley back in the 60s. At that time we had the best of everything and the future was very bright - except for the Vietnam war. But over the last 4 decades we have steadily become complacent and yielded to the emerging economies. 40% of our GDP in recent years has come from Wall Street moving money around without adding any value. Manufacturing and knowledge workers add value but we are letting that get away.
