Readers Are a Threat

The UK government has followed suit with the US in encouraging illiteracy. In 2011, all funds will be cut off to all early book-buying programs for children. This raises the obvious questions about what are the priorities for the citizenry, and the observation that literacy is not one.

A poster on the Guardian said:
"Of course they don't want a educated literate population. They want people who can read and write sufficiently to do the menial tasks that are going to support the businesses that make them and their friends money.
"An educated and literate population thinks for itself and might turn from the X Factor to ask what the F is going on. Henry VIII burnt all the copies of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament into English precisely for this reason. People who read come across new ideas, something that only causes trouble for the authorities.
"Read everything you can find, encourage everyone else, men, women, children and small animals to do the same. £13m is nothing, tax a few bonuses and we'd have more than enough to keep this scheme going."

Funny how the populace all over "the free world" keeps saying these same things, but the gummits keep giving more and more breaks to the rich. The insane theory of "trickle down" seems to have taken root as a justification! Even the words "trickle down" ought to be an alarm itself!- how much is a trickle, folks? Ever seen a trickle? It's a little bit more than a drip. How much has actually trickled, anyway? How many jobs have been created in that trickle? Is that a justification for giving the already ridiculously rich tax breaks that have only been in place for the last 10 years? Coincidentally the same 10 years that have seen the worst global economic situation since the Great Depression!

From my vantage point in the US, I have watched the planned devaluation of education. It's not pretty. We have a stupid, ignorant, obese population that has no reason to hope, no resources to help improve their lot in life, and no prospects but to work in minimum wage jobs. Our education system has sucked for at least 25 years and gets worse all the time. Our teachers have been bound and gagged by the neo-con budget measures and the crazy "No Child Left Behind" scheme. Their unions are undermined and defamed to the very people who should support them- other workers, the parents of their charges. What the hell has happened? Has the entire world been brainwashed into a subserviant slave class, who duck their heads and truly believe that their masters deserve the whole pie and more?