The Christie Educashun Massacre: Is Our Voters Learning?

Over the past two weeks, there's been quite the brouhaha here in Jersey over Obese Governor Chris Christie's budgetary assault on education. The outrage seems especially heightened on facebook, most likely because those of us against the Governor's cuts know how to use things like computers. Already, school districts across the state are in the process of layoffs, targeting the arts, special needs programs, and just about everything but the disgustingly  disproportionate salaries of the school administrators. Despite the fact that the budget still needs to be passed by the State Legislature, most districts are proactively bracing for the pending Armageddon.


I can - most people can - go on and on about why New Jersey's finances are a joke or the countless reasons why property taxes are so high, but that's a subject for a doctoral dissertation (Or, it can be summed up with three words: Shared Bleeping Services). What's being lost in the commotion of the proposed funding slash is that this has absolutely nothing, nada, zilch to do with "the tough economic climate". Aside from the bailed out bankers, nobody's really turned the corner yet and cuts are anticipated and expected in every sector, be it public or private. The story here is the magnitude to which the governor is going to dismantle the state's public education institution and it's employees.


Do teachers and other state employees enjoy better benefits than those of us in the private sector? Without a doubt. But you need to keep in mind: 25 years ago, that wasn't the case. States had to enhance these benefits to entice workers because benefits like this were the status quo for most working Americans. Somewhere along the lines, a certain Alzheimer's suffering President made it his mission to dismantle the American Worker's Unions and trickle up every last penny to the super-rich. The end result was predictable: the average American would now work more for less, in terms of salary and benefits, while the lucky few would prosper beyond their wildest dreams.


State employees did not have their unions broken and maintained what were once "standard" but are now considered "elaborate" benefits. Instead of the American worker demanding benefits as strong as the public sector, the teachers have been boogey-manned into pigs at the trough, living high on of your tax paying hog. And this attempt to bust the union is only part of Christie's agenda.


The other part, more subliminal but intensely dogmatic, is continuing the trend of the Republican Party's "learnicide". Statistics do not lie: The enemy of the Republican Party is an educated voter. Take your own personal life experiences. Who would you consider to be the five smartest people you know? Do you think they voted for George Bush? John McCain? Or if you're life depended on it, would you guess they voted for President Obama, or John Kerry, or Al Gore?


The reliably Republican voters I've come across in my life, more often then not fit one of three molds:
1. Religious Crazies/Jesus Freaks
2. People in a tax bracket I can only dream of reaching
3. Angry, white, working class people, most likely men.


The first two I understand - the Democratic Party is not the place to be if you want to put the Ten Commendments in every school or outlaw the term "Happy Holidays". Nor should it be a home to millionaires looking to become billionaires at any expense.


But it's the last part that always baffled me - for they're the largest part of the Republican Base. You can't get to 271 Electoral Votes or 225 Seats in the House by building a coalition of Born Again Oil Tycoons. No, the GOP has for a generation now, convinced millions of people to continually vote against their best interests. Some of the same people who have lost their jobs, their insurance, seen their savings and benefits become a shell of what they once were, and struggled to put their kids through college show up like clockwork every November and go straight down the Republican line, even though 30 years of Conservative rule has only led to two wars and the worst economic crisis in nearly a century. Even though 30 years of Republicanism has led us from The Lone Superpower to China's prison bitch.


To make a long story short: They don't want you to realize this. There's a reason a Harvard Graduate War Hero like John Kerry can lose to a C-Student Diserter like George Bush: The GOP's made education a stigma.


And now Chris Christie wants to bring that New Jersey. If you were to look at the most educated states in America, you'd notice two remarkable trends (aside from NJ's top 5 ranking that Christie wants to sink):
1. None of the top 15 states, ranked by highest percentage of adults with at least a bachelor's degree, voted Bush-Bush-McCain over the last 3 election cycles.
2. None of the worst 15 states voted Gore-Kerry-Obama.

There's no way to sugarcoat it: The Republican Base is dumb as dogshitt. And they need your children to be stupid if they're ever going to survive another generation. So don't buy the baloney that Christie's selling you about across the board painful cuts. This is geared at the mortal enemies of the GOP: literacy and comprehension.