My editorial to the Denver Post regarding education cuts

Dear Denver Post,


I have been following with alarm the Colorado state legislature's proposal for extensive cuts to funding for higher education. I don't understand why this debate has to be so difficult for people, to me it seems rather simple. I am appalled to live in a country where companies whose fraudulent schemes to enrich themselves that ultimately destroyed the economy and threw millions of people out of work get hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts, while at the same time honest kids with good grades and a desire to learn get told "sorry", and that the money just "isn't there" for their college.

Our country is in a big mess. Our global empire is collapsing, and a lot of Americans still get maimed, killed, and emotionally traumatized in a seemingly endless war that no one even wants to admit is still occurring. Pretty much every politician seems to be in the pocket of big business. Whatever they say in an election year, they are ALL on the take of lobbyists for big companies, with the possible exception of one or two ineffectual tokens who get trotted out every time someone like me comes along to denounce both parties. We have about as high wealth polarization as we did in 1929, and European countries have greater social mobility than we do.

Our political leaders, the closed nature of the two party system, the censorship and "infotainment" priorities of corporate media have created a nation of silent, fearful dupes, condescendingly referred to as "voters", or "consumers", but always the *passive* recipients of whatever agenda people with money and power want to pitch at us.

We need new ideas, new leaders, new confidence, and new approaches if we are going to get out of this mess and make this a country worth living in again. For that we need educated minds. A society that will pay thousands of dollars to teach someone how to drive a tank or drop bombs from a multi-million dollar aircraft onto some Afghan peasant's shack, but which won't pay for the same person to learn how to be a doctor or a teacher or an engineer, is one whose days are numbered.

Sincerely,

-A College Graduate