So Not Not Only Are The Institutions That Are Supposed To Inform US Day To Day Suspect...

...The institutions that would provide advanced education as well are suspect too. Unless, of course, they have the right message going now, but with the fracturing of the Right, that also seems to be in question, with several main themes contending (as in "Free Trade Globalism," as opposed to "Fortress America," with only one market that really matters; whether we can get everything we need here or not).

But wait, it gets even more complicated than that. Other, outside players are trying to put their finger on the great wheel of "Russian Roulette" that is now what we ought to call our "ideological, economic governance."

I say it that way as it serves to illustrate where the notion of majority rule by plebiscite is going, even if the trappings of said process remain. Which would be true whether the outside players were foreign nationals, or not. Or even if there were no outside players. This is so because, to make that plebiscite process a trapping, one needs to sow mistrust in all forms of not only how message gets mediated out to us (in all of its many channels now), but to also sow mistrust for rational, scientific thought; both because they have the pesky habit of creating unpleasant truths, but also because they can tend to create thoughtful, questioning, and most importantly, deeply informed, individuals.

The bottom line for me in all of this is the basic point that money, and the inherent corruptibility of the operating system that supports it, makes all of this screwing around with our institutions so much more possible in the first place; even as it also creates the lion's share of the problems that we, and the planet itself, are faced with, but for which, again, the operating system is completely inept at even seeing in the first place, let alone accepting any responsibility for.

So I say again. The simple fact of the matter is that we must demand that an alternative be found, and the plan then to implement it. This is the subject we must speak of everywhere we can, even as we also work to solve all of that "screwing around" that is now going on with the very basis of what makes us American.

LOW OPINION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The New Culture War Targeting American Universities Appears To Be Working

9 diggs Washington Post Studies

Since 2015, as attention has been focused by conservative media on tensions at universities, views of higher education as an institution have plummeted among Republicans.