This nation is, of course, in decline. Some may argue that this nation has been on the brink of collapse ever since its inception, and while such a perception may prove attractive on the basis of its various merits, never the less it remains - this nation is in decline, and it is so at a time when the whole world, all of civilization, hangs in the balance, on the basis of our global consumption of fossil fuel.

Do we provide solutions? No. Instead we persist with the institutionalization of unfairness and exploitation of the masses by various subtle and ingenuous methods, we distract the public with individuals like Edward Snowden, knowing full well that if the Russians can be persuaded, as they have been persuaded, to place a condition of silence upon his request for asylum, the public may ponder yet too few will publicly acknowledge:

1. The myriad applications of the principles of physics
2. The power of the periodic table
3. The capacity of human species for deceit
4. The necessity of a free education if a society is to maintain any illusions of either freedom or basic human dignity and human right.

.

Wait - what's that? What was that last?

Yes. I said it.

A free education is a necessity if a society is to maintain any illusions of either freedom or basic human dignity and human right.

And here the reader must protest - but what do either of the first three points have to do with the fourth, and what does any of that have to do with Snowden, let alone anything as momentous as Global Warming . . .

Permit me, if you will, to redefine the nature and the scope of our ills, and perhaps thus it will become clear -

This nation is engaged in class warfare conducted upon the people

It is very likely that all prosperous societies are highly susceptible to the institutionalization of unfairness as an organizational principle - an economic function for profit and so set a course that leads ultimately to a state of class warfare. This is, it will be clear, exactly where we are today, and the only real security against such a state may be a free and comprehensive education.

Consider, if you will, the most recent refusal by the Repelican Congress to take up the issue of the cost of education finance. Education itself should be entirely free, and yet it is not. It is not and we say that education is itself not at all a necessity to become a self made man - or woman, as the case may be - and we do hold up examples of the high school drop out who went on to become a multimillionaire - and thus we seemingly lay the foundation to justify the creation of an educational consumer of some kind.

But consider very carefully - no dropout, not Steve Jobs nor any other, has ever been entirely self made. Fortune depends upon an ability to harness at least two things:

1. some significant portion of what is already known in some new way,
2. human productivity - or The Labor of Others

Without these two things at a minimum, no one may ever enter into that exclusive club we have come to refer to as self made - it is simply not possible. Thus the lie is exposed - education is absolutely indispensable not only to any who would be self made, but to society as a whole. Without education we cannot hope to preserve the capacity to produce food, shelter, or medicine, even for the elite among us, let alone the masses.

And today we see, through Repelican Congressional intransigence, wherein they do impugn not only their own character, office, and economic class - they show the whole system of governance has become committed to the institutionalization of injustice - the antithesis of all we have previously been taught about the meaning, the execptionalism that is embodied by all that is meant and implied by the term:

American.

Today we see Repelicans refuse to act to maintain the cost of education at any kind of a minimum, the process itself has become dependent upon repeated Congressional approval and this approval is itself a deceit - a lie - for it suggests that if not now, then at some point in the near future, it may be seen to be necessary or just, to raise the cost of education for the nation's youth far above the cost of owning a home, and that is indeed, the essence of exploitation. To be forced to assume such a burden of debt, without any certainty of a return on that investment, is to enslave the nation's youth to the production of wealth for a select few while preserving an illusion - a possibility - of a return on investment, and no more.

And as we can show, that return on investment is entirely contingent upon the actions of an intransigent Congress and thus, highly uncertain.

Education should be free for many reasons, the benefits it naturally provides society being but one, yet it is not. Not only is education not free, the costs continue to climb without reason, enriching the bankers who finance that burden of debt. Congress has initiated a process, a mechanism, whereby they hold the authority to set the price or the cost of educational finance, and by their authority they have instituted a process that dictates an increase in that cost if Congress fails to act -

Thus by default are the children enslaved to the bankers pleasure - harnessed to the monolith of Wall Street and the production of wealth where they become the foundation of Financial Products Services and Transactions which itself accounts for 8% of GDP and 30% of total corporate profit in the United States.

And this is indicative of class warfare waged upon the people.

A free and comprehensive education would go some way toward preventing just such a state of affairs. It would do so simply because:

• IF subjects such as physics and chemistry were readily available in a format that lent itself to the average reader

• and IF self education was a widespread and a rewarded activity,

• THEN those inclined to subject the masses to a state of bondage would be forced to consider much more carefully the prevalence of information that might result in sacrifice of the elite by the masses in the national interest,

rather than our present state of affairs, which is the other way around.