What you see is a graphic representation of today's political battle between the GOP on the far right, and the democrats, on the far left. It is also why education is being murdered.
Before we go any further, for the sake of this political argument, there are really four Americas, right now, not two. Four. The haves and the have nots, intersected by the democrats, and the republicans.
There are democrats who have, represented in quadrant D., and there are democrats who have not, in quadrant C. So too, there are republicans who have, in quadrant A and those republicans who have not in quadrant B.
The top side of the political parties are supported by those in the lower half. C does the grunt work for D. It buys their movies, watches MSNBC, it buys their records, votes them into office, pays their union dues, organizes their voter registrations. D cannot hold sway, nor be enriched, nor enter office without C.
So too, A cannot exist without B to vote them into power, attend their rallies and wave signs , pay their medical bills to their doctors, drive their cars, buy their cars, buy their gas, run their factories, use their banks, watch their programs on FOX. The difference in A's case is also, many in A are also enriched by C. But not as many in D are enriched by B which supports nearly to exclusion of D, only A.
Those in C also are getting smart enough to see that unless some things change, the power/dollar will persist in quadrant A. A has the power to bribe D, more than the reverse. A has the resources in the current paradigm, oil, the big one. If C gets its way, this would change with new energy. Removing Fossil fuels from the equation would take a big chunk of that power/dollar away from A.
Energy as in physics is the name of the game.
A couple things that jump out at me right away, indicating the truth of this simple graph. One, the center of the graph represents political inertness, no choice, no participation. It is also, unfortunately where many of us are drawn to.
We lack the time energy and altruism of the lower left hand corner of C. We lack the funding of the upper right hand corner of either A or D. In D's case, if we hit the lotto, or publish a book, or a record, or win American Idol, we might end up there, but that takes effort, and a whole lot of luck.
And most of us lack the time and the energy and the anger required to live in the bottom right hand corner of B. There seems to be an anger/disillusionment gradient, call it an age gradient, running from C to B. As you age, your altruism fades and is replaced by anger unless you do something about it, move up! If you don't you slide along the bottom of the page, your altruism gets its head bashed in, you hate everything and you end up angry as hell in the tea party, blaming everyone on the left side of the page.
That anger, replaced by faith, belief, moral certitude might propel you up, with the help of education to cross the mid dollar barrier into the power quadrant of the left side in D.
But the higher you get in D, the more your altruism becomes an abstract or an academic pursuit. Your animal needs are met, and you look down a bit on those cute young people in C who are - "little engine that could"-ing along - working their way up into your neighborhood.
Consequently you find yourself surprised with actual groundswell protests in Michigan and Wisconsin that actually worked! You realize that unless you keep your ear to the ground your position will slip back down into C and you will be replaced.
Unless too, you are like President Obama. You've moved to the right of D, and your dollars are up, so much so you are very nearly seduced over the line, into quadrant A.
Now the extreme right side of the page could also be thought to represent the gradient of energy. You can stay and die in lower B, or get greedy and start climbing up toward the upper right of A.
It should be noted that D doesn't resent so much the movement of C people up into D. But, for some reason, those in A don't want anyone else moving into their quadrant, and in fact would easily and without a backward glance kick several people, classes out. They sure as hell, don't view bottom right of B as anything but an expendable resource. They will pretend, but they don't view them as equals. Sadly, those in lower right B adore, worship and would do anything, anything for upper right A. Anything. Include drop a nuke on everyone in C and D.
Other interesting factors. You will note there is a problem currently in that many who are on the middle right side, fire, police, military people, are educated enough that they see the right side, upper quadrant of A is actually leaving them behind, betraying them in terms of disregarding their basic needs. As they slip below the mid line, they become seduced and more aligned with the left side of the page.
The center of the page is somewhat of a vortex. The flip side of that is those in the upper right hand corner of C feel ill served by the silly pretentiousness of D, especially when their leaders, such as Barrack Obama, are so easily pulled, bribed, seduced by A.So they rotate towatd B or lower left hand A if they can find a slot there.
The problem from the perspective of A is one of attrition. People in the upper left side of D tend to live a long time. Witness Jack Nicholson despite the smoking, drinking etc. People in the lower left hand corner are young, their life expectancy is long.
It's this troublesome problem with the lower right hand corner of B. Those people die. And from the perspective of A that's okay, as they should since A upper right hand corner wants more of the $/power for itself, and then the lower right of B serves its purpose and is spun out, who needs them. Remember A is accustomed to viewing things from a balance sheet. There's nothing personal in it. Just business.
Well now, who is A going to get to replace these dwindling ranks of B, lower right? I wonder who that might be.
Where are the teachers in this diagram? Well, right now, they are down in left hand corner of the left hand side, for who is more altruistic than a teacher, or more creative, or has more imagination? You almost can't see them. Well, heck, you can't make them out anymore we've almost erased them.
This group is so altruistic in fact they would sacrifice anything, anything for their students. They would do anything, including sending one of their students all the way up to the right hand side of the page to the very top of A if they thought it would help THE WHOLE PAGE having brought a little bit of what makes side C lower left hand corner, great: those things being imagination, love, faith, creativity, and hope.
But, alas, as it is, the powers in A want none of that. They only want support from below to fill in the gaps from the dying soldiers from B lower right. Soldiers. That's all they want. Angry, bitter soldiers who are willing to worship them, for nothing, just vote them in, pay for their gas, fund their rockets and bombs, fight their wars and prop them up. That's all they want.
It's these teachers who keep buoying people up into the other quadrants namely upper C and D! That has to stop from their perspective. Not good. They can't sweep the board, they can't eliminate the threat of new energy, if that keeps happening. And they can't replenish the necessary ranks of B lower right with teachers gumming up the works. No teacher worth a damn is telling their kids to aspire to become a bitter angry, old, unsuccessful tea party member who is nothing more than a pawn to the system of slavery. The teachers say "oh hell no, anything but that!"
Public school teachers are the worst because, you can't harangue the principal to fire them since taxes pay tuition not your bribes and donations.
If the Kochs and others in A, (Boehner, Ryan, McConnell, Murdoch, Ailes, etc.) can get rid of the teachers, hope becomes fear in lower left of C, altruism becomes self interest, love becomes anger, anger anger, at being maneuvered into, then trapped into lower B.
The ranks of B swell. The mid-line keeps rising out of everyone's reach, until there is no more C, no more D. Only a small sliver of A with the powerful elite in it, on top of a whole lot of B going nowhere, but to an early grave.
This is why, from the viewpoint of upper, A right hand corner, education must die.
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