By David Swanson
According to news reports, one of the names president elect Obama is considering for running our national education system is Colin Powell.
This is not from The Onion, but the Houston Chronicle. But there’s hardly a non-humorous way to envision it. Presumably schools will be required to institute new policies in favor of cheating on tests if they want to keep their federal funding. Lying will be developed as an academic field fully integrated in the curriculum from preschool on.
And if you thought military recruiters had too much access to kids, just wait. If you thought history books were already flawed by leaving out everything that happens between wars, get ready.
Are we supposed to laugh or cry? Is this what anyone voted for? War criminals running domestic departments? This would be like putting Jane Harman in charge of our “homeland”‘s security. Oh. Wait.
The good news is that Obama is considering people who actually know and care about labor to run the department of labor. And there are other good names on his list in consideration for other departments. But it’s hard to read them, what with the nausea.