China could bring us together continued from page 3
We also have failed to graduate enough students from high schools and colleges to give most Illinois counties a decent chance of prospering in a globalized economy. Data from the 2000 census is illuminating. In Morgan County, 79.9 percent of the population over 25 held a high-school diploma and 19.9 percent held a bachelor’s degree. In Sangamon County, the equivalent percentages were 88.1 percent and 28.6 percent.
This level of academic performance was admirable, perhaps envied globally, in the old economy. It is too low for our global economy in which the rewards are steadily shifting to jobs that require more creativity, expertise, and knowledge.
The world changed, we failed to adapt and we are suffering the natural consequences. Correcting our errors will be costly, and will take decades.
“This is a long tough road we have to travel,” Eisenhower wrote in a letter in 1942, before U.S. troops entered combat in North Africa. “The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered.”
Mark Kirk, Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin – surely Eisenhower’s words could serve as a cautionary warning for them. And for us.
If we elect leaders who ignore the plain facts of reality, if the mainstream media always focus the nation’s attention on debased discourse, then reality’s cruel fist eventually will shatter our illusions and extract a staggering cost – in lost prosperity, family and community dysfunction, destroyed dreams.
Many voters know these truths, but they have not quite lost their patience and their faith in our leaders. I hope they finally do lose patience, because it has been too many decades since the progressive left and moderate population put aside their petty disagreements and entered the political fray as a coordinated, cohesive group.
If this silent, distracted army joined the beleaguered cohort that has been working to hold back the tide of ignorance and irrationality threatening to drown our politics, the sight would be like the sun rising in the morning. Glorious and hopeful.
Nick Capo is associate professor of English at Illinois College in Jacksonville. Contact him at ncapo@ic.edu.
