It's Howdy Doody Time, It's Howdy Doody Time

Last evening I watched Brian Williams on NBC News interviewing teachers about the difficulties of their jobs in the public school sector. He polled an audience of teachers to see how many spent money out of their own pockets to do their jobs. A group of approximately 50 shown on camera all raised their hands. He asked how many spent more than 60 hours a week working on their jobs. Again all raised their hands. He asked how many had to take other jobs or more than one other job to make ends meet. Again all raised their hands.

The next segment showed Williams interviewing the Secretary of Education who emphatically stated educators should be more highly respected for their work and salaries should be doubled to recruit better and brighter candidates into the teaching profession. He said the key to a better future was better education.

In the final segment of the report, Williams commented state governors seemed to have different ideas when it came to education in public schools. Then he showed Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper making the comment, "It's not about money. It's about looking at things in a different way".

That's right, Governor Howdy Doody made that inane statement about the plight of public schools.

This is the same governor that as Mayor of Denver pushed heavily to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new city jail near Civic Center Park. Instead of spending money to improve neighborhood schools to prevent drop outs and future incarceration, Hickenlooper chose building a new jail to increase the capacity of the number of inmates that could be incarcerated.

Instead of increasing the amount of funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment programs to divert groups of people who frequently end up in the city jail, Hickenlooper ignored a study he commissioned that found more than five dollars in the jailing of the mentally ill and addicts could be saved in one dollar's worth of treatment programs. He ignored the huge cost of warehousing an individual in jail versus the small cost of early intervention to prevent incarceration.

When I asked the Denver Mayor about the study, Hickenlooper hemmed and hawed before saying the study was only true up to a point. The study was never brought up in debates leading up to the election to fund the jail.

Instead of increased funding to keep recreation centers open longer and building new rec centers in poorer parts of Denver, Hickenlooper lobbied feverishly to get the vote out for building the new multi-million dollar jail.

What wasn't mentioned was a trust fund of Hickenlooper's indicated he had some rights to land where the jail was going to be built. There was never a mention certain real estate interests were lobbying for the new jail to improve land values around the Golden Triangle near Civic Center and the area the new jail would be built.

Instead of attempts to keep schools open in the neighborhoods populated predominately by people of color using some of the millions intended for the new jail, Hickenlooper allowed schools to close on his watch despite promises not to close schools.

The opponents to building a new jail pointed out the huge disparity in the numbers of minority and ethnic inmates in the city and county jails of Denver to Hickenlooper. They pointed out new beds meant more people of color were going to be locked up for lack of bail on minor charges such as traffic offenses and possession of small amounts of street drugs as opposed to those with money who would be able to make bail.

Opponents pointed out the old jail already had problems with staffing to run the day to day operation and questioned how a larger capacity jail could be staffed appropriately. Hickenlooper never wavered in pushing for a new tax on Denver citizens to fund the new jail. When the big economic crash came, Denver budget cuts included sheriffs who staff Denver jails. The new jail is now built but lacks the funds to appropriately staff it.

But now, Governor Hickenlooper tells us we don't need to invest in the education of Colorado children and children across the U.S., we just need to look at things in a different way. When we asked him to look at the issue of preventing incarceration instead of building a new jail he refused to look at things in a different way. He chose to invest in imprisoning humans instead of improving the lives of humans.

He could have pushed for better funding for to hire more teachers to improve the environment to learn but chose instead to invest in locking up people who failed in an educational system that pushed away students having problems in learning.

By his comments to Williams on NBC News Hickenlooper shows his unwillingness to invest in education even though teachers are telling us they spend their own money to facilitate learning in their classes, they spend 60 hours a week to make things better for students but get paid only for forty hours and they have to take second and third jobs to make ends meet for themselves. A beginning teacher barely earns a living wage.

Hickenlooper joins the ranks of governors like Scott Walker and Chris Christie in allowing teachers to be blamed for a failing educational system. He prefers to ignore the truth that teachers are being over-extended and disrespected. He ignores class sizes too large for a good learning environment.

But it isn't that Hickenlooper is stupid. No, Hickenlooper is one more corporate worshipping stooge who would prefer teacher's wages be decreased, their unions be busted and schools be privatized through the bogus charter school concept and other "innovative" ways to move toward corporate interests having control over public schools.

John Hickenlooper tries to pass himself off as a Democrat and people have fallen for his "oh shucks, I'm just a regular guy" PR but the truth is he's a ruthless shill for big business. He fits far better in the category of a Wall Street Democrat or even to some extent just a plain conservative Republican.

The people of Colorado who care about a public school system that competes with the rest of the world in the sciences and arts need to understand politicians whose loyalty is primarily with big business don't want the American child to be educated, questioning and able to think abstractly.

They want children who know how to follow authority, rules and fall for the bogus idea the company has the worker's best interest at heart .....so why should the worker possibly need a union.

John Hickenlooper is part of the corporate hierarchy that wants Americans dumbed down to prevent them from rising up from the enslavement of a debtor class of worker who survives pay check to pay check, dependent on staying in the good graces of the "Boss".

These are people who want the middle class to fail in order to have American workers so worried about keeping their low paying jobs they don't have the energy to object and resist. They prefer American workers anethetized by inane television programs pushing militarism, consumerism and passive acceptance of the status quo.

They prefer we have more passion for our sports teams than our real lives of slavery to debt, poor education, poor government services and little hope for a better future for our children and grandchildren. Ignoring and failing to invest in the public education system is a major symptom of the oligarchy John Hickenlooper and those like him want to fully achieve.

John Hickenlooper is a snake in the grass who comes across like Howdy Doody but is really more like the CEOs of the banksters and Wall Street speculators that caused the crash of the American economy and the demise of the American middle class. His venom comes whenever you turn your back on him.