sam mccool's blog
What happened to the Republican Party?
Once upon a time, the Republican Party stood for something. It represented the rugged independence of frontier families, the self-reliance of the pioneer spirit. Its leaders valued the free-thinking rationalism found in the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Natty Bumpo novels of James Fenimore Cooper. It stood for the ethical humanism of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. It was the political party that I admired as a child -- unfettered by unionism, religious fanaticism, or corrupt urban political machines.
Now, on the eve of the next decade of the 21st Century, I look back at the preceding ten years and wonder what happened to this once great political party. Once upon a time, the great Republican Senator from Connecticut Prescott Bush championed civil rights legislation, served as the first treasurer of Planned Parenthood, and helped to establish the Peace Corps. He motivated the Republican Party to stand up to the racist Democrats from the South and pass critical legislation. How ashamed he must be of his son who played a racist to get elected in Texas; and his grandson, who played an idiot to pander to the religious right.
Are we ready?
We're armed with technology, like the profs of the sixties were armed with secretaries and assistants, but the technology isn't making our communication with our students any better than the distance created by layers of staff in former years. We're wasting precious time letting inadept users fumble around while the promise of enhanced communication, interaction, and collaboration are unfulfilled, at least between the professoriate and learning classes.
