Whilst walking through the university, I've just come accross a poster on blue paper, from a group calling itself "Blue Leaf" and claiming to be a voice from the "conservative resistance". In stark contrast to yesterday's national actions by the Canadian Federation of Students, demanding a lowering of tuition fees, Blue Leaf believes that freedom can only come from an elimination of subsidies toward higher education. Unconventional, bold and daring, I'll give them that, but that's all I'm giving them.

In big, bold capital letters at the top it declares that "Education is not a right". I beg to differ.

The history of servitude, slavery and unfree labour in general is replete with examples of debt-slavery, indentured servitude and various forms of apprenticeship which amount, simply, to the exploitation of labour based on the supposed costs of getting the person to work. A perfect example would be the years of indentured servitude which many Europeans were forced into for the expense of bringing them to the New World in the years of colonization. During those years they had few if any rights (though usually more than slaves), death rates were high and abuse was very common. This kind of exploitation continues right on today, just ask anyone at Labourready how much they've had taken off their paycheque for the van ride to the Oakville factories (and the hard hat, boots, and whatever else they're required to have but is not provided by either the factory they're making profits for or the agency which is making off with almost half their wages). And here we come to the issue of the cost of entry into the professional economy. Today becoming a Doctor or Lawyer can cost well over $100 000, and just about any other "real job" (in the terminology of people constantly trying to sell us college and university degrees) requires some sort of expensive education and certification process. As any student knows, the tuition (which has gone up, yet again, in the last year) costs are only the beginning. Start investing in books, living expenses (it's hard enough to make ends meet when you're not in full time school), course materials, computers (because handwritten assignments and old-fashioned book research isn't practical anymore) and other costs can easily put someone tens of thouands into debt in only a few years. Many just keep going, since OSAP doesn't start the threatening calls until you're out. Many others are forced into low-wage work outside of their fields. And a good number (roughly equal to the third in college, or third in university) simply never go in the first place.

An educated society is a rich society. Spending on education multiplies itself many times over as an educated and academically disciplined society grows older, and this is in no way limited to those taking courses that lead to big paycheques. As much as I hate to say it, our society needs more lawyers, or at least more legal knowledge, and the current high prices for buying a house, leaving your spouse or defending yourself from criminal charges are a result. With a six-figure debt you cannot simply go and give legal aid at an inner-city community centre, you have to find work at a corporate office. Worst of all, this kind of specialization (the idea that only a very small percentage of us should be able to understand the law or preform in court) keeps most of us away from the kind of legal knowlege which might help us defend ourselves and our communities from overzealous cops, invading developers or corrupt civic officials. The same can be said for many important forms of information which keep our society running, especially medical, scientific or even philosophical ideas. There are reasons that socieites like Cuba (for all of its faults) do so much better than many of their neighbours - free higher education enriches even the poorest of people.

We need to blur the lines between "students" and "citizens" and open up educational opportunities in sizes more manageable than the "full time job" which is most people's modern experience. Taking one or two classes at a time should be made easier and encouraged, and many courses should be broken down into single seminars or short serieses. With modern technology we can copy and distribute lectures, slideshows and course materials for next to no money and we should, providing anyone who wants access to that information without the corresponding paperwork free access to it. Papers written for assignments could be shared as a group to provide feedback (much more effective than a straight up "grade" out of 100), and left in a central collection to stand as examples to future students. Professional academic papers, should and must be available freely to all - since this kind of material usually only reaches the masses through short and misleading newspaper articles about a select few sensational studies. Everyone deserves free access to medical studies, philosophy papers and historical documentation, and the high price of housing stacks of vollumes is no longer an excuse (and $15/article for a 20 minute glance at something which might be relevant to a 300-word blog post is completely unacceptable). Certification options could then be opened up to those who studied the same materials on their own and were willing to write the necessary exams, and scholarly recognition opened up to those who, whether holding a degree or not, submitted scholarly papers and contributed to the understanding and debate of a topic.

And yes, I understand that University costs money. But education benefits far more than the students, and costs need not be anywhere near as high as they are now. The price of books is a The space exists around Hamilton in churches, theatres, parks, pubs and public school auditoriums to house tens of thousands in nightly lectures, times when most of these spaces are sitting empty anyway. There's also loads of grad students, grads and underemployed PHDs who'd love a shot at extra credit in exchange for teaching less formal classes on topics which they've studied. With the kind of computer equipment that exists in most living rooms these days, it wouldn't be hard to organize this kind of thing, and take note of who's attended what.

The roles of "teacher" and "student" are every bit as restrictive as "judge", "cop", or "leader". Everyone is better off if everyone is better educated, and just imagine what could be accomplished if even a small number of people followed their interests and learned what interested them without the fear of crippling debts or whether or not it would make them "employable". Information is free, infinitely reproducable and liberates people wherever it travels - we as a society have a duty to further it's spread wherever and whenever possible.

America's First (half) Black President.

Yesterday the voters sent a very clear message about how they feel regarding the last eight years of their government. For the first time in American history, they have a president who isn't (entirely) a white man. Now, this is a little more complicated than it sounds - he's half white, and that raises some uncomfortable questions about how we think about race. "One drop of black blood", they say, and you're not white any more - but one white parent and you can still be black? The "white" club sure has some high requirements of its members, which might tell ya something about what being "white" really means. Is this about heritage, or is this about racial purity?

A lot about this campaign has made me uncomfortable. The insinuation that "Barack Husseien Obama" is a Muslim, despite all evidence to the contrary, has bothered me. It's as if being Muslim is somehow inappropriate for an American president, and that's a scary concept. The Sarah Palin stuff hit a nerve with me as well. It seems like every time a (younger) woman runs for high political office the level of debate drops to that of my old middle school playground. Sure, the woman's dumb as a post and just a bit terrifying, and if she ever became my Vice President I'd probably move to Mongolia...but I just can't seem to shake the idea that many of the nasty things which have been said about her would never have come up if it'd been Sam Palin who was running. Did she spend lots of money on clothes, shoes and purses at fancy New York shops? You probably would too, and do we have any evidence to suggest that Obama, Biden or McCain hasn't spent at least that much on tailored suits, shoes and wallets? Was she a beauty queen? Yes, but it isn't like another prominent state governor wasn't "Mr Universe" at one point in his past, and that never seemed to carry the same kind of connotations. It all just seems too much like all of the "Magna Spice" comments made when Belinda Stronach wanted to run for Prime Minister.

One way or another, American politics just took on a another unfortunate dimension of personality contest which cannot help but obscure the issues which are actually being discussed, though arguably in a little less dramatic a fashion than running movie stars (Reagan or the Guvernator) or former presidents' kids. Where were the actual issues in this campaign?

Do I think this will really change much? I'm not that optimistic. He may not have been born into money like most in Washington, but he sure has it now. As inspiring as it is to see that a poor coloured kid can rise his way through Harvard Law School into the top ranks of the American Elite, it might be a little more inspiring if, like nearly everyone in America, he wasn't a member of that elite now. Whatever colour people are, and whatever their background, a power elite is a power elite, and for every one back person in the oval office, how many millions are still in slums and jails? Where are the real policy alternatives here? Where's the will to take on a banking system which has run amok with the homes, jobs and wealth of the American people? Where's the commitment to admit that the "war on terror" was a mistake and that America is no longer (and never really was) the "world's policeman". Unfortunately, he wants to increase the size of the military, and speaks often about "America's historic purpose in the world". Worse yet, John Biden (who I honestly can't tell apart from McCain) is one of the most hawkish Democrats in Washington. How is he going to break the ever-expanding cycles of resource use and abuse which ar promising to strangle America (and the world)? Ending foreign oil imports is a nice idea (though many of his promised cuts will almost certainly run up against the hard realities of peak oil), but I'm still not comfortable with coal ("clean" or otherwise) and nuclear power, which he supports. Truth be told, a lot of his policies are very progressive, at least in the context of American politics, but I don't see a lot of real radical potential here.

The next four years are going to be a very difficult time for Obama and all of America. Does he have the vision and foresight, once in office and confronted with a crumbling economy, failing war and dissappearing natural resources, to lead America from a position at the front of the pack of lemmings to one at the back? I don't know, I've certainly never had those kind of expectations for a president before. I just hope that the promise showed by a liberal black president doesn't overshadow the work that ordinary people know they *should* be doing to accomplish the same goals, and turn, once more, to a "leader" to solve all of their problems.