A popular magazine recently surveyed "some of the smartest people we know," and their choice of intellectual luminaries consisted primarily of Fortune 500 CEOs. When asked to devise post-September 11 paths to peace and prosperity, respondents such as Disney CEO Michael Eisner offered, "America is hated not because of our ideology, but because of our freedom, our lifestyle and our products ... so the solution is to make our things available around the world." Ogilvy & Mather CEO Shelly Lazarus discussed the "interesting marketing challenge" of stimulating US consumer demand in the current economic slump: "What people are saying is, 'You know what? I just don't feel like going out,' ... and we've got to tell them, 'That's what the terrorists want. I don't care if you feel like it or not - go buy a bra.'" In other words, recession, inequity and poverty are nothing that Goofy dolls and underwires can't fix; throw money at a problem and it will magically disappear.

This same "smartest people we know" attitude echoes in "No Child Left Behind," the sweeping educational reforms signed into US law January 8th. Having said, "If you teach a child to read, he or her will be able to pass a literacy test," President Bush helped push through the mandate for annual standardized testing of all US students from the third to eighth grade. But while parents and teachers argue against the diversion of already tight educational funds into dubious new programs, the testing and textbook publishing industries have settled in for the kill.

Small wonder. The necessary expenditures for mandated testing have been estimated to run $2.7 to $7 billion annually, and Harold McGraw, the CEO of McGraw-Hill and a long-time friend of the Bush family, is one of those few poised to make exorbitant profits from the new law.

The importance of literacy is clear; as President Bush himself has said, "Reading is the basics for all learning." The question is simply whether throwing billions at testing and textbook publishers, then punishing lagging schools is really the smart way to go. Tackling the roots of student underperformance, such as child poverty (with its attending lack of healthcare, poor nutrition, and inequity in the distribution of educational resources) would seem a more humane and effective long-term strategy. But sociological implications, have-nots and other minor details get left out in a profit-motivated approach to social services. Short-term gains and self-serving interests take hold as dangerous new paths to the future are institutionalized.

A recent statement by 100 Nobel laureates, "smart people" by anyone's standard, warned against the current trend of lining corporate pockets as the environment and its masses tumble. Citing "global warming and a weaponized world" as the most profound dangers to world peace, the laureates condemned a "unilateral search for security, in which we seek to shelter behind walls." They called for united action to "move towards a wider degree of social justice" which acknowledges the "legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed," and they specifically demanded international support for legal instruments such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Convention on Climate Change.

Intriguing that the Bush administration has decided to abandon the above treaties, preferring to increase the profits of big energy and weapons producers instead. But as a recent Newsweek tribute to Bush reported, in explaining why the president doesn't choose to read many books, "He's busy making history, but doesn't look back on his own, or the world's ... Bush would rather look forward than backward. It's the way he's built, and the result is a president who operates without evident remorse or second-guessing."

So what's the most intelligent path forward? Does it really lie in standardized testing and escalated consumer demand, or rather in tearing down walls of inequity? If we allow our government to focus on short-term profit for a few, while ignoring both the lessons of history and the needs of the majority, isn't it tantamount to complicity in creating an increasingly unbalanced world? Long-term global sustainability will be reached only by laws and decisions of wisdom and insight. We should expect - and demand - no less from those who call themselves our leaders.

Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer. She can be contacted at womanrant@hotmail.com

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