Obama visits Flint

Barack Obama visited my old place of residence, Flint, MI, yesterday.

If you don't already know this, Flint has almost been decimated by General Motors pulling out of the city. There used to be, at least, a Buick plant, a parts plant, a Chevy plant, a Chevy Truck Plant (called "The Truck Plant" by locals), and an AC Spark Plug plant in Flint. Oh, yeah, and Fisher Body.

Every little AC Spark Plug was made in Flint, at one time. Now the plant is being torn down.

Everyone thinks Henry Ford and Detroit when they think automobiles. But by 1908, the Buick plant in Flint was the largest auto manufacturing plant in the country. According to Wikipedia, of the nearly 80,000 people that worked for General Motors in Flint during its peak years in the late 1970s, only about 8,000 are left after the most recent 2006 buyouts.

Among other things Obama said (you can read all about it here, in the Detroit Free Press, if you wish), he said this: Above all, Obama said, education is key to U.S. economic strength. But while he called for more federal money for early childhood education, and revamping the No Child Left Behind act to to improve school curriculums, he said the responsibility for education falls mainly on families.

“Parents have to instill a thirst for education excellence in our children," Obama said.

But he added that the government would do more to help financially, saying “A college education should be a birthright for every single American.”

When I first wrote this post, last night, my initial reaction was that "I don't know that I agree with that; I think the cheapening of a college education is one of our problems. This idea that everyone should go to college, or it is an entitlement, I think is not a good one."

This is a real problem. I know that in England, for instance, tensions exist between people who went to college and those that did not. In England, to be blunt about it, you have to be above-average intelligent to get into college. But you also can be poor and get into college - if you're smart enough.

But hold the phone - One of my uncles, who did not go to college, was way more successful in his career than his 2 siblings that did go to college. But is he as educated as his siblings, whatever that means? ... As you go through life, you get educated (if you're paying attention). He may not know about Greek mythology, but he probably could teach his more educated sibs a thing or two about being in top management at a big company.

But here and now, my uncle would not be able to rise through the ranks as he did while I was growing up; not without an MBA.

So although initially I thought Obama was being elitist, today I think he was being naive - unless he meant access to higher education should be every qualified American's birthright, rich or poor.

What we need is to adjust the elitist mindset, because it turns most people off. Look at the extreme popularity of that anti-intellectual movie, Forrest Gump.

If I've learned only one thing from being a reporter, it's that nearly everyone is smart about something, and a lot of people are smart about a lot of things - yes, even people who didn't go to college. And nearly everyone I've met, rich or poor, highly educated or not, had something interesting to say (a lot of them really believed they didn't).

And the problems in Flint, one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country? General Motors (with a lot of help from the UAW) gave its largely non-college educated workforce a sense of entitlement and then left town; left the workers nothing else to do, no income stream, and no future for their kids.

Now the kids are angry.