The In My View article published Sept. 15, “School initiatives will help support student success,” describes another attempt to improve education in Oregon, but it appears to fail to introduce moral philosophy into the education curriculum.

Without raising our miserably low national morality quotient, many of the more sordid aspects of American life — grotesque disparities in incomes and living standards, nearly 50 million people, including 20-plus million children, living in poverty, militarism, shredding of the Constitution, arbitrary application of laws and other examples of decadence — will remain.

The United States is reputed to have some of the most elite universities in the world, but their morally challenged and conscience-free graduates advance to play tragedy-creating roles in the major centers of power that dominate the lives of all Americans.

To name just two of many disasters recently created by these occupants of the pinnacles of power, there are (one) the war on Iraq that has bled trillions from our national treasury and destroyed the lives of countless Americans and Iraqis, and (two) the Wall Street collapse that shattered the American economy and the lives of millions of people.

Then there is that majority of “citizens” who remain mute witnesses to these tragedies and the lies propagated by our “leaders” and who keep re-electing their minions to the White House and Congress to create more disasters.

Without a moral compass, our ship of state is doomed to founder on destructive shoals of our own making.

Bill Bodden

Redmond