A jubilant rock concert was staged in Berlin in the early months of 1990, to celebrate the smashed up rubble of Europe's most symbolic frontier.

It was the first retrospective of those crazy nights of pillage, apart from news broadcasts. Pink Floyd's The Wall was what it was called. And as the giant stage wall was pulled down, hundreds of thousands of people in the audience danced and wept to the glorious sound of "The Tide is Turning".

That's the sense of liberation we remember today, on the tenth anniversary of 9th November, 1989. We remember that sense of hope for the human race, as estranged countrymen and women hugged one another. Freedom at last, for East Berliners trapped behind the Iron Curtain with clapped-out cars and no ambitions permitted beyond The Party.

But despite the public embraces of folk from both sides, there was no attempt to negotiate a political half-way point for East Germany or West. And now, ten years on, we have missed our chance to learn a few things from an economy that put welfare above financial profit.

Today's anniversary tributes are unlikely to tell us much about the Soviets' pioneering welfare system, which offered creches for employees' children in factories and offices, and provided low rents in major cities and free medicine on hand for all. We probably won't hear how the wall, now available in lower case, came down so fast that much of the good of the Socialist system - strong currency and full employment - was washed out with the bad, in a series of drastic mistakes. These are the economic conditions our own political leaders are aiming for now, but sadly, advice only travelled from rich to poor in 1989.

Perhaps if we are serious about constructing a Third Way, today would be a good day to reassess the past and its representation.

The past ten years have shown that the original ending of Pink Floyd's film was more accurate than the sentimental, musical re-working of 1990. Devised in 1982 when the Cold War was at its peak, Pink Floyd's wall was meant as a metaphor for the mental barriers people build inside their heads. Its collapse brought not joy but disaster. It destroyed the main character's prejudices, which at face value might sound good. But he was left with nothing to protect him from the world, and he collapsed in a deeply depressing spiral...

Everyone acknowledges today that in two short decades the citizens of the United States went from being considered "the Best and the Brightest" to being seen as the stupidest in the industrialized world. Interestingly, we know that this is the result of our own political decisions.

Beginning with our knee-jerk reaction to the social upheaval of the 1960s, America --- under the direction of the Republican Party --- began its turn to the right and rabid anti-intellectualism. With the election of Richard Nixon we committed ourselves to Law and Order and accepted the slogans of soon-to-be-indicted former Maryland governor and Vice President Spiro Agnew as our new mantra. We condemned the "nattering nabobs of negativism" as represented by the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party, the Kennedys and the Eastern Intellectual Elite and embraced the Archie Bunker, hard-hat view of our history.

Being an "egg-head" was out. Being "salt of the earth, Joe Sixpack" was in.

Once Jimmy Carter lamented the "malaise" of our national polity, it was an easy propaganda move to promulgate the Feel Good jingosim and Know-Nothing celebratory stance of Reaganism. Let's abolish the Department of Education, why don't we? This was a *serious* initiative of the Reagan Administration. They didn't accomplish that, but they succeeded in dumbing down America.

Nobody speaks these awful truths as Americans rich and poor lament the ignorance of our populace and cringe at the ridicule of our commercial trading partners, but we all know what happened. Johnny can't read and Janey is about to become a crack whore. We brought this situation upon ourselves. So education is now a Hot Button issue in America.

In this first installment of our G21 White Papers, AGENDA, we will examine education policy in this country, analyse the possible solutions, and provide agenda items and talking points for your further consideration...