Reflections

 About hiding a terrible evil to mercilessly profit from it
 Regarding how to achieve a mandatory, high-quality education for everybody
 Regarding an appropriate job

About hiding a terrible evil to mercilessly profit from it

For many years American tobacco companies, thanks to their own internal research, were certain about the toxicity of cigarettes. Long before the Health Ministries, tobacco labs discovered the risk of cancer, coronary diseases, and the addictive properties of nicotine. They discovered it and then hided it. When such knowledge started to dangerously spread throughout public opinion, an extremely powerful public relations machine was set in motion, first, to deny the evident and then to undertake a more subtle and even more devious maneuver: to spread the idea that scientific data were not conclusive, that there were doubts and controversies among the own experts. When the evidence was demolishing and cigarettes had already killed millions, hired experts from the tobacco corporations propagated the merchandise of the doubt. For each smoker who was unsure about quitting, for each day that went by without firm prohibitions, the benefits kept piling up as a monstrosity.

Antonio Muñoz Molina

Regarding how to achieve a mandatory, high-quality education for everybody

The answer to accomplish these objectives is varied: with full-time schools that can be more flexible with times and support each student; with a curriculum that favors different expression languages and cultural references as well as with a differentiated pedagogy that personalizes teaching. All these require policies: selection of best teaching candidates, high level training, integral support to each school, paid institutional working time, school directors trained as real pedagogic leaders, an educational administration with higher levels of responsibility over the results. The list is long.

Juan Carlos Tedesco and Axel Rivas

Regarding an appropriate job

An appropriate job is a relationship where the following labor conditions are met: an income that enables the satisfaction of basic needs, affiliation to social security, a stable contract or appointment, a labor day no longer than 48 hours per week, and that the working age be between 15 and 64 years old.

SENPLADES, Ecuador