Thoughts from England riots to civilization in general

The image of the burning building in the cities of England made a deep impression upon me. Great Britain is very close to me since I grew up in Hong Kong under a colonial style education. We were taught to respect others and become law abiding citizens while contribute our best to the betterment of society. I had always held it above the more liberal style education in the United States. In fact the education system there is already failing as the drop out rate is staggering. Only 50 % of the high school students graduate and among those fewer mastered those skills that actually fulfill the requirements. In the times of continued recession, teachers are the first to go and school funding slashed. Education has suddenly became a luxury that many people can ill afford. In fact people now openly question the worth of a college degree as many fresh grads failed to locate jobs. In Britain the same drama is played out with government slashing education funding. In doing so, they failed to see that without a literate and educated population, people could become easily fanned by discontent. That in itself made the situation inevitable. One must remember we are only taught to be civilized by education that stress what is right and wrong. Without it, we are animals that do whatever we want like barbarians. The youths did not appeared ashamed or uncomfortable when they loot, rob and touched cars & buildings. I remember reading the riots in English history, and how they were fanned by ignorance and general discontentment towards the ruling class. That was 1011 AD and now is 2011. We have come a long way or have we ? Both the US & UK are now throwing away what they had achieved for decades because of short term financial difficulties ? In China & India, people strive to achieve to rose out of the ranks. They understood only by being educated could you become a prosperous, well balanced and intelligent human being who can think for himself. In this thread such a person could contribute to the society he lives in. It is a tragedy that both US & UK ignored this and this is the result. I think this is only the tip of the iceberg and more is to come to both countries if they continue to ignore the importance of education and the meaning of being civilized.