Mission Statement:
To help restore the proper relationship between our officials in Washington and the citizens of our nation, between bearing our own burdens and bearing one another’s burdens, among competing interests, and to promote the ideal of “doing all that is necessary to achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Probably not one of y'all would like to believe the claim that the powers that be are setting us up for a nuclear-charged World War III in the next few years. Go ahead; be skeptical of the claims of the following video. Skepticism is healthy and wise. Here's what I suggest: Reject every conclusion the creator of this video has to offer. Watch this video with pen in hand. Write down every factual claim the speaker makes and—as I said—ignore his conclusions. Put a check mark beside the claims you know are true. Put a question mark beside those about which you're uncertain; look them up later. Then come to your own conclusions. Ask yourself one question: Given that we live in a world governed by the Law of Cause and Effect, what may we reasonably expect to happen if events continue on their present trajectory?
There is an old story in which two bad boys decided on a trick to stump a wise man. They caught a small bird, and one of them held it hidden between his hands. "Is the bird alive or dead?" they asked the wise man. Since it would have been easy to crush the bird, they could display a live bird or a dead one, depending on the wise man's answer. The wise man replied, "The answer is in your hands." Will we see a nuclear World War III in the next few years? Consider the wise man's reply.
A Nobel Peace Prize nominee (of whom there
are more than 250 each year) has recently alleged that a “military legend” told
him that a high-ranking military officer (in turn) told him that, as a “litmus
test,” officers are asked if they would obey orders to fire on American
citizens. (here)Thus, I’m telling you that
someone said that an anonymous person told him that another anonymous person
had told the previous person that this litmus test is now a determining factor in
whether a U.S.
military officer may be considered for advancement.
Can we believe an allegation from this
chain of anonymous sources, repeated by someone whose name is unfamiliar to
us? No, but we can believe facts that
are available to us.
I hold it as an enduring principle of life
that the existence and nature of things that are unseen can be inferred from
things we can see. If such a treasonous policy
as the aforementioned exists, we should be able to see evidence pointing to the existence of
this policy. We should be able to see
preparations for the contingency that the U.S. military would, in fact, be
ordered to fire on American citizens.
What may we reasonably expect to see?
We may reasonably expect to see large numbers of soldiers
returning from foreign deployments and returning to the United States
for stateside billets. (here)
We may reasonably expect to see military exercises in which
servicemen hone their skills at house-to-house raids on American soil. (here)
We may reasonably expect to see military exercises in which
servicemen hone their skills in confiscating firearms from large numbers of
American citizens in single sweeps. (here)and(here)
We may reasonably expect to see false flag events being
staged to provide a pretext for confiscating American firearms. (here),(here), and(here)
We may reasonably expect to see open and obvious efforts to
promote the view that supporters of the Bill of Rights—particularly the Second
Amendment—should be regarded as home-grown terrorists. (here)
We may reasonably expect to see pilotless aircraft known as
drones—the sort of which the Obama administration has used to kill hundreds of
civilians in Pakistan
and elsewhere—practicing in American skies. (here)
We may reasonably expect to see a paper trail showing that
federal government agencies have recently made very large purchases of
ammunition that can be used only within the United States. (Hint: the Department of Homeland Security
has purchased more than two billion rounds of hollow point bullets that are
illegal under the Geneva Conventions.) (here)
We may also reasonably expect to see indications that foreign troops may
be used against Americans, in case American servicemen refuse to violate their
oath to preserve the Constitution and protect Americans “from all enemies,
foreign and domestic.” (here)
We may also see reports of other
officers claiming that they had been required to take a survey asking if they
would obey an order to fire on American citizens. (here)
These are only a few of the many things we’ve seen
over the past few years. We can add to
this list of abuses and usurpations the passage and renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act, the repeal of posse
comitatus, the repeal of habeas corpus—the list goes on and on. Use your favorite search engine to look up
authoritative sources for Operation Mockingbird, Operation Northwoods, and
REX-84. Savvy netizens can add much more
to the list.
Don’t give up your guns. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Story
wrote in 1833, “The right of the
citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of
the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the
usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are
successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over
them.” (here)
In the wake of the Sandy HookElementary
School shooting, it’s time to revisit the curious
phenomenon of smiling witnesses to mass murders. The smiling witnesses are obviously actors—and
poor actors at that; but why do government officials and the corporate media
need actors to play the part of witnesses to tragedy when there are plenty of
real witnesses available?
You've probably already read a few of the
many anomalies surrounding the massacre at Sandy HookElementary
School. To
give a particularly ludicrous example, the official story tells us that Adam
Lanza used a Bushmaster .223 caliber AR-14 to kill all his victims and himself,
after which the murder weapon was retrieved from the trunk of his mother’s car.
(I watched that video several times and
compared the image I saw with other weapons known to have been owned by the
late (he supposedly killed her too) Mrs. Lanza.
The silhouette and the shell ejection port matched only one of the
Lanza guns: the Bushmaster .223 caliber AR-15.)
Of all the unbelievable aspects of the
official story, the most bizarre is the smiling, grinning, jovial young man who
suddenly transforms himself—on camera—into the grieving father of a slain
six-year-old girl.
Here is a timeline from the time the so-called “Robbie Parker” appears on the screen:
8.5 seconds: He first appears on camera. His head is tilted back as he displays a broad, teeth-baring smiling at the others on camera. At this point, he looks as if he’s laughing.
9 seconds: He is still smiling as he swaggers toward the microphone.
10 seconds: He makes a smirking comment to someone off camera, obviously please with himself.
11 seconds: He finishes his witticism and looks down, flashing a grin that even Cameron Diaz would envy.
12 seconds: He steps up to the microphone. His smile begins to fade.
13 seconds: His smile has faded.
14 seconds: He exhales and steps into the role of a grieving parent.
14-24 seconds: Acts as if he is choking back sobs.
24 seconds: He announces, “My name is Robbie Parker.” Whitepages.com doesn't list that name, or anything like it for anyone of his age group in or near Newtown, Connecticut. Whitepages.com does list a Newtown resident named Robert Parker, but he is 78 years old—more than twice as old as the actor in this scene.
The on-line Huffington Post features that same video, but they repeat the line
that “Robbie Parker” was choking back tears and “struggling to catch his breath.The Huffington
shills had to have seen the same laughing and grinning that you and I saw, but
their story clearly claims that “Robbie Parker’s” sobs were real.Anyone who seriously believes that the “news”
media would not lie to us should take note of Huffington’s hypocrisy in this
episode.
Take a look at the photo and decide for
yourself: Does this man look as though he’s fighting back tears and struggling
to catch his breath?
In Chinese culture, there is such a thing
as a paid mourner. Because Chinese are
expected to control their feelings, even at funerals, professional mourners are
hired to wail, cry, and otherwise loudly express grief. In America, however, we have no need
to pay people to grieve on our behalf.
Even in Chinese culture, the paid mourner isn't paid to masquerade as a
family member of the deceased.
Why, then, do mass murders in the United States
produce fake “mourners” and false witnesses?
Even Barack Obama could not resist the
urge to act the part of a mourner. Take
a look at the following video clip and notice where Mr. Obama puts his finger,
supposedly to wipe away tears.
Before watching this video, turn the
volume level to mute. Observe only his
actions. Does he look as though he is
saddened by the recent murder of 20 children?
Then turn up the volume and listen only to his tone of voice, ignoring
his spoken words. Does he sound
sad? Mr. Obama’s body language and tone
of voice don’t match the speechwriter’s words.
The “crying” was obviously fake. Even when Obama’s critics mimicked his false
crying, the critics placed their fingers where people normally would place them
when wiping away tears. Is Mr. Obama so
unfamiliar with normal human emotions that he can’t do a convincing job of
wiping away fake tears?
For other examples of false (and often
smiling) witnesses to mass murders, see “Why would Reporters Lie about 9/11 if the Truth is Worth a Pulitzer Prize?” As far as I know, the only false witnesses to
the recent Aurora, Colorado, shooting were government officials
and the corporate-owned media—but take a look at the sort of thing a real witness might say about a shooting that was supposedly done by a "lone nut."
And the following is what can happen to a credible witness who is "too credible" and who "knows too much." Jenny Gallagher was the emergency room nurse who, according to her husband, "saw everything."
As a rule of thumb, when government
officials and the corporate-owned media collude to provide false witnesses, you
can be sure of three things: 1.) their testimony will also be false, 2.) their
testimony will support the official story with no deviation from it whatsoever,
and 3.) at least that part of the official story will be false.
Anyone who has been intimately involved in
politics from the inside knows the following adages and knows that they are
true:
Politics is theater,
Politics, by its very nature, is conspiratorial,
and
In politics, nothing happens by
coincidence. If it happens, it was
planned.
It’s no coincidence that both the “Batman”
shooting and the Sandy Hook shooting took
place just as Congress was set to debate the issue of gun control. (In the case of the Aurora shooting, Congress was debating a
United Nations resolution on gun control.)
Nor is it a coincidence that the 9/11 mass murder provided a rationale
for wars and other measures that had been planned as early as 1997. All three incidents—and others—were staged
events.
(Note: Of all the anomalies mentioned in
all the blogs I've read, no one seems to have noticed the one about the
mask. One can argue that the Batman
shooter was wearing a mask because it was part of a costume; but why was “Adam
Lanza” (if it were really he) wearing a mask? I've never heard of a suicide shooter wearing a mask. Suicide shooters know they’ll be identified
after they’re dead, so they have no need to conceal their identities. More likely, the shooters (there were more
than one) and Adam Lanza’s body wore similar masks, and the real shooters got
away.)
We are left with the question, “With so
many real witnesses and real families of victims, what need do the government
and broadcast media have of false witnesses and fake families?” The answer is simple: Spinmeisters have no
way of knowing what a truthful witness or a real family member will say. Fake witnesses and family members can be
relied upon to follow the script.
Take the "Harley shirt guy," who supposedly
witnesses both crashes into the WTC twin towers and their collapse—apparently
the only person on Earth who witnesses all four events, though he somehow
missed seeing the collapse of Building #7.
He enunciated the “official story” of 9/11 before anyone had even
investigated the crime. Ask yourself, "Does anyone who has just seen more than 2,000 people die talk like the man in this video?"
The same goes for the actor calling
himself Robbie Parker. If a real family
member stood before the camera without being coached, there was too much chance
that he would lash out at the fact that, by federal law, not one teacher at Sandy Hook was armed.
Since Congress was debating a ban on assault-style weapons that very
week, the words of a real parent could have been a disaster for the
spinmeisters.
Take a look at the following video of the
family of an apparently real victim at Sandy HookElementary
School.
The family has obviously been maneuvered into appearing on camera,
apparently thinking that they were honoring their slain relative by doing so. Meanwhile, the ghoulish interviewer Piers Morgan was clearly putting words into their mouths.
The father of the family would clearly rather be somewhere else; and,
throughout the interview, he showed contempt for the entire charade.
That’s be best the spinmeisters could do
for a grieving family. Even when the
family is tricked into being cooperative, they’re not as dependable in
following the script as an actor would be.
That Romney was over two weeks early in announcing
his selection of a running mate was odd.
That much is a given. To people
who have seen political campaigns from the inside—such as I—it’s downright
bizarre.
Contrary to popular belief, the selection
of a vice presidential candidate doesn’t help the presidential candidate. It really doesn’t. In fact, all it can do is hurt the
candidate. For that reason, most
presidential candidates prefer to pick running mates who are virtually unknown
outside their bailiwicks. Even then,
they make their picks known toward the end of the convention, when most of the
excitement—and public interest—has died down.
In my entire life, I’ve known only one
occasion in which the selection of a running mate has helped the
candidate. Even then, it was for
unconventional reasons.
When George H. W. Bush was running for
President in 1988, he publicly said that he would pick a running mate who would
show the nation what high standards Bush was setting for his
administration. Instead, he picked an
effete, over-privileged, bumbling oaf who, to this day, makes me wonder why
dumb blondes are always depicted as female.
A political insider explained to me that
the selection of Quayle was campaign strategist Lee Atwater’s idea. Quayle was a rabbit for the Democrats to
chase. The Democrats spent so much of
their time laughing at Quayle that they neglected to attack Bush, who was
little more than a résumé wearing a suit. Lackluster Bush laughed all the way
to the White House.
Mitt Romney’s strategists couldn’t
possibly be so uninformed as to think that the early selection of a running
mate would make him more popular with voters.
Who, then, did they expect to please?
To answer that question, we need look no
further than Romney and the “man” he picked.
Mitt Romney’s unconventional timing in his selection of Paul Ryan was
intended to please Wall Street’s trillion-dollar embezzlers and other
malefactors of great wealth. It was an
early signal that he is most certainly their man—one who will keep the cash
spigot pumping our money to Wall Street, keep America’s wars of aggression
going at full throttle, and complete the Bush/Obama agenda of shredding the
Constitution and trampling American liberties.
Paul Ryan has been almost consistently in
favor of interventionism where America
has no business, Wall Street embezzlement with no accountability, and a
shredding of the United States Constitution.
As witness to this, take a look at how he
voted on the following issues (Source: On the Issues)
May
2001: Voted YES on requiring
states to test students.
October 2001:Voted YES on spending $99 billion of our money on an
“economic stimulus” for bankers and other fat cats.
October
2002: Voted YES on authorizing military force in Iraq.
April 2003:Voted YES on spending $78 billion of our money for the
fraudulent and illegal wars in Iraq
& Afghanistan.
March
2004: Voted YES on approving removal of Saddam, which was against
international law.
October 2004:Voted YES on adopting the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, whitewashing the whole affair.
February 2005:Voted YES on federalizing rules for driver licenses. The
excuse given for this attack on American freedom is that it was intended “to
hinder terrorists.”
July 2005: Voted NO on deterring foreign arms transfers to
China.
(Like, who needs Taiwan
anyway?)
April
2006:Voted YES on continuing
intelligence gathering without civil oversight.
June
2006: Voted YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no
exit date.
September 2006:Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without
a warrant.
January 2007: Voted NO on removing oil and gas exploration subsidies; that is, voted YES on continuing to subsidize oil and gas companies to the tune of up to $15 billion a year while the top five oil and gas companies were making profits close to $100 billion a year. (Source)
May 2007: Voted NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days.
August
2007:Voted YES on removing need for
FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad.
November
2007: Voted NO on regulating the subprime mortgage
industry, thereby helping to cause the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing
Great Recession.
June
2008: Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless
surveillance.
June
2008: Voted NO on investigating Bush impeachment for lying about Iraq. Actually, it was an incredible series of
lies: weapons of mass destruction, connections to the CIA front al Qaeda, being
accessories to 911, and so on. The war,
which was highly profitable to Bush cohorts, killed over 600,000 civilians and
made refugees of 4,000,000 others.
December 2008: Voted
YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler.
As one of the provisions of this bill, the corporations got a bailout,
but hundreds of GM and Chrysler dealers lost their dealerships. See the above video debunking GM's claim that they had repaid the money "early and in full." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOaS2SymjQ4
January
2009: Voted NO on monitoring TARP funds to ensure more mortgage relief. In other words, he voted YES on “no
accountability for the trillions of dollars embezzled from the American
taxpayers and sent to Wall Street.” Here's a video of Paul Ryan shamelessly begging Congress to pass TARP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJBZYz858M
March
2009: Voted NO on modifying bankruptcy rules to avoid mortgage foreclosures; that is, if Wall Street wants your house,
they’re entitled to it.
July
2009: Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. You didn’t see any of that money, did
you? The money didn’t go to the needy;
it went to the greedy, on your credit card.
March
2011:Voted NO on removing US armed
forces from Afghanistan.
February
2011:Voted YES on extending the
PATRIOT Act's roving wiretaps.
September
2011: Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs and terrorism. This essentially means that he voted NO on military border patrols.
On many issues,
Paul Ryan voted quite reasonably. It’s
not the percentage of votes that counts, however. What counts is the net result of the votes.
Let’s say, for
example, a congressman voted against 100 needless bills that would have had a total cost
of several billion dollars, yet he voted for a half dozen highly dangerous bills that had a
total cost of several trillion dollars.
Let’s say he
voted for dozens of bills that were consistent with our social or religious
views, yet he voted for a few that presumed to authorize the government to spy
into your email accounts, record your telephone conversations, and label you a
domestic terrorist if you assert your constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Let’s say he
voted for dozens of cost-cutting measures but put us in debt to the tune of
over thirty trillion dollars for the benefit of the big banks and the military
industrial complex. Let’s say he further
voted against measures that would require accountability as to how those
missing trillions were spent.
There you have
Paul Ryan. You also have all the
evidence needed to show who Mitt Romney was trying to please when he picked
Ryan as his running mate several weeks before it was necessary. However he may posture as an adequate substitute for Ron Paul, he's still very much in the pockets of the Wall Street kleptocracy. Dan Quayle would have been an improvement.
A few months ago I requested and was assigned a class in Travel and Tourism English. As I had expected, every available textbook at my students’ level offered a lot of vocabulary words to use in conversation about going on vacation.
That’s important, of course, but I wanted more than that. I wanted to broaden students’ understanding of other peoples and cultures. I wanted them to see that environmental responsibility goes much further than demanding that governments force “somebody else out there” to accept responsibility for making the world a cleaner and healthier place. And as the Christian song goes, “Let there be peace, and let it begin with me.”
There are types of tourism that promote understanding among different groups of people and that promote awareness of our environmental responsibilities. What I found, though, is that in most cases these forms of tourism don’t have a vocabulary that has traction. Term such as new tourism and alternative tourism make these forms of tourism sound strange. By contrast, the default form of tourism known as mass tourism sounds as though it’s more popular because it’s somehow better than “new” or “alternative.”
I would need both a new approach and a new vocabulary for what I will teach. I believe I have found both. "Mass tourism" has become "glass bubble tourism;" alternative tourism is now "full contact tourism." The video series is called Paradigmaclast. BTW, all but one other Internet site spells the word "paradigmoclast," but I disagree with that spelling. The Greek word for paradigm is paradigma, with an a.
With a four-week trial offer of a video converter, I spent almost a month downloading hundreds of videos and converting them to WMV format. I spent the next few weeks using Moviemaker to pick them apart to use as video resources. Then I spent more than a month creating eight lessons in video format—107 minutes in all. These lessons are intended to supplement the textbook rather than replace it. Future video lessons should take much less time to generate, as they will be more in-depth—thus, the number of clips in each video will be fewer and longer.
In several respects, my strategy involved a perilous navigation between Scylla and Charybdis. I’ll spare y’all the details. In the end, though, I took what appears to be a simple approach: showing them just enough about other cultures to cause some of them to want to know more. Entertainment rather than logical suasion is the vehicle that drives this strategy. Below are the first eight lessons. Just click on the link.
What if the 9/11 Commission Report failed to support the “official” narrative of 9/11? What if the 9/11 Commission Report flatly contradicted the “official” narrative of 9/11?
The 9/11 Commission Report in our time has several things in common with the Bible during the Middle Ages. We’re told that the 9/11 Commission Report has authority that must not be questioned—that it should be accepted entirely on faith. Some people do question it, and they’re scorned for it. Very few people have actually read it. (During the Middle Ages, few people read the Bible for themselves because they were unable to do so. In our time, very few people have read the 9/11 Commission Report because they choose not to do so.)
In both cases, not reading the book in question is no barrier to expressing opinions on it; because, in both cases, we have earthly authorities claiming to tell us what it says. During the Middle Ages, it was the Catholic Church; in our time, it’s the corporate-owned “news” media.
Over the past few months, I’ve been doing what heretics have done in every century; I’ve been studying a supposedly sacrosanct book for myself. In this case, it’s the 9/11 Commission Report. I haven’t finished my study of the report, but I’d like to share with y’all some of what I've found. You probably won’t be surprised at the news, but you’ll almost certainly be surprised that these items came from the 9/11 Commission Report.
I’ll share other items as I assemble them in readable form.
The introduction begins with a news article on page ix. The title of the article is “HOUSE GIVES WAY ON A SEPT. 11 COMMISSION; CONGRESS IS SET TO CREATE IT.” Here are some excerpts from the December 17, 2002 article:
“Yielding to intense pressure from families of Sept. 11 victims, the White House agreed last night to a Congressional compromise that would create an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks….
“The 10-member commission…is intended to be unflinching in assigning blame for specific government failures….
“Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, said…that the administration was stalling on the plan because it could not control the commission’s eventual findings.” [Emphasis mine]
On page xv, we see the headline, “9/11 COMMISSION SAYS U.S. AGENCIES SLOW ITS INQUIRY.” The article says in part:
“The [9/11 Commission] said…that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony.
“The panel also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, the commission’s chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to “intimidation” of the witnesses….
“[The] commission’s Republican chairman and Democratic vice chairman… [declared] that they had received only a small part of the millions of sensitive government documents they have requested from the executive branch….
“[The] commission’s leaders said that federal agencies under Mr. Bush’s control were not cooperating quickly or fully….The coming weeks will tell whether we will be able to do our job within the time allotted.” [Emphasis mine. By the way, the official beginning of the investigation was November 27. I have no explanation for the dateline for the above article.]
On page xvi, we read that, on October 26, 2003, the commission threatened to subpoena the necessary files from Bush’s executive branch. Remember that the Commission was authorized to investigate 9/11 for eighteen months. By this time, eleven months had already passed.
The next two articles (on pages xvii and xviii) cover events of November 13 and December 4. The first tells us that the Bush administration, in order to avoid a lawsuit, agreed to giving the Commission “limited access” to the documents. It said in part,“[Panel] officials said the pact imposed substantial limits on access….”
The 9/11 Commission issued a subpoena for New York City’s records related to 9/11, saying that the city’s refusal“significantly impeded” their investigation. Two weeks later, on December 4, Mayor Bloomberg agreed to give the Commission access to the documents.
In early February 2004, President Bush agreed to extend the investigation for another two months, until late July (xix). In a March 31 article (xx), Bush agreed to allow National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to publicly testify under oath.
Here’s a video clip of Rice lying under oath to the 9/11 Commission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=CcrgeuLb3dQ&NR=1 The quotes you just read came from just the first few pages of the 9/11 Commission Report. The rest of the book is chock full of findings that cast doubt on the official version of events as told by the corporate-owned media. As I further sift through it and arrange information for future articles, I’ll make further reports.
For now, let me jump ahead a few hundred pages and offer you a quote for comparison.
On May 16, 2002, Condoleezza Rice, who would later under oath to the 9/11 Commission, famously said, “I don't think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." From many, many sources, you already know that that statement was a lie. Did you also know that the 9/11 Commission Report exposed Rice’s lie before anybody else did? Read this quote from page 394 of the 9/11 Commission Report, referring to a conversation that took place in late August or early September 2001:
“There was substantial disagreement between Minneapolis agents and FBI headquarters as to what Moussaoui was planning to do. In one conversation, between a Minneapolis supervisor and a headquarters agent, the latter complained that Minneapolis’s FISA [Foreign Intelligence Service Act] request was couched in a manner intended to get people ‘spun up.’ The supervisor replied that was precisely his intent. He said he was ‘trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.’ The headquarters agent replied that this was not going to happen and that they did not know if Moussaoui was a terrorist.” [Emphasis mine.] The American Action Report warmly welcomes the 9/11 Commission into the ranks of kooky conspiracy theorists. As time allows, I’ll share some of their other rants with y’all. In the meantime, I encourage y’all to read the report for yourselves.
School, we are told, prepares young minds for life in the world of adults—commonly called real life. Oh? What kind of life is that? To answer that question, we have to take a look at what happens in a typical classroom in most countries that we call “advanced.”
There is a saying, “He who wills the means wills the end.” If you want to know to what end “education” has in mind, just take a look at the means by which this end is reached.
First of all, students are arranged in a rectangular group facing an authority figure called a teacher. For twelve years or longer, these pliable young minds are supposed to look to the authority figure to shape their beliefs concerning nearly everything.
Taking notes is vital. No questions are to be asked except for clarification or further detail. Questioning the accuracy of the authority figure’s assertions risks such labels as “disciplinary problem” or an acronym-style label that can be punished with psychotropic drugs.
This regimen is reinforced by progressive steps that are continuously repeated in cycles.
Let’s say, for example, that the subject is geography. Let me lead you through the routine.
Most students would be delighted to learn about people in other parts of the world, their cultures, and their concerns; but, like most other subjects, geography isn’t about gaining understanding. It’s about learning to look to authority figures for what you’re told to believe. It’s about making this mind-numbing experience an ingrained part of your existence.
Each day, the child is told things to write down and memorize. Each day, he is issued a task called homework, in which he reads and memorizes but is never supposed to question. It doesn’t matter what he memorizes. What matters is that he learns not to question what he is told.
For example, the child is told that Easter Island’s highest point is 507 meters above sea level. He’s not told that, due to gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, and due to the turning of the earth, sea level near the equator is higher than sea level at the poles. What we call sea level is an entirely arbitrary number based on what is considered sea level at Cornwall, England. Why is the sea level of Easter Island measured according to where the sea is in Cornwall rather than the actual level of the sea at Easter Island?
For that matter, the concept of meters is as arbitrary as the agreed-upon concept of sea level. As for Easter Island itself, the locals call it Rapa Nui. Why is the child taught to call it by a name that the locals don’t use?
Even when the information they’re taught isn’t entirely arbitrary, it’s often entirely useless.
What does it matter that the capital of Alaska is Juneau? From 1901 to 1906, the capital city was Sitka. I don't know or care what it was before that. What does it matter that the capital of Brazil is Brasilia? Until 1960, it was Rio de Janeiro. If the location of the capital isn’t sacrosanct to the people of Alaska and Brazil, why should it be all that important to the students? If we care to know those things, don’t we have the Internet?
It isn’t important. What is important is that the students memorize and be able to repeat, without question, anything the authority figure tells them. By doing this, they develop a credulous nature and avoid learning to think for themselves.
Once they’ve memorized all this, the drill is reinforced by taking quizzes. The quizzes almost invariably take the form of multiple choice questions or filling in blank spaces. The authority figure refrains from asking discussion questions or any other questions that require higher order thinking skills. After all, while the students are learning the 4R’s (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic—never mind spelling), they’re absorbing the 3D’s: deliberate dumbing down.
The mind-numbing exercises of quizzes are reinforced by tests, which, in turn, are reinforced by exams. Children who unquestioningly memorize what they’ve been told are rewarded with higher grades. Children who give answers contrary to what the authority figure has told them—even when the authority figure is mistaken—are punished with lower grades. Children who make a habit of questioning the authority figure are remanded to a charlatan who has them medicated with mind-altering drugs that may lead to such violent behavior as school shootings.
Isn’t all this supposed to prepare children for life as adults? To whose benefit is all this?
If real life is a multiple choice test, it’s a test in which each question has dozens of right answers and hundreds of wrong answers rather than one right answer and four wrong ones. In real life, wrong answers rarely receive lifelong punishment. In real life, we learn from mistakes; and, often, failure is the mother of success. In school, children are punished for asking others for answers. In real life, we benefit from asking others.
As such, real life is student centered, cooperative learning, and project based learning with emphasis on authenticity. As schooling should be preparation for real life and not real life itself, project lessons should be scaffolded—that is, guided in increments. If school really were intended as preparation for real life, that’s the way it would be structured. That’s the way I try to structure my classes.
On the other hand, the late George Carlin had a serious point: “The real owners of this country don’t want people with critical thinking skills. They want people who are just smart enough to run the machines but too dumb to ask questions.”
I want my students to question what I tell them. I want them to think for themselves. I want to prepare them for a real life in which they have control over their lives instead of having to look uncritically to such bogus authority figures as news reporters, politicians, government bureaucrats, materialistic pastors, and—yes—school teachers.
I am grateful to teachers who taught me the value of thinking, and who guided me in the process—teachers such as George Reeves, Ted Peters, Jack Montgomery, Pat Rydz, and others. Looking back, I can scarcely believe how credulous I once was. I suspect that I still have far to go. In the video below, you'll see ESL (English as a Second Language) students of whom five teachers and an administration official said to me, "Don't expect too much of them. Their level is very low, and they're not very motivated." For their mid-term exam in English Conversation, I assigned them to teach the class in English for at least ten minutes.
Since then, I have assigned students to create documentary videos for first semester final exams. Here's one:
That's not bad, especially considering that I had to ignore the advice, "Don't expect too much of these students. Their level is very low, and they're not motivated."
There’s a big world of options outside Plato’s Cave. I’ve caught a glimpse of that world and want to see more of it. I’m still searching. I want to show it to others.
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