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The Astounding Failure of the US Educational System
The below article titled “The Educational System Was
Designed to Keep Us Docile”, by John Taylor Gatto is a fine read as a complement
to my latest article “Inside the Illusory Empire of the Banking Commodities Con
Game.” Who is John Taylor Gatto?
Mr. Gatto was the NYC “Teacher of the Year” three times, and a teacher that
became highly disillusioned with the formal education system due to its
failures to stimulate critical thinking in children.
I find it odd that people that find value in the information
I provide to my clients as well as information that I provide publicly on my
blog often desire to know of me, “Where did you go to school?” I find it even odder
that many people find my attendance of an Ivy League university to be validating
of my knowledge base and thinking skill set, as if attending an expensive
university is responsible for the thought processes that have enabled many of my
big picture, long-term predictions of the global economy to be accurate. I
believe there is absolutely no correlation between the cost of an education and
intelligence or even between formal education and knowledge, although oddly
people believe this relationship to exist. If there is a provable relationship
between formal education and intelligence, it is probably an inverse one. The
more letters you have behind your name (MBA, PhD, JD, MFA, CPA) the greater
level of stupidity one likely possesses, as the attainment of a higher level of
education means that one has been exposed for a far longer time period than the
average citizen to the indoctrination process.
I find oddest of all, the expressions on people’s faces,
when I inform them that I sincerely believe that the knowledge I gained through
formal institutions of academia was detrimental to my understanding of how capital
markets operate. In fact, I explain to those that inquire of my educational
background that I had to rewire my brain and purge it of nearly all of the
false business concepts and stupidity I learned in school because I later found
the great majority of what I had learned in school to be not only downright
deceptive, but also in my opinion, deliberately erroneous. Many people express
genuine shock when I tell them that my formal education was, as was my
education on Wall Street, almost entirely useless to any of the investment
research and analysis I perform today and that my understanding of how capital
markets move is entirely the result of self-education.
"When we look at the information Gatto has uncovered regarding the purpose of the education system as designed by the men that funded and implemented the foundation of the American educational system in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, we discover, in fact, that the US educational system accomplishes exactly what it was designed to do – to dumb down people and suppress the natural inquisitiveness and critical thought processes of children."
In fact, an article I wrote titled “Delaying a College
Education in this Economy is the Right Choice” probably generated some of the
most perplexed responses I have ever witnessed up close and in person when
discussing the content of this article with others. Some of the responses I have
heard are as follows:
But isn’t this the BEST time to send my kid to college? The
economy is terrible now, so after he graduates, the economy will be much
better, right?
You don’t REALLY mean that, do you? Everyone needs a diploma
to fall back on. Who’s going to respect you without a college degree?
How is my child going to get ahead in life without a college
degree?
Even when someone saw eye to eye with my viewpoint and
generally understood the points I was trying to make in that article, in the
end, they still bowed down to societal norms because of the fact that he or she
has been conditioned to believe in the institutional system of education.
Yes, I understand what you’re saying, he or she would tell
me. But I still need to send my child to college. What other choice do I have?
And that’s exactly what the elite want you to believe – that
you have no choice but to indoctrinate your child through a formal institutionalized
process versus providing an alternate path of education and enlightenment for
your child. In the article below, Gatto states, “It’s no secret that the US
educational system doesn’t do a very good job.” But when we look at the
information Gatto has uncovered regarding the purpose of the education system
as designed by the men that funded and implemented the foundation of
the American educational system in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, we discover, in fact,
that the US educational system accomplishes exactly what it was designed to do
– to dumb down people and suppress the natural inquisitiveness and critical
thought processes of children.
Gatto reveals that Eldwood Cubberly, the future Dean of Education
of Stanford University, argued, in his 1905 dissertation for schools that
should be factory-like in production “in which raw products, children, are to
be shaped and formed into finished products…manufactured like nails, and the
specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”
I have pointed out numerous times the banker-funded state of
business academia in America as my rationale for why business degrees are often
useless. I have often told those considering entering business school that I
could sit down and talk to them for three hours and probably grant them
knowledge that will be a thousand times more valuable than anything they will
learn during a two-year MBA program at Harvard Business School. I say this not out of
arrogance. I acknowledge that I still have a long road to travel in my
own educational journey. I say this only because I am 100% convinced that the
business school curricula of all traditional institutions of academia will
never provide the knowledge young adults need to succeed in today’s Empire of
Illusion.
Today, revered professors all across the US teach students the
nonsense that bankers want them to learn and that bankers want them to believe
is real, NOT the reality of how currency markets, stock markets and commodity
markets truly operate. Gatto confirms my thesis by pointing out a statement
from the Rockefeller Education Board, a key institution that was a critical
force in shaping modern education in America: “We shall not try to make
[students] into philosophers or men of learning or men of science…The task we
set before ourselves is simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do
in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect
way.”
The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Docile (John Taylor Gatto)
About the author: JS Kim, the founder and Managing Director of SmartKnowledgeU,
a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm, attributes
zero of his success as an entrepreneur to the formalized education process, his
four years of education at an Ivy League institution or the attainment of a
double masters in business administration and public policy. Instead, JS
attributes 100% of any success he has attained in any entrepreneurial endeavor
to critical thinking skills that were fostered from international travel,
exposure to independent media and artists, and self-education.
»
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yipcarl
I only stated the glaringly obvious.
Gully, J6P got on a treadmill... and while on that treadmill, other aspects of life are ignored and/or impossible to oversee. With every increase in state responsibility (new laws), comes a corresponding decrease in individually perceived responsibility... people just end up assuming since they pay taxes, etc., that the state has their back on a myriad of issues... before you know it, virtually all personal responsibility has vanished and we're dependent on the state.
However, if you want a job done right...
MachoMan
"With every increase in state responsibility (new laws), comes a corresponding decrease in individually perceived responsibility... people just end up assuming since they pay taxes, etc., that the state has their back on a myriad of issues... before you know it, virtually all personal responsibility has vanished and we're dependent on the state."
I don't agree with that.
I think the problem is started with the fucking boomers who never wanted to grow up. Dyed hair, plastic surgery, trophy wives, youthful activities all point to people who are trapped like Peter Pan.
When you think like a child you never see the tree of life which extends from you. You can never comprehend how your values trasncend time and space through your family. You are involved ONLY with the self and how things reflect the beauty of your self. It is form over function.
The reality is it isn't the stae, it isn't marketing, it is our own weakness and fear which leads to the psychic dead end. We perceieve ourselves as the end result instead of a mere cog.
Thus everything revolves around fulfilling our own individual stunted needs and ignoring those outside ourself.
I watched an episode of Skins. It was about Cassie. She had an eating disorder, and most likely a drug problem. But the show perfectly illustrated just how oblivious everyone from her parents to treatment staff were.
One of the outstanding scenes was her speaking with her parents while theye were feeding their baby. They ignored the child and starting passionately making out. The child was screaming. Another Cassie in the making.
Her parents weren't bad people just self involved.
The boomers did grow up, they became yuppies. All the turncoat motherfuckers changed from wanting to live in communes on Kauai to wanting to drive a ferrari (not a bad goal mind you), have a mcmansion, eat ridiculous and unsustainable foods, and pray to the television. They went from being politically active and aware to sleepwalkers. They did grow up.
The problem is, not only did they grow up, but they institutionalized their stupidity. While the baby boomers might have had a chance (at the very least, MORE of a chance) to buck the money saddle, they made for damn sure that we would grow up in their paradigm... that because their own times were so challenging, volatile, and "experimental", they wanted none of the sort for us. We were fucked from the start. We sit in the K-12 babysitter all day... watching our parents in debt up to their eyeballs... taking full advantage of their credit induced generosity... never asking where it came from... never needing to be politically motivated without war and without need... it was the perfect storm.
Now, I'm not saying that my generation shouldn't look from within for strength and support nor that we are absolved from liability for america's perilous situation... obviously we all have an affirmative duty to maintain vigilant watch upon our democracy... but, all of these factors played a substantial role into many of our youth's ability (or inability) to cope in the wild so to speak.
Sometimes, once things are set in motion, it's vastly more difficult/impossible to stop or alter them... I think the last 30-40 years have basically been baked in... the necessary conclusion of the failed ideologies... of totally self absorbed lunatics...
It may not solely be the state at fault, but the system as a whole plays a pivotal part in our collective consciousness... I think in a large part you're giving humans more credit than we're due... we're just monkeys... once we got shaved, we had no need to pick the grubs from each others' hair.
Several thoughts from someone who went to a high priced Ivy League college:
1) I studied engineering. Folks were amazed. Why would you go to an Ivy League College to study engineering!?!?! Well. I lwas bought into the elitist mentality. But I followed my common sense: 1) I thought that English was bull*&it in high school and knew that I was therefore incapable of getting an English degree, 2) you can't get a job with an English degree (much less think critically), 3) I was good at math, and 4) I knew I could get a job in engineering.
2) Everybody who flunked out of engineering went into the business school - Wharton undergrad,
3) When I got out in the real world, I was chagrined. All of my engineering colleagues who went to the inferior public state colleges had the same text books that I used. It turns out that if you read the books and went to class, you got the same education. An outrage!!!!!!!
4) Nassim Taleb went to Wharton Grad and regretted it - too much bullshit-in/bullshit-out econometric models. No common sense taught.
5) Mike Milken went to Wharton Grad and then prison.
Somewhere along the line I learned to think critically. Math and science are good for that. Never wasted. For example, consider the conservation laws: if money represents wealth, and wealth is created only by human toil, then how can the printing of money create wealth? Larry Summers went to Harvard and got liberal arts degrees. Timmy Geithner got a pansy public policy degree from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Need I say more???
Why create wealth through human toil when you can acquire wealth by simply purchasing it? I've known many who aspire to that path. Therefore, the need to accumulate money.
If money represents wealth, and wealth is created only by human toil, then how can the printing of money create wealth?
Answer: It can't.
But who is creating the money in this debt-based economy? There's the rub...
Read my answer in my overview of the foreclosuregate:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
I've been a fan of Gatto for a long time. After reading his work, we were adamant that our children would never cross the threshold of a public school.
We're homeschooling using a Great Books-based classical liberal arts curriculum. Our oldest is three. I started him on an informal two year-old program last year and he was like a little sponge. Now, he's in his first official year of our chosen program and he continues to excel. I cannot even imagine turning over my bright, cheerful, enthusiastic learner to the state to be pounded into submission.
The more people realize that public schools are actually succeeding at their true purpose, the better our society will be. Don't mistake their failure to educate with failure as a whole.
Those at the top know exactly what they're doing. And they are happy with the results.
-Michelle-
Take the time to watch Mike Rowe's TED talk. It runs about twenty minutes and is very insightful. One of his main points is there is a war on work and working class people. Those who do manual labor, Carpenters, Electricians, so on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc
I believe it. There's nothing wrong with honest work, despite what "everybody" seems to say. One of the things that attracted me to our chosen program is that the coursework branches at 9th grade. There's a "high-school" track for the kids who are not university-oriented. The other option is a collection of more rigorous courses that will earn the student 48 credit hours upon completion.
However, the courses up to 9th grade are a solid foundation of classical education. I want my kids to learn how to think, how to analyze, to have the whole of human history and achievement to draw on, no matter if they're neurosurgeons or craftsmen or homemakers. Currently, kids in public schools are either shunted into vocational courses and kept ignorant of history or pushed into college application mills... and still kept ignorant of history.
We choose neither!
The system is broken. Schools are too large. Almost all admins and teachers are limited in their life experiences and are unable to teach effective life skills. The majority of students spend twelve years being reminded of their stupidity and inadequacies and are being trained for defeat through an excessively competitive system.
One solution is to teach effective thinking skills. Richard Paul, of Sonama State University, does this. He leads the critical thinking movement in the U.S. Edgar V. Moore wrote a chef d'oeuvre "Creative and Critical Thinking" which teaches problem solving in a very methodical, interesting way.
Why teach thinking skills? It's like fighting. Everyone can fight sort of, but the most successful fighters are the ones who receive training from the masters. So thinking. Tie our schooling to the great masters and enter the Great Converssation. Make our courses relevant and vibrant. Kids respond. They grow. They create choices for themselves. They are hard to fool.
jharry
"The system is broken. Schools are too large. Almost all admins and teachers are limited in their life experiences and are unable to teach effective life skills."
No. Homes are broken and parents are NOT assuming responsibility for their children.
While this is about Blacks and their experience at Shaker Heights, the same message applies to the majority of parents.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black-flunking/Content?oid=1...
"The black parents feel it is their role to move to Shaker Heights, pay the higher taxes so their kids could graduate from Shaker, and that's where their role stops," Ogbu says during an interview at his home in the Oakland hills. "They believe the school system should take care of the rest. They didn't supervise their children that much. They didn't make sure their children did their homework. That's not how other ethnic groups think."
Ogbu's story is horrifying and deeply insightful because ALL parents act the same way those in the study have.
Read the article and possibly buy his book. It is at Amazon and relatively inexpensive.
The slave class is frantic and broken. The scam has been on for 77 years.
Time to manage our own commercial affairs, I think. Here's an article with a view on the primary cause of foreclosuregate. Something you don't read every day.
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
Well, I have a CPA behind my name and I do not believe that I have been indoctrinated. I will admit that my Accounting and Finance degrees were heavily weighted towards corporate accounting and the "Big 8, Big 6, Big 4...whatever" accounting firms. However, I had a banking professor who talked about the Shadow Stats website before it was popular. But, I grew up in the countryside South with a different belief system, where over-educated people were not to be trusted. For example, I was taught, "Those that can, DO. Those that can't, TEACH." Now, I personally know many a professor who was truly "called" to the profession and they have a love for teaching with a desire educate and open minds, but they are few and far between.
As for the level of education, I have a clinically diagnosed gifted child and the other child makes straight As. I have told each of them that the society is morally corrupt and that with deference to "The Peter Principle," the incompetence has risen to the top. The only way to get a leg up on the incompetent boss or cronyism is to be more educated than the boss by obtaining a PhD.
As a parent, it has been a struggle. For 10 years, we did not have television in our house. I did not want my children to be over-sexed and dumbed down like the rest of society. Now, we have a "BoB" on our television & we control when it comes on. Our television is not my children's babysitter. I think much of it falls back to parenting and the liberal bias in our education system. But unlike my peers, I actually parent my children, talk to them and show up at my child's school. I educate my children outside the classroom with "life lessons," like why you need fractions and decimals. I define words for them and discuss theories.
In my community, there is an educational theory called "Mainstreaming," where below average students are paired with above average students in an effort to bring up the skill level of the below average student. I believe that as a society, we need to come to terms with the concept that there are janitors and executives, each one contributes to a functioning society in a different way and they should not have an educational system forced on them. But, that is not politically correct....everyone deserves a college education, no matter who pays for it and/or whether the student will be successful. Education is now a money churning, feel good, welfare system.
Just my thoughts.
And there are many more parents out there who have taken the trouble to raise their children. Teach them a thing or two and helped them to acquire the critical thinking skills that are so lacking in our schools.
As far as indoctrination is concerned, do you know how to discharge debt? Do you know how to manage your commercial affairs against an onslaught of incessant fines, fees, taxes, etc.?
Here's an article on the debt-based monetary system and its effects in creating the foreclosuregate:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
My school took an opposite approach to "mainstreaming" whereby the "gifted" (not sure where the IQ minimum was, maybe ~135) students were given extra attention... it pretty much meant we just did logic and reasoning puzzles ad nauseum... this was in grades 1-6... past that, no one cared...
Thinking about it now, that was probably a ridiculous waste of resources given everyone pays "equally" into the system... not really fair to give the overachievers additional attention... although, I suppose the reciprocal must be true too and the underachievers never given any additional help either... I guess, in the end, I'm paying more taxes than I take so, it might have been a good investment on their part, but I'm not sure what the marginal increase was from their efforts...
Needless to say, if people are "weeded out" of the educational system, instead of telling the 400lb down syndrome kid that she can still be an astronaut, then we're going to whittle that bitch down by 50-75%... the whole thing implodes... we've built an educational infrastructure around forcing everyone to be "educated". By culling the herd so to speak (pushing some to vocational degrees, which I do anyway to anyone that tells me they want to go to college), we would also cull educators and institutions... not a bad thing mind you. This coming from someone whose immediate family is composed of educators of all sorts...
My daughter was identified as gifted in the third grade. She was also separated out into special classes geared to her and her peers. I asked questions and was given the run-around until one day someone inadvertantly said the school got $35.00 per day from the government for each student who showed up, but got $50.00 per day for the gifted kids. Suddenly the focus on the gifted kids made sense.
Which I suspect also plays into the incentives of some unnamed schools who pride themselves on their high achievement/et al scores, but then don't disclose that so much of the students' time is dedicated solely to these tests, that they lose out on a much better education... or worse, some schools forge the tests/take the tests for the students/give the answers to ensure a higher degree of funding.
One of the fraud risk factors is motivation/need... I'd say in a period of severe deleveraging, we'll be seeing some crazy shit.
Janice
"For 10 years, we did not have television in our house."
Yes always blame the medium.
Yes you will never see an American Idol, but you will never watch Animal Planet. Sure no Desperate Housewives, but no Rubicon or The Wire or Breaking Bad.
It's like burning the fucking library because you hated Huck Finn.
Issues?
Why let my children sit in front of a tv to see Animal Planet when we can (and have) take trips to see the actual animals...in the wild? This summer we went to Washington, Idaho, Montana & Wyoming and saw Black Bears & Grizzly Bears, Big Horned Sheep, Mountain Goats, Antelope and Deer. Big Deer, hunting type deer. Big bears, running away from bears.
Never heard of Rubicorn, The Wire or Breaking Bad, so they must not be that important to our world. I am raising my children, not yours. Please feel free to watch all the television you like and indoctrinate your children as you see fit.
You may want to check out the "fucking library" soon. Ours has homeless people that sit in there on the computer all day and a LGBT slant to the book selection. Sorry dude, not the lifestyle habits that I want to reinforce.....so yes, burn it down...hate it for Huck Finn.
Janice
Nothing there about how you raise your children just your simplistic view that ALL tv is evil and should be abolished.
That is ignorance. That is snobbery. That is foolishness.
That ignorance is being passed along to the kids.
Like I said you toss out the good with the bad. because something is not in your life now does not mean it should be villified and demeaned.
Tolerance and understanding is the goal. Avoidance ALWAYS leads to disaster.
My child reads damn near everything I hand to him, we watch tons of tv together and heavens forbid play video games.
Best yet he can pick and choose for himself what he enjoys and what he doesn't.
I guess that means We taught him to THINK FOR HIMSELF.
Dude,
Tolerance & Understanding is YOUR goal, not mine. For example, I have no tolerance for pedophiles, nor do I seek to understand them.
More southern sayings,
Never let your mind be so open that your brain falls out.
Those that don't stand for something, will fall for anything.
Thank you.
Understanding is useful. But to understand is not the same thing as to tolerate.
I was agreeing with your point when I said understanding and tolerating are two different activities. To do one does not imply the other. That works both ways. To understand does not mean to tolerate. But, to tolerate also does not necessarily mean to understand.
I was just responding to Gully's comment as he espoused tolerance and understanding after stating that my views were simplistic, ignorant, snobbish and foolish.
I'm not sure that understanding is all that it's cracked up to be. While I understand that it is greed and the love of money that causes people to cheat, steal and lie, it does not change the fact that they do those things and will not change. I promise, there are things that I wish I did not understand (like the economy & corruption), because those thoughts pollute my mind, and I do have not the capacity to effect a change.
Useless article. Twitmonkey Alan Greenspan and Bush's dimwit US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao both chirped "health sciences" as the only jobs left in the US. All IT to India. All manufacturing to China. Start with that as the opening paragraph.IF 99% of the US population wanted to go into health sciences, they would have. They don't need the private bank cartel (Greenspan, Bernanke, Rothschilds, yada yada) telling them to.
Decades ago there was a time-spent-on-task comparison of the amount of time spent on HOMEwork by Japanese students compared to American students. US students are in class 6 hours per day. They spend FAR MORE time at home. Study:adult ratio in class is 25:1. Student:adult ratio at home is 1:2 or so.
"The Making of Americans" by E.D.Hirsch,jr. is a good read that buttresses this author's point of view. And he is a self-described liberal.
Higher education is the secular religion of America. My happiest days have been spent on a variety of college and university campuses, but I have no illusions of education's value. These days, it's more a right of passage for the young. Grade inflation and affirmative action have made credentials a bad joke.
When I was a kid, there were still about half of the managers at plants, warehouses, retail, who had never been to college. They always felt inferior, as if they had missed something important. These days, I would say they missed a life of slavery to student loans.
If you can't have a good time at college when someone else (the government) is picking up your tab and you literally have few if any responsibilities... then you've got problems... It was fucking awesome... too bad it's not real.
I watched Jamies American food revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Oliver%27s_Food_Revolution
and was amazed at it, the teachers said children were falling asleep before when they were on the junk food school meals but now weren't. But the antagonism to the change to proper food was amazing, children in the US and other countries are fed junk and this stupifies them and then they are brainwashed.
Racer
It ain't the food.
On 'Green Acres' that I saw a few months ago, the story line was that Mr Douglas wanted to practice law in Hootersville, so he had to go to the State Capitol to get accredited. When he went to the appropriate office, he was asked where he got his law degree. "Harvard," he said. The clerk looked oddly at him and retorted, "Never heard of it, let me look it up. Ah, we do have a 'Harvard School of Hypnotism' that is accredited by the state - is that it?"
Great embedded reference to the great deception that has been played.
Read this article on the contributors page to open your eyes:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
The pressure to conform and regurgitate starts at the elementary level. I just dropped my two young children off at school. Looking at the art on the walls, you can see how the kids were asked to copy what the teacher did, some stupid mindless craft. If they want to stimulate creativity, give the children a blank paper and paint. The result is often marvelous, better than most teachers could produce if given the same task.
First let's assign the blame of educating our youth to where it belongs and that is parents. Schooling whether it be at the primary or secondary level only supplements the basic education children should have attained at home from their parents. By the time college or graduate school is reached, that part of education should be for specializing in a defined area.
Right, but what the nanny state produces is disinterested parents because they presume that someone else (the state and/or its agents/beneficiaries) is responsible... parents are left unaware the exact extent of their children's education and, as a result, presume everything is being taught... further, by having a state sponsored babysitter, the parents are free to assume roles outside of family time... not only does little johnny have to go to school all day, but he has to do his homework when he gets back, giving his parents the freedom to not have to interact with johnny... and, when parents are tired from a long days work, they dont feel like doing things with little johnny that are incredibly beneficial/educational... they sit in front of the picture box and pray together.
MachoMan
"Right, but what the nanny state produces is disinterested parents because they presume that someone else (the state and/or its agents/beneficiaries) is responsible"
No! It is all about personal responsibility. The Nanny state is just another excuse for lazy slacker parents to apply.
Denis Leary nailed it regarding learning disabilities. The same logic applies to the rest of parenting. Excuses instead of pearsonal responsibility.
Leary writes: "There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you -- yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."
It's what sews the seeds of apathy/laziness... yes, we must all make personal, reasonable decisions... but why do we need any additional distractions? Certainly there are parents that are fully capable of handing all the intricate details of not only educating their children, but making them viable members of the human race. The nanny state allows a socially acceptable default/safety net whereby parents are not psychologically inclined to be as proactive and can easily fall into the apathy/laziness trap... which ultimately leads to substantial neglect.
The other issue is that I'm not at all certain most people are fit to raise their own children... with the myriad of terrible personal decisions (especially economic) made by my fellow americans on a moment by moment basis, I'm not sure we aren't better off throwing little johnny into the grinder to be re-educated/indoctrinated.
To put it differently, the nanny state is simply the enabler of lazy parents... not the "cause". (although, there is probably a feedback loop present).
I don't know how many dresses you are going to sew, but seeds need to be sown by another word. You are quite sure that the dumbed down masses are the victims of their own laziness?
The take has been on for 77 years now, and the slaves are frantic. Here's the center of the controversy:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
I'll rest easy now that I'm fully capable of handling my own commercial affairs.
First, the point of communication is to convey a thought. Generally speaking, if you're capable of correcting someone, then you understood the thought... needless to say, this is about all that we can hope for with communication. Second, you're not scoring any points in the debate by correcting spelling on impromptu streams of consciousness that more likely than not go without even a spell check... take a look at Tyler's work on spelling and then ask yourself how or why there are so many grammatical errors... should be pretty obvious. Needless to say, right concept, but wrong venue bub.
Also, no, I am not certain that our own apathy and laziness are the sole cause of our present situation. In large part, this is a chicken or the egg debate. I have no idea who exactly the first mover was, but there is a substantial feedback loop between our general apathy and the size and scope of the federal government... Maybe we kicked off the initial fireworks, but we've also spawned a monster that continues without our consent. Who knows.
Now, it's debatable whether we're talking about some type of specific apathy here related to a specific transgression (9/11 -> patriot act) or if it is the entire democratic process that has been usurped. My guess is it is the latter, which requires nothing short of constant vigilance on our part to ensure democracy and our governmental foundations are not eroded or transformed. In this regard, we have failed miserably.
Additional point being, the system did function somewhat at one point in time... and we have had every chance along the way to change our path... however, we have not the discipline to endure the constant pain associated with our necessary vigilance. This is why the money changers are so dangerous... our side requires constant vigilance and all they have to do is lie and wait.
Also, as an aside, please stop link spamming in every response...
Well, if you read my article you would understand the methods used to bled the average man dry. This is in no way a chicken and the egg situation.
Historically, the banks have been perfecting their con for hundreds of years.
Did you file your UCC 1 Financial Statement and are you using discharge of debt to shield yourself from all assaults of the corporation?
If not, then you are still part of the problem. I'm for peace. Our vigilance consists in learning the Uniform Commercial Code and putting it into practice immediately.
If a man draped in a trench coat stands in front of you and opens the coat to reveal nothing underneath but an excited captain winky and, in response, you decide to pull down your underpants and grab your ankles, I'm not sure you can complain when captain winky gets burried in your rectum. Further, being a hair dresser, talking with a hip lisp, routinely saying "hello?" in your best girl voice, being a buck twenty soaking wet, and throwing like a girl with both arms won't help the advances of similarly clothed men.
In other words, the issue isn't as simple as you make it... there is a give and take and culpability with all parties involved... the problem is, none of them want to take any responsibility and, as a result, we're at a standstill for any improvement.
Are you asking me out, MachoMan? Thank you for the offer, but I must respectfully decline.
I am neither a gay male or a whore. It is my duty to rebut those assumptions and inform the average man.
Accepted for value and returned for discharge.
It's as simple as that.
MachoMan
"It's what sews the seeds of apathy/laziness"
Nope. Those fine attributes exist within us.
We are the problem.
Once we accept that fact then things will change. If we keep blaming something else or someone else for own flaws then we are doomed to ultimately fail.
The Buddhists nailed it and nailed the path out. They proposed a simple Psychology starting with simple points. Don't get bogged down with the religious side. Simplicity is always the best route.
The Four Noble Truths
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the Eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism)
1. Right View Wisdom 2. Right Intention 3. Right Speech Ethical Conduct 4. Right Action 5. Right Livelihood 6. Right Effort Mental Development 7. Right Mindfulness8. Right Concentration
Aww.....phuck bitchez.
Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed. Live a life free from disappointment: expect nothing, try nothing, value nothing.
The only way to grow a brain is to READ. Lots of great books at the library.
Price of admission..... time.
Knowledge is the only thing you will ever have that can't be taken away.
I'm not so sure about that. How much do you know about the debt-based monetary system and the Uniform Commercial Code? You don't know what you don't know.
Read my post on the contributors page:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
People are literally throwing away books by the box load these days. I've rescued a bunch at the dump, curbside, books that didn't sell at the library sale etc. I try to be picky but I'm drowning in books just now. To the extent the that the Ipad shares any blame for this is a shameful unintended (or not) consequence to say the least. That and the government made all kids books older than 1985 illegal last year. You can thank Obama and Bush (and his child librarian wife) for that lovely bit of government thuggery.
Would that include Alice in Wonderland? Diary of Anne Frank? Dr Suess? I rescued Pushkin & Goethe from the free pile at the library. It seems nobody was reading them so Pfftttt out they went. Truly depressing.