Please read the quotation below, with regard to the purpose and intent of the Institution known as State Education (COMPULSORY) for it has something in it for all people who share an intention (at the very least) of contributing to bringing down the tyrants, the real tyrants, in our society. It's not an overnight job.
This is, for all of us a lifetimes work, for our grand children.
We must, like Howard Zinn, be prepared to work tirelessly, and die, without seeing the fruit of our work.
We must also be prepared to ditch theory, hope, dreams and ideologies of all hue and be prepared to honestly embrace the meaning of lived experience, and be careful to apportion responsibility for harm where it truely lies...
The base line for me is this : it is an abuse to tell a child what to think, and to enforce that thinking with any form of sanction, be it subtle or gross ... and this culture of domination is founded upon that primary abuse, for children who adapt to that adverse power relationship, as most do, will either take part in further abuse and rationalise it or be subject to the manipulation of others..... or as many 'alternativistas' do, take refuge in warm hearted cliches easily assimilated from books published for profit, to whit manipulated symbolism of other cultures myths taken totally out of local and historical context and then repeat those same cliches to prove they have learned the work, and attack those who challenge these ideas.. it's all one , maaaaaaaaan!
How this works is is clearly laid out below. Charles Pierce, the eminence grise behind William James and John Dewey, architects of Compulsory State Education in the USA wrote, in the mid 1800s :
“Let the will of the state act, then, instead of the will of the individual.
Let an institution be created which shall have for its object to keep correct doctrines before the attention of the people, to reiterate them perpetually, and to teach them to the young, having at the same time power to prevent contrary doctrines from being taught, advocated or expressed.
Let all possible cause of a change of mind be removed from men’s apprehension. Let them be kept ignorant, lest they should learn of some reason to think otherwise than they do.
Let their passions be enlisted, so that they may regard … unusual opinions with hatred and horror.
Then, let all men who reject the established belief be terrified into silence…. Let a list of opinions be drawn up to which no man of the least independence of thought can assent, and let the faithful be required to accept all these propositions in order to segregate them as radically as possible from the influence of the rest of the world.”
We can see this in operation in the media, and in school text-books.
And we can see this in operation in our own minds as we sometimes struggle to grasp the truth of our current situation. Unexamined assumptions are a good guide to those areas of our thinking that have been 'adjusted' to fit into this 'sick society', an adjustment that Martin Luther King made clear was unacceptable.
THIS HAS TO BE INTEGRATED INTO ALL MAINSTREAM CHANGE MOVEMENTS and the conditioning of children must be seen as the crime it is ... and identified as the key it is...
Because, even if the tyrants are removed, those who do so will, if they have not dealt with the issues I am highlighting, inevitably do the same again, and again... as we see.
Ghand! Great PR, He facilitated an honourable withdrawal of the British Empire, as dishonest and cruel an Empire as ever existed. Nonetheless Ghandi was a misguided ideologue with regards to this issue of conditioning. His treatment of and perspective on women was instructive. India has remained a horror story in spite of the 'great' man.
Mandela! Sold the economic power of 'his' people, 'his' country down the river upon gaining Freedom..he is not solely to blame for this, of course..... the gold and diamond mines still in white hands.. whilst the story of his wife, Winnie, certainly no angel, is hardly ever told in honest terms...... and so it goes..
Time to wake up people.
Again.
The recent tragedy in Haiti serves to illustrate this point. About conditioned gullibility. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama stood on the White House Lawn and urged the American People to share generously their wealth with the troubled people of Haiti.
Notice the smirk on George Bush's face, and the intonation of his voice, as he reads from his script, and tells the American People to not send blankets, shelter, food, medicine.... 'just send your cash'.... 'we will effectively spend it' which is quite different to 'we will spend it effectively'...
And the reality?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8919414
"Less than a penny of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts."
Only a nation of people who have been passed through the system of Compulsion Schooling, like cattle through a meat grinder, could possibly be so gullible, so easily lead.... so profoundly shafted....
And there are many nations, if not all, whose people are and have been subjected to the ministrations of men such as Charles Pierce, and for whom all too often warm hearted gullibility is a refuge.
Hitler passed laws to ban home education while he was in power. Those laws still stand today in modern Germany.
I don't hold the bulk of people responsible for the conditioning they have been exposed to.
I blame the conditioners.
And it's not enough merely to apportion blame, but also to expose this activity of the state for what it is, to cease it and to seek solutions, some of which have been outlined by Paolo Freire, Ivan Illych, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt and others, some of which will evolve from the needs and experiences of different peoples, and their children, in differing circumstance and location.
Time to wake up people.
Again.
The recent tragedy in Haiti serves to illustrate this point. About conditioned gullibility. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama stood on the White House Lawn and urged the American People to share generously their wealth with the troubled people of Haiti.
Notice the smirk on George Bush's face, and the intonation of his voice, as he reads from his script, and tells the American People to not send blankets, shelter, food, medicine.... 'just send your cash'.... 'we will effectively spend it' which is quite different to 'we will spend it effectively'...
And the reality?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8919414
"Less than a penny of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government, according to an Associated Press review of relief efforts."
Only a nation of people who have been passed through the system of Compulsion Schooling, like cattle through a meat grinder, could possibly be so gullible, so easily lead.... so profoundly shafted....
And there are many nations, if not all, whose people are and have been subjected to the ministrations of men such as Charles Pierce, and for whom all too often warm hearted gullibility is a refuge.
Hitler passed laws to ban home education while he was in power. Those laws still stand today in modern Germany.
I don't hold the bulk of people responsible for the conditioning they have been exposed to.
I blame the conditioners.
And it's not enough merely to apportion blame, but also to expose this activity of the state for what it is, to cease it and to seek solutions, some of which have been outlined by Paolo Freire, Ivan Illych, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt and others, some of which will evolve from the needs and experiences of different peoples, and their children, in differing circumstance and location.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe
