WHAT DO EMPIRES DO? ~ MICHAEL PARENTI

By Michael Parenti

February 14,2010

Commondreams

When I wrote my book Against Empire in 1995, as might be expected, some of my U.S. compatriots thought it was wrong of me to call the United States an empire. It was widely believed that U.S. rulers did not pursue empire; they intervened abroad only out of self-defense or for humanitarian rescue operations or to overthrow tyranny, fight terrorism, and propagate democracy.

But by the year 2000, everyone started talking about the United States as an empire and writing books with titles like Sorrows of Empire, Follies of Empire, Twilight of Empire, or Empire of Illusions ~ all referring to the United States when they spoke of empire.

Even conservatives started using the word. Amazing. One could hear right-wing pundits announcing on U.S. television, "We're an empire, with all the responsibilities and opportunities of empire and we better get used to it"; and "We are the strongest nation in the world and have every right to act as such" ~ as if having the power gives U.S. leaders an inherent entitlement to exercise it upon others as they might wish.

"What is going on here?" I asked myself at the time. How is it that so many people feel free to talk about empire when they mean a United States empire? The ideological orthodoxy had always been that, unlike other countries, the USA did not indulge in colonization and conquest.

The answer, I realized, is that the word has been divested of its full meaning. "Empire" seems nowadays to mean simply dominion and control. Empire ~ for most of these late-coming critics ~ is concerned almost exclusively with power and prestige. What is usually missing from the public discourse is the process of empire and its politico-economic content. In other words,

while we hear a lot about empire,

we hear very little about imperialism.

Now that is strange,

for imperialism is what empires are all about.

Imperialism is what empires do.

And by imperialism I do not mean the process of extending power and dominion without regard to material and financial interests. Indeed "imperialism" has been used by some authors in the same empty way that they use the word "empire," to simply denote dominion and control with little attention given to political economic realities.

But I define imperialism as follows: the process whereby the dominant investor interests in one country bring to bear their economic and military power upon another nation or region in order to expropriate its land, labor, natural resources, capital, and markets-in such a manner as to enrich the investor interests.

In a word, empires do not just pursue

"power for power's sake."

There are real and enormous material interests at stake,

fortunes to be made many times over.

So for centuries the ruling interests of Western Europe and later on North America and Japan went forth with their financiers ~ and when necessary their armies ~ to lay claim to most of planet Earth, including the labor of indigenous peoples, their markets, their incomes (through colonial taxation or debt control or other means), and the abundant treasures of their lands: their gold, silver, diamonds, copper, rum, molasses, hemp, flax, ebony, timber, sugar, tobacco, ivory, iron, tin, nickel, coal, cotton, corn, and more recently: uranium, manganese, titanium, bauxite, oil, and ~ say it again ~ oil. (Hardly a complete listing.)

Empires are enormously profitable for the dominant economic interests of the imperial nation but enormously costly to the people of the colonized country. In addition to suffering the pillage of their lands and natural resources, the people of these targeted countries are frequently killed in large numbers by the intruders.

This is another thing that empires do which too often goes unmentioned in the historical and political literature of countries like the United States, Britain, and France. Empires impoverish whole populations and kill lots and lots of innocent people.

As I write this, President Obama and the national security state for which he works are waging two and a half wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, and northern Pakistan), and leveling military threats against Yemen, Iran, and, on a slow day, North Korea.

Instead of sending medical and rescue aid to Haiti, Our Bomber sent in the Marines, the same Marines who engaged in years of mass murder in Haiti decades ago and supported more recent massacres by proxy forces.

The purpose of all this killing is to prevent alternative, independent, self-defining nations from emerging. So the empire uses its state power to gather private wealth for its investor class. And it uses its public wealth to shore up its state power and prevent other nations from self-developing.

Sooner or later this arrangement begins to wilt under the weight of its own contradictions. As the empire grows more menacing and more murderous toward others, it grows sick and impoverished within itself.

From ancient times to today, empires have always been involved in the bloody accumulation of wealth. If you don't think this is true of the United States then stop calling it "Empire." And when you write a book about how it wraps its arms around the planet, entitle it "Global Bully" or "Bossy Busybody," but be aware that you're not telling us much about imperialism.

Michael Parenti's recent books include:

Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights);
Democracy for the Few, 8th ed. (Wadsworth);
The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press),
Superpatriotism (City Lights),
The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press),
and God and His Demons (forthcoming).

For further information, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org.

AMERICA~ SUNSET OF THE EMPIRE

"You have not begun to appreciate the depth of our guilt.
We are intruders. We are subverters.
We have taken your natural world,
your ideals, your destiny,
and played havoc with them.
We have been at the bottom of
not merely the latest great war,
but of every other major revolution in your history.
We have brought discord and confusion and frustration
into your personal and public life.
We are still doing it.
No one can tell how long we shall go on doing it.
Who knows what great and glorious destiny
might have been yours if we had left you alone."
~ (Jew) Marclis Eli Ravage, Century Magazine February, 1926

I won't be adding Snippits and Snappits to this article because it is, for me, as the author describes it.I grew up with the America of Davey Crocket, Old Yeller, The Lone Ranger, Rin Tin Tin, Zorro, peopled by cops and firemen who rescued kitties in tree, sat in the malt shop and chatted like uncles to wide eyed children, and you did not have to lock your car doors.

A world of safety before the invention of drugs, feminism, playboy, computers, indeed television was new and just beginning to weave its webs of control over our innocent mindset. All was good in White America. Thanks to the controlled media that kept us so. naive and insulated. We were innocent and believed that our leaders really did know what was best for us and never questioned the status quo. It seems funny they killed this trust and now expect they can FORCE us back to trust!

If a man worked hard, his family had a good home, were well fed and it was safe to walk the streets at night dreaming of rosy futures knowing we could do and be anything we wanted with diligence. Little did we know that the people I quote above, were insidiously changing our world, incremental step by incremental step, working hard to kill our family unity and fiscal independence.

So as you read think and apply the above quote and you will have your answer as to who and why things morphed into what they are today with its climate of fear and degradation.

February 12, 2010
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE
By Randall Amster

Sometimes, I really miss America ~ or at least the idea of it. You know: that can-do spirit, streets paved with gold, champion of the tired and poor, purple mountains majesty, that sort of thing. Say what you will, and call it naïve, but the storybook values at the heart of America's erstwhile image are inspiring.

Like most who grew up here, I was steeped in the lore and legend of this place. Despite obvious flaws in the narrative (how exactly does one ‘discover' land upon which others are living, anyway?) there existed a strong sense that at the end of the day some part of our cherished ideals would emerge in time to set things right.

Principles like due process, free speech, the work ethic, checks and balances, equal opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness held meaning if only as a reminder that our collective lives stood for something and that our destinies were in our own hands. It may well have been an illusion all along, yet even the most cynical among us likely believed in the underlying ethos at some point in time.

Unfortunately, that America ~ even in its illusory state ~ has ceased to exist. We are no longer an abstract beacon of hope to the world, but rather a purveyor of concrete hellfire. We rain automated death from above and commit orchestrated theft from below. We export despair and import disdain. We've abandoned even keeping up the pretense of fair play and adherence to principle.

We've become global pariahs and domestic piranhas. Awash in a sea of surfaces, distractions, and palliatives, we unsurprisingly have failed to notice that the sun has already started to set on our adolescent empire.

Indeed, by most measures, the U.S. is rapidly becoming a failed state. Educationally, economically, politically, culturally ~ all of our national gauges are pointing in the wrong direction.

We're moving down the list on health care, democratic governance, productivity, environmental protection, academic achievement, official transparency, incarceration rates, transportation, and public services.

We're ruled by an increasingly emboldened elite class that rewrites the rules at will, increasingly represses dissent, and openly enriches itself at our expense.

We hardly make anything on these shores, but still consume everything in sight.

We have few public intellectuals of renown, yet are bombarded daily with the foibles of celebrities who are in many cases famous simply for being famous.

Our food supply is tainted, our energy is unclean,

and our water is drying up.

And racism remains as deeply-rooted as ever.

It's not a pretty picture from inside the belly of the beast these days. But never fear, for America has a secret weapon at its disposal that will keep us in the driver's seat for a while longer. Our secret weapon, actually, isn't so secret: weapons. The days of guile, comity, and negotiation are over. Empires don't dicker, they simply take what they want.

They don't ask permission or forge alliances, they make demands and extort loyalties under threat of repercussions. They don't cede oversight authority to any international community, or even feel constrained by their own laws and rules, but instead act by fiat and in flagrant disregard of treaty and protocol. Empires, in short, follow the empty logic of "might makes right."

The ruling elite in the U.S. have made it eminently clear that this is our prevailing strategy going forward.

We will utilize brute force to retain our position as the global superpower even as we have lost our moral and cultural suasion.

America's tenure as a fully imperialist power is barely over a century old, its position as a true superpower about half that, and its status as sole hegemony about half that still.

In a mere few decades,

we've gone from savior to enslaver,

from bastion to bastards,

from heroic to horrific.

Whatever historical good will we may have accrued has been squandered in a frenzy of hubris and hatred.

Perhaps I'm being a bit obdurate here, so let me clarify things a bit.

Empires that reach this point of no return, in which power subsumes principle, are essentially on their last legs.

Legitimacy can be replaced by subjugation for a time, but it is always self-defeating in the end. While history is unequivocal about this, it's also true that the recorded annals have never seen an empire quite like the one we've created.

By slowly and steadily insinuating ourselves economically and militarily into the affairs of nearly every nation on the planet, we've built an ingenious system in which recalcitrance is very nearly a form of suicide.

If this empire falls, it threatens to take everyone with it in the process, thus perpetuating the unspoken but widely understood mantra: "You're either with us ... or else."

Consider the sheer totality of the U.S. military presence around the planet. Hundreds of bases are spread across every continent ~ effectively functioning as sovereign satellites of American influence ~ with a preponderance located in vanquished nations such as Germany, Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These are now our chief exports: military bases, hardware, and soldiers.

We've also weaponized space and created an automated execution network that circumnavigates the globe, bringing push-button "justice" to anyone we deem a viable target (including our own citizens).

Now we're developing fully-functional robot soldiers to continue the dehumanization of warfare in our stead, which will serve our purpose of fostering submission through fear equally well whether they in fact work properly or not.

Domestically, the agenda has been set. The power elite have now "doubled down" on this strategy of maintaining supremacy through force.

Military strategy documents point toward a future of perpetual warfare and relentless competition over dwindling resources, with the highest ideal of "national security" represented by our unmitigated capacity to impose our will on multiple fronts at once.

Increasing episodes of disaster, such as in Haiti, will be used overtly as "Trojan horse" moments to expand our military footprint under the guise of humanitarianism.

Our federal budgets will concretize all of this with escalating military expenditures coupled with frozen austerity in all other spheres. The military is sacrosanct and, moreover, is now the lone remaining chip to be played in the game of global conquest.

It certainly seems like a grim scenario, one that stands in stark contrast to the idyllic (albeit ersatz) America of our youth. It also begs us to consider what will become of young people growing up in tomorrow's America, devoid as it likely will be of even a redeeming ideological veneer.

Will the future populace here be comprised of equal parts swaggering "ugly Americans" and withdrawn, apathetic technophiles?

Will we have an America in which people either embrace our military superiority and martial character as a moral virtue on the one hand, or are constrained to immerse themselves in our cultural distractions as a refuge from the emerging security panopticon on the other?

In other words, will those ensuing Americans face delimited choices that come down to either institutionalized anger or repressed angst?

I wonder if people living under the auspices of failing empires throughout history have felt similarly. The silver lining (there has to be one, right?) is that all previous empires have fallen and the sun still came up the next day. Indeed, as surely as anything else we can count on in this life, sunset is inevitably followed by sunrise. Whether anyone will be here to see that new day dawning is an open question, and one that we might consider as something of a cultural crucible at this point.

Perhaps that apocryphal America from a bygone day can yet be resurrected, only this time for real and not merely as an ideal. In my mind's eye, I can envision a door opening up ahead even as the one behind us closes.

Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College and serves as the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. His most recent book is the co-edited volume Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

INDIA'S FARMERS SET TO BEAT PLOUGHS INTO SWORDS

Until I can clear up some space in this blog, I cannot pose illustrations to round out the posts. I ask you to please be patient.

By Anuj Chopra

25 January, 2010
The National

BAJHEDA KHURD, INDIA

“I am ready to die, but won’t part with an inch of my land,” declares Yudhishtir Sisodia, 32, standing in the middle of his blooming, emerald-green mustard farm.

“My land is my livelihood; it’s not just a piece of real estate.”

Mr Sisodia has lived off this tiny 1.6-hectare patch of farmland for generations. So when Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL), a powerful business conglomerate promoted by the billionaire tycoon Anil Ambani, offered to pay him 3 million rupees for his land ~ an astronomical sum for a peasant who earns less than 10 per cent of that amount a year ~ he resisted.

In 2006, the government allotted RNRL 10,000ha of richly fertile alluvial land from seven villages, including Bajheda Khurd, in Ghaziabad district in northern India, to build a 7,480-megawatt gas-fired thermal power plant, touted as the world’s largest.

But this move was bitterly opposed by 30,000 farmers who would be displaced. The farmers, who own the land, say it was forcibly acquired against their will.

Last month, RNRL suffered a massive setback when a court ruled that farmers from the region were entitled to get their land back.

Such disputes over land acquisition have jeopardized hundreds of industrial projects around the country. As India’s economy surges, the country is whetting a large appetite for industrialization.

With cities congested, the only free land available is fertile farm land in rural India. In a country where more than half of the 1.2 billion population lives off farming, the government faces a major dilemma of how to divert this land to industries.

Since 2006, the Indian government has approved the creation of 568 special economic zones ~ Chinese-style, tax-free industrial enclaves to promote trade and exports ~ but less than half have successfully taken off. Land acquisition procedures for industrial projects are threatening to endanger investments worth US$100 billion (Dh367.3bn) all over the country, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India says.

In many instances the transfer of land between farmers and corporations has occurred without conflict, but a large number of projects have run into trouble.

In 2008, TATA Motors announced it was suspending construction of its Nano factory over a sprawling 405ha of farmland in Singur, in the eastern state of West Bengal, dogged by violent farmer protests that it was unable to quell. TATA wanted to use the land to build the world’s cheapest car, the $2,500 pint-sized four wheel drive Nano. The violent backlash compelled them to shift the entire project to the western state of Gujarat.

Arcelor Mittal is keen to set up steel units over 2,850ha of land in the iron-rich tribal areas of Jharkhand and Orissa, but faces an inordinate delay in acquiring the land because of confrontations with farmers.

Betel leaf farmers have acrimoniously held up a $12bn project of the South Koren steel giant POSCO in Orissa, occasionally kidnapping their officials.

The Maha Mumbai project, promoted by the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani, which was proposed to be the country’s largest special economic zone covering 10,000ha, has been stalled indefinitely for similar reasons.

Chandrajir Banerjee, the director general of the Confederation of Indian Industries, says the problem of land acquisitions “will badly affect industrial development and overall economic growth in the country”.

Industrial units are expected to create millions of badly needed jobs for India’s teeming millions, and could bring billions of dollars in foreign investment.

“I am reasonably sure that agriculture cannot offer productive employment opportunities to India’s growing labour force,” says Professor Suresh Tendulkar from the Delhi School of Economics. “Consequently, transition to non-agricultural activities is inevitable in the process of economic development.”

Between 2006 and 2008, India’s farm sector grew by just 2.3 per cent, and grain production remains stagnant. Low crop yields, high interest rates charged by unscrupulous lenders and competition from farmers employing more advanced methods have caused nearly 200,000 peasants to commit suicide in recent years in India’s south and west.

The farm sector accounts for only 17 per cent of India’s GDP, while the industrial sector contributes 29 per cent.

Acquiring prime agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes could spur a food security crisis, analysts say. Between 1990 and 2003, 2.1 million ha of agricultural land have been used for non-agricultural use, according to government statistics. This land could have fed millions of India’s hungry.

The government is expected to initiate changes in the country’s archaic Land Acquisition Act to settle issues of procuring land from farmers. The new law would make it mandatory for companies to procure 70 per cent of land for industries at market rates, a move aimed at ensuring farmers are well compensated.

In Mr Sisodia’s humble village, dirt roads remain pitted with bone-jarring potholes, water shortages are common, the power supply is erratic and the nearest hospital is 30km away.

But residents cite the example of neighbouring villages, where farmers in the 1980s sold large swathes of land to the state-owned NTPC, which supplies electricity to the rest of country. Ironically, local villagers still light up their homes with the dim light of kerosene lanterns.

“This shows how hollow are the promises of these English-speaking industrialists,” says Mr Sisodia.

But JP Chalasani, the chief executive of RNRL’s Reliance Power, says he is not giving up on his thermal project. The company has filed a petition to the supreme court, challenging the earlier verdict.

On a recent morning, farmers gathered in the village square armed with bamboo batons, pitchforks and cattle prods. The mood turned belligerent when a man, claiming to be the agent of a lawyer representing RNRL, arrived and said the lawyer wanted to talk.

“Peep into your heart,” Mr Sisodia said. “We’ve given our blood, our jewelery, our cattle to fight for our lands. If we stormed into Anil Ambani’s mansion, would he give it to us?”

E-mail: achopra@thenational.ae

Originally published in The National, UAE:
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20100123/BUSINESS/701239936/1005

DISASTER CAPITALISM HEADS TO HAITI

Disaster Capitalism on the move

By Steve Lendman
January 17, 2010
STEVELENDMANBLOG

In her book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," Naomi Klein explores the myth of free market democracy, explaining how neoliberalism dominates the world with America its main exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere.

As a result, wars are waged, social services cut, public ones privatized, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or in duress to object. Disaster capitalism is triumphant everywhere from post-Soviet Russia to post-apartheid South Africa, occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Honduras before and after the US-instigated coup, post-tsunami Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia, New Orleans post-Katrina, and now heading to Haiti full-throttle after its greatest ever catastrophe. The same scheme always repeats, exploiting people for profits, the prevailing neoliberal idea that "there is no alternative" so grab all you can.

From this description of Disaster Capitalism, it is obvious that this has also been more slowly applied in Canada and most certainly south of the border in the States, as well in other NWO infested nations such as Germany.

On Her web site, Klein headlines a "Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again," then quotes the extremist Heritage Foundation saying:

"In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the US response to the tragic Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

A woman makes pies out of sand, water and salt in the Cite Soleil slum in Port au Prince, Haiti. Many Haitians were so poor even before the earthquake that they were forced to eat these cakes of sand. (Zoriah)

Heritage notes "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti," itemized briefly below:

~ be bold and decisive;

~ mobilize US civilian and military capabilities "for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform;"

~ US military forces should play an active role interdicting "cocaine to Haiti and Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola;"

~ US Coast Guard vessels should stop Haitians from trying "to enter the US illegally;"

~ Congress should authorize "assistance, trade and reconstruction efforts;" and

~ US diplomacy should "counter the negative propaganda certain to emanate from the Castro-Chavez camp (to) demonstrate that the US's involvement in the Caribbean remains a powerful force for good in the Americas and around the globe."

Heritage is an imperial tool advocating predation, exploitation, and Haitian redevelopment for profit, not for desperate people to repair their lives. It disdains democratic freedoms, social justice, and envisions a global economy "where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish" solely for the privileged, the chosen few, not the disadvantaged or greater majority.

American Leadership Necessary to Assist Haiti After Devastating Earthquake

It's for free market plunder, regulatory freedom, tax cuts for the rich, exploiting the majority, corporate handouts, and militarized control for enforcement. It supports the Bilderberg idea of a global classless society - a New World Order with rulers and serfs, no middle class, no unions, no democracy, no equity or justice, just empowered oligarchs, freed to do as they please under a universal legal system benefiting them.

The age old means of support for the people of Arugam Bay was fishing. The tsunami changed made the bay "scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working" and the fishing industry was not revitalized.

For the moment, their focus is Haiti, ripe for plunder, like the second tsunami that hit coastal Sri Lankans. The December 2004 one took 250,000 lives and left 2.5 million homeless throughout the region. Klein explained the aftermath at , "a fishing and faded resort village" on Sri Lanka's east coast that was showcased to "build back better."

Now these sons of independent fishermen have new futures, serving the international surfing crowd and other tourists in the "built back better" Arugam Bay.

Not for villagers, for developers, hoteliers, and other business interests to exploit. After the disaster, they had a blank slate for what the tourist industry long wanted ~ "a pristine beach (on prime real estate), scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working, a vacation Eden. It was the same up and down the coast once rubble was cleared....paradise" given the profit potential.

New rules forbade coastal homes, so a buffer zone was imposed to insure it. Beaches were off-limits. Displaced Sri Lankans were shoved into grim barracks, and "menacing, machine-gun-wielding soldiers" patrolled to keep them there.

Tourist operators, however, were welcomed and encouraged to build on oceanfront land ~ to transform the former fishing village into a "high-end boutique tourism destination (with) five-star resorts, luxury chalets, (and even a) floatplane pier and helipad."

Arugam Bay was the a model for transforming around 30 similar zones into a South Asian Riviera to let Sri Lanka reenter the world economy as one of the last remaining uncolonized places globalization hadn't touched.

DID NEW YORK ORCHESTRATE THE ASIAN TSUNAMI?

High-end tourism was the ticket ~ to provide a luxury destination for the rich once a few changes were made.

Government land was opened to private buyers.
Labor laws were relaxed or eliminated.
Modern infrastructure would be built, and
public opposition suppressed to let plans proceed unimpeded.

The same scheme followed Hurricane Mitch in October 1998 when Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua were hardest hit. In Sri Lanka, Washington took the Mitch model to the next level ~ beyond individuals to corporate control over reconstruction. Business ran everything. Affected people were shut out. Klein called it a new type corporate coup mother nature made possible. Now again in Haiti with an idea of what's coming.

Powerful business interests constructed a blueprint from housing to hotels to highways and other needed infrastructure.

Disaster relief went for development.

Victims got nothing and were consigned to permanent shantytowns like the kinds in most Global South cities and Global North inner ones.

Aceh and other affected areas adopted the same model.

A year after the tsunami, the NGO Action Aid surveyed the results in five Asian countries and found the same pattern ~ residents barred from rebuilding and living in militarized camps, while developers were given generous incentives.

Lost was their way of life forever.

The same scheme played out in New Orleans (Hurricane Katrina) with unfettered capitalism given free reign. With considerable Bush administration help, mother nature gave corporate predators a golden opportunity for plunder. Prevailing wage rates for federally funded or assisted construction projects were suspended. So were environmental regulations in an already polluted area, enough to be designated a superfund site or toxic waste dump. Instead, redevelopment was planned.

LEVEES BLOWN SAY EYEWITNESSES ~ MEDIA IGNORES THEM

As a previous article explained, New Orleans had ample warning but was unprepared. The city is shaped like a bowl, lies below sea level, and its Gulf coast is vulnerable. As a result, the inevitable happened, affecting the city's least advantaged ~ the majority black population targeted for removal and needing only an excuse to do it. The storm wiped out public housing and erased communities, letting developers build upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city land.

It was right out of the Chicago School's play book, what economist Milton Friedman articulated in his 1962 book, "Capitalism and Freedom." His thesis:

"only a crisis ~ actual or perceived ~ produces real change. When a crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around...our basic function (is) to develop alternatives to existing policies (and be ready to roll them out when the) impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

Friedman believed that government's sole function is

"to protect our freedom from (outside) enemies (and) our fellow-citizens. (It's to) preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (safeguard private property and) foster competitive markets."

Everything else in public hands is socialism, an ideology he called blasphemous. He said markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, "entrenched interests" and human interference, and the best government is practically none ~ the wild west because, in his view, anything government does business does better so let it.

Ideas about democracy, social justice,
and a caring society were verboten
because they interfere with free-wheeling capitalism.

He said public wealth should be in private hands, profit accumulation unrestrained, corporate taxes abolished, and social services curtailed or ended.

He believed "economic freedom is an end to itself (and) an indispensable means toward (achieving) political freedom."

He opposed the minimum wage, unions, market interference, an egalitarian society, and called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme on earth."

He supported a flat tax favoring the rich, and believed everyone should have to rely on their own resources to get by.

In a word, Friedmanomics preaches unrestrained market fundamentalism. "Free to choose," he said with no regard for human needs and rights.

For him and his followers, economic freedom is the be-all-and-end-all under limited government, the marketplace being the master.

Applied to New Orleans, it meant permanent changes, including removing public housing, developing upscale properties in its place, privatizing schools, and destroying a way of life for thousands of disadvantaged blacks expelled from their communities and not allowed back.

Klein called Friedman's thesis "the shock doctrine." Applied to Russia, Eastern Europe and other developing states, it was shock therapy. For affected people, it was economic and social disaster under Friedman's prescription for mass-privatizations, deregulation, unrestricted free market predation, deep social spending cuts, and harsh crackdowns against resisters.

It's disaster capitalism, business is booming, and Haitians will soon feel its full fury under military occupation.

Haiti ~ Beleaguered, Occupied,
and Stricken by a Disaster of Biblical Proportions

Since the 19th century, America dominated Haiti.

Before the quake, a proxy paramilitary Blue Helmet force occupied the country, dispatched not for peacekeeping but iron-grip control.

Worse still, it was the first time ever that UN forces supported a coup d'etat government, the one Washington installed after US Marines kidnapped President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, forcibly exiled him to Africa, and ended the political, economic and social reforms he instituted ~ in areas of health, education, justice and human rights.

Ever since, conditions for Haitians have been nightmarish, and now the quake and further misery ahead from the Pentagon's iron fist and greater than ever exploitation.

Obama's top priority is control, underway immediately after the Pentagon took over the Port-au-Prince airport, reopened it after its brief closure, and set up a temporary air traffic control center. Military personnel now decide what gets in or out, what's delivered, how fast, and according to unconfirmed reports, they slowed arriving search and rescue equipment, supplies, and personnel, except for what other countries managed to send in types and amounts way short of what's needed.

As a result, trapped Haitians perished, whereas a concentrated, sustained airlift, including heavy earthmoving and other equipment, might have saved hundreds or thousands more lives.

The 1948 ~ 49 Berlin airlift showed how. For nearly 11 months, western allies delivered what rose to a daily average of 5,500 tons, providing vital supplies for the city's two million people. Today, the Pentagon has far greater capabilities. If ordered, massive amounts of virtually everything could be expedited, including heavy earthmoving equipment and teams of experts for every imaginable need. The result would have been vast numbers more lives saved, now perished because little was done to help, except for heroic volunteers providing food, water, and medical care, and Haitians who dug out survivors with small implements and their bare hands.


On January 15, Reuters reported that the Port-au-Prince 9,000-foot runway escaped serious damage and could handle big cargo planes easily. Immediately, food, water, medicine, rescue crews, and other specialists began arriving from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, China, and elsewhere, but very little from America, including vitally needed heavy equipment. Haiti has very little of what's needed.

Instead, the Pentagon sent in thousands of Marines and 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers (a 10,000 force contingent once in place), armed killers, not humanitarian personnel and regular supplies to sustain them. Larger numbers may follow to be supplemented by UN Blue Helmets and Haitian National Police under Pentagon command.

A long-term commitment for militarized control is planned, not humanitarian relief, reminiscent of the 20-year 1915 ~ 1934 period when US Marines occupied and ravaged Haiti.

Throughout the country, the lives of nine million people are at stake. Of immediate concern, are the three million in Port-au-Prince and surroundings, devastated by the quake and unable to sustain themselves without substantial outside help.

President Rene Preval, from whom the stench of NWO emanates

Central also is Haiti's government, now crippled, including one report saying the senate building collapsed with most of the lawmakers inside. It's not clear who's alive or dead in either National Assembly chamber, the cabinet, or other government posts. It hardly matters, however, under US military control leaving President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive mere figureheads.

Once full control is established,
the immediate shock subsides,
and the media lose interest,
reconstruction will be implemented for profit,
not poor Haitians left on their own
in communities like Cite Soleil and Bel Air
or permanently displaced
for what developers have in mind.

Efforts will focus on upscale areas and facilities for the Pentagon, US officials and selected bureaucrats. Before the quake, the Preval government was weak, ineffective, and uncaring about Haiti's vast needs. He effectively ceded power to Washington, the UN, and the large imperial-chosen NGO presence in the country.

In addition, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party was banned from the scheduled February 2010 parliamentary elections (now cancelled or postponed), and was earlier excluded from the 2009 April and June process to fill 12 open senate seats, resulting in a turnout below 10%, and mocking a true democratic process.

Now, millions of Haitians hang by a thread.

As one of them put it, "tout ayiti kraze," the whole country is no more.

The government is inoperative.

Port-au-Prince is in shambles. People are struggling to survive,

100,000 or more likely dead, a toll sure to rise as disease and depravation claim more.

Those in poor communities are on their own. Rescuers are concentrating on high-profile, well-off areas, but without earthmoving equipment can do little to save victims. The problem ~ Washington obstructionism and indifference to human suffering and need.

On January 15, Al Jazeera reported that aid agencies are struggling under difficult conditions and inadequate supplies, let alone how to distribute them throughout the capital. As a result, frustration is growing with little help, no shelter, decaying bodies still unburied, the threat of disease, and the stench of death everywhere with no power, phones, clean water, food, and everything millions need.

Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera's Port-au-Prince correspondent said:

"A lot of people have simply grown tired of waiting for those emergency workers to get to them. Thousands of people are streaming out of the city towards the provinces to try to find supplies of food and water, supplies that are running out in the city."

On January 16, Al Jazeera headlined "Haiti: UP to 200,000 feared dead." About 50,000 bodies have been collected, according to Haiti's interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, and he anticipates "between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number," nor how many more will expire in the weeks and months ahead, unnoticed and unreported.

On January 17, Al Jazeera headlined, "Aid teams struggle to help Haitians....amid difficulties in distributing relief supplies to those who need it most.

Sebastian Walker said delivering supplies stacking up at the airport has been extremely problematic:

"This comes down to the complex issue of who is in charge here. The US military has a great deal of control over the number of flights that are landing here. We heard that a UN flight carrying aid equipment had to be diverted because the US was landing its own aircraft there. The question of just who makes the decision over how to distribute the aid seems to be what is holding up the supplies."

The Pentagon decides, of course, and that's the problem.

Obama also urges "patience," saying "many difficult days (are) ahead," without explaining his obstructionist uncaring role.

The result is reports like this:

~ from Canada's CBC As It Happens broadcast interview with an ICRC spokesperson saying he spent the morning of January 15 touring one of the hardest hit areas, and "In three hours, I didn't see a single rescue team;"

~ a same day BBC interview with an American Red Cross spokesperson complained about aid delivery ~ that arriving planes carried people, not supplies, and amounts at the airpot weren't being delivered;

~ the Canada Haiti Action Network calls Port-au-Prince a city largely without aid because areas most in need aren't getting it; further, in nicer neighborhoods, dogs and extraction units arrived, but 90% of them are just sitting around, perhaps because of no earthmoving equipment to reach victims;

~ another report said a French plane carrying a field hospital was turned away, then later allowed in; meanwhile, Israel got carte blanche for its own field hospital, able to handle 500 casualties daily, so it begs the question ~ why praise Israel for (selectively) helping Haitians when it murders Palestinians daily, keeps the West Bank isolated and locked down, Gaza under siege, and denies critically ill residents exit permission for treatment unavailable from Strip facilities, leaving them to perish; and

~ various reports say US forces are preventing flights from landing; prioritized are landing US troops, repatriating American nationals, and perhaps starving poor Haitians to death; dozens of French citizens and dual Haitian-French nationals couldn't leave when their scheduled flight to Guadeloupe couldn't land; an angry French Secretary of State for Cooperation, Alain Joyandet, told reporters that he "made an official complaint to the Americans through the US embassy."

UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Report on Haiti Relief

On January 15, OCHA reported as follows:

"Logistics and the lack of transport remain the key constraints to the delivery of aid. Needs are still being identified as access becomes possible and as assessments begin to take place.

Displaced populations are currently scattered across multiple locations where there is open space. Temporary shelters urgently need to be established.

Fifteen sites have been identified for distribution of relief items. World Food Program reached 13,000 people today with food, jerry cans and water purification tablets."

OCHA continued, saying:

"A total of (only) 180 tons of relief supplies have arrived in-country so far. Operations are heavily constrained due to the lack of fuel, transport, communications and handling capacity at the airport. Some flights are being re-routed through Santo Domingo airport (far from Port-au-Prince in the Dominican Republic) which is also becoming congested."

In its latest January 16 report, OCHA repeated that airport logistics remain a challenge, the result of re-routed flights, congestion, lengthy offloading times, the lack of transport and fuel, no storage facility, and the airport "now packed with goods and teams" not being delivered.

Three million Haitians need help, but the World Food Program distributed high energy biscuits only to 50,000. Around 50,000 are getting hot meals.

Major health concerns include untreated trauma wounds, infections, infectious diseases, diarrhea, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, and Haitians with pre-existing condition like HIV/AIDS, diabetes and cancer aren't being treated.

Up to a million people need immediate shelter and non-food aid, including clean water, blankets, kitchen and hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and tents.

"As of 16 January it is estimated that fuel for humanitarian operations will only last 2 to 3 more days before operations will be forced to cease."

There have only been 58 live rescues so far among the many thousands trapped beneath or behind rubble.

OCHA launched a Flash Appeal for $575 million "to cover 3 million people severely affected for six months."

Sixteen EU nations are providing aid but not enough.

America is doing practically nothing.

One nation delivering heroic help is Cuba, but little about it is reported.

Despite its own constraints, it's operated in Haiti for years, and now has over 400 doctors and healthcare experts delivering free services. They work every day in 227 of the country's 337 communes.

In addition, Cuban medical schools trained over 400 Haitian doctors, now working to save lives during the country's gravest crisis. It's no small achievement that Cuba, blockaded and constrained, is responsible for nearly 1,000 doctors and healthcare providers, all of whom work tirelessly to save lives and rehabilitate the injured.

According to China's Xinhua News Agency:

"Cuban aid workers have taken charge of (Haiti's) De la Paz Hospital, since its doctors have not appeared after the quake," perhaps because many perished, are wounded, or are trapped beneath or behind rubble themselves.

Cubans are working despite a lack of everything needed to provide care except for what its government managed to deliver. Dr. Carlos Alberto Garcia, coordinator of its medical brigade, said Cuban doctors, nurses and other health personnel are working non-stop, day and night. Operating rooms are open 18 hours a day.

Independent reports now say Washington is trying to block Cuban and Venezuelan aid workers by refusing them landing permission in Port-au-Prince.

The Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission is also blocked.

On January 15, the US State Department confirmed that it signed two Memoranda of Understanding with the remnants of Haiti's government which places Washington in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid off loading in the country.

For years, Cuba has sent doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers to countries in need worldwide, winning hearts and minds for its free highly professional services. It provides national health care for all its people, and now has about 25,000 doctors in 68 countries.

In addition, over 1,800 doctors from 47 developing states graduate annually from Cuban medical schools, return home, and provide quality care for their people.

Major Media Misreporting
Ignoring Haiti's long history as a de facto US colony, the major media report a sanitized version of today's catastrophe. For example on January 14, The New York Times cynically editorialized: "Once again, the world weeps for Haiti."

This is the same paper that lied in a March 1, 2004 editorial after US Marines forcibly exiled Aristide, saying:

~ he resigned;

~ sending in Marines "was the right thing to do;" and

~ they only arrived after "Mr. Aristide yielded power."

It also blamed him for "contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule," and accused him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not "deliver(ing) the democracy he promised."

"We must stop the United States from sucking the blood of the Haitian people by any means necessary,"

In fact, other than a brief period after its liberating revolution (1791 ~ January 1, 2004), the only time Haiti was democratically governed was under Aristide and during Rene Preval's first term. Aristide, in fact, was so beloved, he was overwhelmingly reelected in 2000 with a 92% majority and would be equally supported today if allowed to run.

In fact, when he's most needed and wanted,
Washington won't let him return.

In media coverage of Haiti's disaster, the greater story is suppressed, the one that matters, that puts today's tragedy in context:

~ 500 years of repression; slavery under the Spanish, then French, and since the 19th century as a de facto US colony;

~ deep poverty and human misery, the worst in the hemisphere;

~ despotic rule, occupation, exploitation, starvation, disease and low life expectancy; and

~ now a disaster of biblical proportions getting Times headlines like:

"In Show of Support, Clinton Goes to Haiti"

Omitted was that it was for a brief airport photo op, America's usual show of indifference to human suffering, in this case, the result of US imperialism, not as a benefactor the way The Times and other major media portray.

"Officials Strain to Distribute Aid to Haiti as Violence Rises"

America sends Xe mercenaries into Haiti. In fact, Haitians have been remarkably calm, no thanks to Washington that's slowing aid delivery, providing very little of its own, and offers little more than militarized occupation, armed killers, including Xe (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) mercenaries, notoriously savage brutes.

"Looting Flares Where Authority Breaks Down"

Looting? People are suffering, starving, dying, desperate because America sends fighters, not food; Marines, not medical aid; combat killers, not compassion, caring, and kindness; and diplomats, not doctors or human decency.

"Government Struggles to Exhume Itself"

Calling it "comparatively stable" ignores that Preval's government is a proxy for US interests and no longer functioning. Pentagon killers are now in charge.

"Bush, Clinton and Obama Unite to Raise Money for Haiti"

After the December 2004 tsunami struck East Asia, the Bush administration spearheaded a similar campaign, raised over $1 billion, and used it for corporate development, not people needs.

Obama backs a similar scheme (Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund) in a show of contemptible indifference to human misery and chose two co-conspirators for his plan.

The Bush administration engineered the February 2004 coup ousting Aristide, established police state rule, and immiserated nine million Haitians. For his part, Clinton kept an iron grip throughout his presidency instead of supporting Aristide's political, economic and social reforms.

He's now UN Special Envoy to Haiti heading an Obama administration neoliberal scheme featuring tourism, textile sweatshops, sweeping privatizations and deregulation for greater cheap labor exploitation at the expense of providing essential needs.

He orchestrated a plan to turn northern Haiti into a tourist playground and got Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines to invest $55 million for a pier in Labadee where the company operates a private resort and has contributed the largest amount of tourist revenue to the country since 1986.

More still is planned, including a new international airport in the north,
an expanded free trade zone,
a new one in Port-au-Prince,
now delayed, various infrastructure projects,
and an alliance with George Soros' Open Society Institute for a $50 million partnership with Haitian shipper Gregory Mevs to build a free-trade zone for clothing sweatshops.

Nothing like a little star power for Clinton's latest imperialist endeavour.

In addition, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has $258 million in commitments, including the Better Work Haiti and HOPE II projects, taking advantage of duty-free Haitian apparel exports to America to encourage greater sweatshop proliferation.

According to TransAfrica's founder Randall Robinson:

More star power.

"That isn't the kind of investment that Haiti needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It needs investment so that it can feed itself." It also needs debt relief, not another $100 million the IMF just announced adding more to a $1.2 billion burden.

Above all, Haiti needs democratic governance freed from US control, military occupation, and the kind of oppression it's endured for centuries so its people can breathe free.

It doesn't need two past and a current US president allied with Haiti's elites,
ignoring economic justice,
exploiting Haitian labor,
ignoring overwhelming human desperation,
militarizing the country,
crushing resistance if it arises,
and implementing a disaster capitalism agenda at the expense of essential human needs, rights and freedoms.

The only good news is that the Obama administration granted undocumented Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months. They can now work legally and send remittances to family members. It affects 30,000 ordered deported and all non-US citizens.

During the Bush administration and throughout Obama's first year in office, repeated calls for it were refused. Now after 80 representatives and 18 senators, Republicans and Democrats, and the conference of Roman Catholic bishops sent appeals, Obama relented for Haitians in America as of January 12.

New arrivals will be deported unlike Cubans under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act (as amended), a "wet foot/dry foot" policy under which those interdicted at sea are returned home, but others reaching shore are inspected for entry, then nearly always allowed to stay.

TPS aside, Haiti faces crushing burdens ~
deep poverty,
vast unemployment,
overwhelming human needs,
severe repression,
poor governance,
Washington dominance,
a burdensome debt, and much more
before the January 12 quake.

Now the disaster, militarization by the Pentagon, and disaster capitalism soon arriving besides what's already profiteering. It's been Haiti's plight for generations, the poorest hemispheric nation in the area most under Washington's iron grip and paying dearly for the privilege.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday ~ Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN EDUCATION

The Destruction of American Education
And What We Must Do About It

By Dr. Norman D. Livergood

It might seem that the word "destruction" in the title of this essay is a bit over the top. But it's the only accurate description of what's happening in America today. The demonic cabal that now controls the U.S. systematically destroyed American education in general and is now attacking each educational discipline. We can see this in the Bush junta's denying and misrepresenting the scientific evidence for global warming ~ leading to their refusal to sign the Kyoto Accord.

Now the social sciences are being attacked. Jeb Bush, during his tenure as Governor, turned Florida into a totalitarian state, perpetrating a monstrous vote-rigging fraud in 2000 which resulted in his brother being criminally appointed President by the Supreme Court. Next, Jeb extended his dictatorship into the realm of education. Jeb and his henchmen assaulted the entire discipline of history by redefining it as the teaching of "fact," not "construction." In other words, history in Florida is now what Jeb and his cronies say it is, and any disagreement with their "facts" is not to be tolerated.

The Deliberate Creation of American Illiteracy

Some thirty million adults in the U.S. do not have the skills to perform even the most basic tasks such as adding numbers on a bank slip, identifying a place on a map, or reading directions for taking a medication. Eleven million Americans are totally illiterate in English.

Only twenty-nine percent of Americans have basic reading and computing skills. One out of every twenty Americans lacks the ability to understand what is going on in the world or to develop an informed opinion for voting.

Portrait of adult literacy in America pic With an illiterate, uneducated American citizenry, unable to understand what's happening in the world, it's no wonder that a fascist cabal has been able to take over the United States.

On June 27, 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that the government may give financial aid to parents so they can send their children to religious or private schools. Before we examine the results of that decision, let's review the historical demise of the American educational system.

It's no accident that America's schools have slowly eroded and that the intelligence of the average American has become so debilitated. American learning has plummeted and public school performance has nose-dived ever since the middle of the twentieth century because it was planned that way.

Thinking American citizens must always be aware that what goes on in this society is the result of the planning of its rulers; they create precisely the social, psychological, economic, and ideological conditions which will realize their goal of excessive wealth for themselves and impoverishment for the working class.

The History of Education

~ Education, the development of understanding, must be distinguished from training, the development of skill. Education occurs through learning:

~ Gaining knowledge or understanding of something by study, instruction, or experience

~ The radical transformation of self

"I take significant learning to involve a change in the learner. It is a change in behavior, in interpretation, in autonomy or in creativity. Ordinarily we take in information, organize it, make whatever response, if any, seems advisable, and monitor the results in those comfortable and familiar ways that have become our second nature, our habit. How well we do this may be important but the immediate information does not produce learning. We respond to it as we have learned to in the past. It, in turn, leaves us unchanged in our ability to act, understand, and evaluate in the future.
Education worthy of the name
must lead to a different tomorrow."
~ Edward Cell, Learning to Learn from Experience

The history of education began with the evolutionary appearance of homo sapiens, the first creatures who, through their development of language, were capable of understanding. Prior to homo sapiens, members of the homo habilis and homo erectus strains had trained themselves in such skills as fire-making, hunting, shelter-building, and food gathering. But to them, human experience was merely a series of events without long-term significance.

When homo sapiens tribes invented language, they represented events and objects by written and spoken signs and gestures, which they understood to have meaning , that is, they signified some entity such as a person, animal, plant, place, thing, substance, quality, idea, action, or state.

A sign, such as the word, "fire," could be communicated from one person to another. Now humans could not only see, feel, and make fire, for example, but understand its significance: warmth, cooking, protection from predators, sterilization, and destruction.

With the development of language, the communication of meaning began. Now, meanings could be transmitted from one person to another, one generation to another.

Meaning is truly a magical element. Perhaps the best way to grasp the mystery of meaning is by thoughtfully viewing the movie "The Miracle Worker," the story of the early life of Helen Keller.

Helen Keller

As a young blind and deaf child, Helen lived much like an animal, rushing from one sensation to another. Within a month after becoming Helen's teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan was able to impart the gift of language to her. The awakening to meaning, as demonstrated in the film, was the event which made it possible for Helen to begin understanding instead of simply repeating what Anne was teaching her.

Helen had been trained to repeat the word "water," but it wasn't until she combined the experience of feeling water and trying to communicate the word "water" simultaneously, that Helen gained the magical gift of meaning--and hence language and understanding.

Up to that point, Helen had been like a well-trained animal, memorizing words, speaking them, and receiving praise from Anne. But now, suddenly, it came to her! The word "water" actually referred to, pointed to, meant this marvelous liquid reality that ran through her fingers.


How Meanings Are Lost

In each culture, the public meanings, ideas, and skills transmitted through educational institutions (schools, academies, monasteries, universities) and through the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, Internet) have always been determined by the small ruling elite (politicians, financiers, warriors, priests, scholars, scientists, corporations).

In most cultures, the "ruling ideas" have fostered violence and class warfare. In only a few instances in history, have the "ruling ideas" fostered the betterment of common people and society at large. One example of such a benevolent era was the eighteenth century Enlightenment, which encouraged humans to develop broad understanding in all fields of knowledge. Highly educated, intelligent groups in Europe and America developed toward a democratic way of life, created constitutions, and founded institutions for public education.

During this Enlightenment period, words and phrases such as "liberty," "freedom," "natural rights," "pursuit of happiness," "consent of the governed," "informed citizenry," came into being for the first time or were first understood by humans through their own experience.

America has served as the beacon of these Enlightenment ideals, maintaining its faith in "the power of knowledge and reason in self-determination." "There can be no real question that the Enlightenment promoted the cause of freedom, more widely, directly, positively than any age before it. It not only asserted but demonstrated the power of knowledge and reason in self-determination, the choice and realization of human purpose. "For the first time in history it carried out a concerted attack on the vested interests that opposed the diffusion of knowledge and the free exercise of reason. "As thinkers the men of the Enlightenment were conscious revolutionaries, very much aware of a 'new method of philosophizing' that amounted to a new living faith,
the basis for a new social order."
~ Herbert J. Muller. (1964).
~ Freedom in the Western World

Culture as a creation of humankind is a neutral element ~ it can be used for positive or negative ends. Through the process of acculturation, the process beginning at infancy by which human beings acquire the culture of their society, individuals are stamped with social norms.

Vested, moneyed interests have constantly sought to demolish the American traditions of democracy, plotting to destroy the enlightening "diffusion of knowledge and the free exercise of reason." Their method of rule is not by "consent of the governed" or rational discourse, but by arbitrary dictate of a tyrant's fascistic tactics.

Predictably, the very people who place American presidents, senators, and representatives in power, through the use of their multi-billion dollar fortunes, are the same monied interests that have deliberately destroyed American education. The Rockefellers, Fords, Morgans, Browns, Harrimans, Du Ponts, and other ruling families want obedient, efficient workers, not thinkers.

John D Rockefeller

"In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters,

musicians. Nor will we cherish even
the humbler ambition to raise up from among them
lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians,
statesmen, of whom we now have
ample supply." ~ Rockefeller Foundation
Director of Charity, Frederick Gates, 1913

Clearly, the rulers not only did not want to make "philosophers" of the working class, they wanted them trained so they would not even think for themselves.

So they have deliberately devastated the American mind through:

~ Funding universities and scholars who carry out the devastation of the American public education system in particular and American intelligence in general

~ Developing programming (brainwashing) strategies using all media types, but especially television

~ The imposition of miseducation and brainwashing tactics to destroy American citizens' ability to think for themselves

~ Subjecting American public education to a series of failed experiments, from "look see" reading to the "new math"

~ Redefining key concepts so that the public school students no longer understand the fundamentals of a democratic society

~ Turning what is called "education" into nothing but training.

Democracy requires an electorate that understands what is actually happening in the world, beyond what the ruler-owned media tell us is happening. If American citizens receive an effective education we learn to inform ourselves and can see through the propaganda, the dictatorial actions, and the outcomes of the non-constitutional acts of our rulers.

Beginning in the early part of the twentieth century, American ruling groups began to create a pseudo-educational system which produces students no longer capable of understanding such key concepts and factors as "freedom," "government of the people," "critical thinking," etc.

"The economic well-being of the nation depends on the presence of a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long. Because men are naturally lazy they will not work unless forced by necessity to do so. The education of the poor threatens to rob the nation of their productivity. . . Every hour those poor people spend at their books is so much time lost to society. Going to school in comparison to working is idleness."Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, 1714 (the book which Adam Smith used as the basis of his 1776 Wealth of Nations, the capitalist Bible)

Wilhelm Wundt

The plutocratic cabal wanted a working class that was merely trained to do a particular job, not think about social or political issues. They created an educational system focused on training instead of learning, which took its lead from such physiological, materialistic "psychologists" as Wilhelm Wundt, G. Stanley Hall, James McKeen Cattell, E. L. Thorndike, and others. The primary ideas and practices of this group included:

~ A thing makes sense and is worth pursuing only if it can be measured, quantified, and scientifically demonstrated.

~ Psychology, accordingly, should concern itself exclusively with human behavior--not with non-demonstrable entities such as "mind," "soul," "thought," etc.

~ Public education must limit itself to training working class students to carry out whatever task they are given to do and to accept the commands of their superiors.

This ruler-imposed system, enhanced by anti-intellectual activities such as minority-group studies and multiculturalism, produces uneducated and programmed students who understand almost nothing of what occurs beyond the propaganda and mythology of the political-financial leaders.

The First Casualties of the War Against the Mind

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt had been a professor in philosophy and later rector at the University of Leipzig, in Germany, until his death in 1920. At the time, many Americans trained in Europe before returning to the United States to work in universities.

G. Stanley Hall

G. Stanley Hall was the first of Wundt's disciples to return from Leipzig in 1883. Hall joined the faculty of Baltimore's new Johns Hopkins University, which was being established after the model of the German universities.

Hall organized the psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins and, in 1887, established the American Journal of Psychology. In 1889, when Clark University was established in Worcester, Massachusetts, Hall was chosen to be its first president.

In 1892 Hall played a leading role in founding the American Psychological Association. Hall became known for his studies of child development and in 1904 published his two-volume Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relation to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education, welding experimental psychology to child education.

We can get a clear idea of the new meaning of Wundtian-defined American education by examining Hall's definition of educational practice.

"We must overcome the fetishism of the alphabet, of the multiplication tables, of grammars, of scales, and of bibliolatry . . . it would be no serious loss if a child never learned to read."

"Secret knowledge is the basis of all power.
Your source of information depends upon
who you are and what position you hold
in society. Your source of information
determines the reliability of what you know."
~ Steven Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

Hall considered American working-class children as a "great army of incapables, shading down to those who should be in schools for dullards or subnormal children, for those whose mental development heredity decrees a slow pace and an early arrest."

J. McKeen Cattell

J. McKeen Cattell served for three years as Wundt's lab assistant in Leipzig, receiving his Ph.D. from Wundt in 1886. Cattell's primary interests lay in mental testing and in individual differences in ability. While at Leipzig, Cattell carried out a series of experiments examining the manner in which a person sees the words he is reading.

Testing adults who already knew how to read, Cattell "discovered" they could recognize words without having to sound out the letters. "Eureka!" he said to himself. "Words are not understood by a recognition of the image or the sound of letters, but are perceived as 'total word pictures.'"

He jumped to the conclusion that you shouldn't teach a child the sounds of letters and phrases as the first step to being able to read. You teach children how to read by showing them words, and telling them what the words are.

This "breakthrough" of Cattell's led to the adoption of a sight-reading method in many school systems throughout the United States. The result ever since has been increased illiteracy and has now become a national crisis.

Somewhat effective teaching occurred in the first half of the twentieth century in America, primarily because the nation was rapidly moving from an agricultural to an industrial culture and citizens respected and valued education.

The Enlightenment ideal of an informed citizenry was still a powerful incentive, so high school civics classes taught the rudiments of what the American political system was supposed to be according to the federal and state constitutions.

However, except in a few instances, American students were never made aware of what was really going on in the world ~ in terms of the machinations of the demonic cabal.

For example, the exposés of writers such as George Seldes or I. F. Stone would have been beyond the pale for most American schools. So Americans fought World War II ignorant of how U.S. companies had helped set up the Nazi regime in Germany and profited from its killing of Allied soldiers.

Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, American education began its rapid and almost total decline. In the latter half of the twentieth and now the twenty-first century, "education" has almost entirely been turned into mere training. The very definition of "education" has been twisted to make it appear to be training. For example,

~ The New Century Dictionary of the English Language (1927) defined education as: the drawing out of a person's innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc. ~ the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve."

~ Whereas, education was defined in An Outline of Educational Psychology in 1934 in these terms: "Learning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanation of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurones [sic] only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability.

The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurones, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences."

By 1968, John Goodlad, one of the educational establishment's best known spokespersons, made it clear just what was important in "education."

"The most controversial issues of
the twenty-first century
will pertain to the ends and means
of modifying human behavior
and who shall determine them.
The first educational question will not be
'what knowledge is of the most worth?'
but 'what kinds of human beings
do we wish to produce?'
The possibilities virtually defy our imagination."
"Learning and Teaching in the Future,"
Today's Education, (journal of the National Education Association)

This reduction of "education" to neuron connection and behavior modification has now been completed by the most recent crippling of "education" as "work/study." An article defining this destruction of education appeared in National Review in 1993, with a revealing title:

"The Competitiveness Illusion:

Does our Country Need
to Be Literate in Order to Be competitive?
If Not, Why Read."

"Technological society turns out to work in the opposite way from that usually supposed: namely, by actually requiring less rather than more education of its workers. This is because modern industry depends on reducing human error, which means reducing dependence on the individual worker's expertise and judgment. In building or maintaining electronic devices, workers who once installed or rewired electrical circuits now plug in modular components consisting of machine-printed circuit boards.
The future role of literacy in the workplace has been succinctly stated by Pierre Dogan, the president of Granite Communications, a company that is now 'developing software for hotel housekeeping.' It seems that 'so long as maids can read room numbers, they will be able to check off tasks completed or order supplies by simply touching pictures on the screen." Dogan points out that 'you can create a work program with prompting including iconic or image messages.' In fact, he logically concludes, 'you can use an illiterate workforce.'"

Because of this twisting of "education" into training, as a university instructor I was faced with students who have never learned to read, write, or think. They are the wounded, deformed casualties of the criminal cabal's war against the mind. But the educational establishment doesn't even recognize the devastated condition of American education. Many university professors, even full professors, cannot write or speak sound English. A department chair in a state university in California recently wrote a book, which he forced all students in the introductory class to buy, which contained over one hundred grammatical errors.

Quota hiring is rampant in higher education. Unfortunately, the ability to speak intelligible English is no longer required, and students suffer the consequences.

Critical Consciousness

As education is subverted into mere training, three essentials of intelligence are being lost:

Critical thinking
Self-awareness
Critical consciousness

Critical consciousness is the ability to perceive social, political, and economic oppression and to take action against the oppressive elements of society, as delineated by the author's recently published book Progressive Awareness.

The concept of critical consciousness (conscientizacao) was developed by Paulo Freire primarily in his books:
~ Pedagogy of the Oppressed
~ Education for Critical Consciousness

The tactics of critical consciousness and a pedagogy of the oppressed were first developed by Freire in his work with third-world people, helping them gain an awareness of world conditions while teaching them to read.

In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire exposed our educational system as one in which:

~ The teacher is the depositor, the students are the depositories

~ The teacher issues communiqués (instead of communicating) which students passively receive, memorize, and repeat

~ Knowledge becomes a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those they consider to know nothing

~ Teachers and administrators choose the instructional program content and students adapt to it

"The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role impressed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them."

Though Freire worked with various educators throughout the world, the concept of critical consciousness never had significant impact on pedagogical practice. In our current narcissistic era, schools at all levels teach students to pursue money and self-interest. As Gekko, the tycoon, says in the movie Wall Street "Greed is good."

A critical awareness of what is happening
in the world is decidedly not a part of
the contemporary curriculum ~
from grade school to graduate school.

If you examine graduate courses on Global Economy, for example, you'll not find a single mention of the terrible human costs: rising unemployment in the home economies, slave wages in the third world countries where manufacturing is relocated, runaway immigration, and a constant degradation of the environment.

Freire worked to help third-world people overcome illiteracy. Today, his insights can be applied to two different kinds illiteracy:

~ Those who cannot grasp the sense of letters or symbols;

~ Those who can "read" (in the grammar school sense) but who cannot read: understand the meaning of the words they see;

There are those today, for example, who "read" about such things as worker layoffs and American corporations relocating their manufacturing plants in China or Indonesia, but who do not understand the meaning (or human ramifications) of what they "read."

Another kind of modern-day "illiteracy" occurs as people "read" or "hear" the "news" in newspapers or on TV, and allow themselves to be taken in by the propaganda that such "news" involves.

Now, more than ever, we need to begin developing a critical consciousness in all of us who are oppressed by this new imperialistic strategy of globalism. We're up against a number of obstacles:

~ The lack of awareness that we
are the oppressed

~ The lack of solidarity among
the oppressed people

~ The loss of a common tradition
of democracy and human rights

~ The indifference of oppressed
people to their situation

Living in an age of repression, we become accustomed to it. So what if our schools no longer teach people how to read or think, no longer help students gain an understanding of why human liberty is so precious and precarious.

Our movies, TV shows, and books present images of "cool," illiterate, violence-prone savages dressed in the latest styles and exhibiting the popular ego-centered attitudes.

Unable to understand the creativity of a well-written novel or screenplay, no longer capable of appreciating the depths of classical music, people today move in a grey world of ego-gratification and violence.

Soon the false values become identified as the true, and we have movies such as Pulp Fiction, The Godfather, and As Good As It Gets touted as masterpieces.

We only gain awareness of the oppressive nature of contemporary society when we become the victim of unemployment or a mugging or some other mishap.

Trained to be oblivious to the plight of others, we fail to see the hundreds of thousands who suffer from homelessness, lack of medical care, and wage slavery.

Since people are encouraged to pursue their own interests, there is no feeling of solidarity and hence no possibility of concerted effort to overcome the oppressive conditions.

It seems perfectly normal that a two-class society is rapidly developing, with new billionaires being created every year while millions of workers are laid off, denied welfare, and their tax money stolen by wealthy looters in such scams as the Enron/Anderson swindle, Bernie Madoff, Wall Street, the savings and loan fraud, the Mexican "loan" scandal, and the IMF repayment to wealthy investors who suffered from the Asian stock market crash.

We must begin to awaken ourselves to what's happening in the world and taking action to overcome the oppressive conditions. And here Freire's books are exceptionally helpful.

"Who are better prepared than
the oppressed to understand
the terrible significance of an oppressive society?
Who suffer the effects of oppression more
than the oppressed? Who can better understand
the necessity of liberation? They will not gain
this liberation by chance but through the praxis
of their quest for it, through their recognition
of the necessity to fight for it. And this fight,
because of the purpose given it by the oppressed,
will actually constitute an act of love
opposing the lovelessness which lies at the heart
of the oppressors' violence, lovelessness
even when clothed in false generosity."

As oppressed people we must become aware of what has happened to us and develop our own sense of what it means to be truly human.

"How can the oppressed, as divided,
unauthentic beings, participate in developing
the pedagogy of their liberation?
Only as they discover themselves to be
'hosts' of the oppressor can they contribute
to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy.
As long as they live in the duality in which
to be is to be like and to be like is
to be like the oppressor,
this contribution is impossible.
The pedagogy of the oppressed
is an instrument for their critical discovery
that both they and their oppressors
are manifestations of dehumanization."

As we begin to struggle against oppressive conditions, we must retain an optimistic attitude, with assurance that the struggle for freedom will ultimately succeed.

"In order for the oppressed to be able to wage
the struggle for their liberation,
they must perceive the reality of oppression
not as a closed world from which there is no exit,
but as a limiting situation
which they can transform."

We need to struggle against all the different forms of oppression:

External

~ Political:for example, making people think that politicians aren't bought by big money.

~ Economic: making people into wage slaves and creating increased unemployment.

~ Military:creating huge defense budgets so the military - supply corporations make obscene profits.

~ Informational:making people think that the false information they're being given is true.

Internal

~ Allowing ourselves to become people who want others to make all major decisions for us.

~ Failing to keep ourselves informed about what's happening in the world.

~ Failing to become aware of our own prejudices and blind spots.

~ Making ourselves believe that we can't change ourselves and our world.

Oppressors, persons who have become possessed (literally) with the idea that "having" is the ultimate value, lose the ability to think rationally over time. At present, the plutocratic elite is blind to anything but their own frenzy to gain more wealth and fame.

They are unaware that they are creating the very circumstances of their defeat: a society in which larger numbers of people are falling into poverty, where people of all ethnic, gender, and religious groupings are beginning to see that their common enemy is the plutocratic, corporate-based plunderer class.

The War Against Intelligence

America today is a combat zone where the War Against Intelligence is constantly being waged. Unfortunately, the rulers are currently winning: Americans are progressively losing their ability to understand what is happening in the world around them.

Americans are unable to see that the Bush administration is using the pretext of the war against terrorism to destroy essential constitutional liberties.

Billions of dollars have been stolen by the wealthy while the working class is devastated through unemployment and lower wages. A poor person is jailed for a $20 theft, but a plutocrat is allowed to steal the pension fund of thousands of workers without penalty.

The Bush administration's first attack on American learning was the Education Bill signed into law by President Bush in January, 2002. The bill essentially equates education with training for high test scores.

Those who benefit most from this new law are not students or teachers but the publishers of textbooks and companies that carry out testing. To see how these benefiting companies are directly tied to the Bush family, see list at the end.

Now the Bush-aligned Supreme Court has delivered the coup de grace to American education. Our tax dollars can now be used to fund training in any religious or political ideology imaginable.

Granted, public funds since the 1950s have been used exclusively to dumb down America, but tax dollars did not go to support ideologically-based schools that were totally inimical to American values.


That's the difficulty; we've lost any effective understanding of what American values are.

So now, the fascist cabal is going to destroy any unity among Americans through this new educational anarchy. Bush and his controllers think that they're going to be able to fund primarily, if not exclusively, private Roman Catholic and Protestant fundamentalist schools that teach unthinking obedience to authoritarian leaders.

That's their primary purpose for this catastrophic blow to American education. How they're going to disallow public funds for the extremist schools ~ the Islamic fundamentalist madrasa, the Jewish anti-Islamic school, the right wing militia school, or any other ideologically-based fanatical school ~ remains to be seen.

Supreme Court Justice Breyer

Supreme Court Justice Breyer, who dissented from the 5-4 ruling, predicted that the decision would prove highly divisive in a country with "more then 55 different religious groups."

He foresees many struggles, asking, "How will the public react to government funding for schools that take controversial religious positions on topics that are of current popular interest ~ say, the conflict in the Middle East or the war on terrorism?" Precisely!

Justice John Paul Stevens

Justice John Paul Stevens, another one who dissented from the majority called the recent ruling "profoundly misguided." He wrote, "Whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government, we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our democracy."

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court in a 1998 ruling allowed their voucher system to stand, some 6,000 students make use of the vouchers, worth about $5,000 apiece. This results in $30 million being funneled from the budget of the Milwaukee school district into the coffers of the Catholic Church and other private schools.

With this new ruling, the program can now be fully utilized, so that 15,000 students can leave the system, cutting the funding of the public schools by $75 million.

Republican supporters of the voucher hide the fact from the public that the crisis in the schools is largely the product of decades of federal, state and local spending cuts, tax breaks to big business and attacks on teachers' and other school employees' wages and working conditions

Privately-run schools will continue to screen applicants and reject any student they deem unacceptable. While the language of most voucher programs prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin, these schools can reject students based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, ability to pay, behavioral issues or academic or physical ability.

They would be under no financial pressure to provide help for students with special needs, since it is more costly to provide care for special education children, and most private schools are not staffed to handle them.


The newly-sanctioned voucher system will intensify class and social distinctions. The top schools will be reserved for the wealthiest layers of society who can pay to send their children to elite private schools and academies.

Next below on the totem pole will be the private and for-profit schools for middle-class and working class children, whose parents will have to work longer hours and go further into debt to scrape together thousands of dollars to pay tuition costs.

At the very bottom will be the public schools, left for the poorest and most disadvantaged working class students. Unable to do little to help working class youth develop learning skills, the role of these schools will be little more than training lower-class students for low-paying jobs.


Beginning at the time of the American revolution, part of the genius of the nation has been the right to public education, based on the idea that all children, regardless of economic or social status, race, religion or ethnic background, be guaranteed government-paid, quality education.

Founding fathers such as Jefferson favored the establishment of government-funded “free schools” in opposition to the aristocratic system in Europe, where education was limited to the wealthiest layers of society and largely overseen by the Church.

Educational reformer, Horace Mann

In the nineteenth century these democratic principles were advanced by such reformers as Horace Mann, who wrote in 1848:

“If one class possesses all the wealth
and the education, while the residue
of society is ignorant and poor,
it matters not by what name
the relation between them may be called;
the latter, in fact and in truth,
will be the servile dependents
and subjects of the former.”

In the early part of the twentieth century, the working class took up the fight for public education, which was inseparable from the campaign against child labor. However it was only through the civil rights struggles, from the 1930s through 1960s, that universal access to the public schools was fully achieved.

Now, in the twenty-first century the right to sound public education for the working class has come into collision with the plans of the criminal cabal for a society primarily for the benefit of the wealthy.

The rampant growth of class inequality has produced a state of affairs that is fundamentally incompatible with democratic principles, which are based on the equal rights of all citizens.

The whole issue of public money for ideologically-based schools will prove extremely divisive throughout the nation. The Republicans, the majority of whom support vouchers, will use the issue as a way to attack any Democrat who opposes vouchers as a tool of the teacher unions.

Americans are rapidly losing a sense
of the traditional American values.

Anti-intellectual, racist or right-wing
multiculturalism has replaced education.

Bought-and-paid-for-politics
has replaced democracy.

Billions are funneled to the fat-cats
and replaced statesmanship.

Attacks on constitutional liberties
have replaced political and judicial oversight.

Americans must now awaken to this horror and once again, if possible, create a public education system which will become the means to transmit to future generations an understanding of the hidden meaning of events and lost democratic concepts.

If the ravages that the fascist cabal have wreaked on the public school system are so fundamental that we cannot rejuvenate it, we may have to create our own private "democracy schools" to help us regain our sense, our ability to see what's happening, our intelligence.

When our nation was founded, education was carried on primarily through just such private home schools where Americans learned the values of a democratic way of life.

As some are warning, any government system ~ public schools or voucher-based private schools ~ carries government control with it. If the demonic cabal uses the voucher system to gain total ideological control of private schools, we may have to create completely private "democracy schools" without resorting to vouchers.

Education must become the transmission of
true human understanding to future generations.

This will require a group of people assisting others to see that current "politics" and "education" are actually counterfeits of real social values, and developing institutions which will provide insight into what is actually occurring in the world.

Recommended Reading

Barry, John M., The Ambition and the Power
Bentkowski: The Destruction of Math
Eakman, Beverly, The Cloning of the American Mind
Gatto, John Taylor, The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
Gatto, John Taylor, Gato Website
Gatto, John Taylor, Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Green, Fitzhugh, Bush and Gold, Looking Forward
Hirsch, E.D.,The Schools We Need
Iserbyt, Charlotte, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

The Subversion of Education in America
Jones, Kenneth J.,The Enemy Within
Lionni, Paolo, The Leipzig Connection
Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds: The High Price of America's Testing Culture
The Rabid Right Attacks Education
The Drugging of School Children in America


Updates: 7/26/08: Literacy Debilitates Katrina Victims

5/3/08: Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger Destroys California Public Education; Supporting Privatization of Education

3/5/07: Textbook Propaganda

2/16/07: The "No Child Left Behind" Scam

8/22/06: Bush Family Profits from "No Child" Act

12/16/05: Even persons who have college and graduate degrees are illiterate!

3/1/05: Bush Cuts Education Funds for Poor, Disabled & Immigrant Students

1/25/05: Bush Family Loots U.S. Education Funds

8/13/02: US “school reform” throws students into the street

7/6/02: Vouchers and Government Control

7/1/02: US Supreme Court authorizes school vouchers: a simultaneous assault on freedom of thought and public education

2/2/02: How Neil Bush Hopes To Make Millions Off His Brother's Education Program

1/11/02: "Reading Between the Lines:" The New Education Law is a Victory for Bush -- And for His Corporate Allies