The past thirty years have been a whirlwind of attacks by a very small group of people on the modern world as a whole. If we look into the places we get most of our information from, the sources are, and have been, concentrating in nearly unfathomable ways.In the U.S. of A. over five hundred news services employed tens of thousands of reporters just two decades ago, many with foreign branches and each had a unique editorial slant or perspective on world events. Now, we are down to just three sources encapsulating 99% of all the news we get. Gone are many of the inquiring minds that used to find news in the making or researching topics of interest to us all. About the time that the religious right, compassionate conservatism and the proponents of trickle down economics took hold of our collective imagination, the rate of concentration of power in our media took hold as well. Never mind the fact that none of these ideas were based on truth, forget that they were ideas foisted upon our consciousness by power hungry individuals who were bent on amassing ever greater wealth, power and prestige. What has stolen the day has been a litany of lies and half-truths that would have been questioned and researched by an intact fourth estate.
These minority voices told us that teachers were overpaid, that condoms created teen pregnancy and that the road to ruin was paved with dollars spent on anti-poverty programs. These same powerful interests told the American public that government needed to be run like a business and that we are the most over-taxed people on the planet. They told us that through more testing, we could teach our children more effectively and that a one-size-fits-all approach top education would be adequate and cost effective. What the media neglected to tell us was that these ideas were created by their sole beneficiaries, the uber-wealthy. Creating a race of unquestioning automatons has been the dream of those winning the class war for decades and they seem to be getting their way in a very real sense.
By framing every issue as a two-sided affair, eliciting vehement hatred from the extremes on both sides and narrowing the discussion to either pro or con, we are left with only an either or choice of polar opposites. Either we are labelled as socialists (which has supplanted the old term "communist" in public discourse) or patriots, even though the far right has produced far more domestic terrorists, secessionists, anarchists and advocates of sedition than the political left ever did. We are left thinking that if we are compassionate or thoughtful about any issue, we are being taken in by those who are part of the problem and that the nanny state only allows incompetence and irresponsibility to flourish. In practice, the majority of vehicle commercials tell us that more torque and power are necessary, that twenty miles per gallon is "best in class" and that ram tough is necessary to get through ever more mild winters. We are told that the stock market is the best way to make quick money, even though it is just a gambling house built on a massive confidence game, run by the ultra-wealthy.
The coming crash will make the one six years ago seem like a fight in the sandbox by comparison. The irony is that the folks who have the biggest share of the pie will be the best insulated from any downturn. Downsizing from a sixty million dollar yacht to a six million dollar one won't be nearly as difficult as waking up and finding that your entire life's work will not allow us to retire. We have always been wage slaves and as more and more of us comer to terms with what that really means, investing in business as usual becomes less and less appealing. My fifty mile per gallon vehicle has sat idle for over a month because I have found ways to carpool and not burn an ounce of diesel fuel, vehicle share when errands need to be run and get around in other ways. The sharing economy is growing exponentially as people realize that the consumer culture that many of us have come to desire leads only to a dead end of exploitation and oppression. How many bass boats are actually required? Rather than everyone owning their own, having a few rental boats at each good fishin' hole is more than enough. The avoided costs that accrue by not having to transport all those boats, buy the giant gas guzzling trucks, storage and maintainence fees, in just a few years, would offset any costs. But learning to live within new limits comes at the cost of a very steep learning curve.
Almost everything we have come to believe, accepted as true, based our choices and decisions upon, need to be questioned, researched and looked at in light of the fact that the true nanny state has been created by the winners of the class war, foisting lies upon us for generations. When I was in college, learning to be a teacher, the brightest students learned and understood that any test, no matter how well it is developed, can only teach us what we already know. By design, they are limited and cannot ever teach us anything. The act, science and art of teaching lies in being able to stretch an individual's imagination, spread information amongst more minds and allow individuals to grasp information is a variety of ways, so that the largest number of students will be able to integrate that information. Tests are a completely different animal, they attempt to get those individual minds to line up, snap to and regurgitate specific discreet elements in a specific order and fashion. This can never prove proficiency or evidence integration of ideas that lead the subjects to be able to think or comprehend anything. The true proof of good teachers has always been, and will remain, the spark of recognition that occurs when students learn. Nothing on paper can prove competence, diligence or the ability to integrate new information. Any test that claims to do these things is being sold on false pretenses.
There has been a systematic push toward "common core" in education for the very reasons stated above. Even the news programs are lying about how and why the guidelines for common core were developed and by whom, so that we will allow them to further degrade education, determining the future in ghastly and unimaginable ways. A good case in point is that when I went to school in different states, they taught biology in different grades, so that I got two years of chemistry when I was supposed to get one of biology and one of chemistry. That did not prevent me from learning to sequence DNA when I got to college. If anything it made me avoid exposure to certain hazardous chemicals like formaldeheyde in favor of other toxic chemicals that were present in the chem labs. I did have to learn about Jacob Mendel and genetics on my own, but that did not handicap me in my ability to function in society. The one thing I was grateful for is that the whole idea of eugenics, which might have enamored me when I was young, was not part of my world view until I began to make choices about spreading my own genetic information.
There has been a push recently toward confusing freedom with choice. Having twenty-five shampoos to choose from, all of which contain toxic and hazardous compounds is not freedom any more than having thirty models of cars or trucks to choose from. Being allowed to utilize our full potential, rather than being made into drones and worker bees for the making of profit for others has much more to do with freedom than the size of our big screen tee vees. In my lifetime, far more sacrifices have been made in the realm of personal freedom than in all the generations since the founding of the U. S. of A. Those deemed "too big to fail" have sucked up more and more corporate welfare and the little guys who are ground to pulp under the weight of the corporate welfare state have been demonized as "takers", while the wealth continues to concentrate into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. A few of us have noticed these changes, but we have been effectively been relegated to the ranks of the "disgruntled employees", the impoverished, the class that we are told is the problem, not the result of one.This short video helps to understand the truth behind the pictures and pretty faces telling us that there is no such thing as class warfare.
These minority voices told us that teachers were overpaid, that condoms created teen pregnancy and that the road to ruin was paved with dollars spent on anti-poverty programs. These same powerful interests told the American public that government needed to be run like a business and that we are the most over-taxed people on the planet. They told us that through more testing, we could teach our children more effectively and that a one-size-fits-all approach top education would be adequate and cost effective. What the media neglected to tell us was that these ideas were created by their sole beneficiaries, the uber-wealthy. Creating a race of unquestioning automatons has been the dream of those winning the class war for decades and they seem to be getting their way in a very real sense.
By framing every issue as a two-sided affair, eliciting vehement hatred from the extremes on both sides and narrowing the discussion to either pro or con, we are left with only an either or choice of polar opposites. Either we are labelled as socialists (which has supplanted the old term "communist" in public discourse) or patriots, even though the far right has produced far more domestic terrorists, secessionists, anarchists and advocates of sedition than the political left ever did. We are left thinking that if we are compassionate or thoughtful about any issue, we are being taken in by those who are part of the problem and that the nanny state only allows incompetence and irresponsibility to flourish. In practice, the majority of vehicle commercials tell us that more torque and power are necessary, that twenty miles per gallon is "best in class" and that ram tough is necessary to get through ever more mild winters. We are told that the stock market is the best way to make quick money, even though it is just a gambling house built on a massive confidence game, run by the ultra-wealthy.
The coming crash will make the one six years ago seem like a fight in the sandbox by comparison. The irony is that the folks who have the biggest share of the pie will be the best insulated from any downturn. Downsizing from a sixty million dollar yacht to a six million dollar one won't be nearly as difficult as waking up and finding that your entire life's work will not allow us to retire. We have always been wage slaves and as more and more of us comer to terms with what that really means, investing in business as usual becomes less and less appealing. My fifty mile per gallon vehicle has sat idle for over a month because I have found ways to carpool and not burn an ounce of diesel fuel, vehicle share when errands need to be run and get around in other ways. The sharing economy is growing exponentially as people realize that the consumer culture that many of us have come to desire leads only to a dead end of exploitation and oppression. How many bass boats are actually required? Rather than everyone owning their own, having a few rental boats at each good fishin' hole is more than enough. The avoided costs that accrue by not having to transport all those boats, buy the giant gas guzzling trucks, storage and maintainence fees, in just a few years, would offset any costs. But learning to live within new limits comes at the cost of a very steep learning curve.
Almost everything we have come to believe, accepted as true, based our choices and decisions upon, need to be questioned, researched and looked at in light of the fact that the true nanny state has been created by the winners of the class war, foisting lies upon us for generations. When I was in college, learning to be a teacher, the brightest students learned and understood that any test, no matter how well it is developed, can only teach us what we already know. By design, they are limited and cannot ever teach us anything. The act, science and art of teaching lies in being able to stretch an individual's imagination, spread information amongst more minds and allow individuals to grasp information is a variety of ways, so that the largest number of students will be able to integrate that information. Tests are a completely different animal, they attempt to get those individual minds to line up, snap to and regurgitate specific discreet elements in a specific order and fashion. This can never prove proficiency or evidence integration of ideas that lead the subjects to be able to think or comprehend anything. The true proof of good teachers has always been, and will remain, the spark of recognition that occurs when students learn. Nothing on paper can prove competence, diligence or the ability to integrate new information. Any test that claims to do these things is being sold on false pretenses.
There has been a systematic push toward "common core" in education for the very reasons stated above. Even the news programs are lying about how and why the guidelines for common core were developed and by whom, so that we will allow them to further degrade education, determining the future in ghastly and unimaginable ways. A good case in point is that when I went to school in different states, they taught biology in different grades, so that I got two years of chemistry when I was supposed to get one of biology and one of chemistry. That did not prevent me from learning to sequence DNA when I got to college. If anything it made me avoid exposure to certain hazardous chemicals like formaldeheyde in favor of other toxic chemicals that were present in the chem labs. I did have to learn about Jacob Mendel and genetics on my own, but that did not handicap me in my ability to function in society. The one thing I was grateful for is that the whole idea of eugenics, which might have enamored me when I was young, was not part of my world view until I began to make choices about spreading my own genetic information.
There has been a push recently toward confusing freedom with choice. Having twenty-five shampoos to choose from, all of which contain toxic and hazardous compounds is not freedom any more than having thirty models of cars or trucks to choose from. Being allowed to utilize our full potential, rather than being made into drones and worker bees for the making of profit for others has much more to do with freedom than the size of our big screen tee vees. In my lifetime, far more sacrifices have been made in the realm of personal freedom than in all the generations since the founding of the U. S. of A. Those deemed "too big to fail" have sucked up more and more corporate welfare and the little guys who are ground to pulp under the weight of the corporate welfare state have been demonized as "takers", while the wealth continues to concentrate into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. A few of us have noticed these changes, but we have been effectively been relegated to the ranks of the "disgruntled employees", the impoverished, the class that we are told is the problem, not the result of one.This short video helps to understand the truth behind the pictures and pretty faces telling us that there is no such thing as class warfare.
No comments:
Post a Comment