In the following essay, we've only touched on the role of "government schools" in our present malaise.
Political Parties or Crime Syndicates?
All politics is local.
by Paul Stephens
Like most people, I am surrounded by Republicans and Democrats. They are like two grindstones, and we are the grain in between, being pulverized on a daily basis. My mother and father were basically New Deal Democrats (my older sister, Eleanor, was born in 1941), although my father was raised as a Prohibitionist Republican, which he might have remained had he not drunk some of J.C. Peters' whiskey at about age 10. Peters, father of the artist Les Peters (who recently passed away - he and my father were the same age), is also known for having built the Country Club Tower back in the 1950's. My uncle Charles, a journeyman glazer, worked on that project, too.
So what are these "parties" which are systematically dismantling our country, its economy, and even - anyone can tell you - our military, by corrupting the appropriations and procurement processes, as well as "mission creep" to where our military is everything which Americans traditionally opposed, and the greatest single threat to the future of the human species.
Whatever "the two major parties" (hereafter referred to as "DemRepubs") are, they are not legitimate "political parties" as we have always understood them. Even the Nazis and Bolsheviks paid lip service to all the traditional goals of political theory and action - a just and peaceful society (remember "peace through victory" - that's the German name, "Siegfried"). Unlike the DemRepubs, a serious political party must be dedicated to better government, peace, human welfare, the Constitution, and otherwise representing the best interests of the people, as well as the global ecosystem and future generations yet to come. The "empire" or other system must last at least 1000 years - another way of saying it must be "sustainable," "perpetual" or "steady-state." The Catholic (and Orthodox) Christian Churches meet the test, as does Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Direct Democracy, Monarchy, etc. Most indigenous peoples also followed this principle, as in the "7th Generation" principle of Native Americans. Don't do anything which will harm even the 7th generation - 100 or 150 years from now.
It would be better to call the DemRepubs "gangs" (as everyone by now must realize), if not mobs, or maybe armies - that's what they're really fighting over - control of the military because, as Trotsky said, whoever controls the military controls the Revolution and the Future. But following my mentor, Sam Peltzman, the DemRepubs have always looked a lot more like "Crime Syndicates" to me. (Peltzman, known originally as one of Milton Friedman's proteges at the University of Chicago, has researched and written extensively on the theory and practice of organized crime).
Once you think of the DemRepubs this way, it all makes sense. They're only talking to teach other. They are rival gangs, fighting over and dividing our "territory" - now expanded to include the entire planet, with "full spectrum dominance." They control everything. We can only oppose them *sub rosa*, on the spiritual and intellectual planes. We can't openly confront them on the battlefield or in the Halls of Congress, although we'd better start doing at least the latter, if we want to survive as a human species.
They are not about to address the threats of climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, or even the financial crises which are now almost sure to result in the collapse of our government and the takeover by some explicit military or corporate dictatorship. Fortunately, the military as a whole is better-able to coordinate rational policy solutions to any of these problems than is the Congress and the civilian bureaucracies. When democracy fails, there will always be people there to take up the slack, and that is the best prediction for what will happen - if we don't get into a major war, first, which would simply accelerate the process, since there is no organized peace movement to stop it.
As Gen. Smedly Butler pointed out in the 1930's, "war is a racket." www.youtube.com/watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0
And the Racketeers - the Crime Syndicate bosses - are the same families and people, now, as they were, then - the Rockefellers, the Bush's, the Kennedy's, the Pews, DuPont's, Dow's, Ford's, Carnegie's, Cargill's, Guggenheim's, etc. except that they've had to enlarge "the family" considerably to take in OPEC, the Zionazis (AIPAC), the Tongs (much of California and the West Coast, along with SE Asia), the Yakuzi, and all the other ethnic gangs and power blocks known to control significant parts of the global economy. (Every hear of the Scan-Am Mafia? I didn't think so).
Thanks to the prevalent anti-intellectualism and political takeovers at once-independent universities and law schools, the Criminal Law is often - surprise! - on the side of the Criminals. Yes, I am in favor of a legal system, as well as open discussion and full transparency about its application and interpretation, but the real and enduring laws aren't made in our Legislatures of the Bribed and Coerced. They are EVOLVED over centuries by courts and judges, which must remain wise and public-spirited, activist and independent if we are to save ourselves from tyranny.
The "blue bloods" have become the Blue Dogs - "solid middle-class people" with a lot of friends and influence, which is usually applied surreptitiously, and for very different reasons than the advertised ones. Call them the Junior Chamber of Commerce - the wannabe's, who will sell out in a moment to please and curry favor with the Gangster Capitalists. They are gangs as much as any others, and because they have a lot more influence within the Military-Industrial Complex, they have a lot more say over our national direction and policies.
Our constitutional principle of "civilian control of the military" has always been a joke, and becomes particularly acrid with a president like Barack Obama (or earlier, Bill Clinton) - always trying to be "tough guys" who "understand" what the military is supposed to want - total global hegemony and domination, in their view. They actually believe that soldiers are sociopaths who like to fight and kill, and that is what is being selected for in our "all volunteer military" - people who will sign away their rights and their country's future in exchange for some drinking money. As a few prescient people warned in opposition to the Vietnam-era anti-draft protests, the alternative is a mercenary army which will maximize its own wealth and control over the government and economy.
If there was ever a reason to abandon the monopoly education bureaucracy and standardized curricula, this is it. The Teacher's Unions are the largest single contributors to the Democratic Party. People have to be trained and conditioned to accept the present state of things - being on the brink of military dictatorship and police state, as well as economic collapse. People have to be lied to and confused incessantly if they are to believe what the DemRepubs are telling them. They must more or less have "given up trying to understand anything." And the only way this can happen is by the mechanisms of universal compulsory schooling, and through brainwashing from birth by the corporate-controlled mass media. So long as we never hear any criticism or alternative views of things, we will think our descent into bankruptcy and dictatorship is inevitable.
People always look to "government" to save them. But "government" - the State, the City, the County as well as the Federal Government are, as Reagan said, "the problem, not the solution." He was as much a captive of the corporations as Obama is - indeed, Reagan set the standard for what still exists, today. (See Bill Moyers' recent interview with Reagan budget manager David Stockman, who is now supporting Ron Paul).
By now, the federal government utterly dominates and controls our public education system, just as State and local gangs (the Klan, et. al.) did in the Age of Apartheid. But we always permitted both religious schools and cooperative home and community schooling, and they are stronger, now, than ever. Before the DOE bureaucracy ("Education Czar"), local schools were always controlled by local boards, which had to tax themselves to finance the schools. No "free money" here!
What a difference that one rule makes! How much snake oil, in the form of computers and e-books would schools buy for their students if they had to pay for them with local money, without federal funding and mandates? And how many drugs would they force their students to take if the Feds didn't spend $3000 per student per year on the CHIP program of "health insurance" - which every Democrat (and many Republicans) in the state vigorously supported?
The old ways hang on. We are now in the 3rd generation of "the War on Drugs," promoted and financed entirely by the "legal" drug pushers (Big Pharma) and prison industry, which is now responsible for maintaining 25% of the world's prisoners in a country - ours - with 4% of its population. The same numbers apply to our use of fossile fuels and pollution. And even worse numbers apply to our military spending. We spend nearly half the world's total spent on weapons and military operations with only 4% of its population! What's wrong with this picture?
We can see the results nearly every week in some report of student violence, falling test scores, and skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction - all enforced by the same laws which stamp our children's minds "Property of the State." All but the most determined and self-reliant students end up in dead-end jobs, the military, or prison. (Well, they still do encourage kids to be doctors and lawyers, here, but you wouldn't want to pay their fees to be treated by them, or entrust your freedom to their understanding of "the Law.")
It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to keep torturing and oppressing each other. We can return to our roots, or even reassert ourselves as an independent city-state - free to create our own society in the best ways we know how. All politics is local.
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