WHEN WILL IT STOP?

FROM WHERE I SIT...

Dwight Eisenhower’s statement

warning of the

Military-Industrial Complex:

This speech was made in January as 

Eisenhower handed the torch to Kennedy.

As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

ALSO:

          - Eisenhower never thought, or meant, our 

            commitment in Southeast Asia to be long term.

         - Then, behind closed doors, Kennedy, under

            pressure from the Military/Industrial Complex, 

            started increasing our footprint there, while

            everyone swooned over what a beautiful person he

            was.

         - Johnson owed many people political I.O.U.’s and the

           M/I Complex held quite a few. He oversaw a huge                     Military buildup; to over 600,000 Troops.

         - Then, 1968-1969-1970 happened in the U.S.

           Martin Luther King - April 4, 1968, Memphis, TN

           Bobby Kennedy - June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, CA

           Woodstock - August 17, 1969, Woodstock, NY

           Kent State - May 4, 1970, Kent, Ohio

                  *note: I was serving in the Army over that period of time,

                  so I wasn’t in the U.S. and that made it hard to fully         

                  appreciate what was going on back home.

Rich people paying poor people      

to kill other poor people on the

other side of the world. War is

a rich man’s game. All wars are

banker’s wars.

Then we got the Reagan - W. Bush years, and we still insisted on fighting wars in foreign lands. I must say that, since the Vietnam Conflict, the U.S. hasn’t had a very good track record of actually winning or ending our Military Expeditions and National objectives, or our wars. Nobody knows how to formulate an “exit plan” from all our recent conflicts, large and small.

No one can lay blame on the Military’s doorstep. The Military did what they were sent to do, and won the battles. There were, and are, forces at work that have a burning desire to micro-manage every aspect of our war machine, so our men and women in uniform can only do their masters’ bidding.

Who are their masters? That would be the Congress and the Military/Industrial Complex. This Complex is not what you see on the surface. It has many layers and runs deep into our economic system.

1)  The major Manufacturers of our war machine

2)  Subcontractors in this Country & foreign Countries

3)  the weapons design community; including our Universities

4)  etc...........

That is just a brief overview of how this system works. It takes a lot of money to make the production chain work; from raw material sourcing to finished product. All the banks and almost all the producers have shareholders who expect to make money. That is when the bankers arrive to start the ball rolling.

The larger players also have their lobbyists on K Street in Washington DC. During this cycle, there are trillions of dollars changing hands. Where does that money eventually come from? If you guessed the American taxpayer, you would be correct.

I think the hardest pill to swallow is that “We The People” are purposely blocked from having any say in how our money is spent. There is also no accounting or auditing on where and how all these trillions of dollars are spent. Somehow, we have left Congress in charge of allocating these monies in their best interests: not ours. More often than not, our Congress bows to those who donate large sums of money to their reelections.

I feel what it comes down to is there has to be some structural changes in the way our elected officials get elected and what they are restricted from doing once elected.

If you can’t be elected to an office without accepting corporate donations from lobbyists, perhaps you’re in the wrong business. If you come under the spell of the sinister, greedy lobbyists on K Street in DC, a career change is a great option.

The only thing that “We The People” have left to control is the ballot box. A staggering number of Americans opt out of the ballot box; they just stay home and suck their thumbs. Meanwhile their world is crumbling and they don’t have a clue. The best this Country can do is send maybe 60% of eligible voters to the polls in a Presidential election year. This percentages are even worse when it comes to State and local elections.

If American democracy is

to survive, these percentages

must be brought up to

the 90-95% level.

Truth & consequences

 Actions have consequences, intended, or not. The statement of discovery, below, is a solid insight into how our politicians in Washington time and again hold themselves above the law. And, our democracy depends on law to see to it that democracy actually works. It’s sort of that way by design. 

Now, on matters political, Mrs. Feinstein has held a fairly good record throughout her tenure. When we, the electorate, see one of our elected officials falling over into the dark side, we have a Constitutional duty to send said politician packing. This is the biggest argument for term limits at every level of governance. The longer they stay glued to seats in Washington, the more insidious the greed becomes, and deals like the one mentioned below take place without the batting of an eyelash. On the matter of Blum/Feinstein being “two public service crooks, I believe the Blum side of the equation is in the privet sector, not the public sector.

 

But, all that aside, let’s get to the core of the argument. You may start by asking, “Why would a commercial, private sector company want a barrel full of old Post Office buildings?” Start by looking back in time when the USPS was at the top of its game, and there were a slew of “overnight” courier services available for substantially higher prices. Those courier companies morphed into United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express (FedEx), DHL, and a few lesser players.

Their business models have outstripped the Post Office in performance, not only in the domestic market, but also in the international market. I have to believe that this has not occurred without the wheeling and dealing of Big Business. To set the record straight on some facts quoted below, the USPS is not mismanaged. It has been under the thumb of an unrelenting Congress for the last forty odd years. The USPS has been literally robbed of its revenue by acts of Congress, and that is why they are in such financial chaos. The government mandates on their pension system add untold “on paper” losses that keep the USPS in the red.

Now, along come the aforementioned “courier” companies who have set their eyes on the entire mail and package delivery system, worldwide. If the business lobby can force the USPS to go under, their clients can walk right in without firing a shot, and take over the entire show. That’s how capitalism works, when greed is King. So, the number quoted below, $117 billion in the last ten years, is not a very surprising amount.

*********************************************************************************
“The US has entered into a contract with a real estate firm to sell 56 buildings that currently house U.S. Post Offices. The government has decided it no longer needs these buildings, most of which are located on prime land in towns and cities across the country. The sale of these properties will fetch about $19 billion. A regular real estate commission will be paid to the company that was given the exclusive listing for handling the sales. That company is CRi and it belongs to a man named Richard Blum.”“Richard Blum is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein and is shown with her in the picture above. (Most voters and many of the government people who approved the deal have not made the connection between the two because they have different last names). Senator Feinstein and her husband stand to make a fortune (at between $950 million and $1.1 billion!!) from these transactions. His company is the sole real estate agent on the sale. CRI will be making a minimum of 3% and as much as 6% commission on each and every sale. All of the properties that are being sold are all fully paid for. They were purchased with U.S. taxpayers dollars.”“Well, the folks in Washington have given the Post Office the OK to do it! Worse yet, most of the net proceeds of the sales will go back to the U.S.P.S, an organization that is so poorly managed that they have lost $117 billion dollars in the past 10 years! No one in the mainstream media is even raising an eyebrow over the conflict of interest and on the possibility of corruption on the sale of billions of dollars’ worth of public assets. How does a U.S. Senator from San Francisco manage to get away with organizing and lobbying such a sweet deal? Has our government become so elitist that they have no fear of oversight? And it's no mere coincidence that these two public service crooks have different last names; a feeble attempt at avoiding transparency in these type of transactions. Pass this info on before it's pulled from the Internet. I even verified it on Snopes:” http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/blum.asp
“And, Snopes usually puts a liberal spin on whatever it reports. It also was verified on TruthofFiction.com, which is a more reliable source for checking Internet rumors. You can read what they said by clicking on:”  http://www.truthorfiction.com/Blum-Post-Office-Sale-061013.htm“Now, here's the test.”“The U.S.P.S. is allowed free and clear, tax exempt use. The only cost to keep them open is the cost to actually keep the doors open and the heat and lights on. The United States Postal Service doesn't even have to pay county property taxes on these subject properties.”             “QUESTION?”                    “Would you put your house in foreclosure, just because                                    you couldn't afford to pay the electric bill?”   “DOES THIS PISS YOU OFF?”
 “If it doesn't, then don't complain about the corruption and the ineptness in D.C. You apparently have given up or have turned a blind eye and don't care.

“THE DUMBING OF AMERICA”©

The next Chapter:

Slowly, but surely, the wheels are turning and the American people are learning about the state of their National Education System. The “end-game” being played out has been evident to this observer for quite some time (since 1993). What has eluded me are the actual tactics that have been employed. Now, even those tactics are going to light.

Let me start with a brief re-hashing of my past writing on this subject. I had the opportunity to attend college for a brief time, 1992-1994, to get an Associate’s Degree in an engineering discipline. My degree takes a back seat to my experience with a much younger student body and what I learned were their sort-falls in their educational journey. Much to my amazement, to a man/woman, none of these youngsters could construct a complete thought orally and in writing. Let me just mention that the education afforded me by my parents enabled me to leave even the “brightest” of these students in the dust. I could complete a thought. I could write coherently on the various subjects at hand.

Foe years, I simply shook my head, and wondered what had happened to these poor, unfortunate students. It finally dawned on me that there was something sinister going on behind the educational “curtain”. It wasn’t the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain; it was big business, including Wall St. They were in the process of hijacking our public education system for their own greedy little ends. They obviously wanted to create a Nation of lemmings who would do their bidding with no questions asked.

         Why can't little Johnny  

    do readin', writin', or 'rithmatic?

It looks as if this “beast” has grown three heads. One head is concerned with downwardly standardizing the Nation curriculum. The second head is attempting to introduce false competition to our public system. The third head is very busy making certain that private business will be extremely welcoming to the new breed of “dumbed down” graduates. Running through all three of these heads is the tactic of hooking students on the drug they call Student Loans. Now costing a whopping 6.4% interest. These kids will be working the minimum wage until the day they die, and still pass

a remainder  of their student loan debt on to their unsuspecting    

children; who themselves will be shackled to the same loans (most likely at a higher rate of interest than the current 6.4%).

I am not going to get embroiled with quoting statistics. The numbers have already been published, and, by this time, are public knowledge. What I will get embroiled in is calling out those people we currently name as philanthropists to the Nation’s education structure. Watch out for “for-profit” benefactors like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Jeffrey Imelt, Jaime Diamond, et alia. These are the folks who seem to be spending a lot of time and money “reforming” our education system. Don’t you be fooled for one second. They are all interested in just how many of your tax dollars they can place in their bank accounts. Take a look very closely at who’s plowing their vast interests into dumbing down (aka standardizing) our National curricula. That wouldn’t be our captains of industry, or the 1%, or the owners of our Nation production, or the money lenders, now would it be?

The theory and practice of Capitalism in its purest form works best when not regulated, or impeded by government regulations, stipulations, mandates, or laws. I sincerely hope this is not where we’re going, but I just get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me something is going terribly wrong, here. Matt Taibbi and Henry Giroux come as close as you can get to that “voice in the wilderness” crying foul against teaching our children. Look them up, they have a lot to say on this subject.

"If the right-wing billionaires and apostles of corporate power have their way, public schools will become 'dead zones of the imagination,' reduced to anti-public spaces that wage an assault on critical thinking, civic literacy and historical memory." - Henry Giroux, 2013.

Dumbing Down America: The Decline of Education in the US as Seen From Down Under

[Friday, 22 November 2013 09:25, by Niall McLaren, Truthout | Op-Ed]

Excerpt: “Social critics regularly blast American public schools as little more than mind-deadening factories designed to propel working class white students into brain-dead jobs and minority students straight into the arms of the prison-industrial complex.”

RELATED STORIES

Students in Debt: "Can't Pay, Won't Pay, Don't Pay"

By Rachel Signer, The Nation | Op-Ed

Education Preserves Class Inequalities

By Jason DeParle, The New York Times News Service | Report

Student Debt Is Crushing the Economic Future of the Young

By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | Op-Ed

Source: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20043-dumbing-down-america-the-decline-of-education-in-the-us-as-seen-from-down-under

  *all graphics are from: Google images

Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic........

                                                                                                             11/18/2013

The “dumbing” of America has just about reached its goal!

I have been writing about this very subject now for about five years. My first stab at it was an article concerning Michelle Rhee and her attempt to transform our Nation’s school system. The more I

researched this woman, the more skeptical I became about her motives and her process. It soon 

became clear to me that she was off on the wrong track. She neglected to link Corporate America 

and its money and power to the Public Education System in this Country. If I didn’t feel that this 

phenomenon was unremarkable, I wouldn’t have given it much ink. I could make a long story of it, 

here, but I will spare you the drudgery.

In a nutshell, my first-hand experience with this problem 

happened when I was able to continue my “higher” education at the ripe old age of forty three. I had 

always felt that I had received a better than average education throughout my youth. It wasn’t until I encountered students at the college level that were about half my age that I realized just how good my childhood education was.

I swear on a stack of cheeseburgers that none of these “kids” could put a complete thought down on paper. They couldn’t do Mathematics without a calculator. They had absolutely no idea what was happening socially, economically, or politically in this Country, not to mention the rest of the World. And, so it was that from that point on I was very aware that something sinister and counterproductive was going on with our Public School System. Whenever I see the likes of this “dumbing” of America, I have to ask who’s pulling the strings; 

who’s spending the money; and, who are the Power Brokers behind the scenes.

The article, below, comes to much the same conclusion as I did. Corporate 

America has had their sleazy little fingers in the pie for some forty years. 

They have executed the old “divide and conquer” theory by creating a Nation 

of numbskulls who will drink their Kool-Aide, and toe the line. What better 

Labor Force could any CEO want?

Monday, 18 November 2013 08:50

The Fraudulent 1% Campaign to Stigmatize Public Schools as "Socialist Failures"

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Right Wing Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast called the public school system a "socialist regime." Michelle Rhee cautions us against commending students for their 'participation' in sports and other activities.Privatizers believe that any form of working together as a community is anti-American. To them, individual achievement is all that matters. They're now applying their winner-take-all profit motive to our children.

We're Sliding Backwards, Towards "Separate and Unequal"
In 1954, the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education seemed to place our country on the right track. Chief Justice Earl Warren said that education "is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." Thurgood Marshall insisted on "the right of every American to an equal start in life."

But then we got derailed. We've become a nation of inequality, worse than ever before, worse than during the racist "separate but equal" policy of Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA shows that "segregated schools are systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities." The Economic Policy Institute tells us that "African American students are more isolated than they were 40 years ago."

The privatizers clamor for vouchers and charters to improve education, but such methods generally don't serve those who need it most. According to a Center on Education Policy report, private schools serve 12 percent of the nation's elementary and secondary students, but only one percent of disabled students. Forty-three percent of public school students are from minority families, compared to 24% of private school students.

Meanwhile, as teachers continue to get blamed, the Census Bureau tells us that an incredible 38 percent of black children live in poverty.

The Underprivileged Have Been Cheated Out Of Taxes
A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) report revealed that total K-12 education cuts for fiscal 2012 were about $12.7 billion.

Almost 90 percent of K-12 funding comes from state and local taxes. But in 2011 and 2012, 155 of the largest U.S. corporations paid only about half of their required state taxes. That comes to $14 billion per year in unpaid taxes, more than the K-12 cuts.

Untaxed and Unqualified Foundations Want To "Save Our Schools"
The "starve the beast" mentality allows the privatizers to claim that our "Soviet-style" schools don't work, and that a business approach must be used instead. Philanthropists like Bill Gates and Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family, who have   little Educational experience among them, and who have little accountability to the public, are promoting "education reform" with lots of standardized testing.

But according to the National Research Council, "The tests that are typically used to measure performance in education fall short of providing a complete measure of desired educational outcomes in many ways." Diane Ravitch notes that the test-based Common Core standards were developed by a Gates-funded organization with almost no public input. Desperate states had to adopt the standards to get funding.

Bill Gates may be well-intentioned, but he's a tech guy, and his programming of children into educational objects is disturbing. One of his ideas is to videotape teachers and then analyze their performances. The means of choosing 'analysts' is unclear. Another Gates idea is the Galvanic Skin Response bracelet, which would be attached to a child to measure classroom engagement, and ultimately gauge teacher performance. It all sounds like a drug company's test lab.

As noted by Ravitch and others, philanthropic organizations tend to contribute to "like-minded entities," which are likely to exclude representatives of the neediest community organizations. They are also tax-exempt. And when educational experiments go wrong, they can just leave their mess behind and move on to their next project.

Getting Past Our "Exceptionalism"
If we're willing to look beyond our borders for help, we will see the short-sightedness of our educational "reforms." Finland's schools were considered mediocre 30 years ago, but they've achieved a remarkable turnaround by essentially challenging their teachers before they're entrusted with the welfare of the children. Most Finnish teachers are unionized, and they undergo rigorous masters-level training to ensure proficiency in the teaching profession, which is held in the same high esteem as law and medicine. In keeping with this respect for learning, government funding is applied equally to all schools, classes in the arts are available to all students, and tuition is free.

As a result, Finnish students, who are not subjected to standardized testing, finish at or near the top of international comparisons for reading, math, and science.

It's not just Finland with such impressive results. Research at the National Center on Education and the Economy has confirmed that educational systems in Japan, Shanghai, and Ontario, Canada have prospered with an emphasis on the preparation of teachers for the essential task of instructing their young people.

A Strong Community Leads To Individual Success
George Lakoff summarizes: "The Public provides freedom...Individualism begins after the roads are built, after individualists have had an education, after medical research has cured their diseases...

Public education is vital to the promise of equal opportunity for all. But it will only succeed if we work together as a community, and stop listening to the voices of profit and inexperience.

Paul Buchheit

7355 W Ibsen

Chicago IL 60631

773-727-2345

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, a writer for progressive publications, and the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org).paul@UsAgainstGreed.org

Source:

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18319-the-fraudulent-1-campaign-to-stigmatize-public-schools-as-socialist-failures