Chris Hedges begins: "A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs."
President Obama talks to students at Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, 10/19/09. (photo: Newscom)
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
vocational supermarket in which critical thinking is not only rejected but scorned in favor of job-seeking techniques. Practically speaking, the loss of a broadly humanitarian education means the loss of interesting people. Look at what currently passes for "political dialogue."
Our Koch sucking, villainiare rulers cannot have critical thinking sheeple, now can they? Just look what's happened in Wisconsin, with so many folks making change, challenging the evil rulers, and without stopping, yelling it loudly and clearly:
VILLAINIARES, GO TO HELL!!!
jon - Wanna really freak out on this subject? When Huxley wrote "1984" the technology of control he described was beyond belief. Last year, however, I noticed HDTV's with built-in webcams on sale. And the steady growth of ipv6 devices and systems means that soon there will be the capacity for every electronic device on earth can be networked. Our masters now have the means to bring the world of 1984 into present day reality. Poor Aldous may have written the blueprint for humanity's perpetual enslavement rather than the warning I assume he intended.
...Sounds like a pretty good definition of (what they call with a straight face) "CORPORATE PERSONHOOD" to me.
I find it interesting that neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx (the paid, er pied pipers of the Right & Left, respectively) ever seems to have anticipated the 'inevitable' development of such a monstrous usurpation, by the elite, of OUR democratic institutions. Maybe Mary Shelley did, however, with her best-selling "Frankenstein."
What is the solution?
Think back to times past. What is it that lifts people out of tyranny (whether of kings or dictators or robber barons)? What are the forces that propel humans to create new and more just paradigms? Despite the fact that all historic religions ultimately were hijacked by the insincere, it was religion (plus some intellectuals) that generated the enlightenment; that fostered the flowering of the great Islamic civilizations 1200 years ago; that set in motion the birth of democracy on the American continent and that eradicated the evils that slavery draws forth out of human nature. If that pattern has reality we must again look to a new religion to re-inspire us, rejuvenate us, embolden us to shake off the invisible chains of tyranny and try the elevating freedom of thought that true religion inspires.
William Maxwell
in Tirana, Albania
The variety of beliefs within one religion alone is proof of man's inability to be inspired and follow humane means of dealing with adversity. One instance is a preference for the old testament over the new, which contains the kindness of Jesus' teachings.
What would your suggestion be for a new religion?
For the religious amongst us, their religions will provide guidance. For the non religious, their guidance comes from their heart.
I don't know if there is a difference as long as we end up with a just society that willingly extends itself to those less fortunate and provides for each person to have an opportunity to add to that society.
If you believe in a god, then you believe that god will bless such a society. If you don't its still all good.
There is a fresh wind sweeping the planet, bringing with it a collective consciousness-raising that is inspiring millions of people to join together and stand up for their rights. They will not be denied. No government on earth can withstand the combined will of its people. We will not be beaten!
Peace.
Since the ideas of making possible "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are enshrined in our Constitution, it would seem to me government should be charged with laying down a level playing field for all citizens to actualize their own talents, free of prejudice, with resources, protection, and privacy, as long as they are law abiding. A good government would obviously include great education, especially in citizenship since good government is what can enable more good government.
We have yet to describe what a a good government should be. Too big or small is idiotic distraction. We need a government that is the right size to accomplish the tasks we decide a government should accomplish.
It should certainly not be codifying into law ideological issues that special interest segments of the population want to enforce on all Americans. Our Constitution says we have the right to decide these issues for ourselves.
As Ayn Rand might have described the situation - Attila the Hun (America's Military Industrial Complex) and the great Witch-doctor (The Christian Evangelical leaders of our time) have forged a deep and indelible alliance. And hence – the elements required to form a fascistic society have been put firmly into place; firmly into action.
In a nation that has, ever-so-meekly, surrendered to the fiendish desires of Corporate Feudalism – there will soon be - no more free-thinkers or, for that matter free people. Even now – mostly all I see are serfs (slaves), sycophants and lords.
Fanatic Christian orators proclaim, most emphatically, that “America is a Christian nation!” And the corporate lords smile slyly and ever-so gleefully as our modern-day witch-doctors capture and subsequently brainwash the minds of the masses. And as they well-know – a well brainwashed populace – one that believes that blind-obedience is a great virtue – will be a populace that will suit their feudalistic needs to a tee.
A free-thinker cannot function for long as a serf – yet a zombie functions at his best when locked into the blissful mindlessness of mesmeric serfdom.
(To be continued)
He should have told them it was because they have gotten a piss-poor education that hasn't qualified them to PRODUCE anything.
Capitalism, in its simplest form (free enterprise), is a wonderful thing. One trades one's products or services for the products and services of others. However, the “Capitalism” we know today - has evolved from a system of free enterprise into a system by which greed and political manipulation have all but destroyed the ability of the common man/or woman to succeed as financially free agents.
There are more than enough resources on this wondrous planet of ours to not only sustain every man, woman and child that dwell upon it – there is more than enough to supply all of us with more than enough.
Instead - a tiny percentage of the world's population ruthlessly hoard a vast majority of humankind's wealth. And the last thing they desire would be to eliminate the various scourges of human-kind such as poverty, war and ignorance. Instead – they arouse, impel and sustain these things for their own profit.
And as Chris hedges has pointed out – that miniscule retinue of corporate wealth and power mongers will stoop to any means by which they can turn the potentially brilliant into the pathetically fatuous; the budding genius into the ever-obedient slave and fool. I.e. - turn our schools into Zombie Factories.
“Obey, obey or else!” This is the law of the serf, the sycophant, the witch-doctor and the lord. And this is the creed of those who wish us all a blindingly speedy return to the Dark Ages.
but reading this, i also have to criticize the teacher who spoke under conditions of anonymity. isn't this part of the greater problem? everyone who speaks out wants to protect the comfort of the demeaning job they despise. or they write a tell-all after they have left the profession. put your name on your protests- proudly. stand up for for ideals. protesting from within a corrupt organization changes nothing and it makes the protester complicit
And the net result is the ever increasing denigration of the American worker. While we always had layers of workers and management, the trend since industrializati on and the growth of unions was toward democratization of the workplace. That is being ripped apart by outsourcing and trivializing creativity.
I am glad to see that Chris called out the Charter School fraud for what it is, a way to strip teachers of the power to teach.
This topic is critical to America's future. The MOST critical. Thanks you Chris.
One last thought. When you think of a school teacher that influenced you most positively, it is never the fact that the teacher taught you fractions or who won the Civil War. It is always the ones that taught you something about life and learning. These impact teachers are going to disappear.
This topic is critical to America's future. The MOST critical.
I know myself, that when I see what I wrote posted here; I would like to do a rewrite or at least an edit.
The comments you see posted by folks on RSN usually contain at minimum a kernal of rational thought. Although, to be honest, the most irrational ones usually come from the Right. But there are offenders on both sides, and rational thought occasionally does occur from the Right.
Check out a Rightie site on occasion. The comments especially are indicative of what will happen to American discourse in the future. Rote answers and facts be damned. The end result of the decades long assualt on the Free American education system.
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease ... But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
--John Maynard Keynes
Worship of "self" is NOT the answer. Corporate-fascists, while worshiping the corporate ideology of profit and not questioning the corporate, or political, system(s) as the overriding concern, are also the ultimate in narcissists and worshipers of self, as well as only those others' among them who excel in doing nothing but the same thing(s).
We need not self-worshiping, and/or corporate supremacy worshiping and unquestioning obedience. We DO need self-sacrifice for the greater good. For the true greater good, not the so-called "greater good" that the corporate-fascists taking over everything and mass-murdering everyone who gets in the way espouse and are literally brainwashing most people with, the worship of self and the worship of mass-selfishness, mass-self-centeredness (for the mass of unquestioning and completely obedient automatons), and mass-narcissism...
(Continued below)
...We DO need, as Dr. King so aptly said, "disciplined non-conformists"; but he did not mean self-centered "non-conformists", but those with the spiritual faith to be willing to lay down their lives for the True Betterment of their fellow-humankind. Yet, it is because of near-death of self-sacrifice, that greatly came about as a result of the promotion, acceptance and brainwashing of capitalism, materialism and narcissism and/or self-centeredness, that the corporate-fascists have been so successful in all that they're doing to increase mass, group narcissism and the worship of nothing but the ultimate selfishness of the group "mind". It is the "height", and the final culmination, of selfishness as the god of all gods.
That latter, the worship of self, is NOT the answer, but is, even in what you, Chris Hedges, believe to be an indirect "answer", feeding right in to the corporate-fascist nihilists and what they, and the evil that controls them, desire. But knock that self-worshiping ending off of your article, and you have a great one. But with that ending you have what is being part of the problem, not part of the True Solution(s). The ultimate True Solution is to put others ahead of ourselves, and NOT to AT ALL give in to putting self ahead of all else, and the former is our ONLY ultimate solution.
Our colleges are little better as shown by schools of business that train students to regard workers as no more than "capital assets". The same way negro slaves were regarded before a war that freed no one in reality and killed over 600,000 people (that we know of). If people don't wake up and take back their rights and their souls we are headed back there again. Wouldn't that be some way to celebrate 150 years?!
at least the tea party is ACTIVELY stupid. the left or liberals, or progressives just rant uselessly or whine pitifully.
What I was able to discover was that this perceived "new seriousness" was radical individualism as promoted by the Reaganites. It was now all about the money. I was lost in this new wasteland of practical and non-questioning authoritarianis m.
The dumbing down will continue among a populace that is not empowered. A corporatized education of black and white will provide future workers with just the facts.No room for critical thought.All by design.
A dark and pernicious shadow has fallen upon the face of a once prosperous and ever-so-hopeful nation. A nation that (over two-hundred years ago) sparked a nigh-worldwide fire-storm of free-thinking, free-speech, freedom of religion and the freedom to pursue one's own perception of true happiness. And yet here we (over two hundred years later) have somehow become a nation being held captive by the most pernicious band of pirates the world has ever known.
And so is this our destiny? To have become the slaves of robber-barons, power-mongers, oil-sheiks, corporate CEO s, insufferable political bosses, tel-evangelists and all the psychopathic, media-glitz maneuvering they all can muster?
(To be continued)
Justice, by-the-way, is not just something rewarded in a court-of-law. It is, rather, the birth-right of all-of-those who are willing to fight for it, to preserve it and to prosper within it. Which is also to say: it is the birth-right of every true and sincerely patriotic American. It is, moreover – the right to survive and prosper in the short time that we exist upon the glorious face of this wondrous planet.
And so, most-hopefully, in the end – when the down-trodden, the hard-working, the hopeful, the free-thinking, the ingenious, the artistically and/or scientifically inspired people of this nation and beyond that - the whole world - agree and unite - justice will, finally, be for all and not just the wealthiest among us.
And this is our challenge as Americans and as a Human-race – to employ, adhere to and restore the desire, adjuration and promise of our most beloved Founding Fathers: that there be liberty and justice for all.
Amerikkkan is the most brain-washed people on the face of the earth. It has always been that way. It is the only way to sustain an anti-democratic economy. The US emerged as an aristocracy or plutocracy and it continues to be that today. The US is leading the world back into the middle ages, a time of corporate feudalism. Mis-eduction will be an important part of that.
There is another reason to dumb down the population. Educated people are dangerous. They question. The say no. They rebel
Testing can be used as a thinking activity. Ask any student who takes the SAT or AP exams. Those tests require that the taker is able to think logically and read critically. Certainly those are skills that the artist, the rebel, the iconoclast must possess. Before we can be independent thinkers, we must develop strong, basic habits of mind. Teachers need to contextualize testing for their students, helping them understand its place as a demonstration of learning that has already occurred and will continue after the test.
The last thing we need in this country is to let it slide because everybody does it or it is a common occurrence. It isn't and we shouldn't accept it from people who the public support.
It's time to hold sports figures to the same or higher standards that we hold movie & TV stars & singers.
We have become an uncivilized society that solves it problems with guns rather than discussion. It's time we grow up and join the world of civilized nations.
RSS feed for comments to this post.