Teach Children Well – Trump and All the Rest

American Democracy Went Wrong, What Happens Next? 5/6

America wasn’t created by gunslingers. It was made by pioneer women and crooked magnates.

by Mike Booth

This is Part five of a six-part series, It’s Getting Late, America

American patriots demonstrating on the steps of the Michigan State House.

What America Needs in Order to Float

The tragic flaws in America’s recent history are not just attributable to low men in high places. There’s another element, perhaps as important: the inherent faults in American democracy. Just as a boat requires water to float, an effective democracy requires an informed populace, good will, and a willingness to compromise in order to make progress. America today has none of those elements.

The electoral process in a democracy doesn’t begin at voting age. It begins in early childhood–as young as three–in which family and the surrounding society cooperate in immersing their children in a humane, collaborative, egalitarian world, not one ruled by bellicose individualism, racism and militarism. Scandinavia didn’t become great until the Vikings laid down their axes.

President Donald Trump was elected in a free and fair election after having enunciated his absurd program based on simplistic, laissez-faire-for-some- tough-luck-for-the-rest ideology with no relation to reality beyond the mindless gutting of vital government competencies and agencies, and the denigration of President Barak Obama’s legacy.

The looming 2016 electoral debacle should have been evident to anyone with eyes to see. But a majority of American voters were blind to these realities. It didn’t take a massive majority to install Trump in the White House. A quick look at the Russian revolution will convince you of how effective a small-but-committed party can be.

The Founders Secured the Young Republic

America’s founders thought long and hard about measures to protect their fledgling republic from evil, with carefully stipulated election procedures, constitutional checks and balances, scrupulous separation of powers, and a Supreme Court with lifelong justices. The only loophole they left for themselves and the rest of the gentle folk in the case of a mob takeover of the election process was the Electoral College. That cumbersome, anti-democratic invention was supposed to function as a firewall in the case of populist undesirables winning a presidential election. It was an anachronism then and remains one today.

Ironically, the result of the 2016 presidential election was a perfect example of what the founders wanted to prevent with the electoral college–the co-opting of an election by an unscrupulous, racist, retrograde mob–the Republican Party. This is not to say that all of the Republican legislators were sociopaths, but they were all aware that their voting base was cognitively deficient and driven by hate, racism, and apocalyptic religion. Almost all of them pandered to that base. The few who didn’t paid a high career price.

The intellectually-handicapped nature of a significant sector of American society turned out to be an advantage for the GOP. That electorate was easy to manipulate with the rudimentary means at hand: good ole-time racism, rancid knee-jerk anti-communism, insults and name calling, lies and half truths, and quotes from holy scripture. That and plenty of right-wing money and big-data technology was enough to get the job done.

Gore Vidal, one of America’s privileged minds and unrelenting truth-tellers, said: “You can’t expect democracy from a place like this.”

Trump’s Unique Talent

Once in office President Trump began to play his confused, misled public like a virtuoso. This was his unique talent. For that he was a regular idiot savant. Though he couldn’t tell you on what day of the week the battle of Hastings was fought, he could bring a crowd to climax by declaiming “facts” and sleaze that he pulled out of his sleeve on the run. His perfect resonance with his congregation was–and remains–remarkable. That said, those marks had been groomed over many years by P.T. Barnum, Billy Graham and Madison Avenue, each in their own deadly effective way.

The dumbing down of America wasn’t limited just to the three R’s. It included the most forgotten yet most important subject of all–philosophy. Not rocket science philosophy, just day-to-day good manners and kindness, civic sense, generosity, and concern for the good of all people in a commonwealth. American young people learned all the opposite: rugged individualism. America’s worst enemy in the 20th century wasn’t Soviet Russia. It was John Wayne.

Trump’s great luck was that the mediocrity of his own mind and values meshed nicely with those of enough of his countrymen to get him elected President of the United States. His critics should never lose sight of the fact that Trump didn’t create America. America created Trump. Getting rid of him won’t solve the ingrained problems.

Teach Your Children Well

Here lies the ultimate justification for free and equal education dedicated to truth and excellence, with quality facilities and competent, well-paid and appreciated, professional teachers. Unfortunately, too many of the American political elite don’t object to the dumbing down of the populace, both intellectually and morally. They prefer it, as the result is a bovine electorate that will chew contentedly on any cheap ideological cud. One of their most effective distractions is religion.

The free-thinking founders of the United States would be distressed to discover that modern America has reverted to medieval standards in matters of religion. It was the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower (1952-60) that saw the institutionalized collusion between a president and a fundamentalist evangelist. Eisenhower and Billy Graham formed a formidable team dedicated to christianizing American from top to bottom, including the government. From then on that brand of pandering to magical religious influencers became the norm. A large part of American political candidates still rely on them for votes and financing.

Again it was President Trump who took the concept to its logical absurdity when he named a bimbo “prosperity gospel” televangelist (“If you can’t send that $100,000 check, send one for $20.”) as his “presidential spiritual advisor.” She looks incongruous in the White House, as if she might be more appropriate in an old-time sideshow between the sword swallower and the bearded lady.

We know that the United States has some of the finest thinkers in the world, but are there enough of them to counterbalance the influence of the swarm of venal televangelists, the megachurches, and the semi-literate uber patriots and true believers? What about state supported religious schools under the guise of “charter schools?” Was Trump’s naming of Betsy d’Vos as Secretary of Education a master stroke of modern surrealism? Does this American religious tsunami help to account for the current Chinese technological sovereignty? Ninety percent of Chinese citizens are non-religious persons.

They Want to Be Happy

Americans in democracy want to be happy, but thanks to their misdirected upbringing they don’t know what happiness is. They strive for ever more stuff and think that bling will make them happy. It will, up to a point, but that point is limited and more stuff won’t make them happier. What would make them profoundly happy, though most of them haven’t considered it, is a project to achieve a better world–or a better corner of the world–with equality, racial harmony, mutual respect, diplomacy instead of war, cooperation instead of killer competition. What is considered simple normality in other parts of the world would be a great step forward for Americans.

But it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. The US Congress, itself, is a microcosm of all the dystopia and unhappiness in America. It’s a hive of internecine hate and conflict, of “special” interests. What makes the interests of the rich so special, anyway? Most of Washington’s legislators are ignorant of the fact that scruples are not just for mouthing in televised debates. They’re there to make life better for everyone. America wasn’t created by gunslingers. It was made by pioneer women and crooked magnates. Happiness is about making things, whether it be a model airplane or a family, and the best things cannot be created by one person alone. They result from team efforts. “Team” in America connotates competition, conflict or combat. That’s their default setting. In other parts of the world it suggests cooperation.

It seems that everything wrong with America is rooted in the false values that Americans fed to their children along with their Cheerios. So there you have them, the peddlers of eternity, the political social climbers, the lost lumpenproletariat, the sadistic cops, the disappeared girls, the pederast priests, the prostitutes and pimps in public life, and all the other extravagant types from central casting. Do any of them know where those high-gloss lacquered horses of the American merry-go-round are taking them?

Coming next week, The last part of a six-part series,
It’s Getting Late, America

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The American Agenda 2/3

Thugs drag Assange out of embassy — Journalist Julian Assange is dragged from Ecuadorian embassy in London by authorized British thugs. In his hand is a copy of Gore Vidal’s book, History of the National Security State.

Then Came the National Security State

The American National Security State generally refers to the ideology and institutions (CIA, Dept. of Defense, etc.) established by the National Security Act of 1947, an enduring legacy of then President Harry S. Truman in support of his doctrine “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” (Source: Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954). Hogan’s book explains the transformative process under Truman that ended in the ultimate demise of the New Deal state with its emphasis on social spending, and ushered in the militarist National Security State, which promptly proceeded to dedicate itself to subjugation and outside pressures. (Source: Sourcewatch.org)

The National Security Act brought about a major restructuring of the United States government’s military and intelligence agencies following the war. It created many of the institutions that subsequent Presidents have found useful when formulating and implementing foreign policy, including the National Security Council (NSC). It also created the Department of the Air Force, converting the Army Air Force into a separate branch of the armed forces.

Then, in rapid succession, came the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947, taking over from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), (1942–45) headed by Major General William Joseph (Wild Bill) Donovan and dedicated to obtaining information about and sabotaging the military efforts of enemy nations during World War II. Donovan is regarded as the founding father of the CIA, and his statue stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, both as homage to Wild Bill and to his freewheeling style in international relations, a lot of which remains today. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) followed in 1949, and the National Security Agency (NSA) in 1952. The NSA quickly grew into a massive high-tech and top-secret organization dedicated to signals intelligence and capable of of spying on everybody, everywhere.

With all these pieces in place, the United States was ready to undertake their world takeover. The first steps in that militarist departure are today referred to as the Cold War. Today, 67 years later, the Americans have roughly 1,000 (nobody outside the Pentagon knows the precise number) military installations around the world. Meanwhile, in 2018, it was reported that Russia operates “at least 21 significant military facilities overseas.” (Source: Wikipedia)

US Repertoire Includes Remote Death from Sky

The skies of the world are filled with American satellites and armed drones. Many unfortunate people live under permanent threat of sudden death descending from Heaven in the form of US “targeted assassinations.” This includes not only the leaders of terrorist organizations (always keeping in mind that our terrorists are their freedom fighters) but also their extended families, neighbors, friends, sympathizers, passers-by and the milkman. Since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States government has carried out drone strikes against ostensible Jihadist terrorist leaders primarily in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Libya. Though the number of accompanying civilian deaths is hard to compile some organizations have tried. According to Wikipedia.com, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism says the rate of civilian casualties for 2012, for example, was nine percent. The Bureau, based on extensive research in mid-2011, claims that at least 385 civilians were among the dead.

It has been reported that 160 children have died from UAV-launched attacks in Pakistan and that over 1,000 civilians have been injured. Additional reporting has found that known militant leaders have constituted only two percent of all drone-related fatalities. These sources run counter to the Obama administration’s claim that “nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death” due to UAV-based attacks. The New America Foundation estimates that for the period 2004-2011, the non-militant fatality rate was approximately 20%. (Source: Wikipedia)

President Barak Obama was to take a personal interest in the drone assassination program, actually sitting down periodically with the CIA’s top dirty-tricks specialist, John Brennan, whom he later named director of the CIA, to select from a list of candidates for the week’s proposed killer-drone victims. This seems to be a first: a hands-on, Murder-Incorporated-style operation based in the White House, and directed by the President himself.

It was President Trump who, just this came year, came up with an expedient solution to the dance of statistics. On March 6, 2019, he signed an executive order revoking the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in Counter-Terrorism missions in Areas Outside of Active Hostilities.

When in Doubt, Escalate

The drone war was just another step forward in the escalation of the ever-more-creative American agenda. After World War II, instead of demobilizing the army, President Truman expanded the war machine and ushered in the National Security State. When President Kennedy’s turn came around he raised military spending $17 billion above that of the Eisenhower years. This year, 2019, the United States “defense” budget for the four branches of the U.S. military: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force, has progressed to approximately $693,058,000,000. That’s 693 billion dollars; some sources say it’s probably closer to a trillion. Either way, it’s more than the money spent on defense by the next seven countries combined, and certainly enough to finance a lot of hot lunches for schoolchildren.

Speaking in 1994, Gore Vidal, America’s favorite celebrity intellectual in the sixties and seventies—until he started cutting too close to the bone—says in a long interview with Paul Jay, the Canadian journalist who was later to found the Baltimore-based Real News.com:

But by forty-five—when the bombs were dropped— we lacked Franklin Roosevelt. He was the emperor. He knew exactly what he was doing. He made a number of agreements with Stalin at Yalta. All Stalin asked for was to be treated as a normal superpower, which is what they were. Roosevelt did not have any nonsense going on in his head about the sanctity of Christianity, the sanctity of capitalism versus communism. I don’t think he ever gave such topics a thought. All he knew is we had won the war, and he was going to decolonialize.

I realize how little understanding any of us had of what was actually going on at the [Cold War] time. We had been carefully conditioned to believe that the gallant, lonely USA was, on every side, beleaguered by the Soviet Union, a monolithic Omnipotency; we now know that they were weak and reactive while we were strong and provocative. Once Jack [Kennedy] had inherited the make-believe war against communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, he preceded, unknown to all but a few, to change the rules of the game. He was about to turn Truman’s pseudo-war into a real war…

Unfortunately for the United States and the world, President Roosevelt didn’t live to carry out his noble plans. His place was taken by a mediocre politician, the product of a mediocre Democratic Party machine from Missouri, who had only been vice president for 82 days when Roosevelt died and never enjoyed his confidence. Truman knew nothing when he was thrust into the presidency, for example, of the United States’s development of two nuclear devices. But, against the advice of all the bombs’ developers and all the relevant government departments, he dropped them both on Japan, unnecessarily, it turns out, and with disastrous consequences. This was the definitive indication that the United States was declaring its unilateral primacy in world affairs.

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See Part 3/3 tomorrow

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We’re All Victims of the Lies They Told us as Children

Lying_to_Children8

Lying to Children Is to Do Them–and the World–a Terrible Disservice

Lying to children has been a universal phenomenon since time immemorial. Parents, consciously or unconsciously, raise their offspring dishonestly, perpetuating the same lies they were told by their own parents. Children are innocent blank slates. Anything imprinted on them during infancy is virtually indelible. If you teach your children that a fat bearded man in a red suit and a funny hat flies around the globe in a reindeer-drawn sleigh and slips down chimneys to deliver gifts to all the children in the world, you’re planting the seed of a venemous creeping vine. Any child who will believe that preposterous story because a trusted loved one told it, will grow up to believe that a Jewish carpenter’s son who died 2,000 years ago will raise that child into heaven.

Lies have been and remain fundamental pieces in the strategy of all repressive regimes, whether political or religious, at all times. Power hungry rulers around the world need to form—and deform—their populaces as virtual masses of livestock that serve mainly to be herded and milked–and bled–and the best place to start is with children.

Where Are You From? That Explains It

We are who we are because of where we come from. You can’t blame an Indian for being Hindu. His mother’s milk was Hindu along with all the rest of the world in which he grew up. Nor can you blame an American from the bible belt for being a Christian. Or a New Yorker for loving asphalt and having trouble understanding Texans. Or Texans for being Texans.

What I would like to blame young Americans for here is taking on bovinely all that self-aggrandizing nationalistic and religious claptrap that their country’s con men thrive on. But, in all fairness, I’m not sure I can do that either. American young people are just as conditioned from birth as the Hindus, though they may not realize it. And those who get rich are convinced they’re another of those fraudulent American inventions, the “self-made (wo)man.”

To children—and their parents who were raised on the same kibble—the early lies seem innocuous, even charming: Santa Claus, the baby Jesus, the tooth fairy… But this soon becomes seriously sinister. It opens the floodgates to all the rest: racism, patriotism, entitlement, militarism… Since virtually everybody in that sponge child’s universe is on the same wavelength, he’s trapped in an ideological dead end. In the case of the United States that explains the fearful homogenization of thought in which there’s no room for anything but hard-core Americanism and old-time religion. There’s no room for solidarity with people who are different, no empathy, no mercy for children with the ill luck to be born outside the boundaries of the 50 states, and very little for those inside. “We’re all white, Christian, free-market believers in American-style democracy, and those who ain’t is in deep trouble.”

Does this sound familiar?

You’re the best.
Your country is the most beautiful from sea to shining sea.
Your religion is also the best. All others are heresy, possibly diabolical.
You can get rich. Just work hard.
Your government is blessed by God. It is wise and beneficent.
Your way of life is heavenly ordained. Be true to your school.
We are unique, special, people of God, entitled to take other people’s countries, natural resources—oil, gold, arable land, fishing rights… If they resist we are entitled to kill them.

Even though all the world’s great religions have been twisted to fit the sick agendas of priests, generals, emperors and dictators, they still expect us to revere them. Have you taken a look at the 10 commandments lately? How many of them are observed religiously by any modern government today? Don’t make me laugh trying to figure that one out. Does the Koran sanction suicide bombings and the wholesale slaughter of innocents? Or the extreme repression of women, for that matter? Does the Bible sanction the precision bombing of civilians, or the capricious invasion of soverign nations? No they don’t. But never mind, all religions have their inconvenient technicalities, but they can be ignored in special cases.

How Do You Create a Killer?

How do you get a healthy, well-educated young person to strap an explosive vest on his body and detonate it in the midst of a crowd of innocent bus passengers? It’s not complicated. You appeal to his sense of patriotism, righteousness and the promise of eternal life. That’s the best bait, eternal life. Nobody who promises it knows how to deliver it but there are lots of ingenuous marks who don’t seem to mind.

By the same token, how do you get a bright young computer-games whizbang to sit in an underground bunker in the desert and kill remotely at distances of thousands of miles not only his country’s presumed enemies, who are unknown to him, but everyone else on the bus or at the wedding. The bride and groom, the best man and the maid of honor, the altar boys, parents and grandparents…

That’s not too complicated, either. You just double his pay and tell him he’s a patriot. That—patriotism—is the great killer, not only of “the enemy’s” young people but of your own. What is more heroic, nay glamorous, than dying for your country? Would someone please explain to me exactly what that means: “dying for one’s country.” Who benefits from the death of an American soldier abroad these days? His parents, his friends, his wife and children? Yes, I’m being ridiculous. Who benefits are arms manufacturers and dealers, bankers, politicians, media magnates, speculators, right-wing radio talk-show geniuses… all patriots, to be sure. I find this game cheap and nasty, absolutely abhorrent. Why can’t American mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers understand that? It’s beyond me. As for the old “Support our troops” trope, it’s patently sick and sordid, another massive lie that still prevails. The best way to support the troops is to bring them home.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with False Promises

As far as I can see 100% of the wars the US engages in are motivated by crass short-term self interest, to export arms, not democracy, to humiliate the weak, to twist their minds and grab their resources. That’s government policy, not coincidence. We must never forget that in all first-world countries it’s the citizens (us!) who elect the decision makers and pay their bills. If this doesn’t constitute a sacred trust on their part—and ours–I don’t know what does. Yet, as you know, seldom is this trust honored by politicians who, once elected, dedicate themselves heart and soul to feathering their own nests and those of their corporate “sponsors.” Do you doubt it? OK then, name two or three rigorously scrupulous politicians of your own. Having trouble? You’re not alone.

There May Be an Escape Route

There is one possible escape route through which perhaps 1% of children could obviate the inevitability of inherited brain death. It is, of course, education. Little people who are taught to think for themselves from an early age, to question everything, to leave no basic belief unverified in the light of science and simple common sense, just might have a chance of escaping the inevitable. But those fortunate children better hurry, because the few remaining teachers who are prepared to teach those values are fast disappearing. And there aren’t many more like them in the pipeline, not when the very Secretary of Education of the United States is a self-proclaimed proponent of privatized religious education.

Is it already too late? Probably.

Category: Teach Children Well

American Democracy Went Wrong, What Happens Next? 5/6