Let us put our minds together and see what life we will make for our children. Tatanka Lotanka(sitting bull)

repost 2008 nothing has changed

Let us put our minds together and see what life we will make for our children. Tatanka Lotanka sitting bull

Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is that lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas.quote from source unknown


The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."…..Paul Johnson British Roman Catholic journalist, historian, speechwriter and author.

A little history, a little philosophy, some perspective from political science, and the future of education. Ecumenical tolerance is the key to building a constituency for world peace. Only when man accepts that we are all members of the same body of humanity can true lasting world peace be realized. War does not determine who is right, only who is left. Each one of us are moral agents responsible for the ultimate outcome.


The classic generic free speech/freewill political suppression issue has been around a long time within a democratic society. Plato was one of the first to start recording historical accounts of political oppression, beginning with the Greeks and Socrates, in the 4oo's bc. The Athenian elite where in no mood for a social and moral critic dissing this infant democracy experiment over power, morality and ethics. Athenian society was in decline after the disastrous defeat of their navel fleet and massive army during the Peloponnesian wars. Ironically, Sparta defeated the Greek city-state with support from Persia ( Iran today) in spite of having a superior fighting force. The end of the golden age for Greece, a little back drop from Wikipedia that I found very interesting and eerily familiar. 5th century BC.:

"Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta was established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in the Greek world.


Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century golden age of Greece."


"He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid." -- Epictetus (ca 55-135 A.D.) Greek philospher Source: Discourses, ca 100 A.D.

Many of our contemporary ideas concerning ethics and moral agency sprang from Epictetus and Socrates observations. Rational thought (common sense), western European ideals, hence common use of western in discussions.

"If anything in general can be said about the philosophical beliefs of Socrates, it is that he was morally, intellectually, and politically at odds with his fellow Athenians. When he is on trial for heresy and corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, he uses his method of *elenchus….
to demonstrate to the jurors that their moral values are wrong-headed.

*(elenchus….scientific methods we use today….common sense questions designed to state the obvious by process of elimination to rule out falsehoods to arrive at the truth, ask a lawyer why he never asks a question that he doesn't already know the answer to, truth may be exposed or the devils advocate, lies. A good teacher can nail you with one or two yes or no questions, to find out if you did your homework without ever asking anything specific right or wrong, not even pertaining to the subject matter.)


Socrates tells them that they are concerned with their families, careers, and political responsibilities when they ought to be worried about the "welfare of their souls." A senator back then had three or four families and a host of wait staff purchased at the meat market, acquired through military conquest.


Socrates could be considered one of the first causalities of political infighting, Socrates and truth done in by the hypocrites use of the hemlock hush. Rather than upholding a status quo and accepting the development of immorality within his region, Socrates worked to undermine the collective notion of "might makes right" so common to Greece during that period. (Americans during this current period, thanks to Machiavellian muzzles.) He irritated the establishment with all that nonsense about justice and the pursuit of goodness ethical bullshit. He even pissed off the gods with that talk about man having an immortal soul, the nerve. His attempts to improve the Athenian's sense of justice and refusing to recant: "truth is truth, I am not a hypocrite; only intellectually honest about what I see and what you numb nuts say are not in agreement with your own legislative standards. I am not the one corrupting our youth and inciting slave rebellion; senators, you ride the help and hump your household. You dudes say slaves are beneath you, the only time I see slaves beneath you is when you're on top of one of them out of lustful breath and panting. I I'll die before I say anything different, you goobers can kill me, but the truth will stay, will never change. History marches on, truth is truth, a duck is a……duck!


The senates reply then as today: What do mean captured slaves are human too? All debtors are voluntary economic-slaves. Why are those Islamic terrorist killing our soldiers over there in their own country in the name of freedom? Extremists!! Are those people crazy? Patriotism will do that to a man. When the union general Sherman raped the south during the civil war a captured rebel solider was asked: why are you fighting us? You're poor, own no property nor slaves, why? Proudly he replied: because you are down here! We need to catch a few and ask them what there up, meanwhile kill the rest, just to be safe. Lets call them detained enemy combatants instead, we are merely gathering intelligence through legal interrogation techniques, we even made a special arbitrary law that says so, only a judge can see the law for national security reasons. Shushhhh, it's a state secret.. War crimes and imperialism, that's……that's…... un-American and against every thing we stand for. Golly gee whiz, where did you people get the idea that we would kidnap and torture anyone? Why, we Americans are above that kind of inhumane barbaric behavior. I sleep better at night knowing the public is safe, besides, do you really want to pay fifteen dollars a gallon for gas? Although our grandkids will war or no war. Lets kick their ass and take their gas. Truth is truth, a duck is a……. waterfowl. History marches on…

The Communist regime of the Soviet Union has been considered to be evil by a number of western liberal democracies, especially under the rule of Joseph Stalin for its mass persecutions of political opponents, religious, and cultural minorities (e.g. the Cossacks). Also the political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince often used by Hitler and Mussolini, are considered to be a source of evil in politics, as they often speak of ignoring accepted morals for the pursuit of ultimate power, as "the ends justifies the means". Machiavelli favored a prince creating a climate of fear in order to rule a population, rather than relying on popular support. Machiavelli supports the use of deception and manipulation as means to increase a prince's personal power. The following statements in The Prince on how to gain control of a principality show little concern for traditional moral and ethical considerations. Will history add George W. Bush/Obama/Romney to the list? ...the ends justifies the means...
The world consists mainly of vulgar people and the few who are honorable can safely be ignored when so many vulgar rally around the prince…Machiavelli…..Benefits must be conferred gradually so they are appreciated more thoroughly and harm should be inflicted all at once. Both harm and benefits should not serve as quick solutions to problems. Force is the most effective and efficient means to do something and the virtuous prince will employ its leverage.
History marches on….truth is truth, a duck is……..to deliberately lose a trick; a cunning action or plan that is intended to cheat or deceive

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The liberal left or the religious right are not off the hook…..Authoritarian, totalitarian, and elements of religious fundamentalism regimes tend to hold a common view that liberal-democratic regimes are evil and blame liberal democracy for high crime rates, profiteering, corporate crime, materialist individualism replacing common bonds of similar people, destruction of culture and its replacement with sleaze. All of which, the regimes claim will result in the destruction of humanity if liberal democracy is not restrained. Therefore, liberal democracy provides the ideal environment for corruption to thrive, greed at all levels of society becomes to rule rather the exception. In other words, we become so open-minded our brains fall out, leaving a fertile breeding ground for state sponsored exploitation of the masses. This is way the u.s. constitution is so important. The constitution protects 'we the people' from our own government. The bill or rights is the guarantee.
Machiavelli wrote: "...there will be traits considered good that, if followed, will lead to ruin, while other traits, considered vices which if practiced achieve security and well being for the Prince," (dub'ya, Carlyle group, Halliburton, Raytheon ie, eg) truth is truth. A duck is….is found all over the world, with the exception of Antarctica, but the prince doesn't care, for that reason we should send them there. History marches on….

The international relations theories of neo-conservatism (neocon), advise politicians to explicitly disavow absolute moral and ethical considerations in international politics in favor of a focus on self-interest, political survival, and power politics, which they hold to be more accurate in explaining a world they view as explicitly amoral and dangerous.

Neocons usually justify their perspectives by laying claim to a "higher moral duty" specific to political leaders, under which the greatest evil is seen to be the failure of the state to protect itself and its citizens, not protecting the citizens from the state. Truth is truth, a duck is…. what ever the state labels it. History marches on……

There is a back door to circumvent free speech and the original ideals America was founded on. Dumb down America by omission of certain schools of thought, thereby limiting critical thinking to only the facts presented and imbedded in the education system as a whole. One of the best tools is to limit the information being taught in public schools is not to teach it to the teachers to teach. Every generation is gradually being short changed. I clipped the next piece a couple of years ago to research, some of the items may be dated. I have added to it from things I have found, reading a few books, rereading history, hundreds of hours on the internet, but things have only gotten worse. I found this trend startling and set out to disprove, I could not, I have now not only confirmed this downward spiral, it is one of the main reasons I have become so political to do my part to reverse this national (international?) conspiracy.

Just because we are told America is number one does not make it so. This is why I stress independent thinking and common sense (rational thought), and the need to become better informed in all areas. Like I said before above: we have become so open-minded that our brain fell out, and developed and an appetite for destruction of the truth. Go look for yourself like I did, a caveat: government statistical data is not a reliable source, tends to only report the positive, withholding negative data is the norm because of political and bureaucratic job security. Truth is truth, a duck is a

….what's a duck? What's that quacking nose? A duck is what politicians do to avoid answering tough questions, avoid lying or telling the truth, whatever is convenient to conceal or promote hidden agendas, dedicated to self service. History marches on….

Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story. No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in: the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition. If that sentence seems extreme, consider these facts:


The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.) That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.
"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2006).
"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time. Economic slavery.
"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2004). Since 04, who knows? Government data lag time 2 years, estimates range from 3 to 7 million jobs, depends which duck is quacking, today 07 estimates are conservative. This includes jobs created minus jobs lost, the trend is about 2 million net loss per year and dropping, that is jobs lost increasing. Accurate data impossible to confirm. Shush, don't tell nobody, might create a panic. 17 million illegals just might have jobs here, ya think? Most of them pay federal income tax, is I should say the tax is deducted from their paychecks most of the money stays with the employer who knows the undocumented worker will not file for refunds with the feds, and actively reminds Pedro to do so risks deportation by the la migra offeciosos. Por qua? No la guardia, see.

Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005). Does not count illegals and those that quit looking, also day labor, nor those working for cash, drug trade, e.g.
Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture. American poison toys, conspiracy? To narrow trade gap, who knows, more to the point who's not telling? Wal-Mart toys Chinese lead, ignorant children, stupid adults: connection or coincidence?
Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Rainforest is the planets lungs, declining at 10% annually feeding fat Americans.
As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Relabeled and sent back as u.s. relief aid, you think I'm kidding. Go look. Product of china, labeled u. n for relief not to be sold. I have got a feeling the food stuff is relabeled again and sold back to us, that one boat load of rice has been around the world ten times, meanwhile fewer hungry, less humans, bigger banks, morbidly obese Americans.
Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate. Al Gore won the last one here. Us *plebs still lost. *….common people of ancient Rome: the ordinary citizens of ancient Rome, as distinct from the (re)patricians, wealthy
One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28). Future native American survival.
"Nearly one out of four Americans believe that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32) that one already got his that way.
Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004). As long as it's not themselves,100% agree torture hurts.
"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004). These are only what's reported to social services. Dead ones don't count, 70% plus of incarcerated adults where also neglected or abused. Psychological abuse accounts for 80% of mental illness, including addictions. Allowing children to be raised by schools and television is abuse and the root cause to me.
"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the Bush administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004). The plan is working.
No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion. Denial
The United States once ranked first in the world in high school graduation rates. We have slipped to 17th (the New York Times, Feb. 1).
Respect for the free exchange of ideas is dimming among our young. USA Today, Jan. 31: "One in three United States high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more thought the government should approve newspaper stories before people read them." Which means that our Bill of Rights often is taught poorly or not at all--a very dangerous sign for the future of our liberties.
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Stupid is as stupid does. Those who can read and don't are equal to the man that cannot read.
We rank 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). Accounts for acceptance of the 38% tax rate, that's means you only get to keep 72 dollars for every $100 you earn. If you tithe faithfully you get to keep$62 gross dollars or $66.81net to buy food, shelter, clothes, heat, electric, petrol, insurance, health care…add sales tax….wondering why you can't save anything or seem to get ahead? If you forgot to vote, that's ok they assume you don't mind the taxes then.
"Our students, a new report has found, are lagging far behind the pace set by scientific whiz kids in Europe and Asia, and the number of Americans choosing science as a career continues to dwindle" (Los Angeles Times, quoted in The Week, Jan. 14).
Thomas L. Friedman reports "a mounting crisis" (NYT, Dec. 5, 2004). "Because of the steady erosion of science, math, and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our Cold War generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished. We've been filling the gap with Indian, Chinese, and other immigrating brain-power. But...many of those foreign engineers are not coming here anymore." He adds that many who had emigrated here have recently chosen to leave, and there aren't enough Americans with sufficient knowledge to replace them. The Chinese lead toy generation.
The Christian right's influence in Congress is no doubt the source of headlines like this: "Money to Fix Space Telescope May Be Cut by House" (NYT, Jan. 23). The Hubble is our most successful space project to date. The Hubble "established the age of the universe at 13 billion years.... Every week, the Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of data...the equivalent of 36,500 feet of books on a shelf. More than 2,600 scientific papers based on these findings have been published so far" (The Week, Jan. 21).

Hostility to science exists at the highest levels of our government. "With rising intensity, scientists in and out of government have criticized the Bush administration, saying it has selected or suppressed research findings to suit preset policies, skewed advisory panels or ignored unwelcome advice, and quashed discussion within federal research agencies" (NYT, Oct. 19, 2006).

These stats combine to paint the portrait of a poorly educated people seeking to compensate for their ignorance with beliefs that spread such ignorance further--while the rest of the developed world laughs in pity or contempt, and leaves us behind.


For the record: I am deeply religious, just not to an earthly institution, however, because of those ubiquitous moral fibers the Baptist implanted in me when I was I child I could always discern right from wrong. Today all grown up, my faith doesn't fit neatly into any denominational box anymore. My concept of God out grew those boundaries of doctorial devisions that teaches separateness. This kept me from growing spiritually. I pray a lot. I my beliefs are closer to Quaker, I suppose. I believe one cannot claim to be a cultured human being without knowledge of the great religions, their histories, and scriptures. The Bible hit America's shores 300 years before the Constitution and no one unfamiliar with the Bible can claim to understand America (which disqualifies many so-called intellectuals).

 The great religions should be required study in every high school and college, if only because there is no greater historical force than religious passion. But religion should be taught as religion, not as science. Interesting to note the last pope, John Paul II, held the position that creation and evolution do not conflict with current Catholic doctrine.

 Makes no difference to me when we got here only what we can do to stay here and advance our society. How to keep adapting to our changing environment with a moral compass pointing toward goodness, the light, away from darkness and ignorance

. Hostility to science is spreading, like an infection, to history. The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Thomas Woods Jr., "is being snapped up on college campuses and helped along by plugs on Fox News... Was No. 8 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list." The book features far-right revisions of the Civil War, the Marshall Plan, Jim Crow, and the New Deal . It is "one of a wave of books like this." They include Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment, which claims that the World War II internment of California's Japanese-Americans was justified and benign; also, a booklet used in a North Carolina school called Southern Slavery: As It Was, claiming slavery to have been "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." This isn't history. This is propaganda. You don't justify old internment camps unless you hope to build new ones. That's how I found that list from the friends of liberty website, newly built idle camps waiting to be housed, no one told me I had to go find the truth.



The teaching of history is usually slanted one way or another, but not long ago the blatant distortion of science would have been unimaginable. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China excluded or distorted whole branches of science that conflicted with their ideologies; not long ago no thinking person imagined it could happen here. But it is happening. On a massive scale. From the highest levels of government to the littlest rural school. Power-savvy factions are spreading an easy-to-digest but ultimately fatal ignorance. Poorly educated, well-intentioned, fearful people, craving order in a chaotic world, are eating it up. They're no more or less stupid than the well-informed, but they haven't the resources for research and they've no body of knowledge by which to weigh what they're told. The poorly skilled and scantily educated have nothing to judge information by except whether it satisfies their emotions. If it makes them less afraid, it must be right.

Sam Adams, like many of our founders, believed democracy would flourish "as long as education was extended to the masses." An ignorant people cannot remain a free people.

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."…..Paul Johnson British Roman Catholic journalist, historian, speechwriter and author