The Dumbing Down of America -- The Great Experiment

"I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon. "  -- John Rambo

Recently, an article appeared called "America Dumbs Down," discussing the attack on intellectuals, intelligentsia and the tradition of the "Brain Trust" in America.

In every aspect of American popular culture and society, hyper religion and extremist fundamentalism have taken the place of rational thought, expertise and the hegemony of reason.  Superstition and snake oil have supplanted cognition and science.  The ultimate degradation of the Middle and Lower Classes has taken place.  America undergoes an overhaul.

One of the reasons why the U.S.'s entry into World War II was so critical was its educated work force.  The Middle Class in the U.S. enjoyed the benefits of a free public education.  This allowed the U.S. to mobilize faster than any other nation on Earth.  It also meant that U.S. troops would be outfitted with the greatest weapon of all.  The Golden Age of American History may be attributed, in large part, to this particular utopian dream realized from sea to shining sea.

And ever since that time, it has been under attack.  Because the uber-wealthy never needed an over-educated working class.  They are better served by the hyper-religious, jingoistic and hyper-nationalist ideologues that sublimate their economic distress into  more war or a hatred of foreigners and minorities.  And so very few of them will be able to discern this trap.

It is the reason for the Liberal Arts education.  And this is also now under great attack, especially from the Republican Party and its uber-wealthy agents, Rick Perry, and his attack on higher education in Texas and other parts of the U.S.  A Liberal Arts education allows its recipient to see society with an understanding of its power structure and with its class underpinnings.  Without it, and without the critical and theoretical mindset it engenders, one really is lost in the shadows on the wall. 

The ability to distinguish and differentiate between things that a preacher says about fiery places and what actually happened on a specific date and time are lost.  Even perhaps more importantly, the ability to draw lessons and knowledge from those two things is unattainable.  The non-Liberal Arts educated individual is, in some sense, a buffoon, and imbecile, left to be led around by the nose without any sense as to what is really going on around him or her.

And so that is the goal of Rick Perry and the other imbeciles -- to create and more easily manage a large populace that will do what it is told when it is told, and will not question why or what it receives in exchange.  It is a better labor class, but not the anachronism of dirty factory workers. 

No, these are armies of people wearing slacks and oxford shirts, speeding to their cubicles in the morning, listening to Christian Contemporary as they work, and then rushing back home in their SUV's to listen to the 21st Century version of the Old Time Gospel hour, the latest "bible-based" church on any of dozen media to choose from.  This is your Labor for the 21st century, here to manage your assets and operate the machinery that operates the machinery.  Karl Marx had it right, but he was just off by a century or two. 

So education has to change.  Lobotomize the Middle Class.  Remove its voice and its ability to question and to see what you are doing to it, then have your way with them.  But this is critical -- you must not let them find out.  Change higher education to fanciful and glittering trade and vocational education.  Begin the lowering of the Ivory Tower into the depths of Hell, and invert it. 

No more inquiry.  Take away their greatest weapon.  We learned that lesson watching the campuses in the 1960's go up.  Sure, you can call it a university, but it is really no more than an idiot garden. 

And the game plays on.

The Etymology of the Word "Terror"

Fascinating, isn't it?  A word that once simply described a human emotion has morphed into a psychological and sociological phenomenon.  It isn't really deconstructed.  It isn't really defined.  But when mass media and social media converge on your mind with this term -- make no mistake about it -- you know exactly what to think, you know exactly what to fear.  And, in some sense, you know that you are not allowed to question.

To question leads, for the questioner, to being ostracized.  Or worse -- even attacked.  Because the fear response is so integral and so powerful, that the mind of the viewer goes into a different mode.  One where remote and even extremely unlikely and attenuated potentialities are viewed as an immediate, clear and present danger threat.  It is almost as if there is an assailant just outside the door trying to get in.  The level of emotional fear is that palpable.

And there are other aspects to this new version of "terror."  CNN runs a byline that says, "FEAR OF HOMEGROWN TERROR."  It is the same word, but now it means something else.  And it still connotes the fear response that forces people from the rational side of their brain to the flight or fight response side of the brain.  But now it means some kind of movement or apparatus.  It could be a large group of people or a very small group of people.  It may be a militia or a rag-tag group of fighters of some sort.  Often times, however, it is simply a group of people with a certain ideology. 

Which leads to the question -- why is a government with a First Amendment to its Constitution pursuing people because of their ideology?  Once you take away the fear response that comes into play with the word "terror," the question is unavoidable.  The whole purpose behind John Locke and John Stuart Mill and the Enlightenment and the First Amendment is that good ideas will win out and bad ideas will fade in the open marketplace of ideas.  But when Government picks and chooses what should and shouldn't be known, that marketplace is defeated, and inquiry and knowledge are lost.  Bad ideas may actually win out.  And who is it, exactly, with this ideology that trumps the Constitution?  It is always vague and nothing is ever specific about it.

Which gets us to the last part of the word "terror."  Not only does it short-circuit the reasoning functions of the brain when broadcast ubiquitously by mass media and social media, and not only is it used to describe some malingering force that could exist, but you cannot know exactly who, where or why it is.  That is for the adults, and you are to be treated like a child.  The government suddenly knows better than you what is better for you.  Now I don't need to tell you that this is an abortion of free government and the ideals it represents, outlined above.  But once you have short-circuited people's mind to the fear channel, the rational side that would alert them to this strange alter-ego government goes quiet, it goes silent.

You cannot know where exactly they are, so they could be right behind you.  That's pretty terrifying, right?  And they may actually be someone you know, but who is concealing their true identity.  That's even more fearful and leads to social paranoia.  The Crucible exemplified the society tearing itself apart in fear as everyone becomes a suspected witch.  And the more the witch denies that she is a witch, the more likely she is a witch.  Because that is what witches do.  The terror is so terrifying that you simply wouldn't understand it, is the meme.

And in this, there is some truth.  Because once the word has activated the dog whistle fear receptors, you lose your conventional understanding.  You lose the faculties that you use every day to question things suggested to you to ascertain for yourself whether or not something really is (or really isn't) bad for you.  It is what you do your entire adult life.  But with "terror," you are no longer allowed.  Someone must make those decisions for you.

So now that you understand what is going on with the word "terror," and now that you understand what it does when you hear it, what are you going to do about it?

Helter-Skelter

In his book, Helter-Skelter, the prosecutor in the Charles Manson "family" murders, Vincent Bugliosi, recall the insane metaphysics that drove some drug-crazed and lost California kids to begin committing some of the most gruesome and notorious murders in American history.

Bugliosi borrowed the title from a Beatles' song that appears on an album released without cover art or a title, and that has come to be known as "The White Album."  The song itself is also famous for a claim that it is the first ever use of harmonic "feedback" sound, intentionally, as part of music.

But Bugliosi's book (novel?) captures, perhaps inadvertently, his readers with a far more insidious and nefarious grand design scheme, something that he borrows from the twisted mind of none other than Charles Manson himself.  The term "Helter-Skelter" was to describe an apocalyptic, eschatological war.  But not just any war -- a war over resources or borders, for example -- but a race war.  And that thought caught on in the 1960's and continued through the demographic changes America is experiencing to this day.

But it has been, at least thus far, a cold war.  A "cold" Helter-Skelter -- where battles are pitched not in massive numbers of troops and movements, but in small skirmishes, using proxies, much like the United States and the Soviet Union waged (or perhaps, continue to wage) for years in their own Cold War.  And it is deeply ideological.

Make no mistake about it, Charles Manson was crazy.  But he may have been on to something, at least in the sense of ideological forces, money and power forming alliances and struggling to mold society each in their own way.  This war, at least, seems far more interesting than one that is openly and actually violent.

So who are our warring powers today?  Well, clearly, there is an effort underway by the extraordinarily wealthy to preserve that wealth.  The past 30 years has seen the consolidation of the super wealthy on a massive scale.  Part of it is the consolidation, through mergers and acquisitions, of many corporations in America that once operated independently.

When aligned under the same ownership, they all began singing the same tune.  They all began serving the same master.  This became ultimately apparent when the media companies began being acquired by industry.  Then came the wars, and President Eisenhower's farewell address flickered across once-dead black-and-white television screens again, although this time lost in the recesses of You Tube.

The military-industrial-media complex was just one arm of the extraordinarily wealthy to serve a unified ends -- the ends of their owners.  Only now the owners owned all of them, up and down the supply chain, and across different industries.  There are, undoubtedly, other arms as well.  The prison building industry and some of the entertainment industries play an equally important, and far more subtle, role in the goals of the super wealthy.

And what are their goals?  That's easy.  To continue to consolidate and preserve that wealth, and to keep the pieces in place necessary to continue amalgamating more wealth.  And where is this "more wealth" to come from?  Well, it can only really come from the public sector, or the Middle and Lower Class can be squeezed even further to get more from them.

We have seen the attack on government waged in vitriolic, banshee-screaming tones.  Foot soldiers have somehow perceived that the government, the only entity able to stand up to the uber-wealthy, is somehow taking something from them, and so it is declared the enemy.  There is little to offer them but pity.  And much of it.

And what the Middle and Lower class are all tapped out? What then can you take from them, squeeze out of them further?  Well, that's an easy one as well.  All men have labor, John Locke chimes in.  So you make them work more and harder and for less.  And, in this way, you can squeeze even more wealth out of those who really have little to none.

And so you use the military-industrial-media complex, and you use the entertainment industry, to get as much labor out of them as possible.  And you hone all of these things for that one goal. Now the drums of war are beating again.  Now (again) we have the greatest threat ever to walk the Earth looming over the homeland.  We are worried we "may get hit again."  Eerily, the workers fall into line.  " Tell me, tell me. tell me the answer  . . . "

Over and against the extraordinarily wealthy, there is another movement.  It is a reaction to the massive amalgamation of wealth taking place.  But it is divided, still searching for its compass.  It is parts of the U.S. Middle Class and Lower Class trying to unite ideologically to counter their extraordinary dispossession at the hands of the uber-wealthy.  It largely comes in the form of a reactionary, Rightist, militia-type mobilization, with the "Don't Tread of Me" flags reappearing.

But its attention is diverted from the uber-wealthy to the scapegoat they have erected to deflect attention.  So this reactionary movement of the common man becomes an anti-government orgy.  The anger that would normally be reserved and directed at those who took from them is instead focused on a non-sentient administration of society's goods and needs.  Ironically, it may be the only thing that could counter the uber-wealthy.  But they have that cut off as well.

And this movement of the common man pitches back and forth, struggling internally to understand who is its enemy.  "Do you know the enemy?" is the Green Day song so appropos.  It has formed into "Patriot" groups and Tea Party organizations.  But it still can't seem to get clear in its mind who it is standing over it.  Like the primitive beast, it holds the sides of its heads and moans.  The noise is too loud to focus.  The diversion is complete.  The uber-wealthy are safe.

For now.

A Farewell to Protesting

Let's interview Lao Tsu, author (in case you didn't know) of The Art of War.  Let's ask him about this business going on in Ferguson and in Gaza.  Let's get to the bottom of this and, more importantly, try to judge and determine its effectiveness.

So a repressed group of people -- repressed economically, restrained physically and geographically, and with a long history of being murdered by "police" or "defense" forces with no due process result, decide they have had enough.

But stop right there.  They have actually had enough for decades, if not centuries, by now.  So what is this "enough" that they have had now?  Why now?

How did things get so bad that they reached this boiling point -- when emotions overtake cool and calculated reason, and the repressed begins destroying the only little bit that they have as resources, and which would otherwise be used against the oppressor.

And the idea would be that you use what little resources you have to assemble and consolidate a power base.  Get Friedrich Nietzche on the phone.  Page Niccolo Machiavelli.  You begin to gather strength through internal networking, generating economic power the old fashioned way -- you work and you work hard.  And don't forget education.  Then you begin to enter politics. 

This isn't a new recipe.  It is time-tested.  And you organize your community to then use laws to protect yourselves, instead of going out in the street and breaking the laws that the oppressor has already set up to confine you.

But the most important thing is cooperation.  If you don't have that, all is lost.

So let's go back to Lao Tsu.  What does marching around in the streets, breaking stuff, and throwing things accomplish?  Is there some value to a physical threat?  Or does that simply extract concessions in the short term that soon dissipate and leave the same status quo. 

In fact, wouldn't that be the best way for the oppressor to keep the oppressed in their place?  Let them blow up every once in a while, but slowly keep moving the walls in on them, a la Gaza.  In that sense, protesting is actually destructive to the real cause, to real change.

Let us bid a farewell to protesting.

Old South and New North (or "How High is the Water, Ma?")

To those in the South, the North is still the hated oppressor.

The Northern States are almost uniformly Blue States, as opposed to the Backbone of the old Confederacy now shining Red States.  The North, filled with its folksy funny, mealy-mouthed  people like Garrison Keillor, and his not-quite-extremist enough humble Christianity.  And, oh my God, don't forget Michael Moore, Drew Carey and (wince) Barack Obama.

New York you can forget about.  It is hated and immoral.  And Boston?  Loathed.  Chicago, which is actually a very beautiful city, better than anything the South could offer (with the possible exception of New Orleans or Miami (but the latter isn't really a "Southern City" anyways)), yet she is hated down South.

The greatest Presidents this land could produce, from Lincoln to the Roosevelts, of course are looked upon as dangerous, even as they moulder in their graves.  The North will forever have its shadow upon the South, just as the old Stars and Bars still shadow the sides of some Southern State Flags.

And, truth be told, other than the obvious moral questions (slavery), I never held any geographic affinity for the North, or even really took sides with the North in the Civil War (or, as Southerners like to call it, the "War Between the States").  The industrialized, busying, feverish, factory wasteland North?  No sir, not me.  Wage slaves as far as the eye can see?  Nope.  Keep on walking.

That is, until you go there.  Then you will begin to see a dissonance of perceptions and reality.  At least when you get out of the big cities.  The "unionized" North, with its Democratic establishment governments and mayorships, the hordes of factory workers and virtual Socialists, suddenly give way to what the South, if her "politicians" could ever come close to putting their money where their mouth is, should aspire to.

There, I said it.

Walk down the street in a Northern town.  You will be amazed.  Where in the South you would be dodging trash in the street, graffiti on the sides of bridges and in the streets, and where you have to check your back, you see clean streets and a busy, but determined people. 

Down South,  go to a gasoline station on the highway, and you are likely overcome by tattoos, motorcycles with an air-gas mix far too gone on the air side, usually in gangs, loud and badly dated rock and roll music, and an attitude of a group of people that have become horribly desperate.

It is the New South -- wage slaves, impoverished by Mega-Churches blaring from every corner, good ol' old-time racism, and the fear and near-worship of Big Corporate because "they bring jobs."  And the "jobs" are only barely subsistence living.  The result is too many rats in one hole scratching for what little there is, and it isn't even enough. 

"Right-to-Work" laws and the massive, overwhelming destruction of the people's environment to try to attract Big Business and Big Oil and Big Banking and Big Insurance.  Take whatever they ask for, because they offer a little money.  Tear down the house for a little food for now. 

"How high is the water, Ma?"
"Three feet high, and rising."

Governments, Technology, and Revolution

You are alive in 2014. And that's so much better than 1914. All that disease eradicated. A standard of living so high, that even if its stagnated, it'll take 500 years for some countries to catch up. A constant, reliable supply of food and medicine. And oh, the technology. Skyping with your pants off while your significant other rambles on in Dickensian fashion on Facebook. Curved TV's. GPS collars on Chihuahuas. And don't forget that gadget keeping track of your caloric outflow as you jog by that gaudy bitch's $3.4 million Tudor-style house.


But alas, as great as you think you have it, you are eternally fucked. The advancement we all believe has infinitely improved our drab existence, has in reality guaranteed you will never matter again. And if you and your brethren ever try to become relevant again in any significant economic or political fashion, you will be vaporized. And it'll only get worse.


For all the benefits technology has granted you, it has granted the ruling elite exponentially more power and advantages. And they knew they needed such advantages. The ruling elites are one of the exceptional few groups who are aware that history repeats itself. And they have taken steps to ensure that any detrimental Guillotinesque repeats never happen again to them.


I am reminded of a quote from my favorite Pixar film of all, "A Bug's Life". After the subservient ants failed to deliver their fresh crops to the ruling elites - the grasshoppers - a low ranking grasshopper in the midst of intense debauchery questions his leader's desire to go back and scare the ants again, in order to keep them in line. The leader responds, "Those ants outnumber us 100 to 1. If they ever figure that out, our way of life is over!"


Throughout history, whenever the ants realized they outnumbered the grasshoppers 100-1, or 1,000 to 1, revolution ensued. Rapid violent change occurred. Dynasties rose out of the ashes, as others lay hanging in the gallows of history. But not anymore. Technology has put the final nail in the coffin of any future revolutionary aspirations that ants may entertain. For starters, the weapons advantage that Governments enjoy relative to the weaponry of the proletariat is now larger than at any point in history, with all due respect to Mr. Kubrick and the opening salvo of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Whereas fiery catapults and daggers once gave the charging masses a fighting chance vs cannons and crossbows, todays pissed off ants have no such chance of success. The weapons technology gap is now too wide. Coupled with surveillance techniques which now have more storage capacity (by far) than all the knowledge mankind has ever accumulated, and you'd be lucky if you made it to Starbuck's to meet Carlos and discuss a million man cyber-march before DHS whisked you off in a black van.


And this says nothing of the government's ability to change majority consensus via MSM. Perhaps one of the greatest social shifts of all time occurred when society's fiercely negative opinion of Vietnam and its veterans was somehow crafted into unending praise of our war machine. Throw out the first pitch. Sing the National Anthem. Show the country how well you can dance. And all this in less than a generation. All wars are noble. And all its participants are nobility.


So listen up, little man. Your weapons suck. Big Brother knows what you're up to, Winston. And your group of cohorts who show equal ire and disdain for The Powers That Be will soon be chastising you in your absence.

Everyone's a Clean Up Hitter

I got a friend. I'll call him Barry. Calls once in a blue moon. Bullshits about getting together (for 3 years now). Then silence for 6 months. Repeats the process. I should have figured it out long ago. He's a Clean Up Hitter. He's Babe Ruth. Not Pete Rose. Or at least he's trying to be. Clean up hitters typically swing for the fences. Or strike out big. That is their job. While America has had their fair share of clean up hitters, for the most part, this country was built by blue-collar folks, singles and doubles hitters. Pete Rose. Steady employment. Bigger and better paying jobs as they reeled in the years. Vacation home on the lake. Pensions like clockwork. Of course, all that is gone now. No one can create steady, consistent wealth anymore. Recurring expenses today vs recurring expenses in 1970 resembles the 1995 wait list at Jerry Sandusky's Football camp vs the 2012 wait list. We got huge mortgages, increasing property taxes, iPhones for our toddlers, Panameras, Aspen timeshares, LandRovers for the Mrs. Parochial school tuition. Live-in maids. $500 Lacrosse camp fees. But with real wages stuck at 2000 levels, you're almost as poor as when you chugged a few Milwaukee's Best and capped it off with a couple of $0.59 Chilitos at Taco Bell back in the college days. So you have two choices: Try to build something slowly, while all your expenses continue their boner-like trajectory, or swing for the fences. Try to get rich by sundown. In the meantime, fake it till you make it. Keep going to those Chamber of Commerce meetings. Keep printing those $10 batch of biz cards. Schmooz. Network. Follow-up. Be Persistent. Your expenses certainly are. Now dig in. Snarl at the pitcher. Squint so you can see the fences. And swing like a lumberjack. Strike one. Thats ok. You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Strike two. Its ok. Tough times don't last. Tough people do. Strike three. FFFUUUUUCK!!!! You should have gone to medical school. Back to Barry. See, he's swinging for the fences. Got no long-term plan. None of us do. Only short-term hopes and aspirations. Thats why he calls me. To see what he can get in on at the last moment. Try to ride someone else's gravy train. Try to get the scoop from me. Thinks he's big shit because he knows some guy on the Board of Directors. "Hey, lets get together for a beer". Only to realize, for whatever reason, he ain't getting the scoop. There is no scoop. He's checking out. He'll call again in 6 months or so, wanting to drink more beer, but really trying to see if he can hit a HR. Little does he know, I'm behind on the count 0-2. Steeeee-Ryke!!!!!