The keyboard is mightier than the machine gun... The political, philosophical and general outpourings of a troubled soul living in Australia and blogging his Vietnam veteran's head off.
Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify it from another source. Do you understand? No? Then read it again, and repeat this process, until you understand that you cannot sue me for anything you read here. Also, having been sucked into taking part in the mass-murder of more than 3 million Vietnamese people on behalf of U.S. Big Business "interests", I'm as mad as a cut snake (and broke) so it might be a bit silly to try to sue me anyway...
posted by The Editor at
11:00 PM
The counter shown below displays the number of Israeli military personnel refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. I applaud their integrity and their strength of character. To me they are heroes of peace and humanity.
14 Comments:
"... and to find the source of a quote by googling requires too much patience."
For someone who seems to have written only one book (A Glass Eye at a Keyhole), that quote sure does the rounds :) I couldn't find anything about who she was, but everywhere you look, that quote.
Good news on your likely return anyway, Gerry. I mean, if you think of this place and we readers as the real world. I think I'm real. Does that make it so? (waving)
Sheesh, why do you think any of your readers have any brains, Gerry .. (OK, in my case lost 70% of them many years ago.. oh well .. Heh.)
Okay Your Bearness, I apologised now take the needles out of the voodoo doll.
Gerry,
I found this article (via dbdebunk.com) about how The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Uneducated and Docile:
"In other words, the captains of industry and government explicitly wanted an educational system that would maintain social order by teaching us just enough to get by but not enough so that we could think for ourselves, question the sociopolitical order, or communicate articulately. We were to become good worker-drones, with a razor-thin slice of the population—mainly the children of the captains of industry and government—to rise to the level where they could continue running things."
Regugiating what is published by the Capitalist press is just a continuation of the process of schooling: whatever the authority figure says must be true. Unfortunately, this is how most people I meet think. Sometimes, I think they would end up in some place like Jonestown with a cup of cool-aid if John Howard told them to.
To challenge authority requires much more than brains - courage and discretion is required. To dissent is to undermine the system. It is not just courage to face the police (secret and not-so-secret) but to face the true believers. The latter are truly frightening in their unbending belief in the inherent goodness of those in authority.
Thank you Douglas. I'd heard about this philosophy behind education, although it is an insult to call it such. Really, horrifying eh? I concur wholeheartedly with your last paragraph and I'm sure that when Gerry returns he too will be heartened by it.
I realized when I graduated college and didn't learn anything that actually applies to real life (e.g. how to buy a house) I'd been taken for a ride ...that quite literally cost about as much as buying a home.
I've always wondered how I could go about organizing "One Semester Off" - no one - and I mean no one - goes to college for one semester. The reality would be a demonstration of a 'voice' we actually DO have, but we're not quite sure how or where to start using it - after all, we've only been taught to go to college and 'vote' if we really want to make a difference.
Somehow I've convinced myself that the impact would enlighten everyone to the fact that the voice of humanity is screaming to be heard. A voice that hasn't been bought.
Gerry, your voice is one that hasn't been bought.
And your confidence in the power of the internet is spot on. People will realize the answer to every question is available (for a lot cheaper) in cyberspace.
Brilliant bears den.
"I realized when I graduated college and didn't learn anything that actually applies to real life."
Am guessing that that applies to 90% of people, and will still ask ..what price democracy.
I expect I will agree with what Douglas has pointed to. Real progress is a hazzard of real education and progress is a threat to the haves, the powers that be, any that benefit from just doing things as they have been done. The word progress finds itself in a lot of speaches about education but is apt to be used as a code word for "our workers can't run all those complicated factory thingies we invested in".
BTW, Gerry, do come out and yell at us to get off your lawn. If you don't, we'll break out the hammocks and Foster's again and party with your comments...no idle threat, as you know.
Another perspective on the 'real' purpose of education can be found at The Fourth Purpose (History Tour) (via Mickey Z) where the thesis is that schooling produces homogeneous consumers.
I am troubled by chumpsrock's comment that she didn't learn anything that actually applies to real life. The reason is that the purpose of education is learning how to think as well as acquiring a knowledge base. But her comment fits in with the general intention of Capitalist education which is provide knowledge without the means to question it.
This is a fundamental contradiction within the Capitalist education system for Capitalism relies on innovation to keep renewing itself, otherwise Capitalism faces stagnation. If people are unable to question why things are being done in a certain, then innovation is choked.
The compromise is that an elite is able to question the system (within prescribed limits, of course!). These are called 'liberals'. And there is a mass of people who are taught to hate these liberals for their privileges of free thought and material well-being. The idea is that, if the 'liberals' go too far, this mass of liberal-haters would be stirred up to bring the 'liberals' back into line by physical violence.
On a different note: instead of camping out on his bearness's front lawn, let's set up la escuela del partido en las montañas azules. I am sure oso de camarada will not mind.
It's getting right boring waiting for the bear to emerge, a bit like groundhog day. A little fun Greensmile,
"There once was a bear named G......
*hands over to anyone brave enough to go on*
Why is everyone so terrified of me? I don't rip arms off. I don't leap out of your monitor and do terrble things to you? I hardly ever delete comments.
Is it what I might write? Are you really so scared of what I might write? Are you scared of what others might think of you?
What!!!
We're not scared of you, warm and fuzzy little bear except when you leap into the comments unexpectedly and ask unanswerable questions.
not a bit scared...just looking for signs of life.
well, to be honest, you do have a knack for daunting questions. But, in all seriousness, thats the attraction here, at least for me.
Deirdre, this medium is by far my greatest contact with the outside world. And yes, you are all very real to me. With the exception of the odd interloping imposter...
Davo, I think most of my readers are heaps more intelligent tham me. This is why I am in constant amazement that I have so many valued readers. I'm also utterly daunted by this.
JahTeh, you have absolutely nothing for which you need to apologise to me. It is I who apologise to you for having been way too heavy-handed.
Douglas, Fox, Link, Rocker, Greensmile, thanks for your great comments too.
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