The Three-Ring Circus that Has Replaced the Three Branches of Government?

No matter what you think of imprisoned writer and activist, Mumia Abu Jamal, he hit the nail on the head when he told Chris Hedges,

“ What’s necessary for the state is the illusion of normality, of regularity … In Rome, what the emperors needed was bread and circuses. In America, what we need is ‘Housewives of Atlanta.’ We need sports. The moral stories of good cops and evil people [or evil cops and Because you have that …. there is no critical thinking in America ...”

However, since Donald Trump took office, the "illusion of normality, of regularity" grows thinner everyday,  yet because the indoctrinated public is so unable or unwilling to revise their current belief in the truth of "officialdom", and in the United States as a beacon of light, they're easily swayed by appeals to authority, to emotion, to fear, etc., and can't see through the greatest show on earth designed to distract them from the reality that their government is not even pretending to be a constitutional republic, not even pretending to be a democracy.

From Trump's absurd presidency to hysterical Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and everything in between, it's hard to differentiate between reality and satire; reality and parody; reality and entertainment. Watching Trump's entire presidency is like watching back to back episodes of "Saturday Night Live", fill-in-the-blank reality TV,  and/or  "As the World Turns".  Perhaps, that's because what we're told is reality is, in reality, the Greatest Show on Earth, that the only thing we can be sure of is that we're being duped and indoctrinated to replace the Truth/Reality with this alternate and virtual reality  

"Bread and circuses" anchored the domestic politics of ancient Rome: feed and put on a good show to placate the masses...keep them distracted, fat and happy. However today, thanks mostly to the exponential advancement of technology, the bread isn't as important as the three-ring circus that has replaced the three branches of government. In other words, the never ending, all encompassing circus is the mainstay of global politics and President Trump gladly plays the role of puppet ring-master. What we're seeing today is a manufactured reality, a matrix conjured up by parasitical globalist wizards in order to beguile the overtaxed, over-policed, overburdened, undernourished, poisoned, traumatized, dumbed-down, plundered, indoctrinated populace. Yes, it's more important than ever to keep the masses compliant, convinced, and captivated...keep them in their place so as the prison walls turn, they don't turn in on their masters.

Keep in mind that  cultural revolution precedes political revolution.  The three-ring circus that presents as reality today wouldn't work five or six decades ago, prior to the sexualization of American society including children, prior to the destruction of the Catholic Church in the northern hemisphere, prior to the destruction of the family, prior to the "anything goes" moral relativity that has eliminated God from the public square. Directly or indirectly--through entertainment,  pop culture,  public "education", foundations, secret societies, laws, technology, etc.--the culture had to be changed to roll out the circus.

So, yes the reality show that is pretending to be started long before President Trump.  It started inching it's way  out of the closet when President-elect Donald Trump met with “Apprentice” director Mark Burnett to discuss a reality-TV-style inauguration, complete with a grand entrance by helicopter.  According to the New York Times, he didn't get his wish, however, every day since President Trump took office proves otherwise.  Think about it.  President Trump spends most of his time tweeting, golfing, watching TV...when does he have time to preside?  And if he's not presiding, who is? 

Washington DC has become the ultimate reality show of reality shows that have been created to replace...wait for it, reality, and  Brett Kavanaugh's "confirmation hearing" is just the latest episode as they continue to inundate  us with theatrics, spectacle and tabloid static. "Due-process", "presumption of innocence," "evidence" mean nothing thanks to our trial by media society, where faulty generalizations, cherry picking, circular reasoning, red herrings, appeal to authority, appeals to emotion, ad infinitum, proceed unchallenged.

Today's three ring circus is dominated by money and profit, imagery and spin, hype and personality,  guarantees that nothing in the way of real truth reaches the populace.  It is so emotionally charged and entertaining that it make you forget that you live in a police state.

“In 2016, his Republican primary opponents didn’t recognize that we are living in an age of bread and circuses, an age Donald Trump didn’t create but into which he inserted his own circus. Curiosity seekers filled the tent and loved the show.”

The sophisticates in the media thought they could beat Donald Trump at this game by burying him under waves of negative publicity. But he feeds off of it, just as he turned the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House no-show into a display of patriotic music, with the maestro at the center.

Now, fantastically, some Democrats are complaining that they can’t get their message out (the tax cut didn’t work, Medicare for all) because Donald Trump has blotted out the media sun. Gee whiz, whose fault is that?

The eclipse won’t end. The media has turned the Trump presidency into a phenomenon of constant self-absorption—their self-absorption in this one person. Donald Trump has become the biggest balloon in a political Macy’s parade of modern media’s own creation. They could let go of the ropes. But they won’t. ─ Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal

The world is truly a stage now. Everything we see is, at the very least, partially choreographed, scripted, and 99% theatrical. That those who occupy the highest or celebrated positions in government, media, academia, etc., are, more or less, mind-controlled life-time actors who live out the roles they've been chosen to play based on their talents, personalities, background, intelligence, etc. No, they don't memorize lines and they don't rehearse, and they may not even know the circumstances they will face--many do not even know they're actors-- but, ultimately, through indoctrination, trauma-based mind control, blackmail, reward, etc., they will act and react as their character. In other words, they become their character just as the greatest method actors become the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of the person they've been chosen to play. The difference, of course, being, it's a lifetime role. They live it on and even off camera for as long as needed.

Meanwhile, the global dominance that has been progressing for centuries--now that Europe is consolidated under the EU; the North American union is consolidated under NAFTA, and other more powerful "free" trade agreements consolidating the planet; the entire media consolidated under five corporations, and banks and national corporations being run by fewer and fewer multinationals--is almost complete. The final steps that are firmly establishing totalitarian global order--as they divide, confuse and confound the masses with the three-ring circus led by Trump, are being taken.

In other words, as the three-ring circus rolls out act after act, behind the scenes,  the true powers that be are consolidating even more power than they already have; each "crisis" unifying the most powerful, entrenching authority even more deeply, while they concentrate the power in the hands of the same global elite that created and designed the never ending crisis, disasters and absurdities we see everyday.  Make no mistake, there is a very definite method to their madness, a very definite order to the "chaos".

The bottom line is that the unaccountable technocracy continue to tweak the Luciferian establishment system that protects and expands a perverse culture that repudiates the most sacred tenants of civilization as we know it, blurring all distinctions between not only national borders, but between man and woman, human and machine, God and man, etc. The biggest obstacle to this new order has been and is always God so the consolidation effort must be extended to the sphere of religion because global power understands the religious nature of human beings, hence our survival of the fittest "enlightenment" with the creation of  Darwinism, scientism, humanism, transhumanism, and other isms and 'ologies, reinforced by "pop culture", "celebrity culture," etc.,that pushes our Creator to the sidelines.  This--the attempt to replace/ transform/erase the Wisdom that's written and inscribed in our hearts by our Creator --is the hidden issue that is not only ignored but, with great effort, actively suppressed by the establishment because they know their totalitarian agenda is impossible when the foundation of our hope rests upon God's Wisdom; when the multitude is animated by a spirit of understanding and unselfishness by the principles and spirit of the Gospel.

And unto man he said to man: Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil, is understanding."  

Nevertheless, as long as we're breathing, it's never too late to take back our souls from this worldly agenda. The choice is ultimately ours: Do we become obedient servants of a Godless institutional despotism or the obedient servants of a Loving and Sovereign God who created the world and everything in it?

 For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Mark 8:36

 

Links:
Trump Is the Symptom, Not the Disease

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Digitally Distracted? Re-Synchronize Your Brain Hemispheres!

Do you find yourself doing stupid things? Forgetting things? Do you experience "phantom" phone vibrations, imagining your phone is calling you when it hasn't actually buzzed? Are you a "constant-checker": do you check your emails and social media accounts frequently, if not constantly?  Do you go into panic mode when you can't find your smartphone?  Do you find it difficult to look up from your phone screen, computer screen, iPad, etc.? Is your attention span/concentration level diminished? Do you feel generally fearful without knowing why?  In other words, are you digitally distracted, digitally dumbed-down and/or digitally distressed?  Are you digitally addicted?

If you can relate to any of the aforementioned questions, you are not alone.   An ever-increasing amount of research suggests that constant access to information is changing our brains in more ways than one, and not for the best. As our devices get smarter, our brains get lazier, or to be blunt, dumber, which I realize is over-simplifying, but some things are best if researched for oneself.  Once again, risking oversimplification, part of the problem is alignment; not only realigning technology with humanity’s best interests, but realigning or even more accurately,  resynchronizing our brain hemispheres.

“Adrian Ward, a researcher at the University of Austin, has found that in many ways the internet is a lot like junk food. Just as snacks play on a deep biological need for sugar and fat, which tricks us into overeating these unhealthy foods, the internet messes with our cognitive functions to increase our dependence on it. Just being around a smartphone drives many to distraction, while heavy Googling has us increasingly outsourcing the task of remembering things to the cloud. That in turn means that we have to Google more and more things that we used to just have to commit to memory. Similarly, we may be taking more photos of things than ever, but we remember them less.

So, if you are a smart/cell/mobile phone user or even if you are not, because you are absorbing radiation from other people's wireless devices and the WIFI environments from which there is no escape, the following video will help because electrosmog is not only smogging up our brains it's switching our brains causing all of the symptoms previously mentioned. Even more importantly, a prolonged state of fear will also result in the switching of the brain which is the basis for mind control. This is one of the reasons why this technology is being forced upon us whether we like it or not. Don't get me wrong, most people love it! But for those of us who don't--a growing number-- because we see what it's doing, there is very little choice in the matter.

In other words, the technology we’re tethered to, not to mention, the WIFI environments we're immersed in, switch the brain.  Believe it or not, there is a little something you can do about it aside from crawling under a rock and wrapping yourself in tin-foil.  It's called  de-switiching, as it re-synchronizes the brain hemispheres.  Try it! You've got nothing to lose and perhaps, something to gain.



Links:

Here's What Your Smartphone Is Really Doing to Your Brain

Stress in America™ 2017: Technology and Social Media

Your Brain on Apps

This is what your smartphone is doing to your brain — and it isn't good

Your smartphone is hijacking your brain. Here's how to stop it.

This beautifully designed 'dumb phone' can only make calls and send texts — and it might be the key to curing our addiction to apps

Humane Tech

“Technology is hijacking our minds and society.

Our world-class team of deeply concerned former tech insiders and CEOs intimately understands the culture, business incentives, design techniques, and organizational structures driving how technology hijacks our minds.

Since 2013, we’ve raised awareness of the problem within tech companies and for millions of people through broad media attention, convened top industry executives, and advised political leaders. Building on this start, we are advancing thoughtful solutions to change the system."

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War on Health: Profits Before Patient Safety

Keep in mind, according to CDC statistics, no one has died from the use of food or dietary supplements, yet now, thanks to the FDA, you’ve got 3x as much regulation for food and dietary supplements as you have for pharmaceutical drugs, despite the fact that pharmaceutical drugs have proved to be one of the top killers of American citizens.

The relationship between physicians and the drug industry doesn’t begin once you have your MD or once you own your private practice; it begins the day you hit medical school. Big Pharma often give medical students gifts on their very first day. These gifts are always “Big Pharma” propaganda disguised as education, or something medical industry related that leaves the hard pressed medical student feeling like, at least someone cares, because we all know how tough medical school is.

But why is it so tough? Why are there intern boot camps?  Why must medical students and residents go through Why is "the private group that oversees physician training in the United States proposed rolling back rules so that young doctors just out of medical school can work shifts as long as 28 hours"? I mean, who wants an exhausted medical student/intern/resident practicing their craft on you when you are at your most vulnerable? Well one answer is that "medical school functions as a highly efficient system of inDOCtrination to ensure that physicians are less likely to question or confront the systems of power."

“Professors who have already been indoctrinated to think a particular way ensure discussions are kept "on topic," or within the traditional bounds of acceptable debate that do not challenge power. I personally have lost track of the number of times I have heard a professor say, "That is interesting, but it is just outside of the scope of the discussion we are trying to have." This is a highly efficient and subtle way of controlling thought.

It makes more sense when you consider modern medicine was founded by a robber barons and an oil tycoon in particular, John D. Rockefeller. The conspiracy to limit and eliminate competition from non-drug therapies began with the Abraham Flexner Rockefeller Report on Medical Education of 1910. Abraham Flexner was engaged by John D. Rockefeller to  “evaluate” the effectiveness of therapies taught in medical schools and other institutions of the healing arts. The Flexner report unequivocally recommended the closure of all the homeopathic and naturopathic medical schools, in other words, anyone or any institution who use natural medicines to heal.

Subsequently, federal alphabet agencies--FDA, CDC, etc.-- were created to enforce the allopathic model under the guise of "protecting" the American food and drug supply.   In actuality, these agencies serve the medical industrial complex, not American citizens as you will see in the following documentaries.  The reason is obvious: alternative, mostly inexpensive non-toxic therapies represent a potential loss of billions, if not trillions of dollars to allopathic (drug) medicine and drug companies, not to mention, there is nothing more threatening to elite power than a healthy, robust public.







Links:

Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine by John Abramson, M.D.

AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire: The Deadly Virus of International Greed. by Nancy Turner Banks, M.D.

Treaties and International Agreements

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Second Opinion from Doctor Results in Different Diagnosis 88% of Time

Science Daily clearly takes point of view of the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC)--profit before patients--that the value of second opinions are demonstrated in a study, whereas I see this from the highly skeptical-of-the-deeply-rooted-MIC point of view that it can't be trusted 88% of the time. We don't know whether the first or second opinion is right or wrong. What about a third opinion? Would that opinion disagree with the first and the second?

“Many patients come to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion or diagnosis confirmation before treatment for a complex condition. In a new study, Mayo Clinic reports that as many as 88 percent of those patients go home with a new or refined diagnosis — changing their care plan and potentially their lives. Conversely, only 12 percent receive confirmation that the original diagnosis was complete and correct.

We take it for granted that the Mayo Clinic is right because, well, they're the Mayo Clinic, the poster child for the MIC, this vast networked system that we've been indoctrinated to believe in since birth.
It's not that the MIC is all bad, or hasn't saved many lives and improved the quality of many others.  It's the fact that the opposite is also true, it has destroyed and ruined lives, possibly in equal measure   and we're made to believe there are no other viable options. 

“We are not saying that there are no useful or helpful things within the MIC. It has saved many of our lives or the lives of people we love. We are not anti healthcare or science, but are rather exposing the reality that many of us are dependent on the MIC while we are simultaneously trying to change it and ultimately build alternatives to it. Many of us don’t want to have to turn to the MIC, yet have few other viable options. And still many of us are fighting for access to current (or better) services within the MIC. There are no easy answers and the contradictions we are living in are often painful and unjust. Similar to our work to resist and challenge capitalism or to create alternatives to the police and prisons, resisting and challenging the MIC is rife with complexity and there is so much we need that we don’t have yet.

We are asking, why we have so few options when it comes to our healthcare needs? And why insurance and pharmaceutical companies get to call the shots on the kind of care we receive—or don’t? Why don’t we talk more about the ways that forced medicalization has become part of our prison system? Or how non-western and alternative healing practices are often no less ableist than western medical practices? We are asking, what could “health,” “wellness,” “care,” “accessibility” and “sustainability” look like in practice, outside of theory? We are revealing where and how the MIC is already in our lives in ways we might not have thought of before. We are urging us all to connect the MIC to our political work, because healing, wellness, care, “health” and disability are part of whatever liberatory work we are engaged in.

Links:

Medical Industrial Complex Visual

“The Medical Industrial Complex is an enormous system with tentacles that reach beyond simply doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals. It is a system about profit, first and foremost, rather than “health,” well being and care. Its roots run deep and its history and present are connected to everything including eugenics, capitalism, colonization, slavery, immigration, war, prisons, and reproductive oppression. It is not just a major piece of the history of ableism, but all systems of oppression.

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Bringing America to its Knees in One Generation?

As we wander around, distracted by the superficial and meaningless, in technocratic slumber, is it any wonder that zombies are so popular today?  Yet, as we're gradually transforming into a feudal state, a population of rote, wooden, listless automatons is exactly what the governing elite need.  It's very convenient.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 71% of all college graduates have an average student loan debt of $35,000 with very little prospect of secure full time employment.  Shouldn't young people and their parents be up in arms?  But they're not.  In fact, parents are still pushing their kids into this racketeering enterprise.  

Why? 

Perhaps because of the consuming, immediately gratifying Orwellian environment that "nurtured" them; public schools that indoctrinate and train  for the workplace, for the police state...where "wars" on terror and drugs escalate the problem instead of correcting it.    Are young people becoming increasingly ignorant, obedient, and conforming?   Do they have a choice?

Children of the American Police State: Just Another Brick in the Wall

By John W. Whitehead

We don’t need no education

We don’t need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave them kids alone…

All in all it’s just another brick in the wall

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

—Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall”

“The nation’s young people have been given front-row seats for an unfolding police drama that is rated R for profanity, violence and adult content.

In Arizona, a 7-year-old girl watched panic-stricken as a state trooper pointed his gun at her and her father during a traffic stop and reportedly threatened to shoot her father in the back (twice) based on the mistaken belief that they were driving a stolen rental car.

In Oklahoma, a 5-year-old boy watched as a police officer used a high-powered rifle to shoot his dog Opie multiple times in his family’s backyard while other children were also present. The police officer was mistakenly attempting to deliver a warrant on a 10-year-old case for someone who hadn’t lived at that address in a decade.

In Maryland, a 5-year-old boy was shot when police exchanged gunfire with the child’s mother—eventually killing her—over a dispute that began when Korryn Gaines refused to accept a traffic ticket for driving without a license plate on her car.

It’s difficult enough raising a child in a world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and hate, but when you add the police state into the mix, it becomes near impossible to guard against the growing unease that some of the monsters of our age come dressed in government uniforms.

The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

Unfortunately, now that school is back in session, life is that much worse for the children of the American police state.

The nation’s public schools—extensions of the world beyond the schoolhouse gates, a world that is increasingly hostile to freedom—have become microcosms of the American police state, containing almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.”

If your child is fortunate enough to survive his encounter with the public schools with his individuality and freedoms intact, you should count yourself fortunate.

Most students are not so lucky.

From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of

• draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
• overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
• school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
• standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
• politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
• and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

Clearly, instead of making the schools safer, we have managed to make them more authoritarian.

Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.

Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, weapons and terrorism, the schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.

It used to be that if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school.

That is no longer the case.

Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.

For instance, a Virginia sixth grader, the son of two school teachers and a member of the school’s gifted program, was suspended for a year after school officials found a leaf (likely a maple leaf) in his backpack that they suspected was marijuana. Despite the fact that the leaf in question was not marijuana (a fact that officials knew almost immediately), the 11-year-old was still kicked out of school, charged with marijuana possession in juvenile court, enrolled in an alternative school away from his friends, subjected to twice-daily searches for drugs, and forced to be evaluated for substance abuse problems.

Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, even fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water.

Acts of kindness, concern or basic manners can also result in suspensions. One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

Consider that by the time the average young person in America finishes their public school education, nearly one out of every three of them will have been arrested.

More than 3 million students are suspended or expelled from schools every year, often for minor misbehavior, such as “disruptive behavior” or “insubordination.” Black students are three times more likely than white students to face suspension and expulsion.

In South Carolina, where it’s against the law to disturb a school, more than a thousand students a year—some as young as 7 years old—“face criminal charges for not following directions, loitering, cursing, or the vague allegation of acting ‘obnoxiously.’ If charged as adults, they can be held in jail for up to 90 days.”

Moreover, just as militarized police who look, think and act like soldiers on a battlefield have made our communities less safe, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in environments in which it’s no longer safe for children to act like children.

Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in recent years. Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.

The horror stories are legion.

One school police officer was accused of punching a 13-year-old student in the face for cutting the cafeteria line. That same cop put another student in a chokehold a week later, allegedly knocking the student unconscious and causing a brain injury. In Pennsylvania, a student was tasered after ignoring an order to put his cell phone away.

Defending the use of handcuffs and pepper spray to subdue students, one Alabama police department reasoned that if they can employ such tactics on young people away from school, they should also be permitted to do so on campus.

Now advocates for such harsh police tactics and weaponry will tell you that school safety should be our first priority.

What they might fail to mention in their zeal to lock down the schools are the lucrative, multi-million dollar deals being cut with military contractors to equip school cops with tasers, tanks, rifles and $100,000 shooting detection systems.

Indeed, the militarization of the police has been mirrored in the public schools, where school police have been gifted with high-powered M16 rifles, MRAP armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and other military gear. One Texas school district even boasts its own 12-member SWAT team.

According to one law review article on the school-to-prison pipeline, “Many school districts have formed their own police departments, some so large they rival the forces of major United States cities in size. For example, the safety division in New York City’s public schools is so large that if it were a local police department, it would be the fifth-largest police force in the country.”

The term “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to a phenomenon in which children who are suspended or expelled from school have a greater likelihood of ending up in jail.

What we’re grappling with, you see, is not merely a public school system that resembles a prison and is treating young people like prisoners but also a profit-driven system of incarceration has given rise to a growth in juvenile prisons and financial incentives for jailing young people.

Indeed, young people have become easy targets for the private prison industry, which profits from criminalizing childish behavior and jailing young people. Nearly 40 percent of young people who are arrested will serve time in a private prison, where the emphasis is on making profits for large megacorporations above all else.

It has been said that America’s schools are the training ground for future generations.

Instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters, however, we seem to be busy churning out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s getting harder by the day to convince young people that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law.

With every school police raid and overzealous punishment that is carried out in the name of school safety, the lesson being imparted is that Americans—especially young people—have no rights at all against the state or the police.

The bottom line is this: if you want a nation of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals.

If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.

But if you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums. Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state.

“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

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The Provocateur

This book is profoundly troublesome, dark, and provocative in the extreme because it raises disturbing questions about the manipulation of the public will, and even more importantly the manipulation of our private beliefs about, well, pretty much everything.  Although exaggerated--I give human beings more credit--and somewhat simplistic, it 's a horror story of hopelessness that could easily be remedied if we were not so easily and maybe even willfully blinded.

The Provocateur by Michael Stephenson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"What if everything you were brought up to think about society, all layers of cultural meaning, freedom, etc., are wrong? What if someone, or a small group of wealthy and powerful social engineers, specifically, powerful institutions of our contemporary global economy, were subverting your beliefs, ideas and values with behavioral tricks to use them against you?

Social control has and always will be a problem for each and every form of government since government is simply a mechanism with which to control a culture or society, and in large measure, its geared to the needs of the ruling elites of our social institutions, yet we seldom question where our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, even cultural trends originate...in other words, what/whom inspires, or more succinctly, controls our minds.

"The maniacal lunatics in control of our society know exactly how human beings tick and they are masters at manipulation." - Bruce McDonald

Anyway, I gave it five stars, not so much for the plot, characterization or writing style (which are very good as well) but for the very thought provoking experience as I read this book.

View all my reviews

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The Transformation of American Education: Common CORE: Providing Human Capital For Global Industry.

Whether you know it or not, American children, in 45 states, in public and even Catholic schools (over 100 Diocese across the nation have succumbed to the nationalized one-size fits all secular standards of Common Core) are falling under the human capital Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of education called Common CORE  (CC)--"cradle to career education agenda"--curriculum.. Yes, there is a Catholic version of CC, called the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative (CCCII).

“For those not familiar with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model of privatizing government functions through corporations, you should be very afraid. For when this form of partnership happens, the government hands over the operation and supervision of government functions and infrastructure to private and publicly traded corporations like General Electric, Monsanto, JP Morgan Chase, and other less than desirable corporate entities. These lease agreements and multi-decade contracts take the government out of government, allowing companies like CORE to sweep in and… well – “Re-imagine” the education of your children.-- Clint Richardson

According to Clint Richardson, best known for his work exposing the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report's or “CAFR”, CORE Education and Technologies Ltd, is a for-profit corporation (see their annual financial report for 2012 here) based out of India that sells an outcome based education model that tracks  children  for the purpose of creating a “master” plan for a global workforce, which according to the state of Illinois -- the most advanced data system at this time, supposedly mirrored at the federal level -- is defined as:

“The term workforce is defined as consisting of the workers engaged in a specific activity, business or industry or the number of workers who are available to be assigned to any purpose as in a nation’s workforce.

The public workforce system is a network of federal, state, and local offices that function to support economic expansion and facilitate the development United States workforce. The system is designed to create partnership with employers, educators, and community leaders in order to foster economic development and high-growth opportunities in regional economies so that businesses find qualified workers to meet their present and future workforce needs.

In other words, as Richardson states, "CORE is a global network of for-profit corporations literally taking over the entire structure of education." This is the business of human capital management, and as Richardson states again, “human capital” means humans as trade-able and disposable commodities. In other words… SLAVES!" CC, which is not law-- not an act of Congress-- is an untested and unproven system that usurps local control, a hallmark of the U.S. education system, to a “one size fits all” solution imposed by elitist bureaucrats who are only interested in creating a global workforce of industry ready workers

Why did 45 states adopt CC so quickly, even when it means they are not allowed to change any of the standards (CC standards are copyrighted)?  It's called coercion. They wanted to stay eligible for Race to the Top funding. 

“Why did 45 states agree to do this? Because the Obama administration had $4.35 billion of Race to the Top federal funds, and states had to adopt "college-and-career ready standards" if they wanted to be eligible to compete for those funds. Some states, like Massachusetts, dropped their own well-tested and successful standards and replaced them with the Common Core, in order to win millions in new federal funds."

Keep in mind, under CC, things like cursive hand-writing will no longer be taught. Why? Well, kids no longer need it, right? After all, they text, send emails, etc.  But what about reading historical documents from early America? Or letters written prior to email?  Since much of history is written in cursive the inability to read it will sever future Americans from the ability to check their own history. Also, the plan is to replace classical literature with “informational text” approved by the Common Core State Standards, something that's already taking place in public high school libraries across the nation.

“Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.

The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

However, all is not lost.  Although CC does not have a required reading list, it does have a recommended reading list.   Here's one example of what is on its list of exemplar texts for 11th graders: The Bluest Eye

“He further limited his interests to little girls. They were usually manageable . . . His sexuality was anything but lewd; his patronage of little girls smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness.” And later, this same pedophile notes, “I work only through the Lord. He sometimes uses me to help people.” p. 174

“The little girls are the only things I’ll miss. Do you know that when I touched their sturdy little t*** and bit them—just a little—I felt I was being friendly?—If I’d been hurting them, would they have come back? . . . they’d eat ice cream with their legs open while I played with them. It was like a party.” - p. 181

I guess "Bluest Eye" falls in line with CC's National Sexuality Education Standards , therefore, would be considered "informational text".   Yep, parents will no longer have the right to decide what is developmentally and age appropriate for their individual child.

“Students need opportunities to engage in cooperative and active learning strategies, and sufficient time must be allocated for students to practice skills relating to sexuality education." - National Sexuality Education Standards, p. 9

and this...

“Students need multiple opportunities and a variety of assessment strategies to determine their achievement of the sexuality education standards and performance.

If that's not bad enough,  CC gives schools and third parties unprecedented access to  student's personal information.   Every child will have a data set that follows that child into the workforce. This data will be merged with the Departments of Labor, Health and any other third party organizations or research firms that the Department of Education thinks needs your child’s data. The sets include such things as hair color, eye color, gestational age at birth (whether a child was premature or not), blood type, blood test results, birth marks, and even bus stop arrival time.

The bottom line is that the teachers will be teaching to the test, and only to the test, because not only do their jobs depend on it, the principal’s jobs depend on it, and the superintendent’s jobs depends on it, and so on...

CC is a job training program and training stifles innovation, creativity, and competition. The Chambers of Commerce, corporations, and governments love CC because they've been told this will make for great workers. Mark my words, Common Core standards are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the transformation of American Education. 

 Links:

Microsoft Common Core Standards  Exxon, Bill Gates Common Core Spending

unauthorized student data mining., not to mention teacher data mining.

student longitudinal data [tracking] systems (SLDS)

A Framework for Multi-State Human Capital Development Data System

“This “human capital development data system” must be developed to answer “master” policy questions that benefit each of the principal state stakeholders – the K-12 education system, the post-secondary system, and labor/workforce development system….

This “human capital development data system” must be developed to answer “master” policy questions that benefit each of the principal state stakeholders – the K-12 education system, the post-secondary system, and labor/workforce development system…"

Outsourcing the match (the actual task of linking the student unit records together) to a state with a proven capacity to do so….Advantages and disadvantages of this approach…the additional disadvantage that the states, other than the state to which the match was outsourced, give up direct control of their data to a “foreign” state government entity. (Page 16)

A multi-state data exchange – what we have chosen to call a human capital development data system – that enables policymakers to look comprehensively at the stock and flow of human capital has become essential for effective policymaking and planning in the globalized
knowledge economy. Technology now permits the development of longitudinal systems that follow individual students from elementary school through college or directly into the workforce,...(Page 17)

Welcome to the new Common Core fuzzy math.

From the World Bank: “Improving Human Capital in a Competitive World—Education Reform in the United States”

BUSINESS SIGN-ON LETTER IN SUPPORT OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

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Is the Government Turning School Children into State Informants?

In August, 2004, the ACLU, published a report entitled, The Surveillance-Industrial Complex, in which it stated that a massive recruitment, to enlist American citizens in surveillance activities, is underway.

Cultivating a crop of schoolhouse snitches sounds like a good place to start, as children are natural tattletales. So, will the schools now become a place for gathering information, and for training Americans to battle terrorism, if they're not already?

Officials Detail Plans To Fight Homegrown Terrorism

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Bush Indoctrination

Speaking of western indoctrination, the Bush administration, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, spent $1.6 billion between 2003 and 2005 making sure American citizens, and even more importantly, the segment of the population who pays the closest attention to the news media, were sufficiently inculcated with the Bush agenda.

$1.6 billion dollars was the amount paid to public relations firms, advertising agencies, media organizations and individuals to keep Americans brainwashed and out of their way.

"The new report reveals that federal public relations spending goes far beyond "video news releases." The contracts covered the waterfront, from a $6.3 million agreement to help the Department of Homeland Security educate Americans about how to respond to terrorist attacks; to a $647,350 contract to assist the Transportation Security Administration in producing video news releases and media tours on the subject of airport security procedures; to a $6,600 contract to train managers at the Bureau of Reclamation in dealing with the media."

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Western Indoctrination

People feel less free in a totalitarian state than in a democratic one, but they have one advantage...they know they are being controlled whereas in a "free" society such as ours, people are unaware of how they are being manipulated therefore making our system of control much more powerful because it's impossible to resist or rise up against a system of control that the majority of the people are ignorant.

Nazi Germany is a perfect example of how efficacious western indoctrination can be. Germany was considered one of the most advanced civilizations the world has ever seen. German people lead the world in many areas such as art, science, technology, literature and philosophy, yet disintegrated into a barbaric shop of horrors in the blink of an eye, with the consent of these "civilized, progressive" people.

One is more likely to remember something if he or she is experiencing a heightened sense of emotion at the same time. The Bush Administration, in particular, knows this all too well and is very good at controlling what they want us to remember and distracting us from what they don't want us to remember.

Our educational system does not teach us the necessary critical thinking skills to combat propaganda or indoctrination rather we teach our students to be sponges, absorbing the "right" answers, many times, without thinking about why these answers are "right". In other words, students are prepared to join the herd so that group think can continue preserving the status quo. "No Child Left Behind" emphasizing test scores encourages teachers to teach the test, further indoctrinating our future American citizens, instead of teaching them to evaluate, solve, reason and gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter in order for them to think for themselves.

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