Original text and editing by:
A G Kaiser
email to
agkaiser1@gmail,com
"A good slave works for food alone."
Q of the week:
Q:Can our schools be improved by testing students for their level of achievement and withholding funding to those whose teachers fail to properly prepare their poor charges?
A:The real problem is indicated in the reports of Universties that students are not prepared by high schools, especially in math and science, to do college work or pursue technical careers. Why don't we test the primary and secondary school teachers for their ability to do the math required for science and engineering studies? To direct children correctly you must have some idea where they're going.
...continued,
"The Stone Truth"
Vera realized that wisdom to heal the soul of humanity, if it could be put together, would probably be built from experience. Many know this. Few realize that if they allow their experience to be filtered through the thought guidelines they've been taught, they'll likely not succeed. Who can you trust?
Veracity can trust the stone of truth. But can we trust Vera? The very next day, after having punctured the baloon of pomposity of the reputed wise man, she came to the attention of a powerful clique.
"You know" said their spokesman, "you're wasting your time trying to save fools. They can't appreciate it and will only resent you for attempting to make them accept the truth of their condition. They find the truth demeaning and will fight to avoid the appearance of humiliation."
"You mean the lies that they've been conditioned to regurgatate whenever an ensaring belief is challenged are stronger than the truth? ...that they would rather not be embarrassed than be free?" said Vera, warming to the argument.
"That's not exactly what I meant", said the would be bearer of light, whose name by the way is Charles Luce. "But I guess it's as good a description of the status quo and proves my view of them as fools." He is somewhat objective, if also somewhat cynical. "Just so you understand, no one set about to deliberately brainwash them. It just happened along the way."
"Du-uh", Vera expressed her incredualty at his disingenuousness, "and what the hell difference does that make to the people, though I suppose it means you're not a hypocrit. You're merely a fool such as you believe them to be but in some other spiritual plane. The denial exposed by your neatly separated double thinking is what you call thought, isn't it?" She realized Chuck was speaking civilly, even gently; that her sarcasm was not likely to win him to the side of honest life.
Undaunted though, Chuck trotted out the standard apology for the rich's exploitation of the condition of the poor, "They must be controlled, given something to do. They won't survive otherwise. It's only fair to take something in return for that generosity."
Vera fondled the stone on her forehead. "Let me get this straight", she started when the inspiration came, "for two thousand years the romanized Western Europeon [mis-spelling reflects her pronunciation] Culture has been dominated by a small percentage of the population. At any given time a few people have monopolized all the land and resources. They have forced the rest into the service of the elite. They have made us dependent on them for survival. They have eliminated those who object to this travesty from the gene pool whenever possible. They have twisted the very fabric of our thought into the rope with which they bind us.
"For this they deserve the reward of living in luxury while the remainder of the population slave to support them. To add insult to injury, they take credit for all that we produce, consider themselves generous and think of us as fools.
"We aren't fools! We merely know the consequences of speaking the truth openly. I no longer fear to speak the truth. Come hell or high water!"
I could end this here by saying Vera was offered a lot of money to take a highly visible position with little responsibility. All that was required of her was to read speeches prepared by the powerful and their elite masters. The only limitation was that she may not diverge from the prepared text and that such was to be her only contact with the public.
Who could pass up such a good deal? She put the stone aside and the truth was never heard again. This was deemed wise by the wealthy elite because there was no need to resort to politically troubling violent means in order to achieve their ends.
But I'm still going at 55 so I won't let her quit so easily. Nor, for my part, will I give up on Veracity just yet.
To be continued...
Education:
We will never improve education by testing students. An education masters (or doctorate) degree in math or science demonstrates the ability to teach those subjects and manage children at a high school level. Though exposed to some higher mathematics, such teachers do not understand the uses technology has for that knowledge.
Educators cannot be expected to prepare students in the mathematics they must do in college and beyond: that which is needed to succeed in science and engineering. This is true in spite of the current [expensive] television barrage of teacher supportive propaganda or any amount of dedication and determination. Higher wages will attract and keep better teachers. In addition to that, the wholistic solution requires better education and more real world experience for educators.
Economy:
George was offered a job at half of minimum wage. He was told it was a good deal because cash payment avoids taxes. George pointed out that little federal income tax was due on minimum wage, that in this bracket FICA was about 33 cents/hour and State income tax about 2 or 3 cents/hour. He added that Workmen's comp etc. would not be paid and the employer would pocket even more, while his own security was decreased. The potential master said, "George, you don't have a good work ethic."
So, at what degree of employer fraud should one refuse an offer of employment?
It depends on the calculation of time to starvation. If the energy I consume doing the work will cause me to starve more quickly than the greater insufficiency of food due to not having the low wages, I should refuse the job. But does this make any sense?
If you are going to starve anyway why suffer with work? A wage, calculated by corporate economists using the formula above (or empirically by businessmen who can't do the math) in order to keep you working in today's economy, will merely prolong the agony of your death. Our nominal leaders are not responsible for the dilemma that many of us face.
The trecherous experts and politicians who play with our lives for the profit of their masters are too stupid to actually know what they are doing. When they lie to us they are telling us what they are dull enough to believe.
Law and order:
If we put all 14 year old males in prison for life for the possession of violent media induced fantasies, whether or not they act them out, all problems will be solved in fifty to a hundred years.
Proof of the possession of (and by) the real social education is implied by being alive in twenty-first century America. If you were born into the world created by your forebears you are guilty of being here. Let the jihad-pogrom continue until the Earth is cleansed!
[Ed. note: The editor is not responsible any violence perpetrated by others and predicated on his sarcastic, self-indulgent outbursts.]
Energy:
The gasoline prices are a start, a single means. Conservative policies have only one end. Their energy and sole motivation is greed.
With the nation emotionally stimulated, therefore impressionable and vulnerable to suggestion, because of the delay in the McVeigh execution, the president declared that the answer to oil company greed was to get more money to the people so we may afford gasoline. (I'm surprized we weren't told to eat cake.) He further stated that a tax cut which would benefit oil company stockholders and FED loans were the means to accomplish his ends. Is your mind creating a demand for the specious lies that George supplies. But his tragi-comic timing is excellent.
Foreign Policy:
Get emotionally involved in the UN slap at US. It will take your mind off the self destructive missile defense. You won't worry about the Kioto treaty or global warming. Remember first, we are the good guys. We deserve all praise and respect. We are all powerful! We are all good! We are all just! We are all merciful...
The benefits of presidential policy are manifest in our common destiny.
Editorial Column:
The upcoming rerun season mandates that I recycle this bit (with minor changes and additions) originally seen in issue three.
The Bush tax cut will not have the desired effect. The rich already have almost all the money. Giving them more with the Tax Cut will exacerbate the problem. No amount of fast talk or references to skewed statistics and show piece principles will change the truth.
Maybe an analogy will get through. Think of it as a parable, George. Imagine you have an oil well and a machine to take oil from underground and place it in a reservoir at the top. Now imagine that your well goes dry and there is no place to drill a new one. Keep in mind that this is only an analogy and loopholes in the words will not likely be reflected in the reality it represents.
Now imagine that you don't need all that oil but you really like pumping oil into your reservoir. It makes you feel powerful and superior. So what are you to do? All the oil is in the reservoir. Well, if you could find a way to pump it back into the ground, you could start all over again. The machinery that pumps it up to you would react automatically to the increased demand and you would supply your reservoir at the top very quickly. Do supply and demand seem reversed to you? This is appropriate when talking of symbols rather than the reality they represent.
I think you may have guessed by now that I'm really talking about the economy. So what mechanism could we build to get money back down to the bottom so that the wealth machinery would have something to do and the rich could continue having the fun of stealing the money from us, while feeling smugly powerful and genetically superior as well?
How about, instead of eliminating the estate tax, we make two million dollars deductible and 100% is taken after the sheltered portion. That wealth could be distributed to the poor on a graduated scale based on income. Or it could provide high paying jobs to those who don't already have them and we could add many new management positions into the bargain.
If we efficiently redistribute the money, it will be spent. Then the machinery that harvests money will have something to do. The heirs of the rich may have to build their own machines but with a 2 million dollar start up they'll still have a much greater opportunity than the rest of us. Each generation will have the chance to prove their worthiness. Plus they'll have the fun of playing the game for themselves. This is a win win proposition.
But unfortunately the rich have a real union. They are a gang who will threaten us with an economic bludgeoning if we fail to give up our money on demand. They don't wish to complicate the fulfilment of their lust by adequately paying us to produce the goods they sell to us.
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Greg Kaiser