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In the First Place: Why Public Debate Is Usually Pointless

6/6/2014

What are the pillars of our society?

Those who make decisions on our behalf, those who enforce those decisions and those who report them to us:

Government
Churches
The military
The media

They are all institutions whose existences are based on beliefs they do not accept
any dissension from.

Government – we are legitimate and all of our actions are legitimate
Churches – our dogma is correct and you will be punished in the next life if you disobey
The military – our wars are justified and you are not patriotic if you say otherwise
The media – what we say is true, we hide nothing important and if you disagree, you are a nut.

The institutions control public discussion by labeling thoughts that would harm their existence. The following questions will never be answered by any of these pillars:

Government – What is national security and what types of information are really hidden to the public for this reason?
Churches – Can you prove that the leader of your religion really existed?
The military – How many soldiers would you recruit if you told them the truth about why we were sending them to war?
The media – How often are you pressured into dropping stories and who pressures you?

To get these questions answered, we need another actor to join the debate. Many fear the institutions and their enormous power and do not ask why our society functions as it does.

But we need the questions answered.

Almost every debate, whether about something like guns (especially in light of recent reported shootings in the national news) or butter (like the perpetual debate of how much money to devote to the military) starts off with at least one of the false beliefs stated above. In short, the debate gets it wrong IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Be a part of a public that reasonably questions what we hear. Disregard those who state beliefs but do not back them up or who refuse to answer your questions. This is how we collectively will get these questions answered. Then we can discuss the details.

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The Government's Secret Weapon

10/20/2013

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When truth does not come from authority, we must seek authority from truth.

We may not completely understand what our government does or why they do it at all times, but we should know one truth about it. A government fears only the revolution.

This fact should not surprise anyone.  Those who run the government and those who benefit from it would lose everything they have staked in it.  These are the same people empowered to put down a revolution.

Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire feared a revolt from the Jews who believed the empire had taken over land that belonged to them and forced them to pay tribute to the Caesar. The Jews did revolt on several occasions and though the Romans put each of them down, the costs of human lives and resources
mounted.

So what did the Romans do?

According to Joseph Atwill, author of Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus, they set aside the use of force and used a different tactic to solve this problem.  Specifically, they invented a brand-new religion that convinced Jews to adopt a pacifistic attitude towards the Roman authority.  Instead of promoting war and dissent, the new religion told its adherents to “turn the other cheek.” and
to “render unto Caesar what is his.”

The new religion became the official religion of the Roman Empire and spread throughout the world. Billions of people practice it now. Of course, this religion is
Christianity.

Followers believe the New Testament’s account of a man who claims to be a deity and who proves this claim by first dying of a crucifixion and then coming back to life.  Atwill points out that all evidence of this story comes from a single source, Josephus, who wrote forty years after the events described allegedly took place.

The point of the fiction is its message of peace and uncritical acceptance of authority.  It still works today in the United States.

Republicans and Democrats for the most part respect authority even when the other party holds it. Fringe groups like the Tea Party only encourage respect for authority which agrees to Tea Party principles. All of these political groups are prepared to ignore the truth about authority (i.e. the legitimacy of a government) because they are too concerned about being obedient.

When the public hears names like “Lee Harvey Oswald” or “Bin Laden” broadcast (by an obedient media) as criminals, most obey the order to believe what they hear. This docility works to help our government promote official stories which are used as justification to start wars in our name.

These lies should not cause us to become pacifists. These lies should cause us to look for truth from different sources than government or religious sources.  Are you willing to take that leap of logic?

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Here is How We Can Support the Troops

7/22/2012

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What does it mean to support the troops?

I frequently see the statement “Support Our Troops” on bumper stickers and I hear it from people as well. Like a lot of short, simple statements, its vagueness encourages its likability.

Our troops have bombed and invaded nations that presented no threat to us. They participate in drone bombings and have killed innocent people. In all fairness, those who say they support the troops do not likely support these actions.

Many who join the armed forces do so because they cannot get a job nor can they afford college. They are the ones who most need our support and we can give it to them.

What if more young people could choose to go to college?

Consider a new report from Bloomberg.com reported in The Week magazine that the “net worth of the average Canadian household was $363,202, while the average American household had a net worth of $319,970.” The net worth statistics used to be the other way around.

How have the Canadians surpassed us in this regard?

We could look to what our federal government spends. For Fiscal Year 2010, spending on the United States Defense Department took up at least twenty percent of the budget. The number goes higher when one considers spending on Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, interest on debt incurred in previous wars and other issues.

What do nations like Canada spend on their military? About 1.4 percent!

On the other hand, the United States’ federal government outspends the Canadian government in percentage of spending on education of the total budget. It also outspends the Canadians on issues such as health care.

What assists the Canadians in terms of education is that it does not cost to go to “college” there. Colleges are two-year schools that United States refers to as “community college.” The costs of going to community college are high and getting higher. So are the costs of going to college, as many in the military are well aware.

We can foresee a problem ahead of time. The costs of going to college will rise to the point where most young adults will not be able to afford it. Jobs will continue to require degrees of most applicants. The military will remain one employer that does not require formal schooling.

We need to shift some of the military spending to colleges to lower the tuition bills. Here is how:

We must stop starting “elective” wars where we choose to fight a non-existent threat. This will lower the payment of interest on war spending.

We must reduce the stationing of soldiers in areas of conflict. This will lower spending on veterans affairs.

We must encourage diplomacy and find ways to avoid conflict that we clearly cannot afford.

The result will be a generation of citizens who do not feel pressured to join the military. And those who do join will do so more willingly and with the realization that the avoidance of conflict is a goal worth pursuing.

Overall, our presence overseas will no longer exceed what we can afford. And the presence at home will be a future of better educated people who might have better ideas as to how to stop unnecessary wars.

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We Must Make Our Economy Independent of Permanent War

3/27/2010

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Republicans and Democrats have given us great theater over the recently-passed health care legislation. But when it comes to the one issue that determines the future of our nation, there is complete agreement.

They all give war a chance.

When was the last time Congress voted against a resolution backing the President’s authority to use force?

When was the last time a President declined to use force?

When was the last time a credible candidate for President vowed to end a war?

With peace popular (note that few presidents have started a war in a re-election year), it is surprising that none of the questions above has a recent answer. Obviously, the mass of public opinion is not the real reason for these political decisions. So who pushes our nation to go to war?

Those who gain from war.

The contractors who make the weapons.

The stockholders of these contractors.

The intelligence community.

The companies that make equipment for war.

The talking heads on television who tell us their “expertise” on defense matters.

The politicians who got onboard first for war.

This is not a new idea. Smedley Butler wrote War Is a Racket to describe the beneficiaries of World War I. But the thought bears repeating.

We are always at war and/or on our way to one anywhere we can concoct a good excuse to make one happen. The lies about Iraq should have made that abundantly clear.

War gives public policy a focus that nothing else can. It tells our leaders what industries to favor, which side of an argument to give presumption to and how to interpret foreign nations and their actions.

Prominent leaders who try to stop wars get killed (the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr.) while war supporters like Nixon and the Bushes get elected. Peace candidates like Dennis Kucinich get marginal support.

Our leaders see the world as a chess board on which to try out weapons and kill off our “enemies.” Why? Because the economy thrives on Halliburton, not the Veterans for Peace. So we can expect more assassinations and false-flag operations until we stop using war to feed the economy.

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In the First Place: Why Public Debate Is Usually Pointless

The Government's Secret Weapon

Here is How We Can Support the Troops

We Must Make Our Economy Independent of Permanent War

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