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#Post#: 1755--------------------------------------------------
Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John Taylor
Gatto
DIR By: koala
Date: October 3, 2013, 10:38 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm 100% sure that Tolli will be interested in all the works of
John Taylor Gatto but this is a thread that I will post other
relevent material about JTG.
Introduction
Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to
the brief against conventional schooling. In it, he demonstrates
that the harm school inflicts is rational and deliberate. The
real function of modern pedagogy, he argues, is to render the
population manageable. Filled with examples of people who have
escaped the trap of compulsory schooling, Weapons of Mass
Instruction shows us that the realization of personal potential
requires a different way of growing up and growing competent,
one Gatto calls "open-source learning". Urgent and
controversial, this book will appeal to any who harbor doubts
about the current education system.
St. Paul and the Rulebook Dragon
The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs, parking
meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program called
"verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly shocking:
Traffic safey has improved dramatically. Under circumestances
where they are drawn into leadership roles, people take it upon
themselves to look out for their own and others' best interest,
even in the absence of rules and enforcement.
-- paraphrased from Jonathan Zittrain,
The future of the Internet, pp 127-128
St. Paul's New Testament letters to the congregations ( which
later co-alesced into the Christian movement) have something to
say to us all about what needs changing in the way we school.
For Paul, excessive regulation ruins the quality of life and
corrupts leadership by requiring bureaucrats to enforce the
rules, and more officials to regulate those officials. Ad
infititum.
In many different words, Paul repeats over and over that the new
congregations won't find savlation by following the old rules.
Eliminate the religious background for a minute and what Paul
faced was the school problem of our own day -- the conflict
between interest groups whose income and status derives from
keeping things as they are, and an insurgency whose needs have
been neglected by the entrenched management and which demands
profound change.
Translated into contemporary idiom, Paul says make up the rules
as you go along to fit individual cases. As long as the root
principle of love is honored, then things will work out.
The political establishment of Paul's day was the ancient Israel
of the Mishnah, a stupendous collection of rules for even the
most obvscure circumstances like the height from which someone
should pour water on a manure pile. Like modern bureaucratic
schooling, there can be little adaptation to particular cases,
the system is wedded to certainty. Find a thief? Cut off his
nose! Find an adulteress? Stone her to death! When in doubt,
don't think -- follow the rules.
The new insurgency travelled a different road. If someone steals
your coat, give him your cloak, too: if someone strikes your
left chee, turn the right one to be struck, too. Unto this last:
pay workmen who labor half a day the same wage as those who
labor a whole day.
Rule boook people find these pronouncements maddening,
incomprehensible. Our forced schooling has brought back the
rule-choked social environment of Paul's day, and our
surveillance society has provided the technology to punish
deviants which Paul's lacked. Through the three-headed rule
monster of school and college, corporations, and government,
American society has been radically de-invidualized, one in
every five American jobs is some form of oversight over the
behavior of others.
It is six times more likely you will end up in jail in the
United States than it is in Communist China (which now possesses
the ability to ruin America economically by cashing in its loan
to us). Six times more likely to rot in jail here than in China.
All by itself that fact should cause you to re-evaluate the road
that leadership -- of all our political parties and
corporations -- has committed us to walking. It is the schools
which keep us on that road.
The insurgency of 21st century America, still disorganized but
daily becoming less so, has made its presence felt through the
explosive growth of homeschooling, through the Internet, and
through various novel areas of crime. Identity theft, a rarity
throughout history, has become an unstoppable epidemic: huge
commercial operations in film and music are seriously
jeopardized by technologies which return control to the
individual. The security of banks, government installations, and
much more -- like patents and copyrights -- is under serious
siege.
Formulas for powerful weapons like the TATP bomb which paralyzed
London subways a few years ago, compounded from six pounds of
peroxide, paint remover, and drain cleaner in the ratio of
3/3/3, stabilized with saw dust, and stuffed into a strong steel
container to be detonated by a cell phone and are circulating
widely across the planet. Those materials cost less than $100
and are available in every hardware store on Earth.
Our reckless military operations in Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanistan, have violated central precepts of warfare set down
by Von Clausewitz -- a superior technology doesn't promiscuously
attack its victims, it threatens. To commit a major attack is to
expose your technology to scrutiny, which holds two dangers:
first, that expensive machinery is badly over matched against an
insurgency trained in guerrilla tactics, and second that the
enemy will gradually upgrade his own technology by studying your
tactics and stealing your weapons. What American has to show for
50 years of continuous warfare against weak, stone-age
opponents, is this: besides crippling our future with a reckless
expenditure of capital on products which produce nothing, like
weaponry, and destroy themselves in use, we have notified every
corner of the world that our overwhelming military isn't
overwhelming at all and can be beaten by ordinary people of
courage, with primitive military hardware, who refuse to be
intimidated.
Surely I can't be the only one to notice that Sunnis and Shiites
and Taliban have reasons to risk their lives, (reasons known to
everyone in the population including their fighters), and we do
not. Our reasons to fight are locked up in secret meetings and
memos known to a small fraction of the population -- the same
fraction which, not surprisingly, once upon a time gave us
forced institutional schooling.
#Post#: 1756--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Tollison
Date: October 3, 2013, 11:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I agree with everything you've just posted. America still feels
that they are being threatened by terrorist groups because they
believe another 9/11 could happen at any time. America never
wants to be attacked again by terrorists. We should have bombed
Saudi Arabia, wherever the citizens from Egypt were, Lebanon,
wherever the citizens of UAE were, and Pakistan. America upped
its defenses against another terrorist attack and it's also
taking other measures to make sure it doesn't happen such as
surveillance of just about everything. I am for a surveillance
state as long as it doesn't penetrate into individual lives
which is what is being done right now. All searches on google
are saved with your ip address included and is connected to you
by the NSA to puzzle together whether you're a potential
terrorist or not. The NSA is not overseen by the federal
government. They can create any patterns of terrorist conduct
as they want with no oversight from who they're judging. It's
quite disturbing. It's like me, an American citizen, owning
this surveillance state and the federal government isn't allowed
to view my activities except for what I allow them to see. In
my opinion this is an act of terrorism. They will jail people
with pre determined patterns of terrorism which doesn't have to
be directly related to terrorism, but only by their definitions
of the patterns. I'm not afraid of being jailed because I
respect law. Law is a must have for a functioning society. I
will obey the law unless I see it unfit to follow therefore I
will disrespect it and vocalize to my peers why I feel it is
unjust, and if I get arrested for it I will not refuse to be
imprisoned if my case isn't found to be of good reason.
In society there are many problems, and a big problem of society
is the functionalism of misconduct. In my town people shun
those who do misconduct in order to keep their status where it
is or to improve it. Society follows the pattern of even if
there is hardly anyone braking the law there will always be
someone to point at to show us the difference between good and
bad.
My theory is that if we have a decent number of saints of the
law vs the deviants of it then if the saints refuse to give in
to deviant behavior the saints will win. It's merely a fight
between good and evil. Once the saints fall into deviant
behavior to defend against the deviants they become one of the
same.
#Post#: 1763--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Chakra
Date: October 4, 2013, 1:07 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Some serious crazy theories in this thread. I'll just pick
random falsehoods and make some observations.
--- Quote ---
> The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs,
parking meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program
called "verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly
shocking: Traffic safey has improved dramatically. Under
circumestances where they are drawn into leadership roles,
people take it upon themselves to look out for their own and
others' best interest, even in the absence of rules and
enforcement.
--- End Quote ---
Drachten is not a city. It's a town of 45,000 people. Try
conducting a medium sized city+metro (population 1+ million)
without traffic regulation.
--- Quote ---
> St. Paul
--- End Quote ---
I'll let this out now: Paul is my most hated apostle. He was a
complete xenophobe, highly supported patriarchy, and sole
Biblical (New Testament) condemner of homosexuals. Ever wonder
why women were banned from leadership in the Church? Paul. Hell,
you can argue Paul founded the Pope's role as embodiment of
Christ. He also, thankfully, declared everything not the church
is under the scrutiny of the Church. Predestination was devised
from his words. But I digress.
--- Quote ---
> The political establishment of Paul's day was the ancient
Israel of the Mishnah
--- End Quote ---
Is factually incorrect. Ancient Israel was between the 9th
century BCE until 63 BCE, when it was conquered by Rome. Paul
was born around 5 CE (AD) in Turkey and died in Rome. Hardly an
ancient Israelite. He lived under the Roman Empire.
--- Quote ---
> Communist China
--- End Quote ---
"Communist"? China has had a fully mixed economy since 1978.
--- Quote ---
> Identity theft, a rarity throughout history, has become an
unstoppable epidemic
--- End Quote ---
This is a product of technology rather than the state. Would you
do without identities or without the technology?
Let's move on to Tolli!
--- Quote ---
> We should have bombed Saudi Arabia, wherever the citizens from
Egypt were, Lebanon, wherever the citizens of UAE were, and
Pakistan.
--- End Quote ---
Why the fuck do you want to bomb our allies? I mean, I'll agree
if you want to bring some freedom to Saudi Arabia, but there is
ZERO suspicion Saudis have been involved in terrorism. You want
to bomb EGYPT too? WtF have they done to us? The UAE? You want
to bomb the financial capital of the Middle East? They'll surely
love us then! Pakistan? Another ally to bomb! w00t America's
friends are forever! And why are we bombing Lebanon, the
Switzerland of the East?
Tolli, why do you want to bomb random countries? The post before
you just said it's dumb to bomb them and you "agree[d] with
everything you've just posted."
#Post#: 1764--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Tollison
Date: October 4, 2013, 1:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
You're right. We shouldn't bomb those countries, Chakra. They
weren't random to me at the time. Please use reasoning in
arguing with me. Help me to see what you see rather than saying
what can make anyone angry towards you. Using words such as
dumb and random when directed to someone are derogatory words
and should therefore be avoided.
Our only option to react then is to further increase our
national defense of any terrorist attacks. Sending troops over
to try to kill Al-Qaeda only weakens us. We have accumulated a
lot of debt because of it. We should be a country that strives
to have a surplus rather than a deficit.
#Post#: 1775--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: koala
Date: October 4, 2013, 8:36 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote ---
> [quote]The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs,
parking meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program
called "verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly
shocking: Traffic safety has improved dramatically. Under
circumstances where they are drawn into leadership roles, people
take it upon themselves to look out for their own and others'
best interest, even in the absence of rules and enforcement.
--- End Quote ---
Drachten is not a city. It's a town of 45,000 people. Try
conducting a medium sized city+metro (population 1+ million)
without traffic regulation.[/quote]
Even within the English-speaking world there is no one standard
definition of a city: the term may be used either for a town
possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an
arbitrary population size; for a town dominating other towns
with particular regional economic or administrative
significance. Yes, I suppose it's important to note that the
population is the town of Drachten is 44,629 but his point was
more to do with excessive regulation and the bureaucratic system
of schooling. As for an similar experiment to be conducted in a
larger town or city.. well that would be interesting to say the
least.
--- Quote ---
> [quote]The political establishment of Paul's day was the
ancient Israel of the Mishnah
--- End Quote ---
Is factually incorrect. Ancient Israel was between the 9th
century BCE until 63 BCE, when it was conquered by Rome. Paul
was born around 5 CE (AD) in Turkey and died in Rome. Hardly an
ancient Israelite. He lived under the Roman Empire.[/quote]
Saul of Tarsus/Paul was a Pharisee? In Judaism, Pharisees were
at various times a political party, a social movement, and a
school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period
beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE) in the wake
of the Maccabean Revolt. The Mishnah is an authoritative
codification of Pharisaic law, edited by Judah haNasi around 200
CE. So??
--- Quote ---
> [quote]Communist China
--- End Quote ---
"Communist"? China has had a fully mixed economy since
1978.[/quote]
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political
party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). I guess he should
have still called it China or Corrupt China lest people be
confused.
--- Quote ---
> [quote]Identity theft, a rarity throughout history, has become
an unstoppable epidemic
--- End Quote ---
This is a product of technology rather than the state. Would you
do without identities or without the technology?[/quote]
I am not doubting that identity theft is a product of
technology. I guess it's ultimately my fault for posting an
excerpt because you are missing the main point here and so is
Tolli it seems. He comes up with some nice insight then reverts
back to
--- Quote ---
> Sending troops over to try to kill Al-Qaeda only weakens us.
--- End Quote ---
In any case I've finished the book now but I still might post
some more from it before I move onto the Underground History of
American Education by the same author. Peace! :)
#Post#: 1776--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Tollison
Date: October 4, 2013, 8:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Adam, I saw at the end of your post that I missed the point of
the post yet you don't explain why I did.
Forums are made for discussion, and I am actively involved in
these forums because I love discussion. Please tell me why you
feel I don't understand the main point of the excerpt.
#Post#: 1777--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: koala
Date: October 4, 2013, 9:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
You can't seem to divorce yourself from the official narrative
or story of things especially in regards to the "War on Terror".
--- Quote ---
> America still feels that they are being threatened by
terrorist groups because they believe another 9/11 could happen
at any time.
--- End Quote ---
This is because a lot of Americans swallow everything the media
tells them hook, line and sinker.
--- Quote ---
> America upped its defenses against another terrorist attack
and it's also taking other measures to make sure it doesn't
happen such as surveillance of just about everything
--- End Quote ---
9/11 was just a pretext to war. A very convenient one. Al Qaeda
= Al CIAda
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as
something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.
Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is
conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the
masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and
nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll
fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only
earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes
overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar
and the soldiers follow the flag. - Major General Smedley Butler
HTML http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm
In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed
that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin
Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at
the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and
intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an
operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well
as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen,
were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia
and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed
destabilisation operations.
HTML http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/whistleblower-al-qaeda-chief-u-s-asset/
Allegations of FBI foreknowledge
In the course of the trial it was revealed that the FBI had an
informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad A. Salem.
Salem claims to have informed the FBI of the plot to bomb the
towers as early as February 6, 1992. Salem's role as informant
allowed the FBI to quickly pinpoint the conspirators out of the
hundreds of possible suspects.
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F1Y6cGRXEs
I remember watching on the History channel believe it or not..
that FDR had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl harbor as
American Naval Intelligence had cracked Japanese codes and were
aware of a possible Japanese attack.
But then again that isn't what the excerpt was about I guess the
main reason I posted it was because of this.
--- Quote ---
> Our reckless military operations in Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanistan, have violated central precepts of warfare set down
by Von Clausewitz -- a superior technology doesn't promiscuously
attack its victims, it threatens. To commit a major attack is to
expose your technology to scrutiny, which holds two dangers:
first, that expensive machinery is badly over matched against an
insurgency trained in guerrilla tactics, and second that the
enemy will gradually upgrade his own technology by studying your
tactics and stealing your weapons. What American has to show for
50 years of continuous warfare against weak, stone-age
opponents, is this: besides crippling our future with a reckless
expenditure of capital on products which produce nothing, like
weaponry, and destroy themselves in use, we have notified every
corner of the world that our overwhelming military isn't
overwhelming at all and can be beaten by ordinary people of
courage, with primitive military hardware, who refuse to be
intimidated
>
--- End Quote ---
I probaly should have just sent that to you on facebook and made
this a discussion thread on compulsory public schooling. Where
it started and what it aims to accomplish.
#Post#: 1778--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Tollison
Date: October 4, 2013, 9:46 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Adam, the facts are that 9/11 was a terrorist attack and we were
poorly equipped to defend against it. Building up defense in
our nation and excavating our occupation of over 100+ countries
will prevent us from being attacked again and will make us
stronger and wealthier.
#Post#: 1779--------------------------------------------------
Re: Weapons of Mass INSTRUCTION and other excerpts from John
Taylor Gatto
DIR By: Chakra
Date: October 5, 2013, 12:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Adam, I no doubt agree with the narrative that we shouldn't be
military involved outside the US (accept for peacekeeping
missions as part of the UN). However, the facts of the piece are
just wrong. Further, I greatly disagree that a society with
minimum laws would be more pleasant than one with quite a few.
--- Quote ---
> Saul of Tarsus/Paul was a Pharisee? In Judaism, Pharisees were
at various times a political party, a social movement, and a
school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period
beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE) in the wake
of the Maccabean Revolt. The Mishnah is an authoritative
codification of Pharisaic law, edited by Judah haNasi around 200
CE. So??
--- End Quote ---
It said, "The political establishment of Paul's day." The
political establishment of Paul's day would mean the political
establishment he lived under. He lived under Roman law. All Jews
in the Mediterranean area did.
--- Quote ---
> The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political
party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). I guess he should
have still called it China or Corrupt China lest people be
confused.
--- End Quote ---
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not democratic nor
a republic. Names mean squat. China could be best described as a
fascist state (if using as few words as possible). Further, it
is less corrupt than most countries, such as Russia, Mexico,
India, Greece, etc, etc. It ties with countries such as Italy
and Serbia. If you wanted to compare to a big "scary" country,
use Russia or something, China isn't nearly as bad as them.
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