Reality Based Community

Life in the Empire


...as the Market marches toward the Future.


Is the “education system” in the USA “broken,” and if so, how does one “fix” it? By the standards usually applied in the USA to "efficiency, predictability. calculability and control," yes, it’s broken. The cost-per-student is going up; the “test scores” are going down. What to do? Simple: apply the tried-and-proven contemporary American method that is now applied to all “social problems:” make illiteracy a felony. Close all the schools and fire all the teachers. Think of the cost savings! Every person at age 18 takes a “standardized test” to receive their “Literacy Card.” All citizens over 18 must carry their Literacy Card along with their Proof of Insurance Cards.

What about the unemployed teachers? Naturally, they will join the “private sector” that will (or not) prepare U-18-yr-olds to take their test and get their Literacy Cards. For the Rich Shitpokes: no problem (as usual)… just pay 100,000 Ameros, and get a Literacy Card. Now: another 100.000 Ameros: Masters’ Degree. Another 100,000 Ameros, PhD. Problem solved: but remember—today’s “dollar” is worth about 10 Amero cents, so 100,000 Ameros is worth about a million bucks. Don’t have a million bucks? Well, better join “The System” and participate in “free-market Capitalism.” If you’re too stupid to pass the tests, you can always pay and become a “manager.” No big deal.

Really, this is no drastic change from what we have today. It’s just with the pretense of “democracy” we have to keep calling “The System” something else. We have to pretend that “merit” has squat to do with anything. But here is “reality:” you can pay to get your “credentials,” and still be an ignorant spud, but that doesn’t matter… you can be a “manager,” and not have to “manage” anything. Meanwhile, the stupid proles who actually have to figure out how to dig a hole and fill it in will be priced and relegated as a commodity: “Human Resources.” People who actually know how to DO something are a dime-a-dozen. Rich Shitpokes are rare. That’s the model.

It’s only a matter of time before most of us are either prisoners or guards. Oh, the Rich Shitpokes will need a few doctors to keep themselves healthy and a few scientists to develop snazzy new weapons and assorted technicians to run the drones and robo-cops. They will need people who know how to read instructions and follow them. They DO NOT need poor people who require any kind of assistance, sick people who can’t pay, and anybody who can or will not follow written orders. The Fats have the answers and they are using them now: poverty is already a crime. Sickness will soon become a crime. See what’s happening?

Neo-Feudalism: that is what is happening. 0.1% of the population is calling the shots, 0.1% of us are actually resisting them. That means that 99.8% of us are a bunch of clueless fucks that have no idea that the Fats intend to turn us into their serfs by any means necessary. There are hundreds of variations on this theme, ranging from those of us who know, but think we can avoid it to those of us who know and intend to become one of the well-paid “select few” who will gain our own fiefdoms by enforcing the will of the Fats. Do your own demo-psychographic math… but my own conclusion is that 80% of us are little more than mindless disposable cattle.

To put an uncomfortable point on the 80% theory, visit (or research) a factory meat-producing feed-lot operation that sells the cheap meat that most of us eat. Cruelty and brutality toward the “meat animals” surpasses imagination of most of the 80% who buy the shrink-wrapped package of flesh and feed it to their children. Even this picture ignores the plight of the “processors,” undocumented immigrants whose fingers and arms are just part of the cost of “production.” OK- so what are the 19.98% of us who are not pre-determined meat supposed to “do?” The first step is to know about the 0.1% calling the shots… and the second step is admitting that you are not in control.

We are flesh for the Fats. We are fodder for the rich fucks, “social Darwinists” and other pork-producers who have no trouble sending us down the chute because “it’s their job.” If you think “elections” or “your representatives” have anything to do with any of this, if you think that “government” even exists, you can happily look forward to your parts in their very own shrink-wrapped package sometime soon. They probably will not eat you. They will use the bodies you produce (your children and you) as tools to grow fatter. They will stop at nothing, and that’s the most important point: NOTHING. Birkenau, with its shoulder-deep human ash pits is child’s play. You aint seen nothing yet.

So this is how we solve “social problems” in the USA: make them illegal. Ship the “problems” off to a prison holding-pen work-camp, or to a “hospital” termination point, so what about “literacy?” What this means is people capable of reading instructions and following them. The “standardized tests” will weed out the very few who actually question the instructions. No Literacy Card, so off to prison. Do you think this is satire? Our pay-or-die “health care system” would have been considered satire not long ago. Just 20 years ago, a local councilman proposed rounding up the homeless and giving them one-way bus tickets. He was laughed out of office. Where are the homeless now?

Anyone who thinks a Nazi-Germany Redux is not possible today has not been paying attention. What we call “capitalism” has evolved into a system that rewards the most ruthless and amoral, remains benign toward conformity and complicity and it has been developing its prime specimen for centuries. Any US resident who thinks there is a “government” that can hold them in check is a walking meat-wad, pre-packaged in their slave-labor China-manufactured shrink-wrap from Walmart, walking toward the death-camp in their blinking-light basketball shoes. That’s about 80% of us, and 19.9% of us are making it happen. Why? Because it’s “our J-O-B,” as in- “Just Over Broke.”

Still think this is satire? Nobody batted an eye when it became policy to piss in a cup to get their J-O-B. “Laws” were passed making it “legal” to round you up… detain you indefinitely and torture a “confession” out of you. Was any of that on TV? “Wars” were ginned up on pretexts so thin, any literate person could see through them. Thanks to the “standardized tests,” most of us read the instructions and complied. We stuck the Chinese-manufactured flags and yellow magnets on our cars like good little meat-wads and never even thought about questioning any of it. “Watch what you say.” We gobbled our corn-oil peasant-chow and joined the parade. Still think this is satire?

Better start studying for your “Literacy Test.” Privatize the buggers and make them compete! Get the Unions out of there so teachers will have to work for minimum wage like everybody else… and be damn grateful they have a job AT ALL! Let the MARKET decide what’s to be taught and how… not a bunch of weeny-head academics! Market-driven curriculum is exactly what we have in “higher” education. The employers decide what they want their employees to know. That’s the deal: teach them what we want, and we’ll hire your graduates. Why not K-12? So I took it to the logical conclusion… dispense with “teachers” altogether and let children learn directly from the MARKET! And let’s end all “entitlements.”

Which is exactly where it’s going: your “tax dollars” DO NOT entitle you to anything… except staying out of prison… unless it has been decided otherwise. “Your money?” heh heh heh… do you see YOUR name on any of that dead-president paper in your wallet? No? That’s because it’s NOT “your” money. It’s the Federal Reserve’s money… which is a PRIVATE corporation like GOD intended! Responsible to its “shareholders,” and that aint YOU. When did a bunch of whiney “taxpayers” get the idea that paying taxes “entitled” them to “decide” ANYTHING? What’s that you say? You “worked” for it? Well, lah-de-dah.

You see, The System works this way: you work, you pay, you stay out of prison (until it’s decided that you don’t).

Arbeit Macht Frei.

Views: 69

Comment by pan on July 19, 2009 at 9:37am
More succinctly:
We should never be surprised when little Eichmanns behave like Nazis.
Comment by pan on July 19, 2009 at 10:18am
In some of my clearest moments I realize how absurd it is for me to expect to be rewarded by an institution for creating work that directly challenges that institution.

Once I asked a friend why, since he was far more cynical than me, has academe rewarded him so well. His response was telling "It is because I am cynical and you are idealistic. I see the institution for what it is, you see it for what it should be".

The mission of the institution is not to empower students to think critically and act independently, it is to further the institution. Those of us pursue our academic career guided by the question "what best serves the student?" are directly challenging the stability of the institution and should not be surprised when the institution does anything (legal or not) to rid itself of these cancerous cells.

Both Waldo and I created pedagogical/curricular approaches that were working very effectively in empowering the students to challenge the perceptual base that was presented to them and the response was remarkably similar - change the curriculum in order to make it impossible to teach the students in that manner and do whatever they disemploy us. When the Uni administration realized that their libel had backfired and I now had them by the balls legally if they tried to deny me tenure, they just threatened to get rid of my position if I remained there. Remove my position and I had no legal recourse.

The tenure system is designed so that no one who threatens the institution remains there longterm. All those who belong to the tenure club know what they gave up to join and they damn well can't have any pure souls in the clubhouse reminding them that they soul'ed out. The few who don't completely sell their souls end up soiling their nappies so that if/when they are a problem in the future the dirty diapers can be aired publicly. It is no accident that both Churchill and MLK were subjected to specious claims of plagiarism that were not serious at the time but came out later.
Comment by Mark on July 19, 2009 at 2:57pm
Thanks, pan, I think.

Yes, I do see my role as to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.," as Finley Peter Dunne saw the role of a newspaper.

I'm not sure how it would be possible to provoke people into thinking about something without being provocative.

From my perspective, it is the "centrists" who attempt to marginalize me as being out of the mainstream, who are "bombastic, highly opinionated, aggressive and unrelenting." And they're sometimes taken aback when I respond by admitting that I'm out of the mainstream.

I've told this story at least a few hundred times, but you've given me the opportunity to retell it.

When I was a little kid my mother used to make fun of the strange ideas I picked up from my reading by saying, "Yes, yes, they're all out of step but Johnny," meaning that it wasn't very likely that everybody else was wrong and I was right. We had a gym teacher who was introducing our class to marching in formation and because it was new to us, most of the other kids would watch each other to see what to do, while I, being me, would listen to the teacher's instructions. So one time the teacher blew the whistle and said, "One, two, halt! You're all out of step but Mark."

I couldn't tell my mother about it because I'd have gotten whupped, but it was a formative experience. ;)

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