TOPIC: TOXICOLLEGEY…the toxicology of a college education

So…i don’t know why, but this phrase popped into my head yesturday, for a title of my book (which…i’m not abandoning, just putting as a project for down the road).  It was re-inspired by a Wall Street Journal article about politics and kids, the shared a story of a woman who self-published an anti-bush children’s book, that has sold 1000 so far.  The authors success is part from an initial project of anti-war playing cards that sold several thousand.  I’m still interested in how she was able to turn her idea into something bigger.

Anyways…she donates 50% of her profits to various sites, here’s a great one I think, Global Exchange, It’s a good intro for people like myself who are just starting to learn about human rights, economic, and political injustices with US connections.

Somehow…the heat is out in my apartment, I woke up shivering, thought it was snowing inside, will write more later.  and, we’re having an ESPN staff party tonight, i’ve become friends w/ this guy Samson from Nigeria, he’s here to study nursing, make some money, move back home, find a wife, and come back to America…we have a conversation in progress.  I asked him about his views on American women, and he said they don’t understand the sanctity of relationships like at home, where things are more traditional, the woman is submissive to the man, and her role is to tend to the house and the child.  If a child misbehaves, they blame the mother first.  He told me a story how he was out at a club here in Baltimore, and this couple comes in.  The girl comes up to him and asks if she can smoke some of his cigarette.  Samson goes, “but you’re here with your boyfriend,” she didn’t care, kept flirting w/ him, and even offered him her number. 

I found it interesting he’d want to start a family here though.  “Schools are much better here,” he said.  You have much better funding, things are simpler here.  That’s when the conversation ended, I had to grab some more beers for this party of 27 (automatic fixed tip of $120!!!)  I actually made about $170 total last night, and hustled a lot less than on some nights where I made $40.  Guess that’s the nature of the restaurant business.

but seriously…toxicollegy 101, way better than College Daze.  With a subtitle like, “what you don’t learn in college could be harmful to your health and well-being.” 

Dear kids,

Yes…at the root of my journaling, is the realization that it is an attempt to record the history of my existance.  At some point, you may find yourself wandering through these thoughts, and maybe it will better help you understand your dad, or maybe it will help you better understand yourself, and the world I brought you into. 

A lot of my more personal writings I haven’t put here, I have real journals for that, and maybe, those too will be available for you to read.  I don’t know when it will be appropriate, probably when you’re old enough to ask for yourself.  Old enough to wonder who I am, and who I was at 19, 21, 23…

The voice you’re reading is just one of my many voices.  It’s my serious, reflective, contemplative voice.  If I could, I’d write about how I actually live day-to-day and the conversations I have, and you’d probably laugh a lot more.  I wish I wrote more about that life, about drinking, and farting, and just being stupid a lot.  I think it’s hard for me to mix those two world sometimes, and when I’m writing, I’m thinking, and when I’m thinking, I kind of push out laughter. 

I definately censor my writing, knowing people are reading.  Even in the comfort of being anonymous in the internet, I still feel limitations on who I am, and what I write.  Always thinking…how will I be judged, and seen? 

Maybe I should make you my audience for now on.  Or at least add you to my audience.  I’ll imagine you to be 17 or so, old enough to be my younger brother/sister now, but in time, my grown up child. 

Well my child…I’m off to work in a few minutes.  Who would’ve thought I’d be waiting tables at this stage of my life?  Man…did I ever flop on that book thing, I seriously thought I’d sell 500 books, that was my goal, I saw it like it was real, and I failed.  But you know what, nothing bad happened, and it was actually a cool experience.  And it’s opened up so many doors for me.  So let that be a lesson to you.

This week I’m going to go visit the indoor climbing gym in Baltimore.  I gotta keep my youthful spirit alive, you know?  I plan on living somewhere outdoorsy, so it’ll be effortless to go climbing on an almost daily basis, or hiking, or kayaking.  Life hasn’t been easy for me, living in such non-exotic places.  It has pretty much limited me to the indoors.  To tv, computers, and just wandering around the house daydreaming.  I haven’t reflected much on myself as daydreamer, but I’ve done tons of it.  Literally hours wasted dreaming of things I’d love to be doing, only to wake up and be back where I was. 

I haven’t always been a daydreamer.  I’ve lived out some of my dreams.  Even this period of my life, I’ll probably look back on and not think it was too bad.  I got to be a loaf, living off my friends for a bit, just reading books.  The spirit of the beat generation, although, I’m doing it alone, and not really knowing what I’m doing. 

Well…I’m glad I had this little post, I hope you enjoyed it.  Off to make a buck.  I’ve already been thinking of the things I want to get, maybe climbing shoes, a harness, if all goes well at the gym. 

Topic: THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF OUR MENTAL HEALTH

In a speech given by Daniel Ellsberg to a Veteran’s for Peace conference, Ellsberg said we should have learned the lessons of Vietnam.  My education required me to go over there and see what bullshit the war was, the people of today do not need that same expensive education.  I think the same applies to mental health.  You don’t need a PhD to figure out what brings happiness and what leads to depression.  Despite being the wealthiest and most technologically progressive country on the planet, we’re a country also full of depression, despair, cynicism, and violence.  This is a topic that, thankfully, transcends simple politics (although it is very much a political issue, just not on the same radar that the environment has reached). 

Here’s an article, proving once again my theory that if you’ve ever thought of something, it’s most likely been thought of before.  And…like my rants no the ills of schooling, this goes into my rant that our country has made a dire mistake in shifting all the focus of depression onto biology, and so little onto the culture that is an equal cause in depression.

Surgeon General’s Report Is Laudable but Misleading

The Los Angeles Times, Dec 20, 1999

By RICHARD J. DeGRANDPRE
 

Some weeks ago, I was a guest on public radio and a caller described a study in which children were sent from out of state to the Colorado Rockies to observe the effects of high elevation on their asthma. The children improved, some quite significantly. However, when their families arrived for a visit, the children’s asthma took a turn for the worse, suggesting that an important determinant was psychosocial stress.

The caller asked whether I had heard of similar psychosocial influences regarding childhood hyperactivity. I answered that such cases have been regularly reported, although most are anecdotal. One study, however, from the Journal of Pediatrics, reported differences in the levels of the biochemical serotonin in hyperactive versus nonhyperactive children. When the two most hyperactive children in the study were kept at the hospital, away from home and school, both the hyperactivity and serotonin changed to levels observed in the nonhyperactive children. However, when measured one month after the two children went home, the serotonin and hyperactivity had reverted to earlier levels.

The lesson here is an important one, and one that is not well heeded by the report on mental health issued this month by U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. A centerpiece of the report is the effort to make mental disorders a legitimate health issue by redefining them in terms of illness and disease. This logic is decades old and assumes that if the public comes to view problems such as depression and schizophrenia in biological terms, a more open atmosphere will emerge, thus reducing the stigma of mental health problems and encouraging individuals to pursue treatment.

As can be seen in the case of alcoholism, where the disease model is accepted by the public, this approach appears to have some merit. At the same time, viewing all mental disorders and addiction as biological diseases–and then treating them as medical problems– will not help stem the tide of psychological despair rolling across the nation. To wit, several of the children involved in school shootings had been prescribed the latest psychiatric drugs. Whatever good the medical model and psychiatric medications did them, it certainly was not enough.

I do not believe these drugs caused these outbreaks of violence. I do believe, however, that the shift toward biologizing and medicalizing psychological distress has begun to blind us to the social roots of many of these problems. This includes the rising challenges of finding meaning in modern life, and the stresses it imposes on individuals and families.

The surgeon general’s report rightly stresses the importance of tearing down the stigma associated with mental problems. But if increasing people’s awareness of mental-health issues comes at the price of turning man into a biological machine, the cost is surely too high.

In a television interview, the surgeon general stressed that “there is no longer a justification for distinguishing between mental and physical illnesses.” This sentiment, which pervades the report is both true and false. The experience of emotional distress is as real as any experience of physical illness, and often more disabling. However, to say the biological underpinnings of mental problems are just as real as for physical illness is false and dangerously misleading.

First, the notion of physical illness implies an inner, biological cause, and independent tests exist for most physical illnesses. In the case of mental disorders, there is not a single biological test. Second, much research in neuroscience and psychiatry shows a basic methodological blunder by failing to distinguish between causation and mere correlation. It is true that psychological states correlate with physiological ones. But these underlying states may represent nothing more than the impact of present and past psychological experiences. The public thus falls into the trap of believing that psychological problems are biological and out of their control.

A decade of focusing on the brain (and forgetting the human context that shapes the mind) has left the public both dazed and confused about the sources of the self. Mending mind and brain should mean a fuller understanding of how nature and nurture combine to create psychopathology; it should not mean turning all that is mental and psychological into something medical and biological. As this happens, people may well be inclined to ask their physician for a quick fix to soothe their (or their children’s) psychological woes, but they are much less inclined to do the hard work of taking responsibility for their and their children’s futures. All the evidence in the world tells us that real human transformation is possible, or at least it should.

Credit: Richard J. DeGrandpre, an adjunct professor of psychology at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, is author of “Ritalin Nation: Rapid- Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness” (Norton, 1999)

http://www.coc.cc.ca.us/departments/english/davis_d/surgeongeneral%27sreport.html

What About Gross National Happiness?

By Nadia Mustafa, TIME, Jan. 10, 2005

When Jigme Singye Wangchuck was crowned king of the Himalayan nation of Bhutan in 1972, he declared he was more concerned with “Gross National Happiness” than with Gross Domestic Product. This probably didn’t come as a surprise to the forest-laden country’s 810,000 to 2.2 million (estimates vary greatly) residents, most of whom are poor subsistence farmers. Bhutan’s GDP is a mere $2.7 billion, but Wangchuck still maintains that economic growth does not necessarily lead to contentment, and instead focuses on the four pillars of GNH: economic self-reliance, a pristine environment, the preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s culture, and good governance in the form of a democracy.

King Wangchuck’s idea that public policy should be more closely tied to wellbeing — how people feel about their lives — is catching on. “There is a growing interest in some policymaking circles in looking at these measures,” says Richard Easterlin, economics professor at the University of Southern California. “We have been misguided in dismissing what people say about how happy they are and simply assuming that if they are consuming more apples and buying more cars they are better off.” There are efforts to devise a new economic index that would measure wellbeing gauged by things like satisfaction with personal relationships, employment, and meaning and purpose in life, as well as, for example, the extent new drugs and technology improve standards of living.

The independent London-based think tank New Economics Foundation is pushing the implementation of a set of national wellbeing accounts that would tote up life satisfaction and personal development as well as issues such as trust and engagement. The accounts would also include liabilities, such as stress and depression. The logistics won’t be hard, says Hetan Shah of NEF, because much of the data is already captured by the government. In 2002, the Strategy Unit, an internal government think tank that reports to Prime Minister Tony Blair, conducted a seminar on life satisfaction and its public policy implications. Shah says Germany, Italy and France are also looking into the issue, one he predicts will become increasingly important as people continue to seek the good life.

http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/truecosteconomics/

TOPIC: THE ART OF HAPPINESS

This is in response to a post on Dara’s site on sexual selection:

Freshman year I read a book (ok…I read part of a book) called “The Third Chimpanzee,” by Jared Diamond, and there was a chapter called, “Why we smoke and do drugs,” or something to that extent.  And he was arguing that we do things that handicap ourselves to show how strong we are, comparing this to antelopes or some animal that jumps up and down for a few seconds when being chased by a lion, in order to let the lion catch up, an example that says, “hey…i may get killed, but, if i survive, what a badass antelope am i.”  I thought Diamond was an idiot, and I got a bad grade for attacking Diamond as an idiot, since he’s one smart mother f$#!er, so I fixed the paper to say, I think Diamond is off on this one.  There’s so many other factors for why human beings do things.  I don’t know if antelopes get a buzz from the near death of being chased by a lion, the same way we get a buzz from drinking a beer, or ingesting whatever your drug of choice.  We no longer choose our mates purely based on how strong our husband will be, so that they can protect me from other cavemen who want to rape me, and so we can have strong healthy kids who will be able to wrestle with lions to eat that stupid antelope who should’ve run away when he had the chance.

Sexual selection today isn’t biological anymore.  I may marry someone rich so I can be a stay-at-home dad, but the bimbo I married might be mentally off a bit, and then we’ll have to spend all our riches on our mentally not-so-well endowed children.  There’s factors way beyond human survival and offspring, and that throws off the whole biological mating equation. 

The peacocks tail is a genetic sign of fertility that is independant of environment.  The singer Bocelli’s voice is, likewise, not a sign of strength or fertility.  His brilliant voice is part voice, and part envinronment, meaning his connections in life.  How many other Bocelli’s are out there who simply lack the resources to develop their genetic talents?  What about professional athletes…gentic talent plays a part, and going to basketball camp, basketball clinics, having a good coach, all those things affect your final product.  When you choose a mate, whether it’s for their beautiful voice or their athletic ability, you are choosing based on cultural norms.  Say we plopped Dara in some African villiage, all of a sudden, she’s seen either as a goddess or the devil depending on the culture, and she’ll either be swarmed by guys wanting to get in her pants, or guys wanting to burn her on a stick. 

The relation between genes and behaviors is both interesting, and important.  They haven’t located genes that say you’ll be a good singer, or a good basketball player, or that you’ll get into Harvard (although people will pay thousands for egg donors of Ivy League graduates).  It’s interesting to me that there are pre-disposition genes for such things as alcoholism and depression, meaning environment plays a large role in whether your psychological/behavioral gene will show up.  This interest me, because someone w/ an alcoholic gene won’t become an alcoholic in a society w/ no alcohol.  Similarly, all these recent cases of depression in America wouldn’t happen if we were a more chill society like Australia…stress causes depression, and American culture is built on financial and professional success, which causes stress.

Also…if there’s genes for depression, then there must be genes for happiness.  Zinn talks about this a bit, when people try to argue that war is “human nature,” as if it’s in our genes.  But…we’ve gone periods without war, and some cultures have never waged war in their lives, so if it’s in our genes to commit acts of violence, it’s similarly in our genes to commits acts of generosity and compassion.  What makes those behavioral genes come into play is environment. 

As I think further about this…I really would like to debunk the idea of a medical cause, or a pre-disposition for depression, or at least, to balance it out w/ a medical cause or a gene for happiness.  The medical environment/culture we have developed has shifted the focus more towards biology, and away from the environmental factors that bring out the behaviors and mental states we diagnose. 

Why is major league baseball trying to ban steroids?  Steroids builds better athletes, just as prozac, alcohol, and marijuana builds happier people.  We ban most drugs because they’re harmful (but, clearly, in the case of crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine, we’ve criminalized certain drugs because poor people use one kind and rich people use another).  So…why else would we ban drugs?  Part of why we ban athletic enhancing drugs (and techniques like injecting yourself with oxygen rich blood), at the Olympic level, is to keep a level playing field.  It’s to say, we want to see who the best athletes are, and we want them to be “naturally,” the best.  The world has decided, that we want a world full of world-class athletes, and we want those athletes to be the products of hard work.

When it comes to producing people happy with their lives, the world, with America at the lead, has taken an approach that says, mental steroids is the way to go.  In doing so, we ignore many of the risks (Prozac has led to increased suicide rates in certain patients) and we lose an appreciation for the natural “art of happiness,” and we do so at our own peril.  Just like many things in America, the rules of happiness have been dominated by a corporate culture full of advertising, that tells you material possessions, degrees, job titles, and money, will make you happy.  As we see more and more reasons why certain corporations are harmful to the poor, to the environment, and to our democracy, it has become clear, to me at least, that corporations are largely responsible for setting the rules of the massive game of Life. 

This is in part an argument against a completely laissez-faire system with no government intervention in business affairs.  If there is money to be made, a business will be created, regardless of how it may harm society.  The government has interfered with business by setting drinking ages, by banning certain drugs, limiting cigarette advertising, by banning certain automobiles that are harmful to the environment.  These are examples of the government regulating profits, for the intent of the public good (I think our drinking age should be lowered, but this is not an argument that the government does a bad job at protecting the public good, it just means we need to have more discussion about it).  Until public mental health is discussed as a public good, we will continue to be bombarded by those businesses who are making large profits promoting unhealthy mental lifestyles, and the mental steroids that goes with them.

The first step in fighting corporate dominance in the game of Life, is to free yourself from its rules.  Re-define success.  Pursue a job that means something to you.  Develop your compassionate gene.  Develop your happiness gene.  Pursue experiences and relationships that will last longer than material possessions that can easily be lost, stolen, or destroyed.  Read, listen, and watch non-corporate media.  Read Tuesday’s With Morrie.  Wear sunscrean.  Do an Outward Bound course.  Come up with your own rules for life, and follow them.   

cheers,

-dan

Topic: Quick things

1) In today’s Democracy Now! news report, there was a special on Social Security.  They showed how if you call the Social Security hotline for questions, and you get put on hold, the message you listen is telling you all about the looming Social Security crisis.  That’s tax payer money going for propaganda, but that wouldn’t be the first time, as just this week it was reported that Bush officials had given $240,000 of tax payer money to a news commentator, to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind Policy, which, like Bush’s plans to save Social Security by destroying it, is an attempt to help public schools by cutting back funding.

2) The Israeli-Palestinian situation is coming a bit more in focus.  Despite hating history growing up, it’s becoming more and more important to understand.  Two years are coming into focus.  The first in 1948, the year Israel became a Jewish state.  That year, a large number of Arab-Palestinians became refugees.  The debate between some scholars has been, were they forced out as part of a transfer/expulsion/ethnic cleansing, or did they leave on their own will as told by the Arab armies.  Another debate is, was the refugee situation created by Arab agression in the ’48 war, or, was it preceeded by a Zionist ideology that recognized the need to remove Arab-Palestinians from what was to be a Jewish state.  The second debate that arises surrounds the year ’67, and the 6-day war.  I’m still looking into that.

What’s interesting to note, are the first controversies I mention surrounding ’48.  Depending on your view of history, will have a dramatic effect on how you view the State of Israel and the Palestinian situation today.  I’ve recently been reading much of Noam Chomsky, and my roommate just introduced me to Alan Dershowitz, who is a staunch critic of Chomsky, and makes links to Chomsky being an anti-Semite.  Learning more about Chomsky, I’ve found those accusations to be false, but, I struggled to understand what would lead Dershowitz to so strongly attack Chomsky’s views on Israel.

It turns out, there’s others out there who are highly critical of Dershowitz’s recent book, “The case for Israel”.  Several writers have criticized Dershowitz’s book for relying heavily on another book, “Time in Immemorial,” by Joan Peters.  This book was widely criticized in both Europe and Israel, although praised by many in the States.  The issue at hand with this book are its claims regarding Palestine leading up to 1948, for example, claims of the land being largely inhabited.  Many claim that the facts in this book were used as Israeli propaganda, and most serious scholars regard it as bunk, as a result.  Democracy Now! showed a debate between Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein, who was one of the scholars who debunked Joan Peters’ book, and since Dershowitz relied so heavily on her book, he was out to debunk Dershowitz as well.

Chomsky lived on a Kubbutz in Israel in the 1950′s, and believed in a bi-national state with Jews and Palestinians living together.  That dream may now not be a reality because of the anger between the two sides (although South Africa did manage to end apartheid and blacks and whites not have equal rights and live in relative peace, it would be hard to imagine the same happening in Israel).  So, the anti-Zionist cause was against the original establishment of a Jewish-only homeland, but today, it seems we will see both a Zionist state, as well as a Palestinian state, living side-by-side. 

Question: Since it is now a moot point about Israel becoming a bi-national state, any claims today of anti-Zionism, are esentially claims to destroy Israel, and may be seen as anti-Semetic.  This is unlike criticism of white-ruled South Africa, where criticism of white-power ultimately led to the sharing of power between blacks and whites.  If South Africa looked like Israel, and the only plausible solution was to have a white South Africa, and a Black South Africa, then continued criticism of white South Africa would also be calling for the end of whites (which in Africa, isn’t so ridiculous, as Zimbabwe has taken actions to intimidate and murder white farmers).  So…rather than continuing to oppose Zionism because it oppresses Palestinians, isn’t is more practical to be both pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian, and leave anti-Zionist claims in the past (that is assuming, we are moving towards a Palestinian state). 

TOPIC: DEMOCRACY WANTED

So…As I’m starting to learn so much about the ills of America that I was led to believe did not exist, because of the sanitized education and media to which I have exposed for now 23 years, I’m getting closer to the question of…what is being done, and what can I also do?

Before acting, I must educate myself.  That is the period in which I am now in.  Learning requires finding non-mainstream sources, as well as non-mainstream acts of democracy that are being taken, acts of freedom of speech, independent media, freedom of protest, etc. Acts that are being taken to right the wrongs of America.

And I came across this 30min. video from Democracy now! about American media, how it has sanitized and therefore misled America about the war in Iraq, its purpose and nature, in so many ways.  This 30min. video (you may need to download real player, takes a few min.) will remind you not only that a healthy democracy requires a healthy democratic media, but it will also inspire you that progress is being made.

http://www.democracynow.org/static/IMIATOW.shtml

Part scathing critique, part call to action, “Independent Media In A Time Of War” is a hard-hitting new documentary by the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center (www.hm.indymedia.org). This film is composed of a speech given by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! illustrated by clips of mainstream media juxtaposed with rare footage from independent reporters in Iraq. The documentary argues that dialogue is vital to a healthy democracy. “Independent media has a crucial responsibility to go to where the silence is,” says Amy Goodman, “to represent the diverse voices of people engaged in dissent.” She makes a compelling argument that the commercial news media have failed to represent the “true face of war.”

TOPIC: THE CASE FOR ISRAEL

This was originally just going to be a response in the last post, which has received some good comments, but it’s long, so I’ll put it here:

I’ve begun to have some interesting discussions w/ my roommate.  He just finished reading “The Case For Isreal,” by Alan Dershowitz.  Like myself, we’re both Jewish, and grew up thinking Israel = good, Arabs = bad.  For the most part, I still hold that position. (the same way I held the position US = good only a few months ago).  When I think of Israel, I think:

a) after WWII, the Jews needed a home, otherwise we’d all be dead

b) once Israel became a state in ’48, they were continuously attacked by Arabs.  Any land they won in defensive wars is their land, and in fact, there is no other country in the world that we’d expect to give back land won in a defensive war

c) the Arabs have continuously turned down peace, and are only interested in destroying all Jews

d) Israel, like America, gives its citizens so many freedoms and rights that could never be dreamed of in any Arab country.  Israel’s military actions are moral compared to Arab terrorists who go after innocent people.  Israel’s military actions are in self-defense, while Arab terrorists seek to exterminate all of Jewish Israel

those are the basic ideas in my head…Dershowitz goes through a list of 32 frequent criticism of Israel, and obviously has a defense for every one.  It was interesting that I had just read Chomsky’s “What Uncle Sam Really Wants,” and had no idea that the book my friend was reading addresses Chomsky on page one as “far left,” and throughout the book as a supporter of anti-semitism.  We agreed to swap books, and I think we’ve both fallen into the trap of becoming partisans, (my friend wanted to burn my Chomsky book before opening a page after reading what an anti-Semite he was), and I’m already more of a skeptic of Dershowitz than I have been of Zinn or Chomsky (although years ago I read some Dershowitz w/ an open mind about civil liberties or something).  Anyways…what I immediately did was read Dershowitz’ criticisms of Chomsky, specifically what my friend had read to me about Chomsky’s support for Robert Faurisson, a Holocaust denier.  After hearing 2-pages, I was left thinking, “oh my god, how could Chomsky do such a thing.”  Dershowitz mentioned how Chomsky not only supported Faurisson’s free speech, but provided a forward for Faurisson’s book, thereby “joining with the author, and defending the substance of Faurisson’s work.”

After reviewing the Chomsky-Faurisson case in further detail, it became quickly evident how Dershowitz, a clever lawyer, was able to sell to the jury (the unknowing and impressionable reader), that Chomsky was anti-Semetic, or at least had a few screws loose, and was “disqualified from ever being taken seriously on matters pertaining to Jews.”

First of all, Chomsky has written without equivocation that the Holocaust was one of the sickest crimes committed against humanity.  To try to allude, as Dershowitz does, that Chomsky either believes the arguments of Holocaust deniers, or that he defends the “substance” of their work, is a flat out lie, or at least, false in logic.  The truth is, Chomsky is one of the staunchest defenders of civil liberties and the freedom of speech.  Chomsky’s support for Faurisson went no further than his support for his freedom to say something, even something as wrong and offensive as denying the Holocaust.  If we begin to ban speech, even the most wrong and controversial, we run a slippery slope with the possible banning of things that are right and controversial (for example, some Mississippi libraries are trying to ban Jon Stewart’s book, “America.”)

With that being said, Chomsky wrote a letter on behalf of Faurisson, and said he could use it for any purpose.  When Faurisson used it as a forward to his book discrediting the Holocaust, people falsely concluded that Chomsky was giving his stamp of approval to the legitimacy of the content, not simply the legitimacy of the right to free speech.  Upon realizing this, Chomsky called for his letter to be taken out of the book, but realized it was too late, and in fact regreted that he asked for this.  He had done nothing wrong, it was merely a case of his words being taken out of context, something that Dershowitz does in his book as well.

Later in the same chapter, Dershowitz shows how radical imams who preach hatred of Jews often cite historians like Faurisson.  Here, Dershowitz commits a double-fallacy.  First, he’s already made a false link between Chomsky and a Holocaust denier, and he attempts to extend it to a radical-imam who wants to destroy the Jews.  Second, he ignores the fact that Chomsky has a very strict definition of “anti-Semitism” (he is a linguistics scholar after all).  If you say you hate Israel, you’re an anti-Zionist, if you say you hate Jews, you’re an anti-Semite.  With that definition he holds that Faurisson is an anti-Zionist, because he denounces “Zionist lies,” however, this does not make him an anti-Semite.  In Dershowitz’ attempt to draw a link between Chomsky and Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, who preaches hatred of Jews and blames Jews for the Holocaust, Dershowitz writes, ”Chomsky would not regard him as anti-Semitic”  Not only is that unsupported, but it’s not true.  Chomsky WOULD consider him to be anti-Semitic. 

Dershowitz does a very good job of misstating Chomsky’s views, in order to show that people, even someone as well-respected as Chomsky, who are critical of the state of Isreal, are also anti-Semitic. 

The real issue, is the question of, “is it anti-Semetic to single out Isreal” as Chomsky did when calling for colleges such as Harvard to devest their endowment money from Israel.  Of all the countries to single out, why would someone single out Israel, unless they were anti-Semetic?  “The intellectual godfather of this campaign is none other than Noam Chomsky, who has called for the abolition of the state of Israel and teh substitution of a ‘secular binational state.’

Well…first of all, I don’t know all of Chomsky’s views, but I doubt they’re based on “ignorance, bigotry, and cynicism,” as Dershowitz suggests.  The question is, what would possess Chomsky, a Jew himself, and so many others who believe in truth, freedom, and equality, to single out Israel over other countries for divestment?

As I reverse the picture, I begin to ask myself this question: Why does the US give so much support to Israel, over other countries for investment?  I’m not sure if schools give disproportionate amount of funds to Israel, but I’m certain we give more military aid to Israel than any other nation.  My recent discoveries of US history show me that when the US gives aid, it tends to be to aid our corporations to get rich, while ensuring that the democracy we support is a democracy that is willing to oppress its own people. 

However, Israel is clearly a double-edged sword, because it is viewed as the homeland of the Jews.  Yes…it was 5 years ago now that I just returned from a 10-day “birthright Isreal trip,” an all expense paid trip paid for by two very rich and gernerous millionaires, who wanted to help Jewish people, mostly college students, who had never been on an organized trip to Israel, to get back in touch with their culture. 

So…unlike US actions in Central and South America to overthrow certain democracies and support others, which was supported purely by corporate greed (see post below), support for Israel comes from Jews as well, and for the primary and legitimate reason of wanting a safe Jewish homeland after nearly being exterminated in WWII (and the anti-Semitism that has existed for centuries before that). 

However, my new rule is to look for the Trojan Horse from politicians.  Seeing that it’s the Republican party and radical-rights that support Israel, I think they’ve created a smoke screen to support a legitimate cause with Jewish backing, to cover-up for the corporate cause, of strategic economic and political positioning in the oil-rich Middle East.

TOPIC: STARTLING REVELATIONS…WITH EVIDENCE

I’ve spent the last two days in the book store, reading a combination of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.  If you wish, you may discredit the arguments I am about to make, solely on the basis of my sources.  I recently had a debate w/ someone who is skeptical of Chomsky because he is “anti-semetic,” or at least, “anti-israeli.”  While Chomsky may be anti-israel in some respect, that is another separate topic with its own reasons that I am not well-versed in.  The bottom line remains, however, that both Chomsky and Zinn are driven for justice, equality, tolerance, and peace, at the head of all their views on history, politics, and economics.  If you haven’t heard of these two people, or if you don’t know much about their arguments, it’s probably because they’re not taught in our schools, not discussed in the media, therefor, leaving it to luck and circumstance to stumble on.

Here is my thesis:

The government of America is one of the greediest, stingiest, and most undemcratic countries there are.  Many hostilities towards the US, and many examples of foreign countries with ruthless leaders and extreme poverty, are partly a result of America’s own greed, stinginess, and our lack of support for the democratic ideals that we hold for our own country.

There are 5 points to highlight this:

1) America’s government has consistently opposed labor movements in favor of corporate interests, both here and abroad.

The Ludlow Massacre althought not a recent example (1913), is a historical example of how the US government has viewed its workers.  The story is of the stand-off between Colorado coal miners, upset that they were being paid only $1.68/day and working in miserable conditions.  Their union went on strike after one of their union activists was killed.  The Rockefeller family, who owned Colorado Fuel & Iron, was not at all pleased, and since they owned most of the town, they had most of the workers evicted.  The strike continued, and the National Guard was called in.  The ensuing harassment and killings of coal strikers fighting for an honest wage, represents the American governments’ position between corporations and labor.
For an international example, see our support for the anti-labor Rios Monnt in point #4.

2) America’s government has helped create trade laws through the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and other programs, that benefit US corporations, but deprive the masses of those profits and products. 

While in theory, the WTO organization should be protecting and helping poorer nations to develop, it forces poorer nations to adopt economic policies such as not allowing business subsidies to help its industries, while the US, already a developed nation, continues to subsidze its own companies, creating a lopsided trading playing field.  For more information click here, or here. and check out this organization that’s dedicated to the end of these unbalanced subsidies.

3) America’s tax and spend policies that disproportionatly benefit corporations and leave the poor without their basic needs of food, water, shelter, health care, education, and work. 

How does the US rank in say, infant mortality rates?  Singapore is #1 with 2.3 deaths of infants under the age of 1 for every 1000 births.  Guess how the US did.  We rank 43rd, with 7 deaths for every 1000 births.

4) America’s selective military actions that oppose 3rd world social democracies and supports 3rd world capitalist democracies.  This has generally gone hand-in-hand with supporting human rights violators and fascist governments.

ex) US support for the former President of Guatamala, Efraín Ríos Montt who has been called “Guatamala’s Hitler.” Upon seizing power, he created a junta that immediately suspended the constitution, shut the legislature down, set up secret tribunals, and began a campaign against political dissidents that included kidnapping, torture, and extra-judicial assassinations.  He threatened labor unions with firing squads, and attacked the native Mayan population, destroying nearly 600 villiages.  All of this with US support, praise, and in the name of promoting our brand of democracy, versus allowing Guatamala to develop as a social democracy.

ex) The US hates social programs so much, to the point that they destroyed the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Oxfam, an international development organization whose purpose is to eliminate world poverty, hailed the Sandinistas government: “exceptional in its strength of that governments committment…to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process.”

5) America’s giving of financial and military aid to oppressed people only when US corporatoins stand to benefit, while ignoring oppressed people when US corporations do not stand to benefit.  

ex) America’s support for the overthrow of President Hussein in Iraq vs. the non-discussion of America to overthrow President Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who has used his military to threaten and murder his political opponants.

We are fortunate in America in that we do have access to books, we can assemble, we can discuss.  In order to create a more just America and a more just world, we must first show people the level of injustice that exists.  What we’re up against are our media and school systems that do not shed light fully on the injustice, thereby, whether intentional or not, keeping our society ignorant, apathetic, and complicit in injustice.  Along with that, comes an ideology of patriotism, which makes it difficult for those, especially those who are in the super-wealthy, or the middle-class below them, to see the extent of these injustices which are not visible in their everyday lives.  That patriotism, the belief that “America is best,” that, “our poor are better than the poor around the world (which isn’t necessarily true), that, “America is the father and rightful owner of democracy, free to spread it where it sees fit,” a patriotism which does not see or recognize the extent of America’s opposition to true democratic values and economic justice, is a patriotism naturally opposed to the patriotism that believes, “we must help ALL people so that we can live in a world of democracy, a world of justice, a world without poverty, hunger, war, disease…”

I’ve also come up w/ a short list of 3 rules of “logic,” to keep in mind when listening to politicians:

1) lies – these are statements that represent facts which are untrue, or which omit important facts

2) exaggerations – drawing inappropriate conclusions from certain facts, non-sequitor

3) Trojan horse / misleading motives – using empty rhetoric to disguise alterior motives

ex) I picked up Foreign Policy magazine, and there was an article written by Colin Powell titled, “No Country Left Behind.”  Recognizing that this was named after Bush’s No Child Left Behind education policy, which is a trojan horse for taking apart public schooling, I immediately grew skeptical of Powell.

Powell draws a link between development, democracy, and security, setting us up with empty rhetoric for his Trojan horse:

“The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it.  Poverty arises and persists where corruption is endemic and enterprise is stifled, where basic fairness provided by the rule of law is absent.  In such circumstances, poverty is an assault against human dignity, and in that asault lies the natural seed of human anger.  The US cannot win the war on terror unless we confront the social and political roots of poverty…Ultimately, it is not possible to separate economics from politics.  We should not expect democracy to work in places where there is blatant economic injustice.”

These are Trojan horse arguments.  Powell’s true amtitoins are not to eliminate all poverty, or he would have had to show concern for US poverty, and his whole argument gets flipped on its head.  Suddenly, it’s Powell who has been part of a bad government, where corruption is endemic.  Suddenly, it’s the US that is assaulting human dignity.  Suddenly, the US is creating within its own borders, seeds of human anger.  Suddenly, we should not expect democracy to be working in America, where we too have blatant economic injustice.  He ties all of this into winning the war on terror.  We see clearer how the war on terror is a Trojan horse for other purposes, since a false link is made between poverty in general and terrorism. 

What is that Trojan horse?  It’s called neoliberalism.  Powell’s democracy and Powell’s economic justice equates to a world where every country looks like the US, a country where there’s a rich minority, and a poor majority.  A country where politics and the media are controlled largely by the interests of the wealthy, not the interests of the majority.  The very fact that Powell believes that poverty is ok in our country, but not in yours, shows, he is interested not in combatting poverty at all, but he is interested in interfering with other countries, even democratic ones.  This fits in with the model above.

Topic: thinking, reading, synthesizing

Thought to examine:

Most people were raised to believe the US is “good” because we have opposed those who have done bad.  Is it possible that we possess many of those bad qualities that we fight against?
ex) while we fought the evil atrocities of Hitler, the US supported racism at home

Thought to examine:

US ideals of freedom for all are second to none.  That’s what creates a justified sense that America is best.  However, freedom for all means recognizing those living with less freedom, both economically and legally than yourself.  How can we claim to be spreading freedom and equal opportunity for all to regions like the Middle East, when we do not fully implement these ideals ourselves?

Thought to examine:

Welath can be a good thing when used to benefit humanity.  How can wealth be used to harm humanity?  How does wealth result in power to shape society?  How has society been shaped by the beliefs of the wealthy?

Thought to examine:

How well documented is the student pracitce of beating the system of learning by cheating, pulling all-nighters, and cutting class?

Thought to examine:

The more I learn, the more outraged I become, the more likely I am to act.  As a Prof. of mine once said, action happens when there’s an issue that really makes you angry.  Without a complete education that includes controversy, there will not be education that will lead to outrage, there will not be education that will lead to political and civic engagement.  Why do more older people vote than younger?  I hypothesize that the young do not have the knowledge and experiences that would drive them to the ballot box.  Why are youth perceived as apathetic?  Becuase the majority of their lives have been spent in sanitized schools and classrooms.

Thought to examine:

What is it about our political system and politicians, that allows them to make decisions that violate many of the beliefs of the masses?  Why is there no 3rd voice in politics?

Person to look-up: Studs Turkel

Thoughts to examine:

One of the functions of the US gov’t is to raise revenue, and to spend it.  Does the US raise revenue in a fair way and spend in a way to meet the needs of all people?  The fundamental needs of all people include food, housing, education, and medical care.  The gov’t has not met the needs of the poor.  How has the gov’t helped the rich?
ex) pre-civil war, builders of railroads and canals received gov’t money, while workers make little money and lived in terrible conditions.

Zinn: “The great romantic story of the American railroads owes everything to government welfare.”

Seeing the big picture:

laissez-faire = rugged American individualsm = the gov’t should aid neither the poor nor the rich

Gov’t believes in laissez faire for the poor, socialism for the rich.  Socialsm for the rich comes in the forms of subsidies, tariffs, and military use for business rather than national interests.

Idea: To measure the effects of K-16 education, it woudl be useful to see what 22-28 year olds know and believe.  Qualatative and quantative data will help.  Possibly list terms and pople that are critical to understanding modern day politics, and see what % of people can state their importance to the big picture beyond simple facts.

Zinn: “It is shocking, it is irrational, it is unjust, that in a country as wealthy as the United States, any human being living within its borders whould not have these basic things.” (food, housing, medical care, education, and work)

“We need fresh thinking , new approaches.  The old formulas for socialism have been discredited by teh experience of “socialism” in teh Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  But the standard praise of capitalism is not warranted by the human results of the American system.  On the other hand, the mixed socialis and capitalist economies of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand have succeeded in achieving a certain degree of economic justice, a high standard of living available, without too much inequality, to the entire population.”

Thought to examine:

Looking beyond 100% socialism and 100% capitalism, what do we get?  Free-markets and profit-seekers have done great things for the world, but, where there is no profit to be made, the gov’t must introduce socialism to provide certain needs for the country.

Question to examine:

I’m curoius about the difference between planned and subsidized.  Peace Corps is a gov’t subsidized program that pays for people to do good work abroad.  In the 1930′s after economic disaster, the gov’t paid young people to plant trees and built roads, to clean parks and streets, to paint murals and perform plays.  How do subsidizes differ than planned programs, like education???

Thought to examine:

What are the ill effects of a 100% laissez-faire free-market philosophy.  In 1974, the US cut off food aid to Bangladesh, this resulted in famine and mass starvation.

Where does the federal budget go?
Who gets subsidies?
Who pays an unfair amount in taxes through special loop-holes and tax-breaks?

For further investigating:

Dominant ideologies in America are shaped by those who have wealth and power to overwhelm the mass media and education with their ideas.

I believe we need a radical reorganizing of American society.  Most people will agree with the values underlying this new society, but have either not considered it, or oppose it, because of what they have/have not been taught in school, and because of what they learn/don’t learn, from the mass media.

Thought to examine:

Whose interests are politician working for?
Is it mostly the rich who give to their campaigns?
Are campaign contributions more influential than public opinion?
Is the US political system corrupt, because of money and wealthy individuals/corporation, and their ability to donate to campaign contribution?
What role does lobbying have in effecting politics?
What role does money have in the lobbying process?

Thought to examine:

Is the US political system built to allow for a gradual progressoin of social change, or does the system of corporate influced politician, media, and schools, work to thwart, slow, and reverse progress?

How does corporate America affect schools and education?

Is it true the US gov’t has always been biased against justice and equality, against the poor and for the rich?

Interesting thought:

The 8-hour work day took years of strikes and rebellion.  Strikes were opposed by the power of the corporation, with the collaboration of the gov’t.  The New Deal cam about to respond to widespread disruption of labor struggles.

Zinn: “Americans often point with pride to the high standard of living of the working class – the families that own their own homes, a car, and a television, and can afford to go away on vacation.  All of this – the 8hr. day, a fairly decent wage, and vacations with pay – did not come about through the natural working of the market, or through the kindness of gov’t.  It came about through the direct action of workers themselves in their labor struggles or through the response of state and nat’l governments to the threat of labor militancy”

New topics to examine:

Democrats and Republicans are both neoliberals with strong business interests.
The richest .25% of American make 80% of individual political contributions.
Neoliberalism relies on consumers, not citizens.
Neoliberalism opposes true democracy
Corporate interests – gov’t subsidies and lower taxes

Current thought:

What am I learning and thinking about?  I’m thinking that nobody who only reads the daily papers and the history books from school, has an accurate picture of history and politics.  I’m thinking that despite the ideology we’re all taught to believe, of the US being the wealthiest and most benevolant country, we might actually be ond of the greediest and the biggest opponant of helping the poor.

Possible book title:

Everything I really needed to know, I didn’t learn in college: From job to life skills, historical to political knowledge

Questions:

Why was the spread of Communism seen as so evil?
Is it because it would bring an end to class systems, thereby harming the rich?

What are the realities of US politics?

Chomsky: “Neoliberal doctrines, whatever one thinks of them, undermine education and health, increase inequality, and reduce labor’s share in income.

Thought to examine:

The US, England, and Japanese economies gained their power through “protectionism and violence.”

Tariffs protected domestic growth.

Free-trade means no public subsidies.
Protectionism = relief to industry through subside

Many fortune 500 companies require the “socializing of losses or state takeover”

Marshall Plan aid was tied to the purchase of US agricultural products.  This interfered with free trade to benefit the US economy.

Many of the world’s problems can be understood because of US actions.

New ideas to examine:

Adam Smith, father of free-market capitalism, recognized the need for gov’t intervention to help working people.  Wanted free-markets with equality of outcome

New phrases:

classical liberalism = free markets
neoliberalism is the modern reality
libertarian socialists???
these ideas are supported by Bertrand Russell and John Dewey

New history:

US involvement in Brazil during Kennedy administration was to “spread freedom and democracy” = violent overthrow of a parliamentary democracy to inrease US private investments

Thought to examine:

In 1994, the Republican gains in gov’t led many to believe the country had “shifted right,” just like now, in 2004.  However, 60% of the public wanted social spending increased.  Public attitudes remean stubbornly socially democratic.

Interesting fact:

1/6 of GDP, or $1 Trillion, is tax-deductable spending on advertising.

Chomsky: “People pay for their privilage of being subjected to manipulation of their attitudes and behavior.”

Look into:

Business progaganda campaigns designed to overcome social democratic attitudes

Thought to examine:

Margaret Thatcher’s free-market for the poor, gov’t intervention for industry, resulted in the privatization of gas, electricity, and water.  Favors affluent customers, becomes a surcharge on the poor.  Child poverty and sickness skyrocketed.

What amount of US utilities are public/private?