I survived college and university in the late 60's and early 70's, attending four different undergraduate institutions, accumulating three majors over a period of six years and refusing to graduate. What an era and what an attitude.
During that time the campuses around the U.S. were seething with anger. Fist-raising, army-drab clad radicals loudly insisted: "Everything is politics!" I tried to be one of them because lord knows I was angry. And I was angry for much the same reason as most others were: There are, in the world, injustices and wrongs and I lacked the character to understand them. I had the appropriately long hair and beard, I spouted the rhetoric, attended a few radical meetings (even one of Radical Psychiatrists! Holy moly!), subscribed to the East Village Other and Paul Krasner's The Realist, listened to underground rock and did psychedelic drugs. I espoused all sorts of predigested beliefs from my liberal arts indoctrination exactly as college was, and still is, designed to program me to do. I was typical.
It took me until college to learn the lesson of getting good grades. After 12 years of resisting school through elementary and secondary institutions, wishing I was elsewhere and passing each grade despite my lack of interest, I learned the mystery of getting "A": Give back to the professors exactly what they wanted and presto, Bob's your uncle, you got an "A". It was truly revelatory. I had discovered the secret of "A".
Some years later while attending a state university I realized that this same formula was the key to being a good, government employee and state-controlled citizen. It came in the form of ideological indoctrination and modern "schooling" (as in a school of fish - that's the derivation of the concept of school): It is not education, it is politics, and politics is population control. Give to the state what it wants and you may continue. Play by all the rules, do everything expected and you get an "A". The state wants compliance, complicity and obedience. If you don't follow the slavish rules voluntarily, the state will use coercion, then force, to get your compliance.
My
Definition of Politics
My operating definition of politics is, simply, "population control." More specifically, politics is the means of achieving control of the masses through indoctrination, deception, coercion, dependency and force. Behind every law is the threat of force. The state aspires, ultimately, to acquire total control of the individual and all aspects of human life. It most profoundly and urgently does not want, and will not tolerate for long, depending on the level of authoritarianism to which it has degenerated, rationality, facts, free speech or creativity.
My operating definition of politics is, simply, "population control." More specifically, politics is the means of achieving control of the masses through indoctrination, deception, coercion, dependency and force. Behind every law is the threat of force. The state aspires, ultimately, to acquire total control of the individual and all aspects of human life. It most profoundly and urgently does not want, and will not tolerate for long, depending on the level of authoritarianism to which it has degenerated, rationality, facts, free speech or creativity.
The
Problem was Dropped in My Lap
I was aware at an early age in the 1950's that a horrific problem had been dropped in my lap: How could the horrors of WWII, including the nuclear stand-off with the Soviet Union and the atrocities perpetrated by socialist states, have occurred? How could the populations of Germany and the Soviet Union and Japan allow their leaders to be so vicious? Why would their populations join in the mayhem, slaughtering others and then each other and sometimes themselves, in the name of their socialist leaders? (Not distinguishing here between the various brands of socialism, be it international socialism or communism, national socialism, fascistic socialism or democratic socialism.)
I was aware at an early age in the 1950's that a horrific problem had been dropped in my lap: How could the horrors of WWII, including the nuclear stand-off with the Soviet Union and the atrocities perpetrated by socialist states, have occurred? How could the populations of Germany and the Soviet Union and Japan allow their leaders to be so vicious? Why would their populations join in the mayhem, slaughtering others and then each other and sometimes themselves, in the name of their socialist leaders? (Not distinguishing here between the various brands of socialism, be it international socialism or communism, national socialism, fascistic socialism or democratic socialism.)
Current
State of Affairs in the United States
Currently we have an increasingly authoritarian governmental system running through a top-heavy bureaucracy that is incapable of sustaining its own expenses on any amount of taxation, currently nineteen trillion dollars in debt with over one hundred and twenty-seven trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. This can never be paid off. Our children and grandchildren are slaves to this debt. It is quite intentional. The dollar is a debt-based currency.
The present government state is a warfare-welfare state wherein one party of criminals supports the welfare state and is complicit with the warfare state and the other criminal political party supports the warfare state and is complicit with or even supportive of the welfare state. Each side is a "political party" and there is no room in Dodge for any other.
Both war and welfare generate horrendous debt for nothing in return. War and welfare harm and burden the tax base beyond tolerance. This has always been the case for every civilization in the last 7,000 years of recorded human history that has engaged in either or both of these economic and social aberrations.
Currently we have an increasingly authoritarian governmental system running through a top-heavy bureaucracy that is incapable of sustaining its own expenses on any amount of taxation, currently nineteen trillion dollars in debt with over one hundred and twenty-seven trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. This can never be paid off. Our children and grandchildren are slaves to this debt. It is quite intentional. The dollar is a debt-based currency.
The present government state is a warfare-welfare state wherein one party of criminals supports the welfare state and is complicit with the warfare state and the other criminal political party supports the warfare state and is complicit with or even supportive of the welfare state. Each side is a "political party" and there is no room in Dodge for any other.
Both war and welfare generate horrendous debt for nothing in return. War and welfare harm and burden the tax base beyond tolerance. This has always been the case for every civilization in the last 7,000 years of recorded human history that has engaged in either or both of these economic and social aberrations.
