JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE LACK OF “CRITICAL EDUCATION” IN AMERICA ASSISTS THE CARRYING ON OF EMPIRE’S UGLY EXCESSES – THE SECULAR RELIGION OF PATRIOTISM BLINDS PEOPLE – VESTED INTERESTS DO NOT WANT A BETTER COUNTRY, THEY WANT THE ONE THEY HAVE WHICH GRANTS THEM ALL THEIR PRIVILEGES – AMERICA’S BRUTAL POLICIES ABROAD ARE EVERY BIT AS HORRIFYING AS ARE ITS POLICE AT HOME BUT ON A FAR VASTER SCALE AND ALMOST NO ONE QUESTIONS THEM – BLIND RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY YIELDS THE CENTURIES OF ABUSE WE SAW BY THE CLERGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CONSORTIUM NEWS


How right you are.

But people are weighed down by such a massive state machinery, and it just never stops lying.

It might be less effective if people had some skepticism about government, about the military, about the security services, and about the corporate press, but I fear that is only the case for a small minority.

No attempt is made in American public education to encourage critical examination or skepticism, just as no effort is made in the dominant corporate press.

The average American student does not receive what can be called “a critical education,” the kind of education that would make them better citizens and America a better society. The secular religion of Patriotism, not open to any form of examination or questioning, just as is the case for all true religions, provides the rigid framework for American public education.

Consider how much damage was done to countless thousands by predatory clergy while the Catholic Church’s traditional inviolable respect for authority prevailed. Centuries of abuse. Organized religion has that kind of power, and it is no less the case for secular forms of religion.

Vested interests do not want a better country, they want just the one they have, the one rewarding them with their positions of authority and wealth. Education officials at all levels never meddle in such matters because their jobs would immediately be at risk. And just the same for the corporate press and its day-to-day education of people. It knows, as the old saying goes, which side of its bread is buttered, and it never lets principles of journalism stand in the way of corporate patriotic duty.

Look at the bitter national controversy we saw over so simple a matter as some football players respectfully kneeling during the national anthem, a legitimate form of protest over a deadly concern. The airwaves and the Internet spluttered with stuff about players lacking patriotism and even accusations of treason. The vice President left the audience at a game once. The President was savagely calling for players or officials to be dismissed.

All over a gesture, one done with genuine respect, concerning a problem few Americans seemed to want to know about, and that is that American police on average kill three citizens every single day, and they seriously abuse and injure many times that. Every day. No terrorists could hope to match the achievement.

Only now, after massive demonstrations in the streets do we see perhaps some signs of relenting in the matter, although it is hard to tell when team sports are not being played in packed stadiums.

Imagine the fate of American school officials who encouraged the critical examination and questioning of the country’s frightful policies abroad, every bit as terrifying as brutal local police but on a far grander scale, or the country’s corrupt system of government by and for wealth?