One of the main problems with our society is that words have lost their meaning. In spoken languages, the tone of a word can be used to make inferences that may be completely unrelated to the meaning of the word. This is especially true when dealing with propaganda. When certain people or organizations want to dismiss an argument, they tend to phrase words in such a way that makes them appear illogical or treacherous if given credence.
One of these words is “conspiracy”, and when put together with the word “theory” it becomes the infamous phrase “Conspiracy Theory”. Let’s take a look at the definition of these two words and try to figure out why they have been used to discredit not only people, but history, data, and facts.
The legal definition of conspiracy is “an agreement between two or more persons to commit an illegal or unlawful act, or to achieve a legal act but by illegal or unlawful means.” A theory is “a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena.”
So a conspiracy theory is a conjecture that two or more people may have planned an unlawful act, and if certain facts are proven to be true, then the conspiracy theory becomes reality.
So in the phrase “conspiracy theory”, it is not the conspiracy that needs to be scrutinized, but the data on which the theory is based on. And this is where the problem lies. Neither the mainstream media nor those in power have any desire to investigate the theory behind the argument. If they did, many questions could arise from the investigation which in turn could be devastating for the status quo.
So next time the phrase “conspiracy theory” is used to discredit someone, just point out that the conspiracy is not in question, but rather the data being presented from the theory. Then ask them what part of the argument they disagree with. You’ll most likely find out that they know less about the theory behind the conspiracy than they know about history. This is when you can direct them to the teachings of Noam Chomsky - regarded as a leading contemporary historian, the author of over 100 books, and voted the "world's top public intellectual" in 2005.
II. Chomsky, a Conspiracy Theorist
As for where to begin with Chomsky’s vast library, may I recommend the following video from 2006 in which he is asked what he would say to George W. Bush if he had one minute alone with him. His reply:
“To tell you the honest truth, I doubt very much that George Bush has much to do with policy formation, I mean, the way the President is more or less like royalty in the United States. So the Queen of England opens Parliament with a speech, right, but nobody asks whether she believes it, or whether she understands it. Her role is a ceremonial role. It’s a role that’s connected with unity of the people, patriotism, obedience, and so on and so forth. The content is something else, that’s by people who run the country.
“The people who run the country are those in political office, but much more importantly their associates and the concentrations of private economic power. That’s where the country is really run, and that shouldn’t be a big secret either. America’s leading social philosopher John Dewey, who’s right very mainstream American, he pointed out that once, that as long as we have what he called industrial feudalism rather than industrial democracy - that means tyrannical totalitarian institutions running the economy – command economies basically, instead of industrial democracy where workers control management, as long as we have that than ‘politics will be the shadow cast by business over society’, and that’s approximately accurate. It’s not like the State has no independent choices, it does, but an amalgam.
“Exactly the role that George Bush plays in this is very dubious, questionable. In some cases like say Ronald Reagan, he probably didn’t even know what the policies where. He was reading off his note cards or the teleprompter or something like that. And Bush may have some knowledge of them but I think he’s mostly a ceremonial figure trained to act in certain ways and so on. So if I had a minute with him, I would say, you know, have you talked to god lately or something like that.”
The root cause of society’s ills is how we deal with education. Deep down we all know this, but for decades we have barely lifted a finger to address it. The main reason for this inaction is because most of us are ourselves products of this defective system. We have been programed for obedience, turned into self-absorbed apathetic beings that submit to authority and fear dissent.
Noam Chomsky: Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young
We are bombarded with propaganda that wants us to believe in the economy. That if everyone had a job and the economy was growing at whatever rate our centralized governments had set, then all would be well. There are two problems with this mindset. First, our crony cannibalistic economic system will never reach this zenith. Second, it’s a lie; a better economy is not the solution to our woes. What is, is educating our children to become integrated beings, free of envy and materialism. Unfortunately, our present education system is not set up to achieve this task, not yet anyway, but it’s coming, and it will change everything.
Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley
No matter what the final outcome, the simple fact is that a centralized system should never again be allowed to dominate education in our society. We are diverse and social creatures and require intimate and personal stimulation to grow, learn, question, and create. To be educated we need engagement; to be fulfilled we need to be triggered – we need educators that engage students - to challenge, inspire, and motivate.
As for how we can achieve this task? The answers have been available for decades, we just haven’t acted on them. Below you will find some examples of what needs to be done.
“The function of education is to create human beings who are integrated and therefore intelligent. We may take degrees and be mechanically efficient without being intelligent. Intelligence is not mere information; it is not derived from books, nor does it consist of clever self-defensive responses and aggressive assertions. One who has not studied may be more intelligent than the learned. We have made examinations and degrees the criterion of intelligence and have developed cunning minds that avoid vital human issues. Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education.
“Education should help us to discover lasting values so that we do not merely cling to formulas or repeat slogans; it should help us to break down our national and social barriers, instead of emphasizing them, for they breed antagonism between man and man. Unfortunately, the present system of education is making us subservient, mechanical and deeply thoughtless; though it awakens us intellectually, inwardly it leaves us incomplete, stultified and uncreative.
“Without an integrated understanding of life, our individual and collective problems will only deepen and extend. The purpose of education is not to produce mere scholars, technicians and job hunters, but integrated men and women who are free of fear; for only between such human beings can there be enduring peace.”…
“Any method which classifies children according to temperament and aptitude merely emphasizes their differences; it breeds antagonism, encourages divisions in society and does not help to develop integrated human beings. It is obvious that no method or system can provide the right kind of education, and strict adherence to a particular method indicates sluggishness on the part of the educator. As long as education is based on cut-and-dried principles, it can turn out men and women who are efficient, but it cannot produce creative human beings.
“Only love can bring about the understanding of another. Where there is love there is instantaneous communion with the other, on the same level and at the same time. It is because we ourselves are so dry, empty and without love that we have allowed governments and systems to take over the education of our children and the direction of our lives; but governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments - and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.
“Life cannot be made to conform to a system, it cannot be forced into a framework, however nobly conceived; and a mind that has merely been trained in factual knowledge is incapable of meeting life with its variety, its subtlety, its depths and great heights. When we train our children according to a system of thought or a particular discipline, when we teach them to think within departmental divisions, we prevent them from growing into integrated men and women, and therefore they are incapable of thinking intelligently, which is to meet life as a whole.”…
“To discover what part education can play in the present world crisis, we should understand how that crisis has come into being. It is obviously the result of wrong values in our relationship to people, to property and to ideas. If our relationship with others is based on self-aggrandizement, and our relationship to property is acquisitive, the structure of society is bound to be competitive and self-isolating. If in our relationship with ideas we justify one ideology in opposition to another, mutual distrust and ill will are the inevitable results.
“Another cause of the present chaos is dependence on authority, on leaders, whether in daily life, in the small school or in the university. Leaders and their authority are deteriorating factors in any culture. When we follow another there is no understanding, but only fear and conformity, eventually leading to the cruelty of the totalitarian State and the dogmatism of organized religion.
“To rely on governments, to look to organizations and authorities for that peace which must begin with the under- standing of ourselves, is to create further and still greater conflict; and there can be no lasting happiness as long as we accept a social order in which there is endless strife and antagonism between man and man. If we want to change existing conditions, we must first transform ourselves, which means that we must become aware of our own actions, thoughts and feelings in everyday life.
“But we do not really want peace, we do not want to put an end to exploitation. We will not allow our greed to be interfered with, or the foundations of our present social structure to be altered; we want things to continue as they are with only superficial modifications, and so the powerful, the cunning inevitably rule our lives.
“Peace is not achieved through any ideology, it does not depend on legislation; it comes only when we as individuals begin to understand our own psychological process. If we avoid the responsibility of acting individually and wait for some new system to establish peace, we shall merely become the slaves of that system.
“When governments, dictators, big business and the clerically powerful begin to see that this increasing antagonism between men only leads to indiscriminate destruction and is therefore no longer profitable, they may force us, through legislation and other means of compulsion, to suppress our personal cravings and ambitions and to co-operate for the well-being of mankind. just as we are now educated and encouraged to be competitive and ruthless, so then we shall be compelled to respect one another and to work for the world as a whole. And even though we may all be well fed, clothed and sheltered, we shall not be free of our conflicts and antagonisms, which will merely have shifted to another plane, where they will be still more diabolical and devastating. The only moral or righteous action is voluntary, and understanding alone can bring peace and happiness to man.
“Beliefs, ideologies and organized religions are setting us against our neighbours; there is conflict, not only among different societies, but among groups within the same society. We must realize that as long as we identify ourselves with a country, as long as we cling to security, as long as we are conditioned by dogmas, there will be strife and misery both within ourselves and in the world.”…
“It is only when we begin to understand the deep significance of human life that there can be true education; but to understand, the mind must intelligently free itself from the desire for reward which breeds fear and conformity. If we regard our children as personal property, if to us they are the continuance of our petty selves and the fulfilment of our ambitions, then we shall build an environment, a social structure in which there is no love, but only the pursuit of self-centred advantages.
“A school which is successful in the worldly sense is more often than not a failure as an educational centre. A large and flourishing institution in which hundreds of children are educated together, with all its accompanying show and success, can turn out bank clerks and super-salesmen, industrialists or commissars, superficial people who are technically efficient; but there is hope only in the integrated individual, which only small schools can help to bring about. That is why it is far more important to have schools with a limited number of boys and girls and the right kind of educators, than to practise the latest and best methods in large institutions.
“Unfortunately, one of our confusing difficulties is that we think we must operate on a huge scale. Most of us want large schools with imposing buildings, even though they are obviously not the right kind of educational centres, because we want to transform or affect what we call the masses.
“But who are the masses? You and I. Let us not get lost in the thought that the masses must also be rightly educated. The consideration of the mass is a form of escape from immediate action. Right education will become universal if we begin with the immediate, if we are aware of ourselves in our relationship with our children, with our friends and neighbours. Our own action in the world we live in, in the world of our family and friends, will have expanding influence and effect.
“By being fully aware of ourselves in all our relationships we shall begin to discover those confusions and limitations within us of which we are now ignorant; and in being aware of them, we shall understand and so dissolve them. Without this awareness and the self-knowledge which it brings, any reform in education or in other fields will only lead to further antagonism and misery.
“In building enormous institutions and employing teachers who depend on a system instead of being alert and observant in their relationship with the individual student, we merely encourage the accumulation of facts, the development of capacity, and the habit of thinking mechanically, according to a pattern; but certainly none of this helps the student to grow into an integrated human being. Systems may have a limited use in the hands of alert and thoughtful educators, but they do not make for intelligence. Yet it is strange that words like ‘system,’ ‘institution,’ have become very important to us. Symbols have taken the place of reality, and we are content that it should be so; for reality is disturbing, while shadows give comfort.
“Nothing of fundamental value can be accomplished through mass instruction, but only through the careful study and understanding of the difficulties, tendencies and capacities of each child; and those who are aware of this, and who earnestly desire to understand themselves and help the young, should come together and start a school that will have vital significance in the child's life by helping him to be integrated and intelligent. To start such a school, they need not wait until they have the necessary means. One can be a true teacher at home, and opportunities will come to the earnest.
“Those who love their own children and the children about them, and who are therefore in earnest, will see to it that a right school is started somewhere around the corner, or in their own home.Then the money will come - it is the least important consideration. To maintain a small school of the right kind is of course financially difficult; it can flourish only on self-sacrifice, not on a fat bank account. Money invariably corrupts unless there is love and understanding. But if it is really a worthwhile school, the necessary help will be found. When there is love of the child, all things are possible.”…
It should be mandatory viewing for every citizen of every country that was involved in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It shows life from our and our allies perspective – the honest, the honorable, the gullible, the liars, the politicians, the occupying forces, the Afghan security forces, the war lords, the addicts, the desperate, the corrupt, the child molesters, the murderers, the government – the fantasy that has been defined as victory.
The documentary is well worth watching and should be sobering for anyone who has not yet come to terms with what has been unleashed. The Following quote from an elected local Afghan official sums up the consequences quite well (emphasis added):
“When they came to Afghanistan they came here for a purpose. They couldn’t fulfill their purpose and now they are trying to release themselves. We know this very well. Where have they provided us peace, that now they are leaving? Have they built factories for us? Did they give us any air force? Any tanks? They have spent millions and millions and lost thousands of soldiers. American, British and other countries have lost their men here. We know this.
“How can we stand against the Taliban on our own? How can we defeat them with just two hands and feet? We will survive. But they will be taking the war back to America!”
