Day 207: Does Our Education System Breed Enemies?

This is a continuation from the previous post here.

What we must face and admit, is that when we are only thinking of ourselves and holding ourselves and our actions to different standards than we hold others, that if we can look at who we are within doing that, that we have essentially made ourself an enemy of who we are acting against. That within that, we are the criminal, because we have justified doing harm to another that we would not accept to be done to ourself by another, and thus we cause our own problems through our own disregard of each other.

This solution to inequality is simply not taught, because it’s not ‘good for business’ for those that would profit from the system the way it is, and thus why it is a point of self-education to correct the misinformation we are instilled with. I suggest to investigate the Living Income Guaranteed, which shows that there is another way we can do things here, which is based on the very principle of to ‘do unto another as you’d have done unto you’, or, in other words, to ‘give as you would like to receive’, which really means to break out of the misconception of considering oneself in opposition to all others, and to consider all beings as equal to you.

As Howard Zinn discusses in this interview Howard Zinn - Hidden History of The American Working Class  how the education system actually presents this very one-sided picture of the U.S. where they take what has been a very violent and exploitative history (and still ongoing) and twists it into a pretty picture, where all the actions of the U.S. are apparently justified, and the actions of all other countries are unacceptable, even when it is the same or not even as extreme, as the very actions of the U.S. unto other countries. This education, which is reinforced by our media and Hollywood, is what predominantly shapes our lopsided value-system. Watch this fascinating documentary Hollywood and the war machine to see how Hollywood has been deliberately utilized as propaganda to drive wars.

I myself was a product of the disinformation of what we learn in the education system and how the media presents things, because it was all I knew at one point. And I never questioned it until I was faced with different sides of the story, for example if you would read The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, probably one of the most important history lessons you will ever have.

And I must say that although I practically never enjoyed the history classes I had in school, I loved reading this, because it was not meaningless and detached and full of holes like the history I learned in school, where history is simply not taught in a way that would typically engage a student, because you are essentially being told the way things are but given no real honest explanation, or for that matter, any consideration of the consequences of what we’ve done throughout our history. I mean history is quite commonly thought of as an extremely boring and annoying subject, and that works out quite well from those who would benefit from the mass of the population not knowing really anything about history or having any interest in it whatsoever, because that is how you can get away with using the same control tactics again and again. I mean, if no one remembers what happened before, we won’t be watching out for it again, and that’s how we fall for the same old stories and ideas that become the justifications that lead us into war, which is a very profitable business for some.

Within all this, I eventually accepted the justifications myself, that apparently we have enemies and thus must fight them and we’re ‘protecting’ ourselves. I was so sold on the idea that apparently there were these vicious enemies out there who were big and posed some sort of real threat to us and so we just had to protect ourselves. Yet, I had no idea actually how bid any of these countries were, or how developed they are, and probably most importantly why do they apparently want to attack us? I mean, for me to want to attack someone, it took a reason. I had to believe that they were a threat to me or harmed me in some way. So, wouldn’t that hold true for the supposed ‘enemies’ as well? I mean, I knew they are people, human beings, just like me. Same bodies with superficial differences, and you’ve got moms and dads and children, etc. They all need the same things as me like food, water, shelter, education. Sure we have some cultural differences, though those are usually blown out of proportion by the media, in order to highlight our apparent differences, to feed the idea and misperception that there could be human beings out there that are ‘just different’ and just want to harm us for no good reason, and so we won’t ever realize that nobody just wants to hurt others, and we’ll never investigate or question to get to the bottom of what is really going on, as such behavior is always the symptom of something out of ordinary going on.

We’ll go up to here for this post and continue in the next.
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Day 206: Noam Chomsky and U.S. Exceptionalism



Chomsky: US drone campaign is world's biggest terrorist action (EXCLUSIVE)


In watching this recent interview with Noam Chomsky, he speaks about ‘exceptionalism’ and how every great power at some point claims exception for their deeds, for deeds which would not be acceptable or legal on a universal scale. Chomsky mentions a case involving the apprehension of an individual in Libya, and where the Secretary of State was asked in a press conference whether this was legal, and he stated that it’s legal; it’s in accord with American law. Chomsky points out that this obviously doesn’t mean that it is in accordance with international law. For example, obviously other countries are not going to have laws that state that the U.S. can come into another country and just take who they like.

How is it that we’ve come to accept this kind of duplicity or ‘double standard’ to take place at a governmental level? It’s because we have accepted it within ourselves; we live this at an individual level. We do this very same thing within our individual daily lives, where we justify our actions regardless of the fact that our actions weren’t in the actual consideration of what is best for everyone, and whether our actions are what would be acceptable if they were, for example, done to ourselves.

Basically, we’ve missed the boat on living according to the principle of Jesus’ message, which is to ‘do unto another as you’d have done unto you’. We have instead come up with all sorts of exceptions, excuses, justifications, reasons, as to why we apparently had to take some action the likes of which we would never want done to ourselves. And through this, we create enemies of each other, just like we do at the national scale as countries, as Chomsky points out as well, that our ‘justified’ drone strikes are busy creating lots of enemies. 

No wonder the drone strike movement is taking place – it’s Great for business. Because it ensures a fresh and constant stream of enemies that we’ll always have to spend lots of money on defense systems to apparently protect ourselves from, despite the fact that most of the apparent ‘threats’ out there, really don’t pose any threat in comparison to the ‘might’ of the U.S., which is actually the current predominant ‘threat’ in the world, causing all sorts of terror, in the very name of a ‘war on terror’.

What it always comes down to is money, and the control of money, and therefore we are going to hear whatever excuse is necessary to justify continuing war and invasion and destruction of societies, to keep that business booming. But we as individuals have got to sort ourselves out, so that we can begin to recognize when we are hearing justifications, which means sorting out when we ourselves are using justifications to excuse our own behaviors. 

What it comes down to is a practical re-education for ourselves, because we really have never lived in any other way other than only considering ourself and what is apparently best for ourself, and it’s always been a me vs. everyone else out there kind of situation. I mean, you can really see this within relationships such as friendships where despite the premise being that you’re in a relationship where you’re nice and friendly and look out for each other, there is often really a lot of nastiness that goes on behind others backs, usually within the idea that one is just ‘looking out for oneself’. You also see this in a lot of relationships between family members as well, where things can get really vindictive. There are some popular TV series out there that really exemplify our dysfunction in relationships.

The re-education point is where we realize that there is another way to exist, than me against everyone else. That if we don’t sort ourselves out, our relationships are only going to get more consequential, on the personal and global scale, which is already quite escalated. So, it’s not to judge and say how horrible or evil we are because we are nasty to each other, but rather to understand that when we’re only considering ourselves as if we’re the only ones that really exist, and applying a double standard, where we can excuse our actions, and yet expect another to not do the same, that this is consequential and is the very reason that we have ourselves entrenched still in wars and the extreme harm of each other and our environment. And, thus, that only considering ourselves is actually not ending up resulting in an outcome that is best for ourself after all, but is leading to a world of consequence where children are not safe to play in the streets, where you cannot trust one another, where we must have locks on our doors and our possessions, where you don’t want to be out late at night on city streets. I mean, why would we accept a world where it is not safe everywhere, in every single nook and cranny? 

On that note, we’ll go up to here for this blog post, and continue in the next.

For those interesting in sorting oneself out, there is the Free DIP Lite course that offers a streamlined approach to the process with one-on-one assistance throughout the course.


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What is the Living Income Guaranteed?

Living Income Guaranteed is an economic and political mechanism to ensure the establishment of Fundamental Human Birth Rights of the public through allocating a budget on a monthly basis to every eligible individual that is currently in a position of being unable to sustain themselves – and/or people in their custody – financially to a satisfactorily level that Human Dignity deserves and that currently lack such support due to reasons beyond their immediate control including – but not limited to – unemployment, lacking access to food, lacking access to housing, lacking access to healthcare, lacking access to education, physical disability, being retired or not old enough to have a job.


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