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I'm 100% sure that Tolli will be interested in all the works of John Taylor Gatto but this is a thread that I will post other relevent material about JTG.

Introduction

Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling. In it, he demonstrates that the harm school inflicts is rational and deliberate. The real function of modern pedagogy, he argues, is to render the population manageable. Filled with examples of people who have escaped the trap of compulsory schooling, Weapons of Mass Instruction shows us that the realization of personal potential requires a different way of growing up and growing competent, one Gatto calls "open-source learning". Urgent and controversial, this book will appeal to any who harbor doubts about the current education system.

St. Paul and the Rulebook Dragon

The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs, parking meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program called "verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly shocking: Traffic safey has improved dramatically. Under circumestances where they are drawn into leadership roles, people take it upon themselves to look out for their own and others' best interest, even in the absence of rules and enforcement.

-- paraphrased from Jonathan Zittrain,
The future of the Internet, pp 127-128

St. Paul's New Testament letters to the congregations ( which later co-alesced into the Christian movement) have something to say to us all about what needs changing in the way we school. For Paul, excessive regulation ruins the quality of life and corrupts leadership by requiring bureaucrats to enforce the rules, and more officials to regulate those officials. Ad infititum.

In many different words, Paul repeats over and over that the new congregations won't find savlation by following the old rules. Eliminate the religious background for a minute and what Paul faced was the school problem of our own day -- the conflict between interest groups whose income and status derives from keeping things as they are, and an insurgency whose needs have been neglected by the entrenched management and which demands profound change.

Translated into contemporary idiom, Paul says make up the rules as you go along to fit individual cases. As long as the root principle of love is honored, then things will work out.

The political establishment of Paul's day was the ancient Israel of the Mishnah, a stupendous collection of rules for even the most obvscure circumstances like the height from which someone should pour water on a manure pile. Like modern bureaucratic schooling, there can be little adaptation to particular cases, the system is wedded to certainty. Find a thief? Cut off his nose! Find an adulteress? Stone her to death! When in doubt, don't think -- follow the rules.

The new insurgency travelled a different road. If someone steals your coat, give him your cloak, too: if someone strikes your left chee, turn the right one to be struck, too. Unto this last: pay workmen who labor half a day the same wage as those who labor a whole day.

Rule boook people find these pronouncements maddening, incomprehensible. Our forced schooling has brought back the rule-choked social environment of Paul's day, and our surveillance society has provided the technology to punish deviants which Paul's lacked. Through the three-headed rule monster of school and college, corporations, and government, American society has been radically de-invidualized, one in every five American jobs is some form of oversight over the behavior of others.

It is six times more likely you will end up in jail in the United States than it is in Communist China (which now possesses the ability to ruin America economically by cashing in its loan to us). Six times more likely to rot in jail here than in China. All by itself that fact should cause you to re-evaluate the road that leadership -- of all  our political parties and corporations -- has committed us to walking. It is the schools which keep us on that road.

The insurgency of 21st century America, still disorganized but daily becoming less so, has made its presence felt through the explosive growth of homeschooling, through the Internet, and through various novel areas of crime. Identity theft, a rarity throughout history, has become an unstoppable epidemic: huge commercial operations in film and music are seriously jeopardized by technologies which return control to the individual. The security of banks, government installations, and much more -- like patents and copyrights -- is under serious siege.

Formulas for powerful weapons like the TATP bomb which paralyzed London subways a few years ago, compounded from six pounds of peroxide, paint remover, and drain cleaner in the ratio of 3/3/3, stabilized with saw dust, and stuffed into a strong steel container to be detonated by a cell phone and are circulating widely across the planet. Those materials cost less than $100 and are available in every hardware store on Earth.

Our reckless military operations in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, have violated central precepts of warfare set down by Von Clausewitz -- a superior technology doesn't promiscuously attack its victims, it threatens. To commit a major attack is to expose your technology to scrutiny, which holds two dangers: first, that expensive machinery is badly over matched against an insurgency trained in guerrilla tactics, and second that the enemy will gradually upgrade his own technology by studying your tactics and stealing your weapons. What American has to show for 50 years of continuous warfare against weak, stone-age opponents, is this: besides crippling our future with a reckless expenditure of capital on products which produce nothing, like weaponry, and destroy themselves in use, we have notified every corner of the world that our overwhelming military isn't overwhelming at all and can be beaten by ordinary people of courage, with primitive military hardware, who refuse to be intimidated.

Surely I can't be the only one to notice that Sunnis and Shiites and Taliban have reasons to risk their lives, (reasons known to everyone in the population including their fighters), and we do not. Our reasons to fight are locked up in secret meetings and memos known to a small fraction of the population -- the same fraction which, not surprisingly, once upon a time gave us forced institutional schooling.

Some serious crazy theories in this thread. I'll just pick random falsehoods and make some observations.

The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs, parking meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program called "verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly shocking: Traffic safey has improved dramatically. Under circumestances where they are drawn into leadership roles, people take it upon themselves to look out for their own and others' best interest, even in the absence of rules and enforcement.

Drachten is not a city. It's a town of 45,000 people. Try conducting a medium sized city+metro (population 1+ million) without traffic regulation.

St. Paul

I'll let this out now: Paul is my most hated apostle. He was a complete xenophobe, highly supported patriarchy, and sole Biblical (New Testament) condemner of homosexuals. Ever wonder why women were banned from leadership in the Church? Paul. Hell, you can argue Paul founded the Pope's role as embodiment of Christ. He also, thankfully, declared everything not the church is under the scrutiny of the Church. Predestination was devised from his words. But I digress.

The political establishment of Paul's day was the ancient Israel of the Mishnah

Is factually incorrect. Ancient Israel was between the 9th century BCE until 63 BCE, when it was conquered by Rome. Paul was born around 5 CE (AD) in Turkey and died in Rome. Hardly an ancient Israelite. He lived under the Roman Empire.

Communist China

"Communist"? China has had a fully mixed economy since 1978.

Identity theft, a rarity throughout history, has become an unstoppable epidemic

This is a product of technology rather than the state. Would you do without identities or without the technology?



Let's move on to Tolli!

We should have bombed Saudi Arabia, wherever the citizens from Egypt were, Lebanon, wherever the citizens of UAE were, and Pakistan.

Why the **** do you want to bomb our allies? I mean, I'll agree if you want to bring some freedom to Saudi Arabia, but there is ZERO suspicion Saudis have been involved in terrorism. You want to bomb EGYPT too? WtF have they done to us? The UAE? You want to bomb the financial capital of the Middle East? They'll surely love us then! Pakistan? Another ally to bomb! w00t America's friends are forever! And why are we bombing Lebanon, the Switzerland of the East?

Tolli, why do you want to bomb random countries? The post before you just said it's dumb to bomb them and you "agree[d] with everything you've just posted."

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The Dutch city of Drachten did away with traffic signs, parking meters, and even parking spaces as part of a program called "verkeersbordvrij." The results have been pleasantly shocking: Traffic safety has improved dramatically. Under circumstances where they are drawn into leadership roles, people take it upon themselves to look out for their own and others' best interest, even in the absence of rules and enforcement.

Drachten is not a city. It's a town of 45,000 people. Try conducting a medium sized city+metro (population 1+ million) without traffic regulation.

Even within the English-speaking world there is no one standard definition of a city: the term may be used either for a town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population size; for a town dominating other towns with particular regional economic or administrative significance. Yes, I suppose it's important to note that the population is the town of Drachten is 44,629 but his point was more to do with excessive regulation and the bureaucratic system of schooling. As for an similar experiment to be conducted in a larger town or city.. well that would be interesting to say the least.

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The political establishment of Paul's day was the ancient Israel of the Mishnah

Is factually incorrect. Ancient Israel was between the 9th century BCE until 63 BCE, when it was conquered by Rome. Paul was born around 5 CE (AD) in Turkey and died in Rome. Hardly an ancient Israelite. He lived under the Roman Empire.

Saul of Tarsus/Paul was a Pharisee? In Judaism, Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140�37 BCE) in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt. The Mishnah is an authoritative codification of Pharisaic law, edited by Judah haNasi around 200 CE. So??

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Communist China

"Communist"? China has had a fully mixed economy since 1978.

The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). I guess he should have still called it China or Corrupt China lest people be confused.

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Identity theft, a rarity throughout history, has become an unstoppable epidemic

This is a product of technology rather than the state. Would you do without identities or without the technology?

I am not doubting that identity theft is a product of technology. I guess it's ultimately my fault for posting an excerpt because you are missing the main point here and so is Tolli it seems. He comes up with some nice insight then reverts back to

Sending troops over to try to kill Al-Qaeda only weakens us.

In any case I've finished the book now but I still might post some more from it before I move onto the Underground History of American Education by the same author. Peace!

You can't seem to divorce yourself from the official narrative or story of things especially in regards to the "War on Terror".

America still feels that they are being threatened by terrorist groups because they believe another 9/11 could happen at any time.

This is because a lot of Americans swallow everything the media tells them hook, line and sinker.

America upped its defenses against another terrorist attack and it's also taking other measures to make sure it doesn't happen such as surveillance of just about everything

9/11 was just a pretext to war. A very convenient one. Al Qaeda = Al CIAda

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. - Major General Smedley Butler

http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden�s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as �Gladio B�. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.

http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/whistleblower-al-qaeda-chief-u-s-asset/

Allegations of FBI foreknowledge
In the course of the trial it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad A. Salem. Salem claims to have informed the FBI of the plot to bomb the towers as early as February 6, 1992. Salem's role as informant allowed the FBI to quickly pinpoint the conspirators out of the hundreds of possible suspects.



I remember watching on the History channel believe it or not.. that FDR had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl harbor as American Naval Intelligence had **** Japanese codes and were aware of a possible Japanese attack.

But then again that isn't what the excerpt was about I guess the main reason I posted it was because of this.

Our reckless military operations in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, have violated central precepts of warfare set down by Von Clausewitz -- a superior technology doesn't promiscuously attack its victims, it threatens. To commit a major attack is to expose your technology to scrutiny, which holds two dangers: first, that expensive machinery is badly over matched against an insurgency trained in guerrilla tactics, and second that the enemy will gradually upgrade his own technology by studying your tactics and stealing your weapons. What American has to show for 50 years of continuous warfare against weak, stone-age opponents, is this: besides crippling our future with a reckless expenditure of capital on products which produce nothing, like weaponry, and destroy themselves in use, we have notified every corner of the world that our overwhelming military isn't overwhelming at all and can be beaten by ordinary people of courage, with primitive military hardware, who refuse to be intimidated

I probaly should have just sent that to you on facebook and made this a discussion thread on compulsory public schooling. Where it started and what it aims to accomplish.

Adam, I no doubt agree with the narrative that we shouldn't be military involved outside the US (accept for peacekeeping missions as part of the UN). However, the facts of the piece are just wrong. Further, I greatly disagree that a society with minimum laws would be more pleasant than one with quite a few.

Saul of Tarsus/Paul was a Pharisee? In Judaism, Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140�37 BCE) in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt. The Mishnah is an authoritative codification of Pharisaic law, edited by Judah haNasi around 200 CE. So??

It said, "The political establishment of Paul's day." The political establishment of Paul's day would mean the political establishment he lived under. He lived under Roman law. All Jews in the Mediterranean area did.

The Communist Party of China (CPC), also known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). I guess he should have still called it China or Corrupt China lest people be confused.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is not democratic nor a republic. Names mean squat. China could be best described as a fascist state (if using as few words as possible). Further, it is less corrupt than most countries, such as Russia, Mexico, India, Greece, etc, etc. It ties with countries such as Italy and Serbia. If you wanted to compare to a big "scary" country, use Russia or something, China isn't nearly as bad as them.