A Creeping Enslavement of the People
By James Donahue
There appears to have been a master plan underway to destroy access to knowledge and turn the masses of humanity into illiterate surfs to the bankers and corporate bosses who have seized even more control of the wealth. This shift from a time when Americans enjoyed a strong, union-driven middle class life style to the harsh living standards doled out today was a slow process that can be traced to historical events over the last 50 years.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Citizen’s United in 2010 became the trigger leading to a total takeover of federal, state and many local governments. That ruling, hinging on long-standing efforts to pack the high court with a majority of judicial voices loyal to big money interests, has helped to fog over fairness in the democratic election process. It gave corporations and big money interests the freedom to spend unlimited amounts for advertising and other political tools and push favored political candidates into key offices on every level of government.
Driving the people into a mental state where they might believe the political propaganda has been a three-pronged attack on the acquisition of knowledge. This involved the destruction of the nation’s great education system, control of the media and finally the control of the Internet.
The slide into corporate control of the nation’s great colleges and universities was among the early stages of this move into a mental breakdown of creative thought. When I attended college in the late 1950s I was able to earn enough money working summer jobs and then doing odd jobs in and around the university to cover the cost of my tuition, books and off-campus rent. I left college debt free. By 1973, according to a recent report in the Atlantic Monthly, the average cost for tuition and fees at a private nonprofit college had risen to nearly $11,000. After this the costs have tripled, climbing to over $30,000. This does not include the price of room rent and food, plus other costs associated with attended college. College graduates now leave school steeped in massive debt that they cannot escape from, even through bankruptcy.
College debts are so massive, and potential earnings for college graduates are so relatively low, that students will be spending most of their working years attempting to pay off that debt. Consequently, many bright potential students are choosing to avoid college rather than get on that ugly treadmill. Graduates find themselves reluctant to go further in debt to buy homes, cars, get married or have children.
How did this happen? The advent of federal student loans has strangely been the catalyst for the big cost increases behind attending college. With the government offering the banks a guaranteed return for their money, lenders are freely dispensing credit to students. And with this release of student loan money, the colleges have been turned into for-profit institutions. They are building new and more lavish facilities, raising staff wages and raising tuition rates accordingly. By 2011 the presidents of 180 private colleges in the United States earned over $500,000 a year according to a report in the Atlantic Monthly.
Public education took a severe hit after George W. Bush entered the White House. He brought the concept of “no child left behind” into the field of using federal money to force students to hit arbitrary scores on standardized tests. This forced teachers to abandon normal instruction and concentrate, instead, on forcing students to prepare for these tests. Student failures then reflected on the teacher’s ability in the classroom. High school graduates today are often shown to have an inability to list basic information like the names of the 50 states, the names of the presidents, know general history and the functions of the government, or get correct answers to simple mathematics questions.
Federal control of the public schools remained in effect until late in 2015 when President Barack Obama signed into law an updated version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that returned power to states and local districts to decide how to fix the troubled schools. This act never quite got off the ground, however, after Donald Trump took office a month later. Among his first acts was to name Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education. This woman, a devout Christian, appears to be working hard to divert federal education dollars from public to private charter schools that put emphasis on the Bible as part of the curriculum. Parents also must pay tuition to enroll their children in charter schools.
The control of the media involved a series of buy-outs by big corporations at a time when newspaper and television stations were in tough competition with each other and the Internet. Consequently these long established news outlets were suddenly under the direction of corporate bosses who determined the political leanings of the news content. Even worse they determined what the general public was allowed to know. Rupert Murdock’s Fox News channel was among the more flagrant outlets for slanted news. Under pressure to compete, the other networks and large newspaper chains have been quick to fall into lock step.
To confuse the public even further, President Trump has re-invented the concept of “fake news,” a label he has been quick to place on any story that criticized his presidency. There have been so many accusations of fake news stories in recent months that most people express confusion as to what they can or cannot believe. It was a simple trick used successfully by Adolf Hitler in fascist Germany, and it appears to be just as effective today in Trump’s America.
The latest news reports suggest that Mr. Trump has threatened to call for the revocation of licenses for television broadcast journalists that report uncomplimentary stories about him. Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, however, said the First Amendment does not give his office the right to revoke any reporter’s license based upon specific news stories.
Finally, we come to the international effort to destroy the Internet. This amazing electronic system of open world communication and seeking valuable news sources has been a bane to world political leaders who like to control the news and hide their misdeeds. Communist China was successful at putting blocks on certain news and information outlets. Other world leaders followed suit.
In late 2017 the Federal Communication Commission voted to repeal the strong net neutrality rules that were maintaining an open and fair internet for everyone. The U.S. Senate voted to overturn the FCC decision, but the House failed to act. Thus the change went into effect on June 11, 2018. From this date on there are no longer restrictions on providers from blocking or slowing content of Internet sites, or giving special treatment to users willing to pay a higher price.
While this quiet assault on Internet freedom has been going on in the U.S., there has been a similar action occurring throughout Europe. There the European Union’s parliament legal affairs committee voted this month for legislation that would require a “link tax” on Internet web sites that wish to quote copyrighted materials, and force big information providers like Google and Microsoft to install filters to block users from uploading these materials.
While this appears at first blush to be a law that will affect only European Internet users, think again. The Internet is such an International phenomenon anything that is controlling users in one part of the world could hit Internet users everywhere. Thus the free exchange of news and information throughout the world now appears to be seriously threatened.
As explained by one critic: “The European Commission would require websites to utilize automated content-filtering technology that costs millions of dollars and thousands of manpower hours, likely decimating small online businesses and startups.
“The proposal also makes it impossible to opt out of charging for content, meaning that sites can’t share their information for free even if they want to. This law is an attack on the free press and the open Internet.”
A privately owned and controlled website like this one, for example, could eventually be blocked from using any of the material collected for this story, for example.
For more information read this Guardian report as published on June 20.
By James Donahue
There appears to have been a master plan underway to destroy access to knowledge and turn the masses of humanity into illiterate surfs to the bankers and corporate bosses who have seized even more control of the wealth. This shift from a time when Americans enjoyed a strong, union-driven middle class life style to the harsh living standards doled out today was a slow process that can be traced to historical events over the last 50 years.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Citizen’s United in 2010 became the trigger leading to a total takeover of federal, state and many local governments. That ruling, hinging on long-standing efforts to pack the high court with a majority of judicial voices loyal to big money interests, has helped to fog over fairness in the democratic election process. It gave corporations and big money interests the freedom to spend unlimited amounts for advertising and other political tools and push favored political candidates into key offices on every level of government.
Driving the people into a mental state where they might believe the political propaganda has been a three-pronged attack on the acquisition of knowledge. This involved the destruction of the nation’s great education system, control of the media and finally the control of the Internet.
The slide into corporate control of the nation’s great colleges and universities was among the early stages of this move into a mental breakdown of creative thought. When I attended college in the late 1950s I was able to earn enough money working summer jobs and then doing odd jobs in and around the university to cover the cost of my tuition, books and off-campus rent. I left college debt free. By 1973, according to a recent report in the Atlantic Monthly, the average cost for tuition and fees at a private nonprofit college had risen to nearly $11,000. After this the costs have tripled, climbing to over $30,000. This does not include the price of room rent and food, plus other costs associated with attended college. College graduates now leave school steeped in massive debt that they cannot escape from, even through bankruptcy.
College debts are so massive, and potential earnings for college graduates are so relatively low, that students will be spending most of their working years attempting to pay off that debt. Consequently, many bright potential students are choosing to avoid college rather than get on that ugly treadmill. Graduates find themselves reluctant to go further in debt to buy homes, cars, get married or have children.
How did this happen? The advent of federal student loans has strangely been the catalyst for the big cost increases behind attending college. With the government offering the banks a guaranteed return for their money, lenders are freely dispensing credit to students. And with this release of student loan money, the colleges have been turned into for-profit institutions. They are building new and more lavish facilities, raising staff wages and raising tuition rates accordingly. By 2011 the presidents of 180 private colleges in the United States earned over $500,000 a year according to a report in the Atlantic Monthly.
Public education took a severe hit after George W. Bush entered the White House. He brought the concept of “no child left behind” into the field of using federal money to force students to hit arbitrary scores on standardized tests. This forced teachers to abandon normal instruction and concentrate, instead, on forcing students to prepare for these tests. Student failures then reflected on the teacher’s ability in the classroom. High school graduates today are often shown to have an inability to list basic information like the names of the 50 states, the names of the presidents, know general history and the functions of the government, or get correct answers to simple mathematics questions.
Federal control of the public schools remained in effect until late in 2015 when President Barack Obama signed into law an updated version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that returned power to states and local districts to decide how to fix the troubled schools. This act never quite got off the ground, however, after Donald Trump took office a month later. Among his first acts was to name Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education. This woman, a devout Christian, appears to be working hard to divert federal education dollars from public to private charter schools that put emphasis on the Bible as part of the curriculum. Parents also must pay tuition to enroll their children in charter schools.
The control of the media involved a series of buy-outs by big corporations at a time when newspaper and television stations were in tough competition with each other and the Internet. Consequently these long established news outlets were suddenly under the direction of corporate bosses who determined the political leanings of the news content. Even worse they determined what the general public was allowed to know. Rupert Murdock’s Fox News channel was among the more flagrant outlets for slanted news. Under pressure to compete, the other networks and large newspaper chains have been quick to fall into lock step.
To confuse the public even further, President Trump has re-invented the concept of “fake news,” a label he has been quick to place on any story that criticized his presidency. There have been so many accusations of fake news stories in recent months that most people express confusion as to what they can or cannot believe. It was a simple trick used successfully by Adolf Hitler in fascist Germany, and it appears to be just as effective today in Trump’s America.
The latest news reports suggest that Mr. Trump has threatened to call for the revocation of licenses for television broadcast journalists that report uncomplimentary stories about him. Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, however, said the First Amendment does not give his office the right to revoke any reporter’s license based upon specific news stories.
Finally, we come to the international effort to destroy the Internet. This amazing electronic system of open world communication and seeking valuable news sources has been a bane to world political leaders who like to control the news and hide their misdeeds. Communist China was successful at putting blocks on certain news and information outlets. Other world leaders followed suit.
In late 2017 the Federal Communication Commission voted to repeal the strong net neutrality rules that were maintaining an open and fair internet for everyone. The U.S. Senate voted to overturn the FCC decision, but the House failed to act. Thus the change went into effect on June 11, 2018. From this date on there are no longer restrictions on providers from blocking or slowing content of Internet sites, or giving special treatment to users willing to pay a higher price.
While this quiet assault on Internet freedom has been going on in the U.S., there has been a similar action occurring throughout Europe. There the European Union’s parliament legal affairs committee voted this month for legislation that would require a “link tax” on Internet web sites that wish to quote copyrighted materials, and force big information providers like Google and Microsoft to install filters to block users from uploading these materials.
While this appears at first blush to be a law that will affect only European Internet users, think again. The Internet is such an International phenomenon anything that is controlling users in one part of the world could hit Internet users everywhere. Thus the free exchange of news and information throughout the world now appears to be seriously threatened.
As explained by one critic: “The European Commission would require websites to utilize automated content-filtering technology that costs millions of dollars and thousands of manpower hours, likely decimating small online businesses and startups.
“The proposal also makes it impossible to opt out of charging for content, meaning that sites can’t share their information for free even if they want to. This law is an attack on the free press and the open Internet.”
A privately owned and controlled website like this one, for example, could eventually be blocked from using any of the material collected for this story, for example.
For more information read this Guardian report as published on June 20.